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So God is not moral? How can your thinking extrapolate this?
My thinking? It's the Calvinist who's positions lead this conclusion not mine! It is the ultimate argument against Calvinism! If Calvinism is true, God is not only unjust, He is not morally good. Without choice there is no morality. If God is not able to do otherwise then it is perfectly meaningless to refer to Him as being morally good.
God is perfect and does not change nor can He sin.
The Bible does say that it is impossible for God to lie. But it also says that He sent angels to be lying spirits and He rewarded people for righteously lying, even to the point of causing one woman who told a lie to be within the lineage of the Messiah.
So then, does the Bible contradict itself or are your presuppositions blinding you to what is being taught when the Bible says it is impossible for God to lie when it clearly is not?
Where you even aware of the fact that it was possible to righteously lie?
Are you saying that you must have choice for morality? This 'robotic' theme you guys keep drumming needs a second look.
That is precisely what I am saying and what the term "morality" presupposes. Words mean things Lonster; you cannot just ignore the meaning of a term or make up definitions as you go. When people use a word there is a certain concept they are communicating and we don't get to just decide that we don't like that definition and make one up that suits our worldview. If that were a valid way to proceed then no truth claim could ever be falsified. All you'd have to do to refute any argument is simply redefine terms until all the contradictions go away. That's isn't rational nor is it Biblical.
Were Adam and Eve robots 'before' they chose sin?
Huh?
No, they weren't.
Isn't it something that we are seeking to become that 'robotic' nature once again?
What?
No! Absolutely not! I am being transformed into the image of Christ so that I don't sin, not because I can't sin but because I don't want to sin. This is why it is impossible for God to do something unrighteous. It isn't because He can't act in a way that is not in the best interest of others but its because He doesn't want to! He's is the all powerful God! Who is going to make God do something that He does not want to do? God does not want to do evil and it is therefore impossible for Him to do so because He cannot be compelled to act against His own will.
Talk about a position that needs a second look! You must think this through again Lonster! Seriously! You just said, in so many words, that you long to render your obedience to God meaningless! Whether or not that is what you intended to say, which I'm sure it wasn't, that is the meaning behind the words you just spoke!
If you owned a robot and you programmed it to carry a box across the room and it did so flawlessly, do you suppose that it deserves a reward for it "obedience"? Does the word obedience even apply? NO! It doesn't! It wasn't being obedient to you, it was simply mindlessly carrying out a set of instructions that it didn't even know were instructions. Your robot carrying a box across the room is only just a very complicated version of your having set up a bunch of dominoes and then knocking the first one over. Simple cause and effect, no mind, no will, no choice, no moral implication whatsoever.
I don't ever want to be tempted by sin once that part of me is erradicated.
Of course! Neither do I! It isn't about being tempted its about being able to do or to do otherwise. Righteousness is not about being unable to sin and therefore always doing rightly. Being godly is about doing rightly, not because you can't do wrong but because you want to do rightly and therefore choose to do so. I've never once been tempted to rape anyone nor can I conceive of a circumstance where I ever would be and yet in spite of the fact that the temptation isn't there I understand that I am capable of committing that sin. I don't and won't ever commit that sin, of course, but not because I can't but because I don't want to!
It is a choice to be 'robotic' in my response to God. I don't care if I ever have a freewill choice again if it means sinning.
Don't you get it? Sinning is meaning also if you do not have free will! Both the moral and the immoral are equally meaningless of we cannot do otherwise.
The fact of the matter is that the things of God matter to me.
Why?
That might come off as a frivolous question but I assure you that it is not. Why do such things matter to you Lonster? Do they matter only to you or do you suppose that they would matter even if you didn't exist? Do the things of God, righteousness, justice, love, etc., have meaning outside of your mind and apart from any context within which you reside? What if Lonster didn't exist? What would it mean to love your neighbor?
I hope you see the point of those rhetorical questions. It is simply vital that you do. The point is that the things of God really do matter and they would matter even if neither of us were around to experience them. This is what I mean when I constantly repeat the fact that words mean things and that ideas have consequences. You simply cannot go around redefining the meaning of words and hope to retain a rationally coherent worldview. I've even seem some presuppositionalists try to redefine the term "rational worldview" in order to keep from having to reject Calvinism. They effectively redefined "rational" to mean "Calvinism". Nang, by the way, would almost certainly agree with anyone who attempted such a thing, as might AMR although I not as sure about him as I am her.
If I am or become a 'robot' good for me, but you are wrong, I've always been cognizant, I've wanted to be like Him since I was found by Him at age 7. Being perfectly in His will is not a robotic existence, it is purposeful meaningful existence.
I agree! But such a stance is not compatible with the Calvinist worldview. You don't get to have it both ways Lonster. Either everything you do is predestined or you get to choose what you will and will not do. The former render everything meaningless - everything.
It is what it means to be truly alive. We are dead in our trespasses until Christ comes to us. Nothing has meaning. Sin is the robotic existence of meaningless purposeless existence.
You are contradicting yourself Lonster!
The word sin implies morality. Morality is meaningless in a robotic existence thus it is impossible to sin in such an existence. It is equally impossible to anything righteous because that too implies morality. So the statement "Sin is the robotic existence of...." has within it an inherent contradiction. It is a text book stolen concept fallacy.
Morality is being in the center of God's will.
If so, then God Himself is not moral! If this is the definition of morality then to say that God is moral is a tautology. It's no more informative than to say that red is red. You can say that a car is red with meaning only because the car itself does not define the word red.
Morality, or more precisely "Righteousness" is rightly defined by the current description of God's character. The word "current" is vitally important and should not be overlooked in that definition.
There is nothing wonderous about my sin nature that contrasts to show real love.
I never suggested otherwise. God does not have a sin nature and yet loves us very much indeed.
Real love was sent to us. The absence, not contrast, of sin is where love truly is.
Again, I never suggested otherwise. I did not say that sin must exist in order for love to be meaningful or for evil to exist in order for righteousness to be meaningful. You are reading things into what I say that are not there.
I do not have to sin to show my parents I love them.
No but you must be ABLE to reject them for your love to have any meaning. Notice that I did not say that you must reject them, I said that you must be ABLE to reject them. Do you see the difference?
It is by repeated acts of goodness that I show them I love them, sin only clouds the issue.
Acts of goodness would be meaningless if you could not do otherwise. I'm not saying that you must actually do otherwise for your good acts to be meaningful but only that you must be able to do otherwise.
If I never sinned or had a choice to do so, it would in no way diminish love.
If you hadn't thrown in "or had a choice to do so" then this statement would be correct, as it is, you've only implicitly contradicted yourself and committed yet another stolen concept fallacy.
Love is the absence of sin, not the contrast to it.
Both actually but given the point you are making, yes, I agree completely.
It's erradication, not it's comparative.
Hopefully you see now that I never suggested otherwise.
Resting in Him,
Clete
