ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 2

[Clete]

Clete, Why are you so adamant in hanging on to your human will when you know that will is against God? You know that Jesus gave His life to free us from that will.

It is with my will that I love, not only God, but my family and friends. Love is the principle thing and without a will, love is an illusion for love must be given away as an act of the will.

Indeed, the will is so vital to love that if it is proven that we do not have a volitional will, Christianity itself is falsified.

1 Corinthians 8:3 But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him.

1 Corinthians 13:2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.​

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Stripe]

What I think about the OV is that God is as he is described in the bible. When God changes his mind or doesn't change his mind or gets angry or sad or delighted at different things that is just a picture of reality for the time in question. I find it reasonable to be asked to trust such a God. I find it a much more appealing proposition to be asked to trust God that asked to trust my earthly father or anyone else. I believe our relationship with God should be of a nature as with those in our family. Only he will always be faithful. Which is why I trust him.

 

[elected4ever]

My supposed reasoning?

Without "my supposed reasoning" you wouldn't even be able to read God's self revelation nor understand it in the slightest! - Which is the whole point, by the way!

"Your supposed reasoning" Your supposed reasoning is what helped me remain confused. Your supposed reasoning lied about who Christ is. Your supposed reasoning lied about who I am. You know how I know that? Because your supposed reasoning was the same as mine. It had is origin in the human mind and not the mind of Christ. I use to be where you are now, a carnal christian trying not to sin and beating myself up when I though I had. You see your flesh likes to play the religion game too. It is not until I believed facts that were beyond my human reasoning did the Spirit teach me concerning those fact. We can only reason with the knowledgwe we have and not the knowledge we do not have.

How can you not see that you just contradicted yourself here? You just used a law of reason to undermine the laws of reason.

I didn't contradict myself. I just didn't fully explain what reasoning we use. That of the spirit or or that of the flesh. We have both. One is alive. The other is dead.

You would have no way of knowing that God's word has said something without using reason! So if you change the rules of reason to adjust to God's word, how do you know what you think God's word says is really what it says? Maybe you should have adjusted your reasoning the opposite way? How would you know whether your reasoning adjustment was correct?

That is not a rhetorical question E4E. I would like it if you actually tried to give me a cogent answer.

You actually expect me to reason with the dead? The reasoning of the human mind is dead to God and it can never understand the things of God. The carnal mind can never understand the things of God. It is the direct intervention of God in a person's life that gives understanding to salvation. A choice for salvation can never be made until an understanding of salvation is given. That understanding is placed within the mind of the individual by God to be accepted or rejected.

It is not reasoning that I adjust though! My knowledge increases and my thinking skills improve and so my conclusions are adjusted over time. That much cannot be disputed, but as a man grows and learns, if his thinking is sound, he should become more and certain of the soundness of his conclusions and thus more and more rooted in the truths contained within God's word. It is only when his thinking is muddled (unsound reasoning) that he is blown about by every wind of doctrine throughout his life, as many people are.

Every one reasons soundly upon the facts they have. It is not sound reasoning that prevents the truth to be know but the facts upon which the reasoning is basted.

Of course not! I never said it was. You cannot rely on sound reason alone but it must be combined with God's word, fervent prayer and humility. While there is much about God that we can know through sound reason and simply the observance of the universe around us, God's word contains truths that we could not hope to have figured out with God having revealed it to us.

Mortal man does not have the capacity to reason soundly concerning God even with the Bible, prayer and humility without the direct intervention of God.

This point demonstrates, I think better than anything else you've said in a long time, how you over react to the open view's use of sound reason. The settled view has a very liberal (i.e. loose or pliable) stance on the use of reason. They pretty much ignore whatever law of reason they need to in order to maintain their doctrine. And while the open view attempts a more conservative approach to the use of reason, you think or feel like like we've thrown the baby out with the bath water and somehow elevated reason over and above not only the Bible but God Himself! That just isn't so E4E! Sound reason is not the object of our faith but a tool used to understand both the Him the written revelation which He wrote about Himself.

This paragraph I think demonstrates best the difference between you and me. It is not that we both fail to use sound reasoning , it is the source of that reasoning and the facts upon which that sound reasoning is basted.

You and I could both affirm this statement but I have a strong feeling that your meaning would be something entirely different than mine.

Why are you so skeptical of a strait forward statement such as that?

I would say this concerning some doctrine which has not been fully explained but that does not contain any outright contradictions. The Trinity comes to mind right off the bat as does the fact that God created everything in this vast universe in six days and that the entire Earth was flooded. There is missing information, or at the very least, information that has not been taught to me concerning all of those issues and several others but none of them violate some fundamental law of reason in any way. There is nothing self-contradictory, for example about it raining for 40 days and 40 nights and so even without direct evidence that such a thing occurred, I can trust that it did on the basis of God's word, without throwing sound reason in the toilet.

agreed.

Can you give me an example of the sort of things you are talking about that must be taken on "faith" and not reason?

Yes. The present day perfection of the saint and the inability of those born of God to sin. Both are received by faith and are contrary to the human life experience, but both are true none the less.

I used to be a Calvinist and so I know exactly what you are talking about here but my point, once again, isn't that we don't ever make mistakes with our reasoning. Indeed, we clearly do just that. But making errors of reason doesn't mean that we throw out reason! We could never detect that we had made an error without the application of sound reason to our conclusions! It is the correction of error and the establishment of the objective truth which makes sound reason so vitally important! There can be no objective truth if sound reason is not allowed to falsify truth claims? Without sound reason, there is no way to prove that Benny Hinn's, or Kenneth Copeland's or David Coresh's or AMR's, or yours or my use of the Bible is in error. Without sound reason, we're all just as right as the other guy!

How am I wrong?

Resting in Him,
Clete

I can agree with that. There is no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water though. You and I having admitted to being wrong on occasion should resist such impulses. That doesn't meant that we just automatically accept what may come down the pike from time to time. There should be a vigorous discussion and contemplation on issues that arise and truth is not always defined by the consensus formed.
:e4e:

 

[Clete]

E4E,

Would it surprise you to know that, given your (and Sozo's) strict definition of sin, that I agree that believers are presently perfect and incapable of sinning, in Christ?

 

[elected4ever]

E4E,

Would it surprise you to know that, given your (and Sozo's) strict definition of sin, that I agree that believers are presently perfect and incapable of sinning, in Christ?

Do you believe our definition is accurate?

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

But we can just as easily choose not to act according to God's will.

Depends on the "we" in your statement and it is more nuanced than your statement would belie. The elect can choose to sin or not to sin. The non-elect can only choose to sin more or sin less. If a "self-professed Christian" leads a life of sin with no works that are good works (here good as defined by God), then that person was never one of God's elect.

 

[elected4ever]

Depends on the "we" in your statement and it is more nuanced than your statement would belie. The elect can choose to sin or not to sin. The non-elect can only choose to sin more or sin less. If a "self-professed Christian" leads a life of sin with no works that are good works (here good as defined by God), then that person was never one of God's elect.

How is it that the righteous can choose to become unrighteous when it is God's righteousness that is possessed by the righteous? Sin is not a choice that the righteous can make.

 

[Clete]

Do you believe our definition is accurate?

That depends on the context of the conversation. It is accurate from a very particular perspective but if that perspective is not clearly articulated the result will be needless confusion because virtually no one understands "sin" to mean what you and Sozo insist it must mean in ever conversation no matter the context.

 

[elected4ever]

That depends on the context of the conversation. It is accurate from a very particular perspective but if that perspective is not clearly articulated the result will be needless confusion because virtually no one understands "sin" to mean what you and Sozo insist it must mean in ever conversation no matter the context.

So your answer is no. Sin is sin in any context you put it in. and sin is defined always by the same definition. There is no ambiguity about it. Sin is not relative to anything but what it is. If sin is not defined then sin can be anything that we disapprove off regardless of a biblical definition.

 

[Philetus]

That is a totally irrational statement and shows the propensity of the human will to reject the gospel of Christ. Why do you indulge in such irrational thinking? Why is the OV position on this board so negative in its articulation?

Well, maybe that is because we have been dealing with AMR and Nang for the most part. Real exchange became imposable early on. AMR refused to reply to honest posts by several Open Theists long before he hit the ignore button on me. (like I care) So since I couldn't talk to him ... I just talked about him. Not all that fruitful but entertaining for me at least. "Ask Mr. Religion" is the epitome of religious smugness. He stopped thinking a long time ago and now just belts out the same old rehash and appeals to tradition, forgetting that his tradition is an affront to traditions much older than his own. Oh, well.
_______________

Your phrase 'the propensity of the human will to reject the gospel of Christ' really goes to the heart of this discussion. Open Theism affirms it or at least admits it with out all the qualifying rhetoric. And though you use it as a criticisms against Open Theism, do you really believe it? You accuse me of indulging in such irrational thinking and then blast Clete for thinking rationally. Fits right into your over all theology; no?

What began as temptation over a single issue (acknowledge God and the truth about God or reject God and embrace the lie) focused in a single choice and action, has become paramount to universal in the human condition. Temptation now lies in the heart of every human being and is expressed in a multitude of ways. We have become so good at sinning and justifying it that one is hard pressed to look anywhere in creation without recognizing that temptation is present. The issue remains the same however.

Calvinism on the other hand places the origin of temptation and sin with God.

But if God truly gives humankind a real choice in the single issue, then temptation is ours alone and so is our propensity to deny the truth about God. Satan, ‘the evil one,’ can only appeal to that propensity which comes as a result of living in a fallen world. Rather than coerce or meticulously control us, God provides at His own expense and His own determining the means and the invitation to return to fellowship/right relationship. That’s grace. Our response is faith. God does not tempt us. God's remedy for temptation is the provision of a way to escape it, not eliminate it.

Something I'm curious about: In your view that it is impossible for Christians to sin, do you also maintain that Christians are not tempted to sin?

 

[Philetus]

So your answer is no. Sin is sin in any context you put it in. and sin is defined always by the same definition. There is no ambiguity about it. Sin is not relative to anything but what it is. If sin is not defined then sin can be anything that we disapprove off regardless of a biblical definition.

What happened to the sinning in the flesh and not in the spirit argument? That's confusing ... can you elaborate?

I didn't contradict myself. I just didn't fully explain what reasoning we use. That of the spirit or or that of the flesh. We have both. One is alive. The other is dead.

Define dead.

 

[elected4ever]

Calvinism on the other hand places the origin of temptation and sin with God.

That is a fundamental flaw in there logic isn't it.

Something I'm curious about: In your view that it is impossible for Christians to sin, do you also maintain that Christians are not tempted to sin?

That depends if they are in Christ or not. If they are born again then they have the same attributes as Christ because as He is so are we in this world. We have the same Father who is God . We are of the Father's seed and consequently cannot sin. Sin is therefore not a choice that can be made by a child of God. No a child of god cannot be tempted to sin just as Jesus could not be tempted to sin. Jesus was proved and we are proved. The temptations of Christ was not to to get Jesus to sin but to prove He was indeed the Son of God. It proved that Jesus was just who God the Father said He was, His Only Begotten Son. Jesus could not sin and the temptations of Christ proved it.

By the same token when we are proved it is not for the purpose of getting us to sin but to see the weaknesses of the flesh that we may learn to live by the life that now resides in our mortal bodies. As we are tested we learn to control the flesh that is born in death. We are in the process of killing the flesh that is already dead to God. We are no longer of the flesh but of the Spirit if it is true that the Spirit lives in us. If we have not the Spirit that is born of God then we are not of God and continue to be dead, separated from the life that is God.

 

[elected4ever]

What happened to the sinning in the flesh and not in the spirit argument? That's confusing ... can you elaborate?



Define dead.

I will define dead first. It may help to understand the sinnin in the flesh part.

Death is separation from the life of God. The day that Adam sinned God separated Adam from Himself. That separation is called death. All men are born of Adam and into the death of Adam We are born separated from the life of God. Christ came to give us life and that life is in the Son and whosoever believes in Him has life and has pasted from death into life. I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly. The life of Christ is a life of possession and not of achievement.

As far as the flesh is concerned, it remains dead even after salvation. The flesh is not saved and God cannot be worshiped by the flesh. All flesh worship is profane to God. If one is to worship God, He is to be worshiped in Spirit and in truth. Only those who are born of God can worship God because they are the ones who have life.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

This sounds contrived to me AMR.

Not at all, please see below.

Where does it teach that God degreed all things without foreknowledge in the Bible?

If we accept your implied assumption, creation would be contingent on something God was required to know before decreeing to create. To accept this is to fall into Arminianism. God is not contingent, God is truly free. As I noted in my opening post, the Scriptures speak of the freedom of God's will in the most absolute terms: Job 11:10; 33:13; Ps. 115:3; Prov. 21:1; Isa. 10:15; 29:16; 45:9; Matthew 20:15; Rom. 9:15-18,20,21; I Cor. 12:11; Rev. 4:11. The Church vigorously defends this freedom of God and also emphasizing that God’s freedom cannot be understood as absolute indifference.

Where does it teach that God's providence is unrelated to His decrees in the Bible?

Your paste of my comments above is missing the context around which I was responding. In your previous post you presumed a contradiction between two sections of the WCF. I outlined why there is no contradiction. You then asked for a more simpler clarification. Admittedly, my comments above were just too simple, which I why I dislike being terse on such matters when TOL’s “language lawyers” are dissecting each and every word I write. What I should have written above was that “God's providence is unrelated to God’s act of decreeing.” That there can be no providential influence until there is something to influence is obvious. Providence is certainly related to the decrees, the relationship being that of God’s sustaining execution of said decrees.

How is that either one, even if they are so unrelated to one another, does not destroy self-determination? How is it possible for us to determine anything if it's already been determined before anyone ever existed?

You determine based upon your greatest inclinations. Your actions do not take place because they are foreseen, they are foreseen because they are certain to take place. That God predisposes all events and their conditions in such a manner that all shall come to pass according to God's eternal plan in no way robs you of the ability to choose as you are most inclined to choose.

And finally, to remain more on point...how is that that infralapsarian isn't falsified by the first sentence in chapter III of the WCF (and probably several others)?

This is best made a topic of another thread. Both the supra and the infra lapsarian views can find expression within the WCF. Neither you nor I are going to find theological errors in the WCF proving one position holds over the other, so I view the debate as ultimately yielding little fruit.

For literally hundreds of years both camps have made strong cases for their views. I hold to the infra position because the supra position ultimately leads the discussion of theology into the realm of philosophy (see the works of Dooyeweerd, Vollenhoven, and Hepp for instance).

While the church is officially infralapsarian, the supralapsarian view is not condemned. In fact each of the presiding officers at the Synod of Dort and the Westminster Assembly were supralapsarians. The supra/infra lapsarian doctrines have much misunderstanding of Calvinism, including those that are Calvinists, claim to be Calvinists, or have been Calvinists. Unfortunately, it is these same confused folks, some even ordained, that run around on the internet engaging Arminians and others with incorrect understandings, and perpetuate these errors.

 

[Clete]

You determine based upon your greatest inclinations. Your actions do not take place because they are foreseen, they are foreseen because they are certain to take place. That God predisposes all events and their conditions in such a manner that all shall come to pass according to God's eternal plan in no way robs you of the ability to choose as you are most inclined to choose.

AMR,

It isn't my intention to simply ignore the rest of your post but the above paragraph seems most on topic for this thread. In response to it I simply want to ask a single question...

Is it not the Calvinist position that my inclinations are themselves degreed by God?

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Clete]

So your answer is no. Sin is sin in any context you put it in. and sin is defined always by the same definition. There is no ambiguity about it. Sin is not relative to anything but what it is. If sin is not defined then sin can be anything that we disapprove off regardless of a biblical definition.

My answer is not no. Look E4E, you don't get to decide the rules of language and word usage. The fact of the matter is that a word's definition is determined by the context of its usage and if you are going to have a conversation using a word in a way different that its most common vernacular then the burden is on you to clarify what it is you are saying. Both you and Sozo refuse to do that and therefore cause tons of unnecessary confusion which you both routinely use as an excuse to call people unbelievers and berate them for their stubborn stupidity, when in fact it is you who is being obtuse and stubborn.

The overwhelming vast majority of people use the word sin to discuss anything at all that is outside the will of God. You do not deny doing things that you should not have done, you simply refuse to refer to those actions as "sin" like everyone else does. It really doesn't matter if everyone in the world is confused about the definition of sin or not. The point is that the message you are attempting to convey can be effectively communicated without picking nits over what precisely is meant when one uses the word "sin". Your unwillingness to communicate your message in such a way as that message can be received and understood is a problem that is on your head, not on everyone else's. It is not the world's responsibility to read your mind. If your audience is confused then it is your responsibility to instruct them in the truth and they do not have to simply take your word for it. If you want to insist on using a strict definition of sin that most people are not going to intuitively understand then it is entirely your responsibility to demonstrate that your definition is Biblically sound and if you are unwilling or unable to do that, it doesn't mean that your audience is evil and full of unbelievers, it just means you suck as a teacher.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[elected4ever]

My answer is not no. Look E4E, you don't get to decide the rules of language and word usage. The fact of the matter is that a word's definition is determined by the context of its usage and if you are going to have a conversation using a word in a way different that its most common vernacular then the burden is on you to clarify what it is you are saying. Both you and Sozo refuse to do that and therefore cause tons of unnecessary confusion which you both routinely use as an excuse to call people unbelievers and berate them for their stubborn stupidity, when in fact it is you who is being obtuse and stubborn.

The overwhelming vast majority of people use the word sin to discuss anything at all that is outside the will of God. You do not deny doing things that you should not have done, you simply refuse to refer to those actions as "sin" like everyone else does. It really doesn't matter if everyone in the world is confused about the definition of sin or not. The point is that the message you are attempting to convey can be effectively communicated without picking nits over what precisely is meant when one uses the word "sin". Your unwillingness to communicate your message in such a way as that message can be received and understood is a problem that is on your head, not on everyone else's. It is not the world's responsibility to read your mind. If your audience is confused then it is your responsibility to instruct them in the truth and they do not have to simply take your word for it. If you want to insist on using a strict definition of sin that most people are not going to intuitively understand then it is entirely your responsibility to demonstrate that your definition is Biblically sound and if you are unwilling or unable to do that, it doesn't mean that your audience is evil and full of unbelievers, it just means you suck as a teacher.

Resting in Him,
Clete

Clete, I understand your objections but they just don't hold water. Sin is an absolute. I have not read anywhere a compromise is made for sin using context as a way of making sin acceptable. Unless we recognize what sin is instead of taking a public opinion pole we will be calling each other sinners from now till the cows come home. We will forever be burdening ourselves with false guilt and false confessions. We will say that this is a little sin and that one is a big sin. This sin can be forgiven and that one cannot and on and on we go.

I contend that no child of God is guilty of any sin of any nature. The most appalling thing to a child of God is for the child of God to believe he has sinned and disappointed God. It is just not true. I have tried to us the tactic of agreement and saying that the person is a sinner because the person chooses to believe he is one and then I am accused of calling that person a sinner when all I did was agree with them about their assessment of them selves. You are right. That hasn't worked very well.

Seems like the children of God expect to sin instead of living righteously because they have been made righteous. People are just too willing to believe the worst about themselves whether it is true or not. That is a false humility and it is self defeating. What we wind up doing is setting standards for ourselves that are unattainable and then beat ourselves up for our failure to meet that standard.

 

[Stripe]

Depends on the "we" in your statement and it is more nuanced than your statement would belie. The elect can choose to sin or not to sin. The non-elect can only choose to sin more or sin less. If a "self-professed Christian" leads a life of sin with no works that are good works (here good as defined by God), then that person was never one of God's elect.

You just got finished saying we cannot tell the difference between who is elect and who is not. I don't care how nuanced your definition of 'we' is, it makes no practical difference even if you are correct.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

Clete, I understand your objections but they just don't hold water. Sin is an absolute. I have not read anywhere a compromise is made for sin using context as a way of making sin acceptable. Unless we recognize what sin is instead of taking a public opinion pole we will be calling each other sinners from now till the cows come home. We will forever be burdening ourselves with false guilt and false confessions. We will say that this is a little sin and that one is a big sin. This sin can be forgiven and that one cannot and on and on we go.

I contend that no child of God is guilty of any sin of any nature. The most appalling thing to a child of God is for the child of God to believe he has sinned and disappointed God. It is just not true. I have tried to us the tactic of agreement and saying that the person is a sinner because the person chooses to believe he is one and then I am accused of calling that person a sinner when all I did was agree with them about their assessment of them selves. You are right. That hasn't worked very well.

Seems like the children of God expect to sin instead of living righteously because they have been made righteous. People are just too willing to believe the worst about themselves whether it is true or not. That is a false humility and it is self defeating. What we wind up doing is setting standards for ourselves that are unattainable and then beat ourselves up for our failure to meet that standard.

I don't know what you and Clete are discussing per se (seems there is plenty of history), but could you both agree that sin is defined as:

"any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God” (1 John 3:4; Rom. 4:15), in the inward state and habit of the soul, as well as in the outward conduct of the life, whether by omission or commission (Rom. 6:12-17; Rom. 7:5-24).

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

You just got finished saying we cannot tell the difference between who is elect and who is not. I don't care how nuanced your definition of 'we' is, it makes no practical difference even if you are correct.

I am starting to understand why very short posts by you are probably best. I have no idea what you are intending to communicate above.