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Chris: Then you should not be critizing a view you do not really understand.

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However, if God exhaustively knows the future, then he should be able to pro-actively act to prevent evil or "bad things from happening to good people," as the saying goes. For many, this means that even within the Arminian view God is responsible for evil.

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1. Sometimes things happen that are “actively” or “purposively” willed by God. By creating a world with limited freedom, God retained plenty of “room” within which to act unilaterally.

2. Sometimes things happen that are “permissively” willed by God for a particular reason. The event is not caused by God in the sense that, but for the existence of creaturely freedom, the event would not have occurred. However, God could have prevented the event from occurring but chose not to in this case for a particular reason. The event may appear to us as gratuitous evil, but it is not really evil because God has a good reason to allow it to happen even though he could have prevented it.

3. Sometimes things happen that God does not want to happen but God allows to happen because of the “rules of engagement” pursuant to which God chose to relate to creation. The fact that freedom is genuine requires that it is irrevocable (but only within the divinely proscribed limits of that freedom). Thus, by granting genuine freedom, God decided he would relate to Creation within the bounds of certain “rules of engagement” that are, in part, defined by the nature and extent of God-given creaturely freedom and the God-decreed limits thereof. This type of event can be understood as gratuitous evil in the sense that there is no particular reason why God allowed this particular evil to occur. But this type of event can also be understood as “permissively allowed” by God in the sense that the event would not have happened but for God’s decision to relate to creation vis-a-vis these “rules of engagement”.

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All views seem to believe there is a problem with evil. A person would be in denial to say evil does not exist.

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I can not help but wonder if it actually offers little comfort since evil still exists. God either created it or allows it. Either way offers little comfort for the person struggling to make sense of evil. The fact is, whether he created or didn't create evil, he does not put an end to it when he is certainly capable of doing so.

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All views seem to believe there is a problem with evil. A person would be in denial to say evil does not exist. The OV claims to offer comfort for the problem of evil with a belief that God did not cause the evil. I can not help but wonder if it actually offers little comfort since evil still exists. God either created it or allows it. Either way offers little comfort for the person struggling to make sense of evil.

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In the deterministic/Calvinistic view, it seems to me that this problem you point out is greatly intensified, for "everything that happens is God's will" according to determinism.

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You might or might not agree with me that not everything about Calvinism is deterministic.

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While I hear you saying that there are some within Calvinistic/Reformed churches that are not deterministic (of which I am very glad to hear) when I say, "Calvinism" I am referring to the theological point of view most well known by Calvin's own words. When people hear "Calvinism," I think this is what most of them think of:

All of the following are from Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, without alteration of any kind:

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Tom: I too like this very much! Because I don’t think the fall, sin, and the cross were known to God prior to creation as a certainty,

(Whoever I am): But the Incarnation was! And THAT still squares with "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world."

Tom: "This is getting speculative, but so what? In other words, in my mind, had there been no fall, no sin, no cross, I think Paul and we would still be singing “chosen in him before the foundation of the world to be….”"

(Whoever I am): AMEN!


Tom: Then you should only be pinched by understandings of election which challenge your belief that God does not desire “any” to perish but “all” to be saved, right? I mean, you seem to be vague on the mechanics of election, but not vague on the mechanics of love. You seem pretty clear on what “any” and “all” mean, but you seem less than clear about which understanding of election best accounts for such love. In a sense then, it IS about numbers, right? Do you prefer not to attempt to work out the math? You don’t choose any particular understanding of election (other than one which is vague enough to include ‘em all). Am I misunderstanding you?

(Whoever I am): Who ever said that I am a Calvinist. I don't call myself that in after church Bible Study.

Tom's PS: Do you think Smedes' thoughts are that different than the majority of Calvinists? I don't see that Calvin's own idea of election and predestination can't "fit" into what Smedes says. It's what Smedes doesn't say that interests me.

(Whoever I am): Read the links that I left that refer to Van Till, to Machem, and to Princeton. Van Till is in the Middle. Links include:

http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/apr1980/v37-1-article6.htm and http://www.markers.com/ink/pkrightr.htm

Oh, DEFINITELY read an article by LEE IRONS. (He's great.) and a board posting by him. Van Till criticises the "Common Sense" rationalism of Princeton, but--according to Irons--buys into the Epistomology.

http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/vantil-list/archive-Jan-1998/msg00053.html

My old collegue John Calvin Vander Stelt (Dordt College, Sioux Center, Iowa) points out the problems with this. I'll try and find the best little nuggets. Van Till feels that he has to bring together things that the earlier Reformed theologians were willing (for centuries) to just let sit side by side unresolved: like theology and biblical revelation. Sooooo....

to answer your question one way Tom, it is VERY MUCH more Calvinistic to do what you were tongue-tied to respond to at the top, to not fix everything, but to take it as it is. And I did a pretty good job of acting like a Calvinist in the posts you quoted from...er..."somebody" above.

(I'll try to find them.)

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http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/apr1980/v37-1-article6.htm

At the same time, increasing attention is being given to the philosophical conditioning of more classical defenses of inerrancy. Rogers and McKim suggest in their book the distorting influence of Scottish Common Sense Realism on Hodge and his followers. A similar case is made by John C. Vander Stelt in Philosophy and Scripture (Mack, 1978), his dissertation at the Free University of Amsterdam. Among the theses prepared for his defense and examination, the first was: "Implied in the Old Princeton view of Scripture is an uncritical acceptance of Common Sense Philosophy."

article "The Battle for the Bible" Rages On, By Donald W. Dayton

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Different topic, but don't let this sentence go unnoticed!: "philosophical conditioning of more classical defenses." Would THAT promote a "classical view?"

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Recent scholarship in Calvin Studies has emphasized that the sixteenth-century Genevan Reformer's theology was not so much governed, as traditionally thought, by an over-arching "system" centered on a unifying doctrine of (for example) predestination, as it was by "the constant reappearance of favorite images, metaphors, or figures of speech." 11 Formed by his training as a Renaissance humanist, Calvin's language was consistently more rhetorical than it was dialectical. The metaphor of the theatre, for instance, was one of his favorite ways of summarizing the sweeping epic of Christian salvation. "In the vast theater of heaven and earth," Ford Lewis Battles says of Calvin, "the divine playwright stages the ongoing drama of creation, alienation, return, and forgiveness for the teeming audience of humanity itself." 12 The theatre in which the drama unfolds is, in its broadest sense, the whole created world. There, through a display of astounding beauty, God summons all creation to take delight in common praise. More narrowly, however, the theatre of God's glory is the church, that particular company of players who most fully have grasped (and been grasped by) the drama enacted on the wider stage. They are the ones who apprehend worship as the audience's most appropriate response to God's dramatic performance.

In this way, the image of the theatre became an organizing metaphor in Calvin's thought, putting worship at the heart of his theology. 13 The human adoration of God, and its extension throughout the rest of creation, was, in fact, the stated purpose toward which Calvin originally directed his Institutes of the Christian Religion. His theological masterpiece might best be read as a summa pietatis rather than as a summa theologica. In the long subtitle of the first edition of the Institutes (1536), Calvin described his book as "encompassing almost the whole sum of piety [pietatis summam] and whatever it is necessary to know about the doctrine of salvation, a work most worthy to be read by all who are zealous for piety." (OS I:19) Doxology was for him the chief goal and delight of all created beings. He knew that theology remains unfinished until it concludes itself in spirituality.

Spirituality as the Performance of Desire: Calvin on the World as a Theatre of God's Glory
Belden C. Lane
Saint Louis University
Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 1.1 (2001) 1-30

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Yes, he amazes me too, and since someone uses the words "mutual cooperation," we can then say nothing about anything else in their theology that militates against such cooperation. Tom

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STRAWMEN CAN'T HIT BACK.

Dear brother, I once sat in a Fine Arts Department meeting at a Baptist school with collegues, one of whom being a young theatre Prof. was ranting against Hans Rookmacher. He said that Rookmacher was hopelessly out of date. (Rookmacher was possitively groundbreaking in influencing Christians to get into and work redemptively in art and in philosophical aesthetics. Wolterstorff would not be what he is without that lineage.) My quick retort split his sides into convulsive laughter. (Maybe not...but it is fun to srite that it did.) I simply pointed out that Rookmacher was dead, and that prevented him from thinking any new thoughts.


Go ahead and be mad at some of the ideas that Calvin published. I know that I am. But since I'm _IN_YOUR_FACE_ right now, I just want to encourage you to deciding to find out more about the gems he has hidden that your rantings will only push further into the corners.

Notice what Sanders said above! NOTICE that Calvin intuits beautifully. He does so about Communion. He does so about the role of the Spirit in both the sacrament of the Word and of the Table.

WHAT MADE HIM INTUIT THOSE. NO, no, no, no, no... it was not his Scholasitic upbringing leading him logically to unavoidable conclusions. (Do you want to be a Scholastic, Tom? Really?) He colored outside of the lines BECAUSE he could see clearly that that was where the real form was.

Just because Calvin was able to see clearly where the forms were even dispite strongly distracting errant lines neighboring that part of the picture -- to his credit -- don't you, now, take him to task for the MERE presence of those lines that he was able to overcome -- to see clearly what mattered dispite there presence.

The people I know who are Reformed live with the whole bag. They display both the ruts that can 'trip up' and the intuitions that lead to the truth. They bear it all in their FLESH!!! (They incarnate the truth.)

I've read repeatedly that Calvin worked at his Institutes as a DEVOTIONAL work. Election is a DEVOTIONAL doctrine -- not a Scholastic one. If when you confront Calvin you habitually regress towards the Augustine that Sanders pictures him transcending, DON'T BLAME CALVIN ... Blame yourself.


Doctrine is to be incarnated, not conceptualized!




Edited by - Al2Si2H4O9 on 08/27/2002 10:20:14 AM

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"The theatre, for Calvin, thus served as an apt metaphor of God's performative action in sustaining the world, luring all of creation by delight and surprise back to its Maker. If, as Calvin insisted, creation is a continuing event, ever unfolding from the hand of God, ever responding in praise of God's glory, the world as theatre is an appropriate image for expressing a theology and spirituality of nature intently focused on celebration."

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You have some friends who can be annoyingly hyper-Calvinistic. Right? Lets do something about that!!!

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Can Calvinists really have non-Calvinist friends?




"The Discovery of new truth will modify old views and opinions, and there is perhaps no end to this process with finite minds in any world." Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology.

revivaltheology.net

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I reached it the first time via Google. Going through the Google door should get you there.

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Can Calvinists really have non-Calvinist friends?

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Well, it's certainly an admirable goal...!



Peace & blessings,

<><

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Greetings, John & POW:


PotOnWheel wrote:

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I reached it the first time via Google. Going through the Google door should get you there.

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Perhaps this strategy will help:

Google Search,
using keywords:
MUSE - Frequently Asked Questions
=

SEARCH RESULTS:


Link # 1:
• Click here: MUSE - Frequently Asked Questions
http://muse.jhu.edu/tech_info.html

______________________________________________________________

Project MUSE

• Project Muse Journals
URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/

• Muse Basic Search Screen
URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/search/search.pl

• Muse Advanced Search Screen
URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/search/search.cgi?searchtype=advanced

• Project MUSE - Information
URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/proj_descrip/index.html

• MUSE - What's New
URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journ_descrip/whats_new.html

______________________________________________________________

Peace & blessings...

<><

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