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Terry_Baxter
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 187
| Posted 7/27/2003 8:45 PM (GMT -6) |   | If I respond, it will likely derail this thread further. Maybe that's a good thing, though.
quote:
I have read many Calvinist responses to open theism, and haven't found much approaching a good argument.
Couldn't agree with you more. The responses (qua "refutations") of OV are consistently mean-spirited and almost universally inept. It's shameful. It reminds me of the old law-school adage, "When the law is on your side, pound the law; when the facts are on your side, pound the facts; but when neither is on your side, pound the table."
quote:
The statement that "Calvinists believe that God is the cause of all evil" is absolutely true. It is an important truth. Therefore it would be wrong not to state it and defend it. The key issue in relation to any assertion is its truth, not its functionality.
And thus Albert begins to pound the table....
Listen, you seem to be misreading my intent here. I don't want to do the legwork of defending Calvinism. Smarter, more disciplined people than I have done it already. I would prefer if you would engage with them rather than the shadows of Calvinists past that you cite, or your Arminian/OV authors who poorly summarize those defenses. I can point out that you seem hypocritical, that you bemooan their 'hatchet jobs' as you gleefully sharpen your own hatchet. But I can't make you be more respectful to them, and I doubt I'll generate the energy to represent their views in an ongoing argument.
However, in about 20 minutes of web research (which has kept me up far too late--darn my prideful nature) I found the following from what I believe are reformed/Calvinist websites:
From the infamous 'hatchet' site:
God didn't create moral evil: www.carm.org/diff/Isa_45_7.htm
From a Christian Think Tank:
quote:
I recently got this very common question...
(1) What is evil?
(2) God made all things, right? did He make evil.
[NOTICE: This is the shortest answer you will EVER find me giving on the Tank! The writer had requested a VERY brief response. Enjoy it while you can...(grin)]
I replied:
(1) Evil is...intentions and intentional acts (both being 'acts' or 'personally directed events' and not 'things') of intelligent agents, that violate the God-derived principles of love, fairness, or loyalty.
(2) No, 'acts' and 'events' are not 'made'--they are 'done'. God made and created 'things' and 'agents', not their 'acts' or 'events'...He 'did' His own 'acts' (of course), but other agents 'do' their own 'acts'. So God did not 'make evil' (the phrase is meaningless and nonsensical)
I TOLD YOU this was brief...
www.christian-thinktank.com/iamwrong1.html
From the Stand to Reason website:
quote:
In the same way, evil doesn't cause our actions. In fact, it's the other way around. Our actions are what cause evil-or the loss of goodness-in us, and that loss of goodness does have an impact on future actions, giving us a predisposition to cause further evil.
Satan and man both used their free moral agency to originate actions that fell short of the goodness of God. I'm sure God had a good reason for allowing evil. It has caused a lot of suffering, but that suffering has, in turn, also brought about a lot of good under God's direction. [....]
And so, instead of the syllogism, "God created all things, and evil is a thing, therefore God created evil," we start from a different point. "All things God created are good-which is what the text says-and evil isn't good, therefore God didn't create evil." Then we can progress to, "If God created all things, and God didn't create evil, then evil is not a thing."
You see, those two syllogisms are just as valid as the first one (if God created all things, and evil is a thing, then God created evil), and it seems that the premises are more reliable. The premises seem to be accurate and true.
The questions we have to ask ourselves are: Do we have reason to think that God is good, and do we have reason to think that evil is not a thing? If we have good reasons to think those two things, then our new set of syllogisms work.
We can then strongly trust that when God does allow a privation of good (evil) to influence our lives, He does it not for evil designs, but ultimately for good purposes
str.org/free/commentaries/apologetics/evil/agoodrea.htm
And from a quick search of my Four Views book:
4 views, 181
quote:
Willaim Hasker says the the central idea of Calvinism is quite simple: “Everything that happens, with no exceptions, is efficaciously determined by God in accordance with his enteral decrees.” But we have seen, I hope there is reason to doubt that the central idea of Calvinism nedd be as Hasker says it is, without surrendering God’s universal and particular providence. To say that each particular action is providentially govered by God is not to say that everything is efficaciously determined by God, though it may be to say that everything that ooccurs is endorsed [allowed] by God.
And, of course, from the "what love is this" website that I quoted earlier:
quote:
As for me going around and around about whether God causes sin why don't you try addressing my arguments rather than just making unsubstantiated statements about them? I do indeed admit that God is the primary cause of sin but not its author. I know you don't buy my explanation but it would be nice to know what it is SPECIFICALLY you don't buy. You seem to think that the position I hold is a nonsensical position but you have yet to address my arguments regarding causality to show me my error. I am very curious as to where you stand on this subject and am hopeful that you will answer my questions forthrightly which you have failed to do up to this point. The best that you have been able to do is equivocate and change the word cause to force which is not what the Calvinists means when using the word cause as it relates to God. When one explains what they mean by cause you dismiss it by misstating what they said and never address their argument.
www.whatloveisthis.com/setting_straight_02.html
So, proving myself to be a hypocrite, here I am laying out (one version of) the Calvinist position (as I see it) in good philosophical form and then racing off to bed:
God created everything that is.
Everything God created is good.
God created agents.
Agents sometimes make choices that are evil.
Evil is the absence (or refutation) of good.
God does not force people to perform acts of evil.
There is a destinction between necessity and compulsion, and between first and second causes (a priori denials of poppycockedness notwithstanding).
God caused the agent to exist and caused free will; the agent causes the evil.
As I see it, what such Calvinists mean by "God causes evil" is not what you mean by "God causes evil." Until it is, in my view, you're hatchet jobbing them.
Which is ok, to an extent, because they deserve a little payback from giving Norm "My Hatchet if Bigger than Your Hatchet" Geisler the position of Traditionalist Press Secretary . I just wouldn't complain, as a matter of taste, when you get the same treatment.
Therefore (or for the philosophers among us, "ergo") if your beef is with hardcore determinists, your characterization seems correct. But, to make a horrible mixed metaphor, you can't fiat painting Calvinists with that brush: they deny the claim. Meaning,
either the above websites are not Calvinist (could be, I'm tired);
or, they mean something different when they use the words caused/made/created than you do (don't think so, but you tell me);
or, one of us is misunderstanding them or I'm misunderstanding you.
Terry "Too Tired To Write Anything Funny" Baxter
Even though I was their captive, the Indians allowed me quite a bit of freedom. I could walk freely, make my own meals, and even hurl large rocks at their heads. It was only later that I discovered that they were not Indians at all but only dirty-clothes hampers.
- Jack Handey | | Back to Top | | |
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Terry_Baxter
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 187
| Posted 7/27/2003 8:50 PM (GMT -6) | | Albert wrote:
quote:
Philosophy says" arguments are not always the equivalent of "I read somewhere" statements at all. Most things in philosophy are open to dispute. Some things, however, are not. For example, if you said "David Hume believed in a theistic concept of God", you would just be wrong.
That seems like an historical argument to me, or at the most, definitional. I can go look up his writings and see what his God concept was.
The philosophical argument is whether Hume's theology was True (because philosophers want Truth with a capital "T"). Regardless, on most moral issues, I'll trust my gramma and not the philosophers I've read.
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Terry_Baxter
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 187
| Posted 7/28/2003 7:14 PM (GMT -6) | | Doc Albert,
I'll admit. I got irritated. It's not easy to get under my skin, and only one other person on this board has ever done it to me. When I went after her full bore, people went berserk defending one side or another and it really proved how ugly web conversations can be. In cyberspace, no one can hear you cry.
So I'll not engage in the flame war. Nor will I defend a reformed view: they've refuted the implications of your arguments well in many other places. My only point (and I did have one) was to encourage you and John to argue in terms that Calvinists would agree to, if you wished to argue with them since that level of respect is demanded of Calvinsts attacking the OV.
Going away from that purpose, I actually started to research Calvinist responses to your depictions, and tonight realized I was about to cite some of the same (un-responded-to) sources. To your credit, in your 2nd-to-last post, you did start to show some knowledge of how Calvinists argue their case, even if you did give them the Geisler treatment of glossing past distinctions, off-hand dismissals ("X is irrelevant" is a very unendearing leitmotif in your argument style), and assertions of burden of proof.
So I'm bringing my participation here to an end. I still believe you are not fairly treating and respecting self-proclaimed Calvinists, some of whom I cited for you. I am not the only one who has asserted as much on this thread. They are not fatalists, which you seem to conflate with determinism.
You continue to assert that all Calvinists believe what they say they don't. You'll understand if I trust what people say they believe over what you say they do/should/must-believe-to-be-consistent.
And you're certainly right in one respect (and I've already admitted as much), that Calvinists do say that God is the cause of sins and evil although most don't mean what you seem to mean by it. In your last post you even seem to be doing what you studiously avoided at first. That is, you make the leap from causality to moral culpability.
Moreover, as I read many other reformed authors, their views are a small jump from yours, much as you'd like to make the gulf a wide chasm. The only major difference is that, for you, foreknowledge, making something necessary, makes it compulsory. If they say (and they do) that God created a world where agents chose to sin (and the agent provides his own motive force for the act), they are saying something very akin to your Indeterminist Position. This was the argument I made in my very first post. The arguments in my next posts were simply that some between definitions of will and agency, and other Calvinists overtly abandoning compatiblism in their theologies, it's really not as simple as the posts from you and John made it seem.
Final point: I've no problem with even a strong Calvinst view on moral or theological grounds. God allows evil and even uses it (in both my view and yours, I suspect). He can also be said, biblically, to cause some kinds of calamity or evil. God could have created a different world where certain people didn't freely chooose X or Y sins, but God chose not to--I can accept that. I don't think its morally more reprehensible (and MUCH MUCH more importantly, less Biblical) than the idea you presented that God is allowing the Earth's population to number into the billions, exponentially increasing the number of rapes, murders, and infant deaths, (etc, etc.) just so he can delay judgement day.
I'm out.
Terry
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Terry_Baxter
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 187
| Posted 7/28/2003 7:22 PM (GMT -6) | | Oh, and by the way, your method would make us treat every matter of definition as somehow reliant on philosophy--so I can't tell if Hume was a theist without engaging in some sort of philosophical method (whatever THAT is). Then philosophy covers the purview of everthing that isn't hard science? I'm not surprised that philosophers think their purview is that big, I just don't agree.
quote:
But it's not so fine to ignore what everybody else has thought, and act like you are the first person to ever think rationally about things.
Cute, but your statement is irrelevant.  I never suggested that I believe such to be the case. | | Back to Top | | |
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Rain
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2003
Total Posts : 3
| Posted 7/29/2003 9:35 AM (GMT -6) | | | Terry, you sound like a very smart man. What do you personally think of when Abraham lied to the King (I forgot his name!) about Sarah being his sister and God kept the King from sinning? I think that shows that God was controlling the King because God kept the king from touching Sarah. If the King was going by free will, he would have touched Sarah and God did not let that happend. He was controlling that situation because Abraham sinned by lying. It is hard for me to understand everything about the open view and the arguments you guys have. They are above my head. I don't know what I am, but I think I am a Calvinist because I think God controls people and situations sometimes. | | Back to Top | | |
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victoryword
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 181
| Posted 7/29/2003 10:34 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Rain
Terry, you sound like a very smart man. What do you personally think of when Abraham lied to the King (I forgot his name!) about Sarah being his sister and God kept the King from sinning? I think that shows that God was controlling the King because God kept the king from touching Sarah. If the King was going by free will, he would have touched Sarah and God did not let that happend. He was controlling that situation because Abraham sinned by lying. It is hard for me to understand everything about the open view and the arguments you guys have. They are above my head. I don't know what I am, but I think I am a Calvinist because I think God controls people and situations sometimes.
I honestly do not see how the situation with Abraham and Pharoah (and Abimelech) is in conflict with free will. First, with Pharoah God plagued his house. When the plagues hit his house he went to Abram and asked him, "What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?" (see Gen. 12:17-20).
The Pharoah in Moses time also suffered plagues but he did not let Israel go. The Pharoah of Abram's time could have easily dismissed the plagues and had his way with Sarai. I do not see unilateral control being exercised here. I see God moving sovereignly, yes, but I do not see God going against the Pharoah's will. I see Pharoah responding to God's judgment (unlike the Pharoah of Moses' time).
In Genesis 20, when Abraham repeated his sin (and after a name change no doubt), God appeared to Abimelech in a dream and demanded that he restore Abraham's wife to him. Again, I see no exercise of unilateral control. I see God intervening but not making Abimelech do anything. Only warning him of judgment if he was disobedient. Both Abimelech and Pharoah had the choice to act upon God's word to them or reject it and suffer the consequences.
But in neither case do I see any support for Calvinism nor do I see any dispute of Open Theism (or perhaps "Free-will theism" in this case).
If your beliefs cannot be supported by Scripture, they ain't worth supporting
http://www.victoryword.100megspop2.com | | Back to Top | | |
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