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borg
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 324
| Posted 5/19/2003 9:25 AM (GMT -6) |   | Lakia, what a treat that you should bring up such a great verse. 2 Peter 3:9. Nowhere in the Bible do i see that Jesus promised to come and save the entire world from their sins. 2 Peter 3:9 is first of all written to believers, not non-believers. this in way should direct our attention to those who aren't saved. it is written to, "To those who have obetained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:"
"the Lord is not slack concerning His promise," what Promise, not the promise that He is going to try to save everyone, but the promise that He is going to send His son back. that's what it says in the verses before, vs.4. "as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us" or "usward" well than there is a distinct line between who God is "longsuffering" to, especially considering the fact that this "us" is referring to the ones who have obtained the faith. so God is patient with the Church so to say, not with the world necesrily. the us refers to the Church, not the world. "Not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." he doesn't want the elect to perish. He has promised to graft in many of the gentiles, and this has to be fullfilled before the coming of Christ which is the promise that was refered to earilier. If God were to destroy the world right now, the future elect would never have had the oppritunity to come to a regenerate mind and therefore would fall into the pits of hell. but God is longsuffering with the evil of this world, till the full number have been drawn in. this verse in way speaks of a gneral ransom
As i've said before, John Owen concludes 3 different things that could have occured within the death of Christ.
1) General Ransom, Christ died for all people, for all sins, therefore all should be saved, because even rejecting Christ's offer of freegrace would be a sin. otherwise known as Universalism.
2) Limited Atonement, Christ died for some people, for ALL sins, in which case those who Chirst died for will be saved.
3) Dumb idea, Christ died for all people, for some sins, in which case we aren't cleared of all our sins, no one is, and so all are going to hell.
do these three conclusions make sense? hope i've cleared some disagreements a bit.
grace and peace,
borg
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might-be-don
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 830
| Posted 5/19/2003 9:32 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
I don't know - you tell me, what IS the OV position on original sin?
As I understand things, most OV folks tend towards the Arminian view of original sin, which if I understand that, isn't that much different than the Calvinist view.
Some here do advocate other than the 'traditional' original sin view, but, the OV does not require any particular view of original sin.
peace and love, don
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"No Rules, just Right" Outback Steakhouse | | Back to Top | | |
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Iconoclast
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227
| Posted 5/19/2003 12:47 PM (GMT -6) | | ReasonableDoubt
So therein lies the rub - since he is allpowerful, he COULD have determined the universe- w/ people created differently. But then he COULD have known the future. But you say the future is inherently unknowable...You see the contradiction here, right?
Iconoclast
The future is unknowable IF God allows libertarian free will. The future is knowable (by God) if God decides to determine (or make) the future. The part of the future that is knowable is the part that God has determined the part that is unknowable is the part that God allows free-will agents to determine.
The question is: does God allow free-will agents (us) to determine any aspect of the future? Since all humans actually behave as if we can determine some part of the future (what socks to wear tomorrow) then all humans actually believe that God allows us to determine some part of the future. Our behavior betrays our actual beliefs. Can a good tree bear bad fruit? Or a bad tree good fruit?
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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ReasonableDoubt
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 5/19/2003 5:38 PM (GMT -6) | | Icon: hmm, maybe this, like many things, is a problem of semantics. Determinism never states that humans have no part in the determination. In other words, humans have choices, and those choices affect the causal chain. What determinists deny is the radical freedom of the human will.
I don't think anyone is denying the ILLUSION that you are freely deciding, with no influence, what socks to wear tomorrow. Sure you feel like you are making that choice with no outside influence whatsoever . I do not believe that is true however. My choice in what socks to wear is influenced by the climate, weather, and cultural conditioning, to name a few influences. If tomorrow I decide to not wear socks and want to wear sandals, and someone asks me why, most likely I would say, b/c it is forecasted to be 90 degrees tomorrow, and I want to be comfortable. In other words, there is a reason for every choice we make.
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
--Søren Kierkegaard | | Back to Top | | |
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Iconoclast
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227
| Posted 5/19/2003 6:03 PM (GMT -6) | | ReasonableDoubt
My choice in what socks to wear is influenced by the climate, weather, and cultural conditioning, to name a few influences. If tomorrow I decide to not wear socks and want to wear sandals, and someone asks me why, most likely I would say, b/c it is forecasted to be 90 degrees tomorrow, and I want to be comfortable. In other words, there is a reason for every choice we make.
Iconoclast
I agree that there are a lot of influences for every choice we make. Are you saying that these influences are determinative? Are we EVER free to go against everything that is influencing us? Are we free to wear heavy wool socks with our sandals on a 90 degree day?
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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John Earp
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715
| Posted 5/19/2003 7:42 PM (GMT -6) | | Actually, the doctrine of original sin is an Augustinian invention, one which the Eastern branches of Christianity never adhered to even to this day. If one is defining orthodoxy according to the Western Augustinian point of view, then yes, original sin is a "foundational belief."
The Bible says "sin is transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4), and yet Augustine would have us believe that we have transgressed the law of God by being born human! As if God should have said, "Ooops!" when he created mankind in His image, instead of "good!"
What a wonderful God of love Augustine invented and Calvin perfected, who:
1. Says to man, "Do not sin," while at the same time wills that they sin.
2. Declares in his word that He is loving, righteous, and good but then has to murder his Son to have his wrath appeased.
3. Says to mankind, "Be holy, as I am holy," but then says, "You cannot ever rise above sinning every day in word, thought, and deed, for you have a sinful nature that inevitably will cause you to sin, and for which you will personally be held responsible."
4. Says He is not willing that ANY should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9), commands all people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30), and sent his only begotten Son not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved, and yet creates the overwhelming majority of mankind for the sole purpose of deep-frying them in hell for all eternity through no fault of their own, for they were "born sinful in Adam, and therefore worthy of eternal damnation."
It seems to me much more in agreement with Scripture AND Reason to say that all have been affected by Adam's sin, all will willfully sin when they are able to (the age of accountability, which differs for each individual, but generally would seem to be in early childhood) and that all humanity enters into moral depravity voluntarily, as Charles Finney said.
Sin is a choice, a word, thought, or deed, not an inherited nature passed down through copulation. This is the nearly universal testimony of the church fathers prior to the later period in Augustine's life, when he changed his own opinions as a reaction to Pelagius.
"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
Edited by - John Earp on 05/20/2003 02:32:06 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?
Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635
| Posted 5/20/2003 1:07 AM (GMT -6) | | Christian,
Would others agree that there is inconsistency? Yes!
I disagree with most professed Calvinist and yet agree with John Calvin on most of this subject. People often tend to look at things one dimensionally . . .
1. What is freedom under the OV?
Everyone is a slave!
2. Does or does not God know the future?
God knows all possible futures!
3. What is the role of the devil?
Adversary!
4. Could God determine the universe (all) if he so chose?
No, because then He would fail to be relational!
From here in left field, my Father appears to be masculine. - Tim | | Back to Top | | |
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Laika
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 5/20/2003 3:13 AM (GMT -6) | | borg
quote:
Lakia, what a treat that you should bring up such a great verse. 2 Peter 3:9. Nowhere in the Bible do i see that Jesus promised to come and save the entire world from their sins.
1 John 2:1 "My little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;
2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world."
Luke 19:10 "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
So only the elect were lost?
2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died;
So only the elect died?
15 and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.
Hebrews 2:9 But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.
"everyone", where's the qualifier? Of course he's writing to believers, but he's talking about others as well. Note, this is possible in languages, to converse about third parties.
John 1:29 The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
Only the elect are in the world?
Romans 16:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
The phrase "everyone who believes" is the direct object. Who is the active agent in this three word phrase? The only available active agent in the phrase is "everyone". Everyone can believe or not believe.
Even though the skies are blue, don't they let the sunshine through?
Edited by - Laika on 05/20/2003 08:28:10 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 5/20/2003 4:34 AM (GMT -6) | | I should type this from the rooftop bleachers at Wrigglie Field, but they are in right field. And though I believe what I'm about to write, it is coming from "left field" in that I'm not pacing with this thread. So...here goes...
(And everyone knows that I do not hold
to the "Open-view"; but believe that
God's openness is something that God does
relationally to us, and not because of
any compulsion upon God.)
Tim wrote:
4. Could God determine the universe (all) if he so chose?
No, because then He would fail to be relational!
That seems, Tim, to be lumping the Creator with Creation. I say that because of a few other things that are very precious to me. First, mankind is a very special creation and fills a very, very special office within Creation as "mediator" and "microcosm" as we "till and tend" and offer what is God's back to God in thanksgiving and worship (as in Liturgy and in eucharistic living). God created Creation in such a way that it is good, but had space for such a role as ours. God does determine the universe, I think. I join the Psalmist in looking to the heavens and calling it the "work of His hands." As do you.
Second, Part of the plan of God from before time is that God become flesh and be one with us, sharing of the life of the Trinity by grace, while not sharing in it by nature as only the Godhead can. That also signals to me a distinction both complete and eternal between God and His Creation. For God to bridge something that something has to be there. Even without sin our communion with God in its fulness requires Christ. Or relational participation with God is not interfered with by God's determination of the universe.
But where the openness in God's actions towards his creation come in, it is not a limit on God's eternal wisdom, it is the openness that suffers in His love.
It is only with us, His unique creation that failed in our role as mediator (in worship) and microcosm (in encapsulating both physical and intelligible things) that another Mediator was speciifically needed. And only He is worthy to approach the altar in worship--and we bring our Gifts to God through Him.
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Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?
Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635
| Posted 5/20/2003 1:20 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey there POW,
ReasonableDoubt:
4. Could God determine the universe if he so chose?
I hear this all the time, that God COULD have designed a world of determinism, but chose not to. This contradicts then against the impossibility of knowing the future- if God COULD have determined the world, then he WOULD know the future- by definition. So wouldn't OV'ers have to say then that God could NOT have determined the world in order to say that the future is unknowable?
Tim: The above is from the first page (original post); you unravel the comment or question that follows. I was simply speaking against the determinism of all things in the universe, from my best understanding of reason-able-doubts post; that is, "how well would or could God even relate to all things being determined?" That ‘splains it . . .
Oh, you like the left field comment, I guess I am not so gracious after all, Huh  ?
Gotta luv me | | Back to Top | | |
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Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?
Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635
| Posted 5/20/2003 1:37 PM (GMT -6) | |
Hey again POW,
Many OT people have had no problem with the statement that follows, what is your perspective?
I believe God is infinitely wise, with universal knowledge; knows all those things, which are possible as possible, certain as certain, contingent as contingent, and all those things, which are foreordained as predestined conclusion.
God, with an infinite foreknowledge or intelligence, without fatalistic determinism, remains free to make decisions and alter purposes according to His own will and wisdom; He is not a prisoner of His own foreknowledge.
That I am the desire of God and His being; loved and born to love, this is the miracle of life; Gods creation.
From out here in left field, my Father looks masculine. - Me | | Back to Top | | |
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