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Lee said: The verse I usually understand in this connection is Joshua 1:5, which I think is what is being quoted in Hebrews 13:5, which I think is unconditional, because it's spoken to believers.

Deut 31:6 Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you."

But note, just a few verses later in the same chapter, God shows that this promise to never leave nor forsake is in fact conditioned upon their continued obedience (which is precisely the same with regard to the New Covenant as well) :

17Then My anger shall be aroused against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured.

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2 Tim. 2:12 If we endure, We shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us.

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Originally posted by Lee Merrill

Hi John,

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Lee said: The verse I usually understand in this connection is Joshua 1:5, which I think is what is being quoted in Hebrews 13:5, which I think is unconditional, because it's spoken to believers.

Deut 31:6 Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you."

But note, just a few verses later in the same chapter, God shows that this promise to never leave nor forsake is in fact conditioned upon their continued obedience (which is precisely the same with regard to the New Covenant as well) :

17Then My anger shall be aroused against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured.

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But this refers to future generations, and thus not to the people of Moses' day, again, the unconditional promise may be taken to refer to believers, and the conditional one, to those not yet believers. Those whom God did forsake were definitely not saints!

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We agree on what's essential, Lee.

I think that Christians "politicize" theology a lot -- which is really the same as "fighting the last war." Instead of preparing to re-fight the Calvinist/Arminian or the Augustine/Pelagian bruhaha we need to keep our eyes on God!

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"If men devise their way, so as to make God’s glory their end and his will their rule, they may expect that he will direct their steps by his Spirit and grace, so that they shall not miss their way nor come short of their end. But let men devise their worldly affairs ever so politicly, and with ever so great a probability of success, yet God has the ordering of the event, and sometimes directs their steps to that which they least intended." (Matthew Henry)

"The Lord sovereignly determines the outworking of our plans. The Bible in general teaches that only those plans that are approved by him will succeed. ... The point is the contrast between what we actually plan and what actually happens--God determines that." (Expositor's Bible Commentary)

"The final result is the Lord’s doing, over which humans have no real control, and it may not be the 'success' that is yearned for. The poignant confession of Jer 10:23 is appropriate here: 'I know, O Lord, that man’s road is not his [to choose], that man, as he walks, cannot direct his own steps.' Human helplessness before God!" (Word Biblical Commentary)

So I think I'm on track, here.

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Here is the best I can do on context in Proverbs, another similar verse from there:

PR 21:30 There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord.

Now this certainly must include all plans, thus God's will is always done, regardless of how men plan or choose.

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Originally posted by jefscott

But, POW, the question is, can I choose, via LFW, to keep my eyes on God? If not, why the exhortation?

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Originally posted by jefscott

POW, if my whole life is determined, then your exhortation is also determined and any failure on my part to act in accordance with it is also determined. I can't even fathom such thinking! So I don't see this as a small matter.

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Concerning Free Will and Predestination, by St. John of Damascus (eighth century)

• Chapter 25. Concerning what is in our own power, that is, concerning Free-will.


• Chapter 26. Concerning Events.


• Chapter 27. Concerning the reason of our endowment with Free-will.


• Chapter 28. Concerning what is not in our hands.


• Chapter 29. Concerning Providence.


• Chapter 30. Concerning Prescience and Predestination.

From his Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book II, Chs. 25-30. Taken from the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 9. St. John of Damascus is a very important Orthodox Church Father. His eighth century Exact Exposition is seen as a very accurate summation and synthesis of Orthodox doctrine. It thus is a very authoritative compendium of the teachings of the Holy Orthodox Church.

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God's reference to "this people" does not seem to me to refer to any other than the people Moses was then amongst:

...and this people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they go to be among them, and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them.

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Further, it is not clear how one can break a covenant one has not actually entered into yet, nor is it clear how one can forsake someone they have never known.

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... and we also know that the many of the people of Moses' generation broke the Covenant and forsook God too.

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Jeff: ... you said that the verses I mentioned that demand LFW just address the issue of having control. What's the difference? If I am ABLE to deal with any temptation God allows me to be in, doesn't that mean that if I fail that test that it could have gone different?

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Jeff: The words/phrases I highlighted from your commentary selections seem to suggest that those commentators agree with me, not you - that the verse is not ABSOLUTE.

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only those plans that are approved by him will succeed.

and it may not be the 'success' that is yearned for.

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The word "those" implies that "some" plans of men do succeed, which is exactly what is implied by Pr. 21:30.

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Originally posted by Lee Merrill

Hi John,

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God's reference to "this people" does not seem to me to refer to any other than the people Moses was then amongst:

...and this people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they go to be among them, and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them.

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I would still take "this people" as referring to the nation of Israel, both present and future generations:

NU 24:14 Now I am going back to my people, but come, let me warn you of what this people will do to your people in days to come.

Which I think refers to many years after the time of that prophecy. Edom was not completely done away with until after Jesus' day.

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Jeff: ... you said that the verses I mentioned that demand LFW just address the issue of having control. What's the difference? If I am ABLE to deal with any temptation God allows me to be in, doesn't that mean that if I fail that test that it could have gone different?
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Oh, I don't think we can deal with temptation on our own. I know I can't! I sure have tried.

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Originally posted by jefscott


I've been spending too much time on this forum and will not be posting as often, but I do want to ask you one more question:

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… If the believer is working in ANY way, then he/she is a final cause, and libertarian free-will is established.

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Once you recognize that the believer's own volitional choice is a FACTOR, all the other verses fit perfectly with it.

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Originally posted by jefscott
You've already admitted that the particular fruit of the Spirit that we call self-control is something believers have. But it is also a fruit, meaning it grows as it is cultivated properly. But there are plenty of scriptures that make it clear that the WAY it grows is by volitionally acting with WHAT SELF-CONTROL YOU CURRENTLY HAVE. I.e., if YOU don't work out what God works in you, then there will be NO GROWTH. But there is a "YOU" in there. YOU are not a robot. No OV'er is stupid enough to think that we act ENTIRELY on our own, as your response seems to reply. But the verse says WE are to work out what GOD works in. BOTH persons are working here, not just God. The Calvinist pretends this verse says ONLY God is working, which it clearly does not.

If the believer is working in ANY way, then he/she is a final cause, and libertarian free-will is established.

Once you recognize that the believer's own volitional choice is a FACTOR, all the other verses fit perfectly with it. If you impose the Calvinist straight-jacket on them, then they're incoherent. Again, this is completely apart from the issue of irresistable grace.

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Are you sure that you have fairly or accurately represented Calvinists or Calvinism in your statements above? Have you read The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance & Assurance?

"Assurance of God’s work in us is not only completely compatible with God’s urgent appeals to us to persevere in salvation; assurance of his work in us is the basis for admonishing and warning us to obey."

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Originally posted by Lee Merrill

Hi Gerry!

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Are you sure that you have fairly or accurately represented Calvinists or Calvinism in your statements above? Have you read The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance & Assurance?

"Assurance of God’s work in us is not only completely compatible with God’s urgent appeals to us to persevere in salvation; assurance of his work in us is the basis for admonishing and warning us to obey."

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I'm (slowly) making my way through this book, I'm not sure I understand them completely, but that is a good point, that God does work in us "both to will and to work"...

Blessings,
Lee

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Schreiner and Caneday's thesis is stated on page 21 (The Race Set Before Us). "[O]ur central concern is to show how the Bible places side by side both God's promises of complete and final salvation for all his people and God's admonitions or warnings that call on his people to persevere to the end in order to be saved." In other words, their book addresses how humans and God interface. Their comments on Phil. 2:12-13 (in my earlier note) express the heart of their concern and passion.

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Originally posted by Lee Merrill

Hi Gerry!

I do need some help in understanding this book...

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Schreiner and Caneday's thesis is stated on page 21 (The Race Set Before Us). "[O]ur central concern is to show how the Bible places side by side both God's promises of complete and final salvation for all his people and God's admonitions or warnings that call on his people to persevere to the end in order to be saved." In other words, their book addresses how humans and God interface. Their comments on Phil. 2:12-13 (in my earlier note) express the heart of their concern and passion.

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That's all fine and good, and I agree with this, but they also seem to make the warning passages only motivational. They seem to avoid stating whether the warnings are about real dangers or not.

So I'm confused, I do believe that God is at work through the warnings to keep us diligent and persevering, but I think there's more than just that in these passages.

Maybe this is off-topic, though!

Blessings,
Lee

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I think you may be misunderstanding the authors.

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I think you confuse the authors' view with a view they reject, the view they call the "hypothetical-loss-of-salvation-view."

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They argue that the truthfulness of God's warnings and admonitions is grounded in the fact that to fail to heed the gospel warnings and admonitions will most certainly terminate in eternal punishment.

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Originally posted by Lee Merrill

Hi Gerry,

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I think you may be misunderstanding the authors.

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I expect I am! I think they have some definite ideas, but I cannot seem to understand quite what they mean.

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I think you confuse the authors' view with a view they reject, the view they call the "hypothetical-loss-of-salvation-view."

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Their view seems similar to that, but their view does involve more, i.e. that the warnings have a purpose, to keep believers on track, they are the means of their perseverance.

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They argue that the truthfulness of God's warnings and admonitions is grounded in the fact that to fail to heed the gospel warnings and admonitions will most certainly terminate in eternal punishment.

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But that sounds like believers can lose their salvation! But they say believers will indeed all persevere. Thus the warnings become hypothetical, do they not? But not meaningless!

I'm still confused...

Maybe I should finish the book, and then ask questions.

Blessings,
Lee

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Originally posted by TGB

Oh sure, why not?

Gerry (Schreiner and Caneday): By urging “fear and trembling” Paul does not call upon Christians to adopt an attitude of nervous anxiety and dread.

Tom: Certainly not. Just to clarify—Is “nervous anxiety and dread” supposed to be an indirect reference to what the Arminian view leaves us in?

Gerry (Schreiner and Caneday): Such a frame of mind does not arise from doubt toward God or mistrust of his faithfulness, for it is humble and conscious of weakness. Therefore, also, it is opposed to self-reliance.

Tom: Good stuff. Sounds good to me, though I’d like an analogy that makes sense of one’s being simultaneously conscious of one’s ‘weakness’ and the inevitability of persevering because one was unconditionally determined to do so. What affect does knowing one is weak have upon perseverance if one also believes that one’s perseverance, choices, attitudes, willing, doing, feeling, and weakness are all alike unconditionally determined by God.

Gerry (Schreiner and Caneday): Philippians 2:13 provides the basis for Paul’s whole exhortation in verse twelve, as indicated by his conjunction “for” (gar). In other words, “because God is the one who mightily works in us both our desiring and our working unto his good pleasure,” Christians therefore must “bring to accomplishment their own salvation with fear and trembling.” Paul’s choice of words and phrases accents the priority of God’s work without minimizing the necessity of the believer’s obedient act. Paul makes it clear, then, that God is the one who performs or causes (ho energôn) two things in the believer, both “the desire” (to thelein) and “the working” (to energein).

Tom: Notice how ho energôn (“the one working”) is interpreted here without argumentation to mean “the causer” (viz., “the determiner”), the assumption being that whatever God tries to do he does, whatever God ‘works towards’ he gets, what God ‘works at’ he achieves without fail. But this is an assumption. The text doesn’t actually say this. It doesn’t follow that what one works towards or works at one achieves without fail, that is, that every energon (“worker”) gets what he works for without fail. Why believe that?

While it makes sense to me to say we are unable to “will” or “do” what God desires without his grace and help, it doesn’t follow that we inevitably “will” and “do” what God works towards getting us to will and do, viz., that his grace and help should be either irresistible or that God should be thought of as less than God for creating a sort of world in which what he “works” for/toward sometimes fails to obtain (namely in situations where our free will is a factor).

And there’s still the glaring failure of theological determinists to provide an analogy that makes sense of “unconditionally predetermined outcomes that we are held morally accountable for.”

So, it makes sense to encourage believers to invest in growing spiritually and persevering to the end if a) their NOT investing and so persevering is a possibility that explains why they are to proceed with “fear and trembling” and b) God’s investing (working in us) is a promise that explains why they are to proceed with confidence and joy. We can know that our work and God’s work are each individually necessary and jointly sufficient to see us through to the end.

Gerry (Schreiner and Caneday): Therefore, Paul does not tell us to do our part in salvation because God has done his part.

Tom: Agreed, though a deterministic theology amounts precisely to just this. God’s will is the cause of all things, remember. God determines us to do our part or not do our part.

Gerry (Schreiner and Caneday): Nor does the apostle say that God has done everything so that all we should do is passively wait for God…

Tom: That would hardly preach!

Gerry (Schreiner and Caneday): Paul calls upon the Christians at Philippi to bring to accomplishment their own salvation precisely because God is the one who mightily works in them at two levels, both their willing and their working.

Tom: The words make sense to me because I don’t define “God working” to entail always succeeding to achieve what one works for. But where I to assume that whatever God works at/toward/for he unfailingly achieves, then I wouldn’t be able to make sense of the call to bring to accomplishment my salvation.

God may work in a person’s life to guide their willing and choosing and fail to achieve the desired end if the person determines to not respond to God’s grace and provision. That doesn’t mean God wasn’t working in their life to achieve a different end. We have every reason to assume God was working in them to achieve a successful realization of their salvation. But they chose to not cooperate with God’s work in their life.

Gerry (Schreiner and Caneday): God’s working in us is not contingent upon our desiring or doing…for God’s working brings about our willing and working, but not mechanically…God works in us through exhortation and warning.

Tom: That God “brings about” our willing through exhortation and warning doesn’t make it other than mechanistic if our response to the warning is unconditionally determined by God. How does God’s bringing about the response he unconditionally determined we give to his exhortations and warnings avoid being mechanistic just because it happened to be through “warning us” that God decided to achieve his unconditionally determined ends for us?

Gerry: The book…is a wonderful representation of Calvinism at its best. As such, it obliterates the false representations of Calvinism open theists on this board and in this thread have sketched.

Tom: I look forward to reading it. I’m not sure which false representations of determinism it obliterates. What you’ve posted from the book thus far is precisely what I’ve always thought theological determinists believed.

Gerry: Schreiner and Caneday's thesis is stated on page 21 (The Race Set Before Us). "[O]ur central concern is to show how the Bible places side by side both God's promises of complete and final salvation for all his people and God's admonitions or warnings that call on his people to persevere to the end in order to be saved."

Tom: Nothing new to me here. I’ve always understood mainline Calvinists to believe that the Bible places both of these side by side. Indeed, this dual claim constitutes what it is I object to.

Gerry: The authors do not render the warnings and admonitions merely motivational. They surely argue that the warnings and admonitions are motivational, but they motivate precisely because to fail to heed God's warnings and admonitions will bring eternal punishment and to obey God's warnings and admonitions is the only way to receive salvation in the Last Day.

Tom: But the case against their view doesn’t rest upon proving that they don’t really believe “failing to heed God’s warnings and admonitions” brings judgment while “heeding those warnings is the only way to receive salvation.” It is rather their claim that one’s “heeding” or “not heeding” is determined for them by God unconditionally. By definition then, if one believes one’s self to be saved, elect, one also believes that one has been determined to “heed” the warnings. But how does one demonstrate (through one and the same motivated choice) THIS belief and also the belief that these warnings hold out genuine dangers “for one’s self”? That these warnings hold out dangers “for those who don’t heed” is not debated. That they hold out dangers, viz., "for those determined by God for eternal life" is the question.

Gerry: The authors emphatically believe and argue that the warnings are about real dangers.

Tom: But not dangers which face the elect. If I’m wrong, then tell us in what sense those determined by God to persevere are in danger of not persevering?

Gerry: They argue that the truthfulness of God's warnings and admonitions is grounded in the fact that to fail to heed the gospel warnings and admonitions will most certainly terminate in eternal punishment.

Tom: This is not enough to secure a reasonsable belief in the warnings' effect. It effectually empties the warnings of effect. One is not motivated to avoid a peril one believes cannot possibly touch one (because one believes she has been determined not to meet that peril) but which is nevertheless a real peril because SOME end up meeting it. What I believe is ONLY a real danger for OTHERS cannot reasonably be believed to motivate ME to anything.

Tom

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TGB: And there’s still the glaring failure of theological determinists to provide an analogy that makes sense of "unconditionally predetermined outcomes that we are held morally accountable for."

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While it makes sense to me to say we are unable to “will” or “do” what God desires without his grace and help, it doesn’t follow that we inevitably “will” and “do” what God works towards getting us to will and do...

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By definition then, if one believes one’s self to be saved, elect, one also believes that one has been determined to “heed” the warnings. But how does one demonstrate (through one and the same motivated choice) THIS belief and also the belief that these warnings hold out genuine dangers “for one’s self”?

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This is surely a mystery that we must carefully guard against misstating.

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… If the believer is working in ANY way, then he/she is a final cause, and libertarian free-will is established.
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I agree that believers have real freedom! But not LFW. If we choose to sin, we go back into slavery to sin, until we repent and come out again.

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Originally posted by Lee Merrill

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By definition then, if one believes one’s self to be saved, elect, one also believes that one has been determined to “heed” the warnings. But how does one demonstrate (through one and the same motivated choice) THIS belief and also the belief that these warnings hold out genuine dangers “for one’s self”?

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I'm still up in the air on this one. I'm not sure exactly whether the warnings are hypothetical, directed to believers, to false believers, or some other option that I haven't yet considered.

Right now, I think the warnings are hypothetical in some cases, and warnings to false believers in other cases, and also! in some sense, they may apply, temporarily, to believers. How's that for a decision? I choose every option!

Here is one example:

LK 12:5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

But this is addressed to believers, I think! So I believe that it may be possible for even the elect to experience some of the fires of hell, though not forever:

REV 2:11 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.

Implying that, perhaps those who do not overcome, even if they are believers, will be hurt some by the second death...

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Originally posted by jefscott

Gerry,

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This is surely a mystery that we must carefully guard against misstating.

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That pretty much sums up Calvinism. The so-called "mystery" is a pure contradiction to human reason. If God has granted Calvinists an intellectual capacity to understand what seems to the rest of us to be contradictory, then why do THEY call it a mystery? If, on the other hand, their own rhetoric is as mysterious to themselves as it is to us, why not just admit that it really is contradictory?

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