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Sisters of Cain
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2004
Total Posts : 431
| Posted 12/28/2004 2:22 AM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
Originally posted by cpoteet
The burden of proof is on the Open Theists to prove that we have LFW, not everyone else to prove that we do not. LFW is not 'self-evident.' This is liken the New Perspective or Process Theology where we attempt to justify our reasoning with philosophy, science, and other means outside of text. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral is the very reason Arminianism was propulgated (despite centuries of it being labeled as heretical).
Do you think animals sit around and discuss whether they have "LFW" or not?
LOL
Are we made in the image of God, or animals?
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 12/28/2004 2:27 AM (GMT -6) | | cepoteet: I used the paradox of the stone, because yes it contradicts itself the same way the true definition of sovereignty (the one I mentioned) conflicts LFW.
Tom: Then there's YOUR presupposition. But it doesn't follow from your defintion. You make the claim that the defintion you've given for 'sovereignty' (a defintion I AGREE with as far as it goes) includes and excludes certain things (about how much control God actually exercises, the open view, determinism, etc). But all it ACTUALLY says is that God "has the right to do whatever he wants to do." That's good and fine, but it just begs the question: What can God WANT to do? What sort of worlds is God capable of wanting to create? You're presuming God couldn't create any sort of world other than one in which all things are unconditionally determined by him. But that's a presupposition behind your definition of 'sovereign'. The defintion as you give it doesn't entail this conclusion however. Anyone can look at the words and see it doesn't.
So my point is, your defintion, even if correct, doesn't prove anything to be true or false about the open view, or Calvinism, or anything else. All it means, if it's true (and again, I think it IS true), is what it says--viz., that God "has the right to do whatever he wants to do." Fine. But the debate is about what sorts of things God can and cannot WANT to do, not about whether he has the RIGHT to do what he wants to do. Just claiming God has the RIGHT to do what he WANTS to do doesn't settle the debate about what God did in fact WANT to do in creating our world.
Celebrate your defintion of 'sovereign' if you want. You haven't proved anything regarding the open view by it. As an open theist, I heartily agree with you that God has the right to do whatever he wants to do. Now show me how I as an open theist canNOT consistently agree that God has the right to do what he wants to do. Go ahead.
You think I wanna argue about LFW or the open view. Not at all. I'm just holding you logically to your own defintion of 'sovereign.' If that makes you squirm, I'll back off.
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cpoteet
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Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 35
| Posted 12/28/2004 2:34 AM (GMT -6) | | Your verse in Genesis does not imply that we have LFW at all. It is a will of decree, not a will of command. And I want to leave philosophy, because we are talking more about our presuppositions than text.
Illustration of two wills in God from a soteriological standpoint:
Clark Pinnock refers disapprovingly to "the exceedingly paradoxical notion of two divine wills regarding salvation." In Pinnock's more recent volume (A Case for Arminianism) Randall Basinger argues that, "if God has decreed all events, then it must be that things cannot and should not be any different from what they are." In other words he rejects the notion that God could decree that a thing be one way and yet teach that we should act to make it another way. He says that it is too hard "to coherently conceive of a God in which this distinction really exists"
These criticisms are not new. Jonathan Edwards wrote 250 years ago, "The Arminians ridicule the distinction between the secret and revealed will of God, or, more properly expressed, the distinction between the decree and the law of God; because we say he may decree one thing, and command another. And so, they argue, we hold a contrariety in God, as if one will of his contradicted another."
But in spite of these criticisms the distinction stands, not because of a logical or theological deduction, but because it is inescapable in the Scriptures. The most careful exegete writing in Pinnock's Case for Arminianism concedes the existence of two wills in God. I. Howard Marshall applies his exegetical gift to the Pastoral Epistles. Concerning 1 Timothy 2:4 he says,
To avoid all misconceptions it should be made clear at the outset that the fact that God wishes or wills that all people should be saved does not necessarily imply that all will respond to the gospel and be saved. We must certainly distinguish between what God would like to see happen and what he actually does will to happen, and both of these things can be spoken of as God's will. The question at issue is not whether all will be saved but whether God has made provision in Christ for the salvation of all, provided that they believe, and without limiting the potential scope of the death of Christ merely to those whom God knows will believe.
http://www.desiringgod.org/library/topics/doctrines_grace/2wills.html
"To confess that God exists, and at the same time to deny that He has foreknowledge of future things, is the most manifest folly."
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Sisters of Cain
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Date Joined Mar 2004
Total Posts : 431
| Posted 12/28/2004 2:36 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by cpoteet
Your verse in Genesis does not imply that we have LFW at all.
Cain was told, "you must master it", the temptation to sin.
It's as clear as it can be.
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Sisters of Cain
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Date Joined Mar 2004
Total Posts : 431
| Posted 12/28/2004 2:38 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Sisters of Cain
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2004
Total Posts : 431
| Posted 12/28/2004 2:41 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by cpoteet
quote:
Originally posted by Sisters of Cain
quote:
Originally posted by cpoteet
Your verse in Genesis does not imply that we have LFW at all.
Cain was told, "you must master it", the temptation to sin.
It's as clear as it can be.
Why don't you respond to the rest of my post? I gave an example of your exegetical fallacy.
It was strengthened in verse 7:
7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?
Twice in two verses
1. Cain could do what was right
2. Cain was told he could master the temptation to sin
Genesis 4:
6 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?
7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."
Calling something "exegetical fallacy" is not an argument.
"Leaving philosophy" does not answer the questions they posed.
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Sisters of Cain
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Date Joined Mar 2004
Total Posts : 431
| Posted 12/28/2004 3:17 AM (GMT -6) | | Let's look at what jefscott posted in reply to you:
quote:
The existence of final causes (one of which is human volition) is intuitively known. It is not preSUPPOSED as an act of choice. It is KNOWN as surely as we know causality and mathematical truths. Thus, scripture would have to DENY the existence of final causes to be problematic to the notion. But it does not. Indeed, it uses the language of final cause OVER AND OVER.
Now answer that before you dance off with another 300 questions for us.
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JEE
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Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 12/28/2004 11:18 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by cpoteet
Let's leave philosophy, why don't you give me Scripture that backs that we have LFW (that is, the ability to choose otherwise).
Every command of God in Scripture is absolute PROOF that we have the ability to obey or not obey, or else God is an ogre. (Oh wait, your God IS an ogre). Every time that GOD expressed REGRET over how humans have disobeyed His will, it would be sheer nonsense to try to say that they really had no ability to do otherwise.
quote:
the burden of proof...
Is on those who DENY free will.
quote:
LFW is not 'self-evident.'
Hmmm. Even Edwards said we are free to do as we please, so clearly he believed that free will was something known to us by our conscience, however he may have denied that it was truly libertarian.
quote:
The Wesleyan Quadrilateral is the very reason Arminianism was propulgated (despite centuries of it being labeled as heretical).
Well, it is clear that cpoteet doesn't use Reason when approaching Scripture. 
Seriously, poteet, do you honestly expect anyone to believe that you somehow suspend all your critical-thinking capabilities and somehow forget all your past experiences and present consciousness when you approach the text of Scripture in hopes of interpreting it? I find it very hard to believe that anyone would honestly deny that they do precisely this.
John
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 12/29/2004 1:51 AM (GMT -6) | | cepoteet: TGB, I got what you're saying. The definition is distinct enough.
Tom: Now there's an interactive dialogue for ya! Just keep repeating, "My view is right. My view is right" without actually responding to questions and comments. Gee, let's see if I can dialogue like you: "I'm right. Sovereignty is what I think it is. I'm right! You're wrong! Saying it is what's important. I'm right! You're wrong! I'm right. You're wrong." Have I convinced anybody?
I don't think you at all got what I was saying.
You have a chance to salvage yourself here before the site shuts down, OK? Here goes...
1) I'm an open theist.
2) I agree that God has the right to do whatever he wants.
Demonstrate (unpack, show, explain) the incompatability of (1) and (2). Don't just SAY they're incompatable. Argue it. Either paint or get off the ladder.
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Tom
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Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 12/29/2004 3:14 AM (GMT -6) | | Spen: I admit that the above may be compatible. You believe this and find comfort in your understanding. This is actually beside the point, however.
Tom: My point to cepoteet exactly.
Spen: The issue is not whether God CAN do anything that He wants. The issue is what has God actually revealed that He has DONE in His scriptures and has He limited His jurisdiction as you claim.
Tom: Precisely.
Spen: The incompatibility is to be found between what you say God has done (limited His jurisdiction) vs. what God says He has done in scriptures. I still find your arguments weak compared to the opposition.
Tom: Well, this moves the debate away from the "definiton" of sovereignty to "what the Bible actually says" and how it describes God as actually relating to and ruling the world. Good point Spen.
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