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If you are a predestinationist, I agree with you. If you are a free choice advocate, then I also agree with you. Don't sound like one way or the other. As for opinions, yours, mine or the President's of the United states doesn't matter if God said something in His Word. I was merely making that strong statement for those who would dogmatically side with one way or the other. In other words, they both coexist so I would hope that a person taking one side or the other sees this.This board has been plagued with Johnny-come-lately's that come in with a chip on their shoulders with only a few posts. For the record, there are doctrines that my friends here hold that I did not fully agree with, but can understand why they believe it and vice versa. I may debate for awhile, but then I drop the subject.Now, how do you know I'm not a Johnny-come-lately? Easy. Just look at my statistics. July 2007 and almost 1200 posts. That's not an opinion BTW. I would think that would be checked before even asking the question. I hope you check your other sources the same way before rattling something off.
I may be recent here, but I have been a member, a Moderator, and site Administrator for other christian forums, and my posts easily surpass yours in number. Now, what does that mean? Am I more credible then you now? Are my posts now "truer" than your posts? I did not think so. Now you know exactly what it means that you have more posts at this christian forum than I do, it means absolutely nothing.And what you seem to completely miss in this whole thing is that while you do not dogmatically side with the Libertarian free will position, nor with the strong Compatibilistic/Deterministic view, you DO quite DOGMATICALLY assume that your postilion, which says that neither position is correct, is THE correct position. You have indeed strongly stated your case, and if you did not really mean to say what you said, I understand, I do that myself from time to time. But I can hardly be expected to respond to what you meant, rather than what you said, i don't read minds. So when you say "case closed", as if because for YOU, the issue is a non-issue, that it somehow just HAS to be a non-issue for anyone and everyone else, is a tad bit arrogant. After all, you would not want me deciding for you what issues in theology are up for discussion, and which are not, would you? So then, just because for you, the issue is settled, it is by no means settled for me in the sense that I should not be able, on a public Christian forum, share my own views. after all, you have been quite free in sharing your views, and your views are, as you have yourself said, no better and no more authoritative than mine.And yes, I do check my sources. I am an avid reader with a large personal library of my own, and I love nothing better than studying God's word. Add to that the fact that God has gifted me with a very bad back, and the fact that I am on it a great deal of the time, gives me, perhaps, more time to read than the average person. So yes, i check my resources. When you say
In other words, they both coexist so I would hope that a person taking one side or the other sees this.
You are implying that we must see the issue as you do. But I don't. And I think I have very good reasons for not doing so. I am aware of the Libertarian/Free will position, and I am aware of what the Combatibilistic Determinism view says, I am less aware of what strict/strong Determinsim says because it is outside of those positions which are acceptable within Christian orthodox. And finally I am also aware that there are persons who say that the Word of God on this issue is a paradox, both views are taught, it may seem like a contradiction, buts it not, you just have to accept both views as being true. "It is commonly declared, for example, that the doctrines of the Trinity, the hypostatic union of the divine and human natures in the person of Christ, God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, unconditional election and the sincere offer of the gospel, and particular redemption and the universal offer of the gospel are all biblical paradoxes, each respectively advancing antithetical truths unmistakably taught in the Word of God that cannot possibly be reconciled by human reason. James I. Packer likewise affirms the presence of such paradoxes in Scripture in his Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, although he prefers the term “antinomy” to “paradox.” He writes: An antinomy—in theology, at any rate—is … not a real contradiction, though it looks like one. It is an apparent incompatibility between two apparent truths. An antinomy exists when a pair of principles stand side by side, seemingly irreconcilable, yet both undeniable.… [An antinomy] is insoluble.… What should one do, then, with an antinomy? Accept it for what it is, and learn to live with it. Refuse to regard the apparent contradiction as real.(Reymond, R. L. (1998). A new systematic theology of the Christian faith; p104).)Some reasons why I disagree with the notion of paradox:"Now if nothing more could or were to be said, this is already problematical enough because of the implications such a construction carries regarding the nature of biblical truth. But more can and must be said. First, the proffered definition of “paradox” (or antinomy) as two truths which are both unmistakably taught in the Word of God but which also cannot possibly be reconciled before the bar of human reason is itself inherently problematical, for the one who so defines the term is suggesting by implication that either he knows by means of an omniscience that is not normally in human possession that no one is capable of reconciling the truths in question or he has somehow universally polled everyone who has ever lived, is living now, and will live in the future and has discovered that not one has been able, is able, or will be able to reconcile the truths. But it goes without saying that neither of these conditions is or can be true. Therefore, the very assertion that there are paradoxes, so defined, in Scripture is seriously flawed by the terms of the definition itself. There is no way to know if such a phenomenon is present in Scripture. Merely because any number of scholars have failed to reconcile to their satisfaction two given truths of Scripture is no proof that the truths cannot be harmonized. And if just one scholar claims to have reconciled the truths to his or her own satisfaction, this ipso facto renders the definition both gratuitous and suspect.Second, while those who espouse the presence in Scripture of paradoxes are solicitous to point out that these paradoxes are only apparent and not actual contradictions, they seem to be oblivious to the fact that, if actually noncontradictory truths can appear as contradictories and if no amount of study or reflection can remove the contradiction, there is no available means to distinguish between this “apparent” contradiction and a real contradiction. Since both would appear to the human existent in precisely the same form and since neither will yield up its contradiction to study and reflection, how does the human existent know for certain that he is “embracing with passion” only a seeming contradiction and not a real contradiction?Third (and related to the second point), there is the intrinsic problem of meaning in any paradox so defined. What can two truths construed as an unresolvable contradiction mean? What meaning would a four-cornered triangle convey to us? What meaning would a square circle have for us? David Basinger explains:If concepts such as human freedom and divine sovereignty are really contradictory at the human level, then … they are at the human level comparable to the relationship between a square and a circle. Now let us assume that God has told us in Scripture that he had created square circles.… The fundamental problem would be one of meaning. We can say the phrase “square circle,” and we can conceive of squares and we can conceive of circles. But since a circle is a nonsquare by definition and a square is noncircular by definition, it is not at all clear that we can conceive of a square circle—that is, conceive of something that is both totally a square and totally a circle at the same time. This is because on the human level, language (and thought about linguistic referents) presupposes the law of noncontradiction. “Square” is a useful term because to say something is square distinguishes it from other objects that are not squares. But if something can be a square and also not a square at the same time, then our ability to conceive of, and thus identify and discuss, squares is destroyed. In short, “square” no longer remains from the human level a meaningful term. And the same is true of the term “circle” in this context. But what if we were to add that the concept of a square circle is not contradictory from God’s perspective and thus that to him it is meaningful. Would this clarify anything? This certainly tells us something about God: that he is able to think in other than human categories. But it would not make the concept any more meaningful to us. Given the categories of meaning with which we seem to have been created, the concept would remain just as meaningless from our perspective as before.29Fourth—and if the former three difficulties were not enough, this last point, only rarely recognized, should deliver the coup de grace to the entire notion that irreconcilable (only “apparent,” of course) contradictions exist in Scripture—once one asserts that a truth may legitimately assume the form of an irreconcilable contradiction, he has given up all possibility of ever detecting a real falsehood. Every time he rejects a proposition as false because it “contradicts” the teaching of Scripture or because it is in some other way illogical, the proposition’s sponsor only needs to contend that it only appears to contradict Scripture or to be illogical, and that his proposition is simply one of the terms (the Scripture may provide the other) of one more of those paradoxes which we have acknowledged have a legitimate place in our “little systems,” to borrow a phrase from Alfred, Lord Tennyson.30 But this means both the end of Christianity’s uniqueness as the revealed religion of God since it is then liable to—nay, more than this, it must be open to—the assimilation of any and every truth claim of whatever kind, and the death of all rational faith.Now if one has already conceded that the Bible itself can and does teach that truths may come to the human existent in paradoxical terms, it begs the question to respond to this by insisting that one must simply believe what the Bible says about these other claims to truth and reject those that contradict the Bible. Why should either proposition of the “declared” contradiction be preferred to the other when applying Scripture to a contradicting truth claim? Why not simply live with one more unresolved antithesis? The only solution is to deny to paradox, if understood as irreconcilable contradictories, a legitimate place in a Christian theory of truth, recognizing it for what it is—the offspring of an irrational age. If there is to be an offense in Christianity’s truth claims, it should be the ethical implications of the cross of Christ and not the irrationality of contradictories proclaimed to men as being both true. (ibid; p105)blessings,Johnny Come Lately Esq, the Second
