First, CONGRATS TO THE LADY WILDCATS!!! They won for the first time the NAIA, section 2 championship. Woo-hoo! They had a 38 and 0 record. Outstanding! Ausgezeichnet! Tres manifique!
And I thought I would reflect on what became a week of arguing Arminianism versus Calvinism. Thanks to Once a Wesleyan for taking me to task.
What have I gained?
1. I like Baptists, especially if they would say that Christians who become serial killers were unlikely to have ever been Christians at all. I agree with you that it is really, really hard to miss it if you are truly converted. And I believe it surely breaks God's heart for those who "expose him to public disgrace."
2. I really respect Calvin and I respect Barth even more. Calvin was not a double predestinarian. He did not believe that God predestined those who were going to be damned. And Barth made the most sense of any Calvinist I have ever heard. He recognized that if God determines who will be saved and if God wants everyone to be saved then perhaps all will be saved. Barth resisted to his death saying that he was a universalist. But he added, "perhaps God is."
Am I neo-orthodox? I refuse to say I am because I'm not quite sure what anyone would infer thereby that I was saying about myself. There are some similarities between my thought and Barth's, but then again, he would detest other parts of my thinking, perhaps call me a Schleiermacher or a Brunner. I am orthodox, save a few tolerable heresy, according to Bounds.
3. What OAW has particularly catalysed for me is a good taste of how he understands sovereignty. In his view, and I don't know how representative he is, God's sovereignty could never stomach a human even He empowered to be able to disobey him. I am therefore assuming that OAW is a double predestinarian. That those who disobey God do so because God has caused them to disobey Him.
I am also assuming, therefore, that OAW must be a 7 point Calvinist. If God's sovereignty would be threatened by me being able to disobey Him, then it would have been threatened by Adam being able to disobey Him or for Satan to be able to disobey Him.
Thus,
6. God predestined Adam to fall and
7. God predestined Satan to rebel.
Perhaps some 5 point Calvinists have a slightly different understanding of sovereignty than OAW. But if he is standard, then you cannot logically stop half way. If his understanding is the 5 point understanding, then all 5 pointers must spit on Calvin's effeminate God and become 7 pointers.
But what are we left with if this is true? We are left with a God who could have created everyone to be predestined to serve him completely and absolutely. But, in His sovereignty, He decided to create a universe where He would absolutely destroy almost everything He created. He is a skeet shooting God, who created most things so that He could shoot them to pieces, and He did it purely for His pleasure.
We must now redefine so many words in the Bible.
"And God saw all that He had created, that it was good." Note: good here means good for hunting, good for destroying. Or good for messing up, like a child who stacks a whole bunch of blocks up carefully so he can enjoy knocking them all down.
"God is love." That is, God loves burning things. He's a pyromaniac, but He can burn those houses down because that's why He built them in the first place. On a whim, some days He doesn't burn down the odd or the even ones. Some days he leaves the prime numbered houses stand. The universe is one big romper room of His delight.
What have I learned this week? That I love Baptists.
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34 comments:
1.) Barth was not a Calvinist. Neo-orthodoxy is not Calvinism. Oy Vey... the fact that you run these two together speaks volumes about your understanding of Calvinism.
2.) If God predestines the elect the he doesn't predestine the non-elect. Now you can call that double predestination by saying that God is predestinating the elect and the non-elect or you can call that single predestination by saying that God predestines the elect but merely passes by the non-elect. Any way you cut it predestination implies double at some level though it doesn't necessarily imply equal ultimacy which teaches that just as God does a active awakening in the hearts of the elect so He does a active deadening work in the hearts of the non-elect. Actually I am a single predestinarian who holds to unequal ultimacy. The hyperists accuse me of being Arminian all the time.
3.) So you're part Barth, part Brunner and part Schleirmacher. Tell me was Wesley part Barth, part Brunner and part Schleirmacher? What a wonderful education those young adults are getting.
4.) I could go into a long summation of Edwards' distinction between natural ability and moral ability in fallen man that reveals how man is responsible for their sin but you're more interested in charging God with being unfair then learning about such distinctions. It is interesting though that your implied protests about God being unfair are the same protests that Paul puts in the mouth of his hypothetical foil in Romans 9. Et Tu Ken?
By the way Ken if your Charge is that Calvinists make God responsible for man's sin might I ask you to whom is God responsible?
5.) All five point Calvinists are thorough predestinarians even if they differ between infra and supra lapsarian positions.
6.) Scripture itself teaches your (6) & (7)
For from him and through him and to him are ALL things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.
Ken's version
For from him and through him and to him are all things except Satan's and Adam's fall. Amen
Do you really believe Ken that God slapped His forehead and said upon Satan's fall...
"Oh my goodness, this is what happens even when I have the best of intentions."
Did Satan fool God Ken? Did he pull one over on God? Did God quickly have to go to plan 'b' since Satan messed up plan 'a.' I hate that when subordinate created beings fool infinite, immutable, omnipotent uncreated beings.
Quick Ken... Was it God's predestined will that Christ die on the Cross (Hint-- A couple passages in Acts tells you the answer) or was that plan 'b' made on the fly after Satan and Adam fell and it was the best a rushed Deity could do?
7.) I've read Calvin's Calvinism which is a treatise on Predestination. You'd hate it. Believe me when I tell you that you couldn't fit a thin dime between my view and Calvins.
8.) I'm a postmillenialist. I believe most of mankind will be saved. That kind of drives a dagger in the heart of your caricature of Calvinism regarding its optimism about the number saved.
9.) 19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
10.) It is not unjust if everybody would go to hell. That is justice. It is mercy and grace even that one doesn't. The question isn't..."Why does God damn anybody"? The question is, "Why does God save anybody?" We all deserve to be eternally separated. The weight of God's kindness for saving His Church overwhelms me, but all you can do is be bitter that He hasn't done as much as you think he should by your lights.
I know its hard to hear Ken, but salvation isn't primarily about us.
11.) Remember that good world that God made and pronounced benediction over was the very world that He did so thoroughly destroy. Oh... and that was predestined also.
What have I learned by our correspondence?
I have learned again that I am nothing but a sinner saved by grace...alone.
There remain 7000 who have not yet bowed the knee,
OAW
You have learned to love Calvinists??? ... surely that must be an argument for predestination! :-)
Should have asked how are the male Wildcats doing this year??
Last year I was sure Tubby was going to be lynched after some of the results they almost take their basketball as seriously in Kentucky as folk in Glasgow take their football!
James, the guys almost got to the final four too, just one game short. Both teams did great.
OAW, thanks for continuing to present your theology. I will respond because I know googlers will find this debate and I want them to have answers to your questions.
I think that the "Lady Wildcats" is a reference to the Indiana Wesleyan University Wildcats...not the Kentucky Wildcats...as Tubby is the coach for the Kentucky Wildcats Men Basketball team.
OAW, to start in response to a previous comment you made, I allow for the things of God to be beyond rationality, to be suprarational. I believe this is a rational thing to do since, if God created the world out of nothing, He is outside this universe and not conformed to its rationality.
But I am stuck in my head. There is a "microreason" to the world that seems inescapable. I try not to step in front of traffic or jump off of tall buildings. If the Bible said, truly the world is not a sphere but is as flat as a pancake, I would not be able to make myself believe it. So in your quest to label me, you can throw a pinch of Bultmann (you can tell I scoff at the illogical practice of death by labelling). There are some things no sane person could truly make themselves believe to save their life.
I mention these things to say that if we could not conceive of a God concept that was coherent--I don't mean if we found out that we couldn't prove God--if we found out that we had to be fideists to be Christians, if we found out that the concept of God was in fact irrational, then the very Christian notion of God would deconstruct, in my opinion. I believe God is a God of truth, and so if the idea of God were incoherent, He could not be God. I don't buy Wittgenstein's argument that religious language isn't referential. I would be forced to abandon Christianity if someone could show it conclusively false. And I would have to abandon belief in the resurrection if someone could show definitively that they had found the bones of Jesus.
I say this because in my faith pilgrimage, the biggest challenge to my faith has been the problem of evil. If God is good, He presumably wants to stop evil, and if God is all powerful He can stop evil, so why is there evil? You know the drill.
Your answer (I know you won't agree, but you're wrong) pushes us to conclude that there really isn't any evil. God has willed sin and what we call "evil" in a directive way. He has willed the world to be the way it is. The new definition of evil is, "those things that fall within the domain of that toward which God is wrathful." But since God has willed it, we really should say that even evil is good, because God's destruction of it will bring Him glory.
By the way, I don't think your stated position is coherent. You say above 1) that the Bible teaches that God predestined Adam to sin yet 2) are only a single predestinarian and claim you agree with Calvin. Calvin believed that Adam had free will, so you disagree with him there. Also, if God predestined Adam to sin then God predestined the remainder of the fallen to be fallen and thus predestined their damnation. Calvin at least can pin it on Adam.
Also, your previously stated claim that for God to empower a person not to choose Him makes him effeminate and contradicts His sovereignty would apply to him letting Satan and Adam not choose him as well, so if you are not a seven point Calvinist, your theology is incoherent.
Back to the problem of evil. Your solution is no solution. It forces a redefinition of good, evil, and love that makes these words mean things that contradict what these words mean. If my own solution to the problem of evil makes me nervous, your solution would make me despair of faith (along with anyone else who knows the heart of Christ).
The distinction between God's permissive and directive will is not explicit in Scripture, but I allow for that. I am not a Leibnizian who believes this has to be the best of all possible worlds (how could anyone really know that?), but I believe it is a coherent creation God has made.
He has created a world where it is "better" and "more pleasing" for a person to love another freely than for a person to be forced to go through the motions of love. There are neurotic people out there who would disagree, but most humans who function healthily in the world recognize this.
So God created the possibility that Satan and Adam might not choose to love him (you have heard all these things before). They both chose wrongly. In consequence, we are all born disempowered. But because God is love, He lightens everyone at some point in their life, gives them the opportunity to be empowered further.
We do not see the whole picture, but if we did, we would recognize that God is love even though he allows many painful and displeasurable things to happen even to those who serve him.
This to me is the most coherent Christian answer to the question of evil. When you put atheism next to your answer, atheism is the next most coherent answer. I choose my answer.
More to come.
Sounds like there are too many wildcats in the Colleges in the States, here there are only a few dozen wildcats left in the Highlands of Scotland and they certainly don't play basketball
"What a wonderful education those young adults are getting."
Let's play nice OAW. ;-) I happen to know that those young adults are getting one of the best educations in the country.
To OAW:
When my husband and I came to IWU, I had my theology "all together" (ask Dr. Bence). I now could not tell you much about why I believed what I did in the past. You see, my brother committed suicide a number of years ago and that caused me to question my understanding of God. Do I surmise, according to your view, that it was "God's will"? Or do I understand it as "allowed"? But, what do I do with the fact that I prayed along with many others I'd called to pray during the time before we knew....what had happened...Did God hear my prayers? Did He Care???? You see, my questions began when both of your theologies seemed to fall short. Then, I started thinking about everything differently. And I can understand John Saunders, who believes in Open Theism, for it allows for true response on the part of man toward God and His universe. And it magnifies God's love, in that He limits His omnipotence, and omniscience for the benefit of a "free moral agent", as well as confounding our minds with His creativity in "working it all together"....
I do know that I want NOTHING to do with a God that coerces, controls, manipulates, and imposes...( I know that you believe that man is not coerced because he has been made to desire because of God's irresitible grace, but that truly does not hold men responsible for their choices and I can't bear that!) I have not come to conclusions about my theology. I am still in "process" of processing and I may not be able to view it objectively until the wounds that have taken hold of me are healed. Those wounds will not and can not be healed with platitudes of God's sovereignty and "working all things together for good". One thing I have learned is that I believe ferverntly that each person is a unique creation of God and that there can Never be a replacement with anyone else. That is why "love" is so important. Universalizing "God" has it's limitations when it comes to "real relationship" in which the person has understood God in a specific, special and personal way. That does not mean that "a reason for the hope within" is unimportant. The limitations to "theology proper" is like telling a starving man about "the Bread of Life" without giving him physical food. The spiritual apart from the physical is absurd for what did God do when He was incarnated? The spiritual people did not "recieve him". I think being human is good enough for God. That is who He made and who He loves.
Mark,
You mind telling me what your point of reference is for your confidence? You got a guy who is a Ph.D. teaching ministerial students and he doesn't even know that Neo-orthodoxy and Calvinism are not the same thing. That is something that my high school catechism students know.
OAW
Ken,
I am working on wondering what the point of interacting with you is any further since you hold that God is beyond rationality. If God is beyond rationality and if the creator creature divide is so vast then all of this is speculative bull fesus and there is no such thing as either one of us being 'right' and our systems are left to being promulagated and embraced not because they correpsond to reality but because they find a way to get in the stream of popularity and as such I might be better served by learning more about marketing then I do about doctrine.
If God is transrational or suprarational then all your ratiocination in the world is just so much making of mud pies. On one hand you insist that God doesn't conform to our rationality while otoh you continue in a rationcination that presumably anticipates a correspondence to a God that by your own admission doesn't conform to our rationality. You are lost in a sea of subjectivism Ken. You have a man of water climing a ladder of water affixed to a sky of water speculating about a God of ???????????????
How pray tell could we find out that God is irrational? If God doesn't conform to our rationality then how could we ever label him either rational or irrational? Your God is so transcendent -- so other that he dwells in Kant's noumenal realm making conversation about him meaninglessness (aka -- Logical positivists), and faith being a Kierkegaardian existential leap. For the love of all that is Holy Ken... think about what you are saying and worse yet about what you're teaching. If for no other reason think of the damage your doing to your own soul in all of this, as well as countless of students.
This word verification system is driving nuts.
OAW
Don't worry, OAW, I'm sure any confidence he might have in me is not eternally secure. ;-)
As with all words (as an emotionless statement: my default presumption is that your kind of Calvinist doesn't understand how words work, that you think they have fixed meanings), whether Barth is Calvinist or not depends on how you define the word. Obviously your circles define it in a way that excludes Barth or anyone who is neo-orthodox.
Now back to emotion. I chuckle every time you bring the neo-orthodox thing up because as far as I can tell, no one cares or is even discussing this label these days (how many people in my world even have heard of it? All its generation are dead). Sure, I'm sure it got Charles Carter's and Martin's dander up, but that was 30 years ago. As far as I can tell, I'm just a quirky (yet lovable) Wesleyan.
Alas, we agree! The word verification thing is driving me nuts. By the time you get a comment made, the letters it has on the screen are no longer valid any more!!!
Here is a similarity between me and Barth (don't label me neo-orthodox, because I'm unlike part on it too). While the essence or nature of God is, at least possibly, beyond our literal comprehension. He has revealed Himself by analogy and metaphor. These are not false because they are, at least potentially, non literal.
Also, rationality works within this universe, since God has made it to work down here. While you, I think, would have a view that God acts in this universe according to His nature. I would fall off on the side that says God acts in this universe in accordance with His will for this universe.
So to the age old question, is good good because God says so or does God say it's so because it's good, you would say that God's nature defines what is good and of course God could not possibly act against His nature. I would say that, within this universe, God has chosen to reveal himself in accordance with certain principles that we might metaphorically call His "nature." What it literally might be beyond this universe we could not possibly know. But because God chooses to be consistent, He for all appearances can be said to have a certain nature in this realm.
But, to maintain the sovereignty of God, I hold open the possibility that outside this universe, God might create other universes where His apparent nature is quite different. He might, thus, create a world of 7 point Calvinism "somewhere" else, but it would not look like this universe (there's the rub). Similarly, He might create a universe where murder is always good, but this is not that universe. Bounds considers me slightly unorthodox on this point.
But, and here let me say clearly, that these ideas almost never come up in class at IWU because I don't teach theology. I mention them in philosophy class as we discuss arguments for the existence of God, but I don't teach them as "the truth," I let them know that Bounds disagrees, and most of them probably don't have a clue what it is I'm babbling on about in the first place.
OAW
Your comment about Ken not knowing the difference between Calvinism and neo-orthodoxy was funny. I guess since he has plunged into the stream of post-modernism, both look the same, in a relative sense that is.
Ken,
Of course you're wrong about how you answer the problem of evil.
These are the propositions that I hold.
1.) God is absolutely Sovereign
2.) God is good
3.) God has morally sufficient reasons that are known to Him for all that happens.
Now, Ken, let us take as an example the foulest and most heinous evil this world has ever known. A evil that sets the standard for all subsequent evil. This evil is the evil of the crucifying of our innocent and magnificent savior. Peter described it as an act done by the Jews through lawless hands, and yet three times in the first 4 chapters of Acts the Apostles declare that this evil act, which they held the Jews responsible for, was determined by God.
We are not far away from celebrating once again this evil act that we rightly call 'Good Friday.' We know it is good because of later Revelation.
Job serves as another example Ken. Nowhere in the book of Job is it suggested that what happened to Job wasn't evil and yet clearly in the book of Job it is God who gives permission to Satan to grieviously afflict Job. Why did God do that?
Funny thing is that the book of Job never tells us why. The answer we get from the book of Job is the same answer we get from Paul in Romans 9, and that is...
"I'm God and I'm not answerable to you man."
Job was smart enough to repent in dust and ashes and yet we keep demanding that God conform to our demands on this issue. Maybe some of us need to have our own God speaking from the whirlwind experience?
Our Brother Joseph also teaches us on this subject. When confronted by his Brothers upon Jacob's death Joseph speaks to them of their wretched behavior towards him ...
"You intended it for evil but God intended it for good."
Perhaps Joseph couldn't have said this in the midst of his trials but later revelation taught Joseph that God was in all of the evil that he endured.
Now lets bring this a little closer to home. You don't know me so you'll have to take my word that I had grave evil visited upon me many many years ago. I am no stranger to the afflictions of un-provoked evil. Further, in my calling I see a good deal of evil that is unfathomable and makes me weep with pity. But if God isn't in any of this then where will we turn for succor? If God doesn't intend this in any sense or form then why would we cry out to Him, for what can He do except to sit down and cry with us, which I appreciate but really am not interested in.
For the Believer all that comes into their life is good. It might be 'good bad' or 'good good' but in God's economy it is all serving our sanctification.
For the unbeliever all that comes into their life is bad. It might be 'bad good' or 'bad bad' but in
God's economy it is all serving His purposes to warn to repent (remember the tower of Siloam).
There is so so much more that could be added to these observations but in the end I do trust that the Judge of all the earth will do right.
And I believe that later revelation (perhaps upon glorification) will make much of what I weep over here clear to my eyes but even if it doesn't the confidence in my savior who has never done me wrong, and has only done me good requires me to believe that He knows best.
And yes, I do believe that all of this will bring God glory.
Ken,
You have imbibed the milieu of Modernism and Hyper modernism (sometimes referred to as post-modernism) and while I would like to help I'm not sure you can be reached any more.
You say that God's literal nature can't be comprehended and yet you turn around and say we can use analogies and metaphor but the whole point of an analogy or metaphor is to communicate something literally true of that which it relates to. For example a Battleship's Screw is analgous to a canoe paddle. Now obviously they are not exactly the same but there is a point of contact between the two and yet if God doesn't conform to our rationality and can't be literally understood then how can we know there is a correspondence between the Battleship Screw and the Canoe paddle?
You have no transcendent point Ken by which to measure the meaning of your metaphor. It is all a riddle wrapped in a enigma coated with mystery for you.
This milieu starts with holding God to be part of the noumenal realm (Hat tip to Kant) and moves to the Theology that was derivitave of that (hat tip to Barth, Brunner, Bultmann, Schleirmacher, Ritschl) finally you have given up on the notion of non-contradictory meaning (A and non-A cannot both be true at the same time and in the same sense) for dialectic synthetic meaning (hat tip to Hegel). You have no transcendent reference point.
Finally, for this post, while you may not talk about this with your students don't you think this stuff is picked up by the smart ones who can follow out the implications of what you do teach?
OAW
Forget Carter... he wouldn't have known what a neo-orthodox was if it bit him on the arse.
Oh, and forget the fact that nobody knows what 'neo-orthodox' is. Labels don't matter if people drink the content in the bottle.
Very good, now you're getting to Scripture and to the kinds of truly "naughty verses" that I will need to explain (I will do a whole post on Romans 9 when I can).
A few preliminary remarks in relation to my method:
1. Job or any particular passage is first to be understood on its own terms.
2. But Job is also in a particular place in the flow of revelation--it's first meaning is a matter of the Hebrew Bible, which is not yet its Christian meaning. For example, a scrupulous and respectful reading of Job reveals that it has no belief in life after death (yes, I know about 19:25-26). And in fact it is just a little further along than 2 Samuel 24:1 on the Satan (see 1 Chronicles 21:1). It does not yet understand Satan the way the NT or we do. In short, we cannot assume that a single verse of the Bible gives the final answer on a Christian theological issue. Job must be "placed" in the flow.
3. In keeping with this ongoing working out of the details of how these things work, we must also ask how this deterministic imagery functions. If you had asked Augustine, "I notice it says here that God meant it for good." Does that mean that Joseph's brothers could not have done anything but do this to him? I think Augustine would say, yes, that's right.
But I am not convinced that Paul or other biblical writers would have said the same. In other words, I'm not sure that this deterministic language functions in this way for them.
I'll try to express this thought more clearly in my Romans 9 post, but in general, deterministic biblical language seems to function as "after the fact" language. In other words, deterministic language is not used to predict what will happen, but to express what has already happened. The meaning of a word depends on the language game in play. I am not convinced that Augustine and Paul were playing the same game on this one.
1.) I believe that Adam had free will.
2.) I don't believe that free will is inconsistent with predestination. People have free will today and predestination remains true. Consider Edwards answer to this.
3.) I affirm that God is the cause of evil w/o being the author of evil while still affirming that in Adam's fall we sinned all. Romans 11:36 teaches that God is the cause of all things. "For of Him is all things."
4.) So I am a single predestinarian who holds that in God passing over some the effect is not any different then the double predestinarians.
5.) All Calvinists are 7 point Calvinists. Well, at least Hodge, Warfield, Calvin, Westminster Confession, Dabney, Hoekesma, Vos, Edwards, Chalmbers, Bavinck, Kuyper, etc were 7 pointers.
You seem to be trying to rescue Calvin but here is Calvin's own words.
"When we come to speak of the first man in our discussion of the doctrine of predestination, my teaching is that we ought ever to consider the solemn case to be this: that he, having been created perfectly righteous, fell of his own accord and willingly, and that, by that fall he brought destruction of the his whole future race. And though Adam fell not, nor destroyed himself and his posterity, either without the knowledge or without the ordaining will of God, yet that neither lessens his own fault nor implicates God in any blame whatever."
All Reformed people agree with this universally.
If I were you Ken I would quit suggesting that you know what Calvin says. Already you have been wrong several times on this score. Better quit while you're ahead.
OAW
Ken,
Your opinion on the naughty verses is irrelevant as God does not conform to our rationality.
OAW
Angie,
I hope to eventually get to your comments.
For now, allow me to express my deep and sincere sympathy for your loss. I have seen many things like this in my life and the best answer to your sorrow is for me to weep with you, and rest assured already tears well in my eyes for the hurt and loss you have suffered.
OAW
You are deceiving yourself if you think you have any assured transcendental, epistemological fixed point. Where can I get one of those? Don't say the Bible because that's a smoke and mirrors game (you always turn out to be the man behind the curtain). The consensus of the church as the mediator of the Spirit speaking through the Scriptures is the most stable access, but history shows this is not a completely fixed point.
In short, your transcendental point would be great--but you are smoking crack if you think you have one. I choose to believe that God's analogies are true by faith, believing this faith to be coherent and more rational than irrational (insert my mumbling caveats about what I call a pragmatic epistemology).
An example will suffice. If God is strictly in this universe, as yours is (your understanding of God limits Him to the logical rules of this universe), then His foreknowledge appears to imply determinism. If in some way He can observe the future ahead of time, we might wiggle out of determinism, but then He appears not to be omniscient at some point of his existence.
But what if these connections do not apply outside this universe? What if outside this universe God can do things that aren't possible in this universe? Why would you want to deny such a possibility? Because you wish to limit God?
Here is the question: Presuming that God wanted to, is God smart enough to create the possibility for a person to make a free choice while He knows what that choice will be beforehand and He won't gain knowledge when you make that choice. My answer is, on what basis would I say He can't? I think God is smart enough! By the way, this is why I consider open theism a waste of time. It is, in my opinion, just as stupid as the Calvinist argument against free will on the basis of determinism. It's only strength is that it is more literally biblical than either my orthodox position or the Calvinist one. ;-)
Do you get the distinction, there is a rationality within this universe. We cannot assume it applies outside this universe. This is my answer as well to the age old question, where did God come from? The argument that there needed to be a first cause is based upon what we observe in this universe. But one cannot then apply the question to God outside this universe. It doesn't follow. So I would say that you do not know how to distinguish between what is in this universe and what is outside this universe. The result is a idolatrous picture of God, one that builds a Zeus out of the materials of this universe without understanding what logically might follow from saying that God created the world out of nothing.
Surely you don't mean to say that my free will now is of the same sort as Adam's? You would say, I think, that I have free will along the manner of soft determinism. I experience my choices as freedom of my will, although in reality my choice for God is a product of His will. Would you say that Adam's free will choice was the same, then? That he experienced his choice as a free one, but that really it was determined? If so, then it's incoherent for you to stop short of the most radical Piperism?
You've said nothing that convinces me any of my comments on van Til, Calvin, or neo-orthodoxy were wrong in the slightest. What you have convinced me is that you live in a world that labors over distinctions that are irrelevant to my world, just as many distinctions important to my world are not significant to yours.
P.S. No reputable Pauline scholar today thinks Augustine's interpretation of Romans 5:12 was Paul's, that "in whom [Adam] all sinned." Keep the argument in theology and philosophy, because the house always comes down when we hit Scripture.
This is what tickles me about some Calvinists--when their arms and legs are cut off they stand shouting on the bridge to their assailant as if they have won the duel! I love them for that spirit--it is more fun than watching a movie!
"It's just a flesh wound! Come back and I'll bite your kneecaps off!"
He, He, He! This last few posts have been great but the responses have been awesome!!
Now the question is whether or not Dr. Schenck rides around clicking a bunch of coconuts??
Was it Tozer who confided to a student one day that it's be best to avoid Wesleyan/Calvinist arguments because even after you leave the room, they'll still be going at it and you can actually go out and make a difference in life.
I really love both sides of the equation here, but I don't believe either side is exactly correct. I find fault in both Calvin and Wesley on several points but I also find much to applaud in both. I guess that I am thinking about the issue of grace from Calvin and the issue of holiness from Wesley.
I really can't agree with many of OAW psuedoarguments and frankly wrong perceptions of Ken. I know he hardly needs my defense, but he'll get it.
I guess I take much exception with the absolutely OUT OF LINE comment #3 and about Ken's teaching about soteriology, which I can tell you first hand is NOT focused upon our work or about salvation. Such vitrolic statements only serve to antagonize and lessen any potential points one might make. Which does nothing to build the kingdom or persuade anyone to come to Christ. The more I read this, the more I believe Tozer, and that makes me sad.
Hey Drury,
Quit spitting popcorn seeds on stage and go ahead and wiggle into the fray if you can. Shoot, given the fact that you have been suffering from your ideological and theological multiple amputations for decades now it is doubtful that you even have any strength left to slither into this contest.
The only people who give you guys any credibility is the Downs Syndrome Children choir of St. Wesley's Memorial Children's Hospital.
Now please excuse me while I take my bows, for fulfilling my requisite 'standing on the bridge shouting at my assailant' routine.
OAW
Jeffery,
I doubt very seriously that there is a word that Tozer wrote that I haven't read.
He's one of my favorites and I often thank God for his felicitous inconsistencies.
OAW
p.s. -- Great story... In a 'chance' meeting at a Airport I got to meet one of Tozer's Sons. I took him aside and thanked him immensely for the effect of his father's work on my life. I had to leave to grab a plane but I left the elderly gentleman in tears of gratitude. We were both quite moved.
p.p.s. -- Another great story ... several years ago I was at a banquet at IWU and the name of Tozer came up. One of the IWU staff at the table mentioned how she had known Tozer and what a sharp tongued man he was. I immediately rose to Tozer's defense and the faculty person in question suddenly found that he fork was stuck in her mouth on that subject for the rest of the meal. For years, I have gotten a kick out of the notion that I, a Reformed guy, was in the position of having to defend Tozer from his own people at a IWU banquet.
Life is strange,
OAS
Ken,
Imagine the mirth I'm filled with when you tell me that I am deceiving myself when it is the case that since your god is supra-rational all you can involve yourself in, at best, is relative historicst rationality. You have no measure by which to measure either my rationality or yours either, and since that is true your accusation of me deceiving myself is like a blind man pointing out that somebody else has cataracts.
In short ... physician heal thyself.
And now you appeal to tradition for your artificial eyes? I have to tell you that after awhile that neo-orthodoxy, Arminianism, and Roman Catholicism become colors that all bleed into one
bleed into one
But I still,
haven't found
someone who speaks the truth
No, I still
haven't found
someone who speaks the truth...
sorry, got lost there for a second.
You realize you have admitted that God cannot speak in the Scriptures apart from the Church's allowing Him to speak. You're sure your name isn't Ken Eck? Maybe you're channeling John Eck?
LOL ...
I can't get over the idea that it is the consensus of the Church that the Church that knows what God speaks in Scripture. That is like saying it is the consensus of a group of thugs that they get to decide what stealing is. LOL LOL LOL
Tell me Ken... The Episcopalians are telling us that God is loves butt pirates. Is that true Ken? LOL LOL LOL
Seriously, you now have revealed that you practice a version of a ecclesiastical historicism.
LOL LOL LOL
I am cracking up reading this post as I respond to it... I am rolling on floors in tears of laughter...
God's analogies 'true by faith.'
LOL LOL LOL
First of all you haven't answered my query of how anything can be true of God analogically if God is Supra rational and if analogies in order to retain their force must correspond to some rational point of contact between the two thing that are being spoken of analogously.
Second, I'm willing to bet my last Bobby Bonds Baseball card that your notion of Faith is completely imbued with existential categories. In short your faith more likely than not is not biblical faith but more accurately is faith in faith. I mean how could it be faith classically understood? If God does not conform to our rationality and if God is supra-rational then you can't have faith in God because God is beyond your ratiocinations and so all that is left having faith in your faith. LOL LOL LOL
You've got me in stiches Dr. Schenk.
This is the comedy show that never ends
Yes it goes on and on my friends
Dr. Kant started it long ago
And where it stops nobody knows...
Wait though ...
Dr. Schenk isn't done yet...
First, lets lay some ground rule Ken.
I never said that God was comprehensible... I said he was understandable. Look up the difference.
Second, your arguments regarding God are petitio principi. You are doing just what I've been accusing you from the start. You are assuming your position to prove your position. Next, you will have to show from Scripture that God is the way that you suggest He is. Where does Scripture teach that God is supra-rational, doesn't conform to our rationality, and is 'smart enough to create the possibility for a person to make a free choice while He knows what that choice will be beforehand and He won't gain knowledge when you make that choice.' LOL ... my sides are hurting already.
Of course with all of this neo-orthodox hooey what is done is Scripture is made to stand on its ear. Scripture clearly reveals that God is absolutely sovereign and yet in your recent sophisticated opinion you have contrived to make a God sovereign enough to not be sovereign. Scripture clearly reveals that God has made Himself rationally known.
Now, it is telling that you would consider Open Theism more biblical then Calvinism. That tells us a great deal indeed.
And now the piece de resistance
No, I do not get that there is a rationality inside this world that does not correspond to God's rationality. In creating this creator creature chasm you have lost,
1.) The ability for their to be any rationality in this world that isn't either individually or culturally relative. You have lost the ability to say 'thus saith the Lord' because ... shoot bang, the Lord being beyond our rationality may not be saying that at all.
2.) A God who can communicate with His people. The Bible neither is the word of God nor contains the word of God in this arrangement because any conclusions that are gained from the scripture don't necessarily correspond to a God that is logical enough to be illogical.
3.) The ability to distinguish between God and the devil. Who knows Ken ... when Scripture teaches that God is 'good' it may really mean that God is the 'devil' since God is supra-rational. It may also mean dsoif23 4eo8=vc 6t4..;40
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moelkvbli
glub glub,
OAW
There you go again Professor,
First, when it comes to predestination all Calvinist agree with Piper, as I revealed to you from the last Calvin quote which you seemingly are defiantly ignoring.
In his famous book, Human Nature in Its Fourfold State, the Scottish Puritan, Thomas Boston (1676–1732) tells us that the four states of human nature are: (a) Primitive Integrity; (b) Entire Depravity; (c) Begun Recovery; and (d) Consummate Happiness or Misery.
These four states, which are derived from the Scripture, correspond to the four states of man in relation to sin enumerated by Augustine of Hippo: (a) able to sin, able not to sin (posse peccare, posse non peccare); (b) not able not to sin (non posse non peccare); (c) able not to sin (posse non peccare); and (d) unable to sin (non posse peccare). The first state corresponds to the state of man in innocency, before the Fall; the second the state of the natural man after the Fall; the third the state of the regenerate man; and the fourth the glorified man.
I have given you direct quotes that firmly establish you don't know what you're talking about and you say that nothing that I've said convinces you that you are wrong regarding Calvin? Maybe there is a Arminian gene just like they are saying there is a gene for homosexuality.
Finally, you just keep me laughing by your appealing to Scripture as if by doing so you have circumvented Theology.
But you go right ahead and live in that world.
OAW
Stop pushing me toward postmodern despair ;-) You're laughing at my thoughts; I'm laughing at your style and colorful rhetoric. I have a friend at another institution who would scold me, "Ken, I told you the human brain makes all this stuff up. You and OAW will never arrive at truth--you both prove there is no truth."
You'll be glad to know I've chosen not to give up on the notion of truth yet.
BUT... you do remind me of a Deep Thought by Jack Handy, "It seemed to me that, somehow, the blue jay was trying to communicate with me. I would see him fly into the house across the way, pick up the telephone and dial. My phone would ring, and it would be him, but it was just this squawking and cheeping, 'What?! What?!' I would yell back, but he never did speak English."
;-)
The fact that you haven't given up on the notion of truth proves that you are a walking contradiction.
It certainly doesn't prove that you have anything to say that is worth listening to.
I hope people realize that all of this hasn't really been about Arminianism. vs. Calvinism. I am confident that were James Arminius alive or even Wesley that both of them would have the heaves over the 'Christianity' that Ken is teaching.
What Ken is pushing is neither Arminianism nor Calvinism but something of a much more recent vintage. What is sad is that a kind of Arminianism that probably needs to be recovered so that all those Pelagian churches out there might move down the Bounds scale remains languishing.
OAW
"a particular significant aspect of intellectual pride is the inability of the agent to recognize the same or similar limitations of perspective in himself which he has detected in others."
Reinhold Niebuhr 'The Nature and Destiny of Man' p.196.
that may be a helpful quote in this discussion. while i would never want to intimate these Biblical/theological discussions are unimportant, it may be helpful to recall 1 Cor. 13 - not the love talk, but the giving up of childish things (or in this case "rhetoric")
let us be careful...
oops, the PC nice police have showed up.
Time to bug out.
You know, it is always amazing to me that men will go all aghast at a little rhetoric but will stand by while truth is on the scaffold ringing their hands over whether or not such treatment is proper.
Ken is thumping for something that isn't Christianity -- not even good Arminianism -- and the best that he or anonymous can do is go all nice police?
Give me a Miley or Wiley anytime over this stuff.
OAW
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