BATTLE TALK ~ BRX (rounds 1 thru 3)

[Clete]

I take it your against women pastors?

You would be right, at least as a general rule.
If there is a woman in leadership, it's because the men she is leading have disregarded their responsibilities. I have less problem with women leaders than I have with lazy men.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[kmoney]

You would be right, at least as a general rule.
If there is a woman in leadership, it's because the men she is leading have disregarded their responsibilities. I have less problem with women leaders than I have with lazy men.

Resting in Him,
Clete

disagree, but ok....

 

[CRASH]

Be wise, Fool

Be wise, Fool

1 Corinthians:3,18

Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise.

The "foolish" in your verse is the man who has humbled himself before his Creator God and sought His wisdom. But you are an "atheist fool" - the proud rejecter of the evidence for God that is all around you, slapping you in the face every day. Search out the evidence of the resurrection, and follow Jesus so you can really be wise!

 

[titan]

Titan: In a nutshell, what are the distinctions between foreknowledge and predestination? What, if any, are their similarities/relationships?

It seems to me that the things God predestines (e.g. first/second coming of Messiah) are foreknown. The things that He does not predestine (e.g. what I will eat next year) are not foreknown.

There is a conceptual distinction. Whether or not there is an actual distinction is the big question.

Conceptually, one can talk about a later event causing a previous event, but this has never been observed and it is unclear how one could observe such a thing. Consider every time travel story you have ever read as examples of the concept. One way of looking at this when dealing with intelligent agents, is to decide who willed an act. The Arminian notion is that you choose to perform an act, and then that choice results in God's foreknowledge of the choice. The cause is the choice. The effect is God's knowledge. The time order is reversed. Predestination preserves the normal time order of cause and effect, but then it is God who wills your choice. Your apparent choice is actually the result of God's design.

I will admit I have never seen an effect occur before its cause, but I have never observed anyone walk on water either. Cause prior to effect is a problem of definition. This usual scientific definition implies that the cause came first. However when dealing with the purposeful actions of intelligent agents one defines cause as a matter of will rather than timing. Will is an ill-defined term scientifically speaking anyway. An act of will is neither a random occurrence nor a deterministic result of previous inputs. It is something else. One's will is an independent variable within oneself .

It may be that even in matters of will effect always follows cause. If this is so then exhaustive foreknowledge and freewill are mutually exclusive, but one cannot merely assume this to be true or state one has never observed it to be violated and expect to win the argument.

It is much like the Trinity. From scripture we get
1) God is one. 2) Each person of the trinity is God. 3) The persons are distinct.
To reconcile these seemingly contrary statements one postulates the Trinity.

Likewise from scripture the Arminian gets:

1) God knows all human choices beforehand. 2) All human choices are free.
3) God does not cause evil.

One may argue these points as Bob and Sam are doing. However, the Arminian is
convinced of all three. To hold them all he needs to posit that cause can follow effect.

I, myself, am unconvinced of 1 and 2. I believe one can replace "all" in both statements with "some" and then obtain them from scripture, however. This leaves me unsure in the answer to Arminian vs. OV, but I uphold 3 and reject Calvinism.

Titan.

 

[godrulz]

Context? :think:
Historical background? :think:
You mean it's subjective? :shocked:
You mean that it could mean different things depending on time-place?:shocked:
What are we gonna do?

Faire attention:

The meaning to the original audience is not subjective. There is one objective interpretation of any passage. What did it mean to them?

The next step is more subjective. What does it mean to us in our culture? There may be more than one application based on the objective principles.

The literal, grammatical, contextual, historical approach avoids the subjective trap of the allegorical method.

Truth is knowable. Get with the program and start thinking instead of scoffing.

 

[godrulz]

The Arminian points beg the question/circular reasoning...they assume what they try to prove...God knows all things is an assumption, not a fact (according to this debate).

Cause-effect is more appropriate for inanimate creation. The law of instinct applies to animate creation. Moral creation, such as man (free moral agent) is governed by the law of love and freedom. The will is the source of creative choices. I would avoid cause-effect terminology unless I was talking about rocks falling off cliffs.

 

[titan]

The Arminian points beg the question/circular reasoning...they assume what they try to prove...God knows all things is an assumption, not a fact (according to this debate).

Cause-effect is more appropriate for inanimate creation. The law of instinct applies to animate creation. Moral creation, such as man (free moral agent) is governed by the law of love and freedom. The will is the source of creative choices. I would avoid cause-effect terminology unless I was talking about rocks falling off cliffs.

Indeed whether or not God knows all things is being debated here, but that is an ill-defined concept. Please specify what is meant by "all things". I think the crux of the debate is does God know the outcome of man's free will choices beforehand. Sam's example of Peter's denial is the best scriptural approach to this question I have seen thus far in the battle.

As for the rest, you asked me what distinction I drew and I told you. I realize it was tangential. As a mathematician, cause and effect are more familiar terms for me in logical argument. If you prefer other terms, please fell free to replace them so long as the definitions remain the same. A rose by any other name ....

Titan

 

[godrulz]

God knows all that is knowable. The question is if all of the future is known as certain/actual before it happens, or is it known as possible/probable until the potential future becomes the fixed past through the present?

Is freedom genuine or illusory? Are contingencies part of the created order, or does determinism/fatalism rule the day?

 

[titan]

God knows all that is knowable. The question is if all of the future is known as certain/actual before it happens, or is it known as possible/probable until the potential future becomes the fixed past through the present?

Is freedom genuine or illusory? Are contingencies part of the created order, or does determinism/fatalism rule the day?

The answer to question 1 is I don't know.
The answer to question 2 is genuine.
Question 3 is unaswerable as it assumes facts not in evidence. The two choices are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Titan

 

[Yorzhik]

Faire attention:

The meaning to the original audience is not subjective. There is one objective interpretation of any passage. What did it mean to them?

The next step is more subjective. What does it mean to us in our culture? There may be more than one application based on the objective principles.

The literal, grammatical, contextual, historical approach avoids the subjective trap of the allegorical method.

Truth is knowable. Get with the program and start thinking instead of scoffing.

[Soup Nazi accent]Rep points for you![/Soup Nazi accent]

Fool, it's just that simple.

 

[titan]

God knows all that is knowable. The question is if all of the future is known as certain/actual before it happens, or is it known as possible/probable until the potential future becomes the fixed past through the present?

Is freedom genuine or illusory? Are contingencies part of the created order, or does determinism/fatalism rule the day?

I may have been a bit too hasty in my answer to question 3. If you did not mean to imply any temporal ordering in the use of the term contingencies, I might answer

"Contingencies are part of the created order."

However, do you mean to imply contingencies have some existence outside of the subjective experience of the one who makes the choice?

Titan

 

[Clete]

Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise.

The "foolish" in your verse is the man who has humbled himself before his Creator God and sought His wisdom. But you are an "atheist fool" - the proud rejecter of the evidence for God that is all around you, slapping you in the face every day. Search out the evidence of the resurrection, and follow Jesus so you can really be wise!

Actually, a lack of evidence is not fool's problem but an over abundence of pride. The atheist doesn't even have the tools needed to evaluate evidence in the first place because without God their thinking is debased. They have no foundation upon which to build even the simplest of rational world views. Logic itself doesn't work without God because unless you begin with God, logic will inevitably end with question begging/circular reasoning which is, of course, irrational.
What fool needs, isn't evidence; there's plenty of that right at the tip of his nose. What he needs is faith.

Heb. 11: 1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, [and] the evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.
3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.​

 

[Delmar]

2nd half of round 2 coming in just a few hours. I am so jazzed.

 

[CRASH]

Amen

Amen

Actually, a lack of evidence is not fool's problem but an over abundence of pride. The atheist doesn't even have the tools needed to evaluate evidence in the first place because without God their thinking is debased. They have no foundation upon which to build even the simplest of rational world views. Logic itself doesn't work without God because unless you begin with God, logic will inevitably end with question begging/circular reasoning which is, of course, irrational.
What fool needs, isn't evidence; there's plenty of that right at the tip of his nose. What he needs is faith.

Heb. 11: 1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, [and] the evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.

3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
​

It's all a given, how could I disagree? Fool should base his Faith on the evidence slapping him in the face every day for the Creator God instead of his own broken thinking, eh?

 

[CRASH]

Jeeeez, less than an hour left! Where is Bob? Did he fall asleep at the computer? Wake him up and help him push "Reply!"

 

[godrulz]

The answer to question 1 is I don't know.
The answer to question 2 is genuine.
Question 3 is unaswerable as it assumes facts not in evidence. The two choices are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Titan

Free will/contingencies is self-evident. This leads to implications about how the future is known. Can you chose between chocolate or vanilla ice cream?

"If an act be free, it must be contingent. If contingent, it may or may not happen, or it may be one of many possibles. And if it may be one of many possibles, it must be uncertain; and if uncertain, it must be unknowable."

Though this debate has many technical (logical/philosophical) issues, why complicate a simple matter? Clinging to traditional, preconceived ideas, at all costs, is not defensible.

 

[taoist]

Actually, a lack of evidence is not fool's problem but an over abundence of pride. The atheist doesn't even have the tools needed to evaluate evidence in the first place because without God their thinking is debased. They have no foundation upon which to build even the simplest of rational world views. Logic itself doesn't work without God because unless you begin with God, logic will inevitably end with question begging/circular reasoning which is, of course, irrational.
What fool needs, isn't evidence; there's plenty of that right at the tip of his nose. What he needs is faith.

Heb. 11: 1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, [and] the evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.
3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.​

Greetings again, Clete,

Please allow me to guess your meaning. "The atheist doesn't even have the tools needed to evaluate evidence [of God] in the first place ..." (The final clause in that sentence is supported only by religious bigotry.) This is a discussion of the defining attributes of your god; I'll try to keep that in mind. My natural tendency is to treat this more generally as an exercise in analysis.

While trying mightily to quash my natural disdain for Paul, I'll ask how you interpret faith as substance. That phrase makes no sense to me. To be charitable, perhaps its garbled in translation. My first thought is that it's yet another example of how meaning in-the-pews involves an agreement among the members substantially separate from that available through standard dictionary reference.

I can only assume the rest of your posting derives from the same "intrinsic" sources. Verse 3 of your citation seems to support me in this.

"[Atheists] have no foundation upon which to build even the simplest of rational world views."

The standard foundation of a rational world view is observation, and by that, I expressly do not mean observation of "things unseen." Nor is there reason to believe that religious faith is inherently rational. Few theologians remain in support of Natural Theology which has long since passed its heyday.

"Logic itself doesn't work without God because unless you begin with God, logic will inevitably end with question begging/circular reasoning which is, of course, irrational."

Logic begins with god? This is fatuous. Every form of logical analysis and proving system known to the mathematical texts of humanity has been written by humans. In order to accept this thesis, it would be necessary to entirely discard all work in logic.

In fact, the different logics begin with the axioms of their associated proving systems as developed by universal algebraists.

In peace, Jesse

 

[elected4ever]

Again Bob makes a fatal error as do most OTs. God's foreknowledge does not prevent man's free choice. From the very beginning God knew ever choice man would make and God knew every response He would make. If believing that makes me a Calvinist then I will just have to be one. When I was saved I did not know that I would be saved before I was saved and nether did you. Nothing I have ever done in my life or nothing you have done in your life has surprised God. God does not respond according to mans goodness or badness but according to his character. In short man has no control over God at all. No created thing can derail God's plan that has been set from the foundation of the world. This debate has firmed my belief. I did not know what I was before and was willing to accept other points of view.and even articulated them at times. So Godrulz was right. I am a Calvinist theologically.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Again Bob makes a fatal error as do most OTs. God's foreknowledge does not prevent man's free choice. From the very beginning God knew ever choice man would make and God knew every response He would make. If believing that makes me a Calvinist then I will just have to be one. When I was saved I did not know that I would be saved before I was saved and nether did you. Nothing I have ever done in my life or nothing you have done in your life has surprised God. God does not respond according to mans goodness or badness but according to his character. In short man has no control over God at all. No created thing can derail God's plan that has been set from the foundation of the world. This debate has firmed my belief. I did not know what I was before and was willing to accept other points of view.and even articulated them at times. So Godrulz was right. I am a Calvinist theologically.

In other words.... [Groucho Marx Voice] whatever it is . . . I am against it! [/Groucho Marx Voice]

Does it hurt to consider you might be wrong?

 

[elected4ever]

Greetings again, Clete,

Please allow me to guess your meaning. "The atheist doesn't even have the tools needed to evaluate evidence [of God] in the first place ..." (The final clause in that sentence is supported only by religious bigotry.) This is a discussion of the defining attributes of your god; I'll try to keep that in mind. My natural tendency is to treat this more generally as an exercise in analysis.

While trying mightily to quash my natural disdain for Paul, I'll ask how you interpret faith as substance. That phrase makes no sense to me. To be charitable, perhaps its garbled in translation. My first thought is that it's yet another example of how meaning in-the-pews involves an agreement among the members substantially separate from that available through standard dictionary reference.

I can only assume the rest of your posting derives from the same "intrinsic" sources. Verse 3 of your citation seems to support me in this.

"[Atheists] have no foundation upon which to build even the simplest of rational world views."

The standard foundation of a rational world view is observation, and by that, I expressly do not mean observation of "things unseen." Nor is there reason to believe that religious faith is inherently rational. Few theologians remain in support of Natural Theology which has long since passed its heyday.

"Logic itself doesn't work without God because unless you begin with God, logic will inevitably end with question begging/circular reasoning which is, of course, irrational."

Logic begins with god? This is fatuous. Every form of logical analysis and proving system known to the mathematical texts of humanity has been written by humans. In order to accept this thesis, it would be necessary to entirely discard all work in logic.

In fact, the different logics begin with the axioms of their associated proving systems as developed by universal algebraists.

In peace, Jesse

Contengencies only apply in man's world view.