Omniscience means fatalism.
- Thread starter Stripe
- Start date
Excellent post, Glorydaz
From the looks of your 'Rep-power,' it appears NOBODY cares about your opinions. :rotfl::loser:
:baby::kookoo::doh:
I have my own 'Prayer list' memorized. So, thanks anyway. Prayer is a personal thing, don't you think? You can pray for whoever/whatever and I'll do likewise. How's that?
Originality? I don't think so. :rotfl::kookoo:
George Affleck
TOL Subscriber
I favour faith as the intended 'gift'; partly because of verse 5 which already states that being saved is by grace. I think that when Paul then introduces faith, he identifies it as a gift. It is, grammatically, the closest antecedent in the sentence.
Not quite sure what you mean about Paul's use of the neuter. δῶρον is always neuter.
I understand grace to be a way in which God treats us, and faith a possession which we individually receive; a substance of spiritual value not present before salvation.
Y'all sound like you're from the same kingdom hall.
You deny the sovereignty of God. You deny His authority over all creation. At present there is no evidence you are alive in Christ. Shall I pleasantly declare you a heretic?
Someday your 'name calling, etc,' is gonna come back on ya. You're just on TOL to cause disruption and name call. :chuckle:
Ask Mr. Religion
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In the final analysis, there is not a single person, despite their lack of knowledge of history of the church, that cannot avoid assignment of label containing some collection of beliefs. This has nothing to do with denominations. Just because a person's set of beliefs align well or somewhat with a denomination does not mean denominationalism is suddenly a bad thing.
Scripture teaches us to seek the like-minded for that which we hold dear. Can two walk together if they are not in agreement? Of course not. Non-denominational church is actually a label, a denomination known as non-denomination. It is inescapable logic.
If you assemble in home or wherever, you are a group. Denomination implies groupings. Why, we might even say the denomination in this situation is "home church". We can then begin to separate out from this over-arching denomination, sub-categories depending upon the collective belief systems in the individual home church groups. And so on.
There is no doubt or argument from me that the current home church activities are in response to many and various problems within the church militant, coupled with individualism. We just need to avoid a throwing the baby out with the bathwater approach. A recommended read on the matter:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000SF9Z8A/
Also, consider:
http://www.disciplecenter.com/html/Problems_of_Nondenominationalism.pdf
AMR
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You are caviling against shadows. Who herein is advocating anything to the contrary? :idunno:
AMR
Ask Mr. Religion
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In Greek, events as a whole are treated as neuter singular things with neuter articles, (e.g., to pisteuein, "believing"), neuter relative pronouns (e.g., Eph 5:5), or neuter demonstrative pronouns, as in v8b (also, for example, 6:1; 1 Cor 6:6,8; Phil 1:22,28; Col 3:20; 1 Thes 5:18; 1 Tim 2:1-3). Hence, the antecedent of touto is the whole event: "being saved by grace through faith".
One implication of this proper understanding of touto is that all the components of the event are also referenced as originating not from human capacity or exertion but as God's gift. This means that even the believer's act of believing comes from God, as is said more explicitly by Paul elsewhere: "For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him…" (Phil 1:29).
This is part of the evidence of Protestantism's historic position that salvation is sola gratia and sola fide. Humans contribute nothing of their own to this salvation, since even believing (which the elect are indeed enabled to do) is a divine gift (cf. Rom 3:24-25). In the context of Eph 2:8, the key to this is what Paul had been driving home so forcefully up until now: Before God's gracious intervention, believers were hopelessly dead, with their wills imprisoned by nature in acts that led only to transgression and sin (2:1-5a,12).
So the gift in the second clause refers, via touto, to "For by grace you have been saved through faith." So God's gift is salvation by grace through faith. Faith is included in the gift. Faith isn't something by which Christians receive the gift, but a part of God's gracious saving endowment.
AMR
If you think that fool came up with Calvinism independently, than you are the one that is deluded.
He flat out lied - period. That makes him an irredeemable waste of time to discuss theology with and therefore a permanent resident on my ignore list.
There's not a single Calvinist on this website that knows how to debate honestly. AMR, believe it or not, comes closer than anyone here, by far, and even he intentional redefines the meaning of common English words to the point that his doctrine is rationally unfalsifiable. He also routinely and intentionally misrepresents what others have said in order to score points mostly with those who already agree with him. In effect, he's a liar like the rest of them. He believes what he wants to believe and brings those beliefs to the Bible and twists whatever he has to twist in order to keep it all from crumbling to powder under the weight of the the simple idea that God is just. And he's the best Calvin's got on TOL and has been for years!
Pathetic and boring!
Clete
Rosenritter
New member
I will gladly accept the label of "Christian" but most other labels usually come with some assumptions and/or baggage that may provide an inaccurate impression. If the legitimate use of labels is for accuracy and communication then it may be better to dispense with them all together and recognize each other first and foremost as Christians, by the Holy Spirit and our fruits, and to proceed forward from that foundation.
Let's take a recent example in the Open Theism board. Although I tried to adopt the "Open Theist" label, Lon says that as we were explaining (several of us) it didn't sound like other Open Theists he had talked to previously. As such, if labels tempt us to judge without hearing then maybe we should try to avoid them whenever possible.
Rosenritter
New member
I did look inside those spoiler tags... if you don't mind me asking, do you pray for your enemies? Or perhaps my question is more of "How would you pray for your enemies?"
Rosenritter
New member
I don't think anyone comes up with Calvinism from reading scripture by themselves. Such requires some preconceived ideas and/or assumptions that go way back to Greek philosophy, which influenced writers like Augustine and Calvin.
At one time I didn't know what Calvinism was (I used to think "Reformed" meant "constantly reforming from scripture" rather than a "tradition") but it was not something I could have imagined and certainly not anything close to what I had ever read from scripture. I actually became physically sick for several days after specifically studying Calvinism to the degree that it finally "sunk in." Sick enough to not be able to finish a letter to a friend until after recovery... (I was trying to relate what I had read.)
But as for Mennosota I think he actually might delude himself into thinking that he came up with these ideas independently. He might be lying intentionally, but sometimes you are forced to grant benefit of doubt.
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Derf
Well-known member
Heh.
Why not take the time to write down your prayers in detail and examine them?
I would like to see the prayers of the anti-Calvinists on all various and sundry things. Each and every one of them. I suspect that if one would actually take the effort to provide a private record of one's prayers, one would find much of what has been claimed in the articles you readily assume are but straw men. After all lex orandi lex credendi.
While I haven't written them down, I have done this exercise mentally, and continue to do so. This open theism thing is fairly new for me, and I'm still trying to see how it works with scripture. I've been a little disappointed with the arguments against it--they are limited to scriptures that are extrapolated beyond the context (in most, if not all, cases), anthropomorphism (haphazardly applied), as well as emotional arguments about how comfortable someone would feel with the open-theist's idea of God. So far, OT works better in more places than traditional theism
What I've found is that I tend to pray in terms that are familiar and ingrained, but that don't necessarily fit with an open theistic viewpoint. I caught myself doing so yesterday, in fact. But the distinctions I think are more noticeable are not the ones that focus on freewill (ala http://notatthedinnertable.weebly.com/christianity-applied/everyone-is-a-calvinist-when-they-pray), but on the ones that focus on time (which is more the subject of this thread) and what God knows of the future. However, there are certainly valid prayers for dealing with salvation, including God's bringing others to witness to or otherwise influence someone toward salvation, as well as convicting of sin. Surely if He can turn a king's heart wherever He wishes, He can bring someone to the point of seeing their need for salvation.
The reason the freewill part doesn't bother me is that what I feel Christ is looking for is that someone submits their will to Him, as lord and master. Maybe that's a bit counter-intuitive, but I really think the kingdom of God is one where the king actually makes the rules and the subjects are actually expected to follow them. And if we can't get used to that idea here on earth, perhaps we aren't fit for His kingdom.
On the other hand, it's quite easy to show that NOBODY is a Calvinist on their knees, because they actually pray ("make a request") to God. And especially in the senses caricatured by the article, a Calvinist would be praying for someone's soul, which result was already predetermined before the foundation of the world. Thus, either the Calvinist is expecting God to hear to future prayer and change the final outcome (which is Arminian), or to actually affect the end result real time (which is Open Theistic). Does the prayer change the person praying, which is the normal Calvinist response for why we pray? No, because that person's character, desires, motivations, etc. were determined before the foundation of the world, too. But if they were changed as a result of the prayer, then the expectation thereof is non-Calvinist.
It was made easier by two things:
1. That the freewill-focused prayers of the article were obviously contrived to accentuate the ridiculous, as well as to associate the opponent with pharisaism.
2. That my comment was readily available from the article's comments, which pointed out the fallaciousness of the article. As one that makes copious use of other sources, you should appreciate my reference to both your source and its counter in a single sentence. (not to mention the obvious pleasure you should gain from knowing that someone had actually read your entire reference article, even down to the comments
)I was going to spend the time to point out the strawmen in the article, but I don't really think it's necessary-just reading the article suffices.
Rosenritter
New member
I believe that is exactly what Christ desires, is that we will lay down our lives, take up his cross, and follow him. He could raise up rocks and force them to sing praises. But if he must force us to do what he desires (or wills) then we would be the fitting image of the unprofitable servant.
Rosenritter
New member
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Can you honestly say that you have never redefined an English word to suit your own doctrinal understanding? Is it possible that you may have done so in the past (or even currently) without realizing what you are doing? Perhaps even such a common word like "destroy" or "death" or "life" to instead mean "preserve" or "torment" or "happiness?" That may be another discussion, but I think that we may be better served by softening our tendency to judge and quickening our spirit to graciousness.
I don't think ANYONE could come up with Calvinism independently. I don't even think that Calvin himself came up with it independently. He certainly did NOT come up with it by reading the Bible, that much is completely certain. As you rightly point out, the doctrines are at least as old as Aristotle. They found their way into Christianity via Augustine who, it could be argued, is the one most responsible for the doctrines as they currently exist. Calvin did little more than formalize the doctrine of others like Luther who had no quarrel with the Catholic Theology Proper and their understanding of things like predestination and the immutability of God. What Luther kicked off, Calvin formalized into a cohesive doctrinal system but the doctrines where not, for the most part, original to him. The system simply carries his name because he's the one that formalized the system.
As for giving him the benefit of the doubt, I have no doubt with which to benefit him. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind at all that he just flat out lied. The alternative is that his mind is simply broken and he doesn't know what he is saying. There is, however, no evidence in his other posts to suggest that he is either insane or stupid to this degree.
Clete