"Arminian", got it.
You can proof text all you want, "everything everything everything comes 'from' Him" is NOT Christian doctrine in any way, shape, manner or form. The more we talk, the more meaningless platitudes your spew forth and I mean that literally. You've turned the doctrine of immutability into meaningless double talk. God is either immutable or He can change. You can try to eat your cake and have it too but you will fail.
This, I believe, was a lie on your part. Either that or you didn't bother to probe these "theists" you've supposedly talked to. I've debated dozens on Calvinist and I've never met one who would admit that the incarnation was any sort of change whatsoever. Calvinists in particular are good at double talk and compartmentalizing contradictory doctrines away from each other. They will use the right words that make it sound like they believe what they should believe but when pressed, their allegiance is not to the truth of scripture but to Plato. I'm very strongly beginning to suspect that the same is true of you.
The scriptures say nothing about God being immutable nor does it even hint at the idea of God existing outside of time. If Augustine hadn't imported his beliefs from Plato into the church, you would count it as the outright heresy that it is.
Virtually all Calvinists and almost as many Arminians believe that God is utterly immutable. If you think otherwise, you're asking the wrong questions. Try to get one of them to deny the doctrine. You won't succeed.
Meaningless nonsensical slobber mouthed stupidity!
I'm not kidding, Lon! I mean really!? How many twisted intellectual knots based on the loosest possible connection are you willing to twist yourself into in order to salvage a doctrine that there is no need to believe?
This is the argument that you must over come and that you will make no attempt to even address...
If God can become then He is a contingent being with potential. If He is contingent then He is NOT immutable - BY DEFINITION.
A "by definition" argument is a formal and entirely valid rational argument. This is not my opinion, this is not "my understanding" this has nothing to do "my mind" or "my ability to think" or "my physical brain" or anything else that has to do with me. Objective facts are real, Lon. Words mean things, they are connected to actual concepts with actual meanings. You don't get to ignore reality. You can bury your head in the sand but that doesn't make the sky disappear.
Why is the Trinity always what people run to when they want to justify accepting unbiblical, self-contradictory, pagan Greek philosophical ideas about what God is supposed to be?
Just what is it about the Trinity that you think is contradictory?
No, it doesn't! It does the opposite!
God is real, Lon. This pagan god that Augustine introduced into the church does not exist. Believing that God won't change His mind is not at all the same as believing the God CANNOT change His mind, which is precisely what Calvinism (and all forms of Augustinianism) teaches. That isn't trust and it certainly isn't faith. I do NOT "trust" in God because He's incapable of changing His mind. On the contrary, I trust God because He is worthy of my trust because He has always been righteous and just. A person, whether that person happens to be God or not, who cannot choose, cannot be righteous in the first place - again - by definition.
Yeah, why worry about a doctrine that destroys the meaning of the words "justice", "righteousness", "love", "hope", "faith" and probably half a dozen other words that are central to the whole idea of Christianity?
You are indeed are veritable fount of nonsensical sentences that I can make neither heads nor tails of.
It's not complicated. Existence implies duration. Duration IS time. Therefore, timeless existence is a contradiction and does not exist.
How is it even possible to utter the sentence "there is no change, just a repeated turning of a spindle constantly" without instantly stopping yourself and saying "Wait a minute, what the Hell am I saying?"
Incidentally, your nonsensical understanding about all this "Being that all else eminates from" contradicts the idea that God is immutable. Again, the whole contingency thing is a problem for you. In other words, "eminates from" implies not only change but that God is a contingent being with potentiality.
Both the premise and the conclusion are false.
I reject the premise as false and even it it weren't, the conclusion does not follow anyway.
God is not, I repeat GOD IS NOT the source of sin as your wacky unbiblical doctrine would suggest and God tells us more than once in His word that He doesn't know everything.
I think God has great potential! God's best days are definitely ahead of Him and always will be. And oh yes I do indeed follow! Do you?
AMR and now you are arguing that "cannot" is somehow morally superior to "will not".
Do you think the same even about your own children? Is it acceptable to you for a child to "obey" because the parent has made it so that the child cannot do otherwise? Which is better, the obedient child who doesn't run away from his parents because he has been lovingly trained and disciplined to remain by his parent's side or the child who doesn't run away from his parents because they have him tied to a leash?
Which is better, Lon? The man who cannot perform an evil act or the man who won't perform an evil act?
"Immutable character" - yes but the doctrine of immutability does not limit the changelessness of God to His characters. In fact, proponents of the doctrine of immutability would object to the notion of God's character being discussed as though it were a part of God. As though God's character can't change but that He can change in other ways. Such an idea would be to deny God's "simplicity" which is the idea that God does not have parts and that, therefore, distinctions between an entity's essential and intrinsic accidental properties cannot apply to God. A being with parts, they say, would be a being that is necessarily contingent and therefore not immutable.
It's not hard to think about, Lon, it's impossible to think about. It's a meaningless palatitude that doesn't make any sense.
Then you reject immutability, by definition.
Look, you don't get to pick and choose what is and is not contradictory. Reality is not optional nor is it voluntary. In a while you're going to quote a verse about not leaning on your own understanding. That's exactly what you are doing here. There is no testing of your thoughts against the weight of sound reason to see if your understanding is correct, you just believe it and don't give a damn whether it makes sense. In fact, worse than that, you seem to be suggesting that we should expect the truth about God to not make sense to us because of our broken human brains or something. It is precisely this sort of nonsense that God warns against and tells us instead to "come let us REASON together." Just the very thing you're trying to convince me that we broken humans are incapable of.
And as Augustine thought and as all Augustinian monks thought (think) and therefore what Luther thought and what Calvin canonized in "Confessions" and thus what every single solitary Calvinists I've ever met believes to this day.
Yes you have. The likelihood is that you've never met one who didn't believe it, you just allow their double talk to deceive you. Press them, you'll see.
Yep!
Not the least of which is the idiotic idea that the God who lives, and was dead, and behold, is alive forevermore cannot change! (Rev. 1:18)
No!
It is you who are leaning on your own understanding, Lon, not the one who uses sound reason to weed out mistakes, errors and omissions in his worldview.
How is it even possible to tell someone not to trust their own mind? Seriously, Lon! Think that through. If a person cannot trust their own mind, by what means are you going to communicate that fact to them? Are you going to speak to them? Is not their mind engaged in the understanding of speech? Are you going to write it in a book? Is not their mind engaged in reading? How would this person get the message without using their mind to do it and if they are forced to use an untrustworthy mind then by what means are they to verify the truth of the message, "Your mind cannot be trusted!"?
God telling us to not lean on our own understanding is not Him telling us to turn off out brains and to accept irrational stupidity as truth! Blind belief is NOT faith, it is not piety and it is not even right! It's stupidity!
No one has suggested otherwise but you are going further than merely saying that there are limits, you are saying that it is broken and cannot be trusted, that reason doesn't work.
My question to you is this...
How do you know that?
Humbling ourselves does not equate to assuming that we cannot think clearly and distinguish the truth from a lie or reality from fantasy.
I am constantly amazed by your compulsion to contradict yourself.
You say your uncle "had no ability to reason or rationalize". (by the way "rationalization" has very little to do with sound reason - they are sort of opposites really but I get your drift) and then in the VERY NEXT SENTENCE you say that he asked you to pray for him.
HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?
Not how it is possible that he asked you to pray, how is it possible that anyone with a mind can contradict themselves so completely and so instantaneously without even noticing that they've done it!?
If your uncle could speak, he could think. He may not have been able to do it well but where there is meaningful communication there is reason. The latter is a prerequisite of the former.
Right! Then by what means did you uncle who couldn't reason, ask you to pray?
That does NOT matter!
The use of reason does not guarantee the right answer because one can make an error at any point of their thought process but that isn't the fault of reason! That is not a short coming of rational thought nor is it any indication that reason doesn't work or that our brains are broken or otherwise incapable of thinking properly. On the contrary, the same reason you employed to reach an erroneous conclusion is the very same reason that gives you the means to detect the error and correct it! This is what God is talking about when He tells us not to lean on our own understanding! The idea is that we ought not relax, thinking you've got it all figured out. The idea isn't to try to get you to stop thinking its just the opposite! Question everything, probe it, test it, see if what you think is true holds up under hard scrutiny. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
What? No you don't! You say things that are contradictory but you have never seen a real contradiction. They cannot exist - by definition.You'll have to break that down for me. I see contradictions all the time.
I'm not saying that contradictions cannot be postulated, stated and even believed but they only exist as ideas, not realities.
Contradictions DO NOT exist. If you think you've found one, check your premises. You'll find that one of them is wrong.
This is a fundamental fact of reality and happens to be one of the very few things that Aristotle wrote down that he was right about when he wrote down the three laws of reason.
The law of identity: That which is, is. A is A.
The law of excluded middle: A truth claim is either true or it is false.*
The law of contradiction: Any two truth claims that contradict cannot both be true.*
*Given a particular context.
You don't get to disagree, Lon!
You couldn't have typed the word "disagree" without having used reason to do it. You cannot acknowledge the Lord with out using reason to do it.
No one has suggested otherwise but merely that you used reason to type that sentence. The very mind that you are telling me cannot be trusted to discover the truth is the very same mind that told you that it was true that "[your] 'ability' isn't the sole arbiter, God is."
No! No! No! No! No!
Don't you get it? Trust and faith happen IN YOUR MIND, Lon! You are your mind! The mind is the common denominator between your soul, spirit and body. Your mind is housed in your brain but it is not your brain. Your mind will survive your physical death and it is what has gone on inside YOUR mind which will determine your eternal destiny (Romans 7:25).
A process that cannot happen without reason.
I've never once asked you to trust me. If there is anyone here doing that it is you! I tell you to prove your doctrine. I tell you to make an argument and not only that but an argument based on objectively sound reason that is based in reality and that can be read, understood and comprehended, analyzed and perhaps rebutted by all who have the skill to read and to understand the English language. If anything I tell you NOT to trust me! It isn't about me at all. It's about the truth. It's about having the guts to see reality for what it is and to conform your mind to it whether you like it or not, whether it "feels" good or not. What you tell people to do is to follow their hearts and to simply believe, which means to stop thinking, shut up and simply accept that the pagan Greeks weren't stupid and that all this stuff was figured out 300 years before Christ was born and if you think the bible says differently then you'd better slow down and accept some meaningless platitude in exchange for clear thinking.
Saying it doesn't make is so, Lon.
You say you believe it logically. Prove it. Make the argument.
Nope! Sound reason is the opposite of delusion.
I know specifically what I believe and much more importantly, I know specifically WHY I believe it and am fully prepared to give a specific defense of it.
That does not mean that everything I believe is correct. Nor does it mean that any argument I ight make is sound but, as I said before, the same reason that was used to formulate my beliefs is the same reason that allows for me to discover and hopefully correct any error. Indeed, if I could ask God any question and get a direct answer, I would ask Him to tell me what I believe that is wrong and why? His answer would be purely logical.
You don't know what it means either, Lon! By your own admission, it cannot be known and you're right, it can't! It can't be known because it is nonsense! It's an utterly meaningless thing to say as I have argued WITHOUT refutation perhaps ten thousand times on this website.
And that's the difference between us, Lon. You state beliefs, I make arguments. You say that Open Theism is illogical but have yet to ever refute a single argument any open theist has ever made in your presence and you likely wouldn't even know where to start if you wanted to try because by your own admission, reason cannot be trusted!
Well then prove it!
That's what we are all here for, Lon! If it is inescapably true then explain to us why it's so inescapable! Make the argument that has as it's INESCAPABLE conclusion something that includes the concept of an "eternal (i.e. outside of time) non-beginning".
That's easy! There's no blockade. Simply make the argument, Lon. Make the argument - I dare you to make the argument - this is me BEGGING you to make the argument!
There can't be an impasse, yet. You've made no argument.
No!
I haven't simply made up my mind, what I've made is argument after argument after argument. For literally decades I've been here making arguments. As rationally sound arguments as I ever seen anyone make in support of anything and neither you nor anyone else has succeeded in hardly even making a substantive response, never mind actually refuting my arguments. The only one who's even challenged me that I can recall was Hilston. How many years ago was that? Ten, fifteen, maybe twenty years ago?
This almost qualified as an argument, Lon!
Here's the rebuttal...
"God always was" is not a statement completely without time. It is the reverse. "Always" is a time word. It has no meaning outside of time. In fact, your sort of pseudo argument commits a stolen concept fallacy because you undermine the concept of time while using terms that presuppose the concept time. As such your statement houses an inherent contradiction and is therefore false.
Then by all means make the argument using that mind of yours along with the logic you say we cannot trust.
Yes! Of course it's new!
Do you actually believe that Adam's DNA, and by extension the DNA of every human being, somehow existed before the creation?
Non-sequitor.
Your use of the term "eternity" implies timelessness and then on the other side of the comma you leap into time with only the comma to bridge the gap.
Don't fret too hard. It turns out that it is impossible to discuss irrational nonsense without contradicting yourself in this manner. That's a major way we can know for certain that it's fantasy.
Now you're getting closer!
God IS NOT timeless. He does NOT exist outside of time because timeless existence is a contradiction. Contradictions are not reality.
Question begging and self-contradictory nonsense that not only doesn't solve the problem it pretends to solve but worse than that it creates a whole new set of problems having to do with all that stuff about contingency and God's "simplicity" that I was talking about before.
Notice that you just had no way of communicating the idea without using that pesky time word "already" (putting it in quotes only means that you detected the contradiction in your own mind while you were writing it). Not only that but "eternity" in your veracular isn't just existence outside of time but outside of space as well. There would be no where from which God could observe "points A and B". In other words, if you want to talk about existence outside of space then to use a term like "from" would be to contradict yourself (another stolen concept fallacy).
Nope. My bible tells me that I will be WITH God and I will know Him as He knows me.
The future DOES NOT exist, Lon. Neither does the past. All that exists does so NOW and only now - including God! The past is gone and future is not yet. God cannot be in a place that does not exist - by definition.
Saying it doesn't make it so.
You learned that by reading. An activity that is performed in the mind. Or else you learned by spoken word, a process that also happens in your mind.
Math is logic. Math is nothing at all by a form of reason. A such, I happen to agree entirely with what you've said here. That is except for your incorrect understanding of what it means for God to be eternal.
Notice all the time words and all the words related to reason and understanding.
Precisely! Except that it means the opposite of what you seem to be implying here.Proverbs 3:5,6
You could not read the sentence, "Lean not on your own understanding..." without using your own understanding to do it. Therefore, it doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. I can't even fathom what it is you think it means. Every possibility would render the whole passage meaningless.
Clete
P.S. I just spent over four hours responding to this post. I won't be doing anything like that again. You can write up anything you want and I'll read it but I'm only going to be picking a very few points to respond to.
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