"Bart Goddard" <goddardb@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:3f451ee4$1_1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
> Matthew Johnson <Matthew_member@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
> news:3f437c5f_1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>>>> We do, of course, but that does not cause it to 'fail'. Omnipotence
>>>> means He _can_ do anything (except, as Thomas Aquinas pointed out,
>>>> achieve contradiction), it does not say He _does_ do everything.
>>>
>>>"Omnipotent" really means "All" powerful, and we take this to
>>>mean that God does "all".
>>
>> Who is 'we'? Some faction of revisionists? Certainly, St. Basil the
>> Great, St. Gregory the Theologian, and St. John of Damascus did _not_
>> take this position.
>
> You're so quick to jump to your authorities, but you read the
> words they say before you think about what the words mean.
> If you already have fixed your own definitions for the words,
> then the meanings of the authorities' words may not be what
> the authorities meant to say. FIRST think about the flexibility
> of the language, THEN read your authorities and see what they
> MIGHT be saying. It'll be a while before it's time to quote
> St. This and St. That.
>
>
>
>> I must point out that you are ignoring the roots of the word
>> "omnipotent". It comes from "omnipotens", not "omnificiens"! That is,
>> it really does mean only _capable_ of doing everything, the word has
>> NO implications of actually _doing_ everything.
>
>
> Not that He does _everything there is to do_, but that He does
> everything there is done.
>
>
>
>>>Without His continual attention, each
>>>particle in the universe would cease to exist.
>>
>> True.
>
> AHA!
>
>
>> But this is quite beside the point. After all, He gives this
>> kind of attention even to Satan to keep him in existence, but this
>> attention does _not_ make Satan do what he does.
>
> But think of the objection we are trying to address. People are
> asking "If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why is there evil"
> or some such. And if God is keeping Satan in existence, while
> Satan is tempting the crap out of me (and succeeding) then He
> is certainly abetting my sin, as much as Aaron holding up Moses'
> hands during the battle. These people are trying to assign
> guilt to God, and we need not to dodge the question by saying
> "God merely allows it to happen" or "While God maintains Satan's
> or the thug's existence while he pummels you senseless, He's not
> responsible, but merely standing by innocently."
>
> A big strong man, especially one we attribute good moral character to,
> who just stands there and "allows" a skinny, little teen-aged punk
> to whack an old lady when he could easily stop it, or worse, if he
> abets the teen-ager by feeding it and clothing it but not disciplining
> it, by no means is looked upon kindly in any of our moral systems.
>
> If God "merely allows" it to happen, we call it a sin of omission.
> If God "maintains Satan's existence", then it's worse and we call it
> aiding and abetting.
>
> The answers usually given to these charges are grossly unsatisfactory.
> Saying that the big strong man gives the teenager his "free-will" to
> do as he pleases, doesn't let the strong man off the hook morally.
> It's part of the problem with any doctrine of "free-will". It says
> that there are a bunch of very powerful bullies in the universe
> running about having their way with some very weak innocents and
> God just let's them do it in the name of "free will". WORSE, He
> set the whole game up that way! He created the bullies AND He created
> the nerds for them to whale on. Now He sits back and passively
> is feels bad for the nerds?
What is it that the man said? A single word will fell thee?
Ah yes! It is from the very book which he said was a "book of straw."
James 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various
trials,
3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let
patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete,
lacking nothing.
Thus your absurd objection has been answered long ago God Himself. God
ALLOWS, yea, even orchestrates, such things you mention, for a good reason
which we puny mortals often do not understand at the time.
Another like proof is:
2 Corinthians 4:17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment,
is
working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,
Of course, such answers avail only for believers. Telling the unbeliever
that God means a thing for good which he sees only as bad doesn't get very
far.
God does not cause sin that good may come, God does not tempt man so that
good may come, but God does orchestrate things so that man freely chooses
to
accomplish His perfect will.
>> On the contrary:
>> precisely because god _is_ omnipotent, unlike us, He is able to create
>> creations with _free will_. This is what He did when He made angels
>> and men.
>
> What hasn't happened here or on previous threads, is for anyone
> to sit back an meditate for a few days on what "free will" really
> means (or can mean.) What's the difference between "free will" and
> just plain "will", for example. What does it mean to make a "choice",
> and what does it look like from a transtem****al point of view?
>
> If one's will is "free", then I guess one can make "choices".
> That means that at one point in time, the choice has not been
> made, but at another point in time, the choice has been made.
> At 5 pm, I don't know whether to have peas or corn. At 6 pm
> I choose peas. At 7 pm, I have finished eating the peas and it
> is too late to change my choice. From an eternal viewpoint,
> God sees the peas from before Creation till after Judgement Day.
> It is a fixed event. There is no way that corn could have been
> the choice. What does "free will" mean in this context? It
> means something, but not what our intution jumps on so quickly.
It means that the one who made the choice was Bart, not God. That God knew
what you were going to choose does not imply that you did not make the
choice. You could have chosen to choose the corn, but had you so chosen
God
would have known in eternity past that that would be your choice.
> Second, what causes my to choose peas?
This is a fundamental problem. From your worldview, SOMEHING MUST MAKE you
chose the peas! Nothing MADE you choose the peas. The decision to choose
the
peas was made by Bart. Other things certainly can influence your choice,
but
you deliberate more or less, and make the choice. The SELF Bart makes the
choice. A man can choose against his preferences, as Paul states in Romans
7. Every instinct of a man may be to not do a thing, yet he chooses to do
that thing.
> Do I flip a coin? If so,
> then it wasn't my will, but the coin that made the choice. Do
> I choose peas because I had corn last night? Then my will was
> being influence by my boredom with corn, and my will was not so
> free as I thought. Or I just saw a really ***y TV commercial
> extolling the virtues of green vegatables, and without realizing
> it, I choose peas because Madison Avenue has me right where they
> want me.
>
> So what is the difference between "will" and "free will"? And when
> St. This and St. That talk about it, exactly which sort of "will"
> do they mean? Especially, were they as westernized as we are with
> the great American frontier spirit of individualism that makes
> "free will" ring with such grandeur?
That is not the point. The point is that a man's will is not determined by
these things, but it is influenced by them. The determination is made by
the
self, the man. Unless this is true, the man is not responsible for the
choice. If you choose to sin a sin and could not have chosen to not do so,
then you are culpable. It God causes you to sin, then you are not
culpable.
>>>It's more comforting for some people to hear the words "God
>>>didn't cause this, He merely 'allowed it' to happen."
>>
>> Not only is it 'comforting for some', it really is quite fundamental
>> to Christianity, since it is the only way to really preserve the faith
>> that God is purely good, "in Him is no darkness at all".
>
> No, we need a real answer to the question (or faith that there is
> a real answer) rather than a dodge.
We are not "dodging." You have evidently vowed to not change, (what?, kept
it since 1959) and therefore "are like God?" you don't change?
We see some answers to your puzzle. One being the case of Joseph being
sold
into slavery.
>>>WHAT?
>>>He's all-powerful, all-knowing, and could have stopped it and
>>>I don't give a flying rat's tail whether He did it or just
>>>allowed it, I'm just as hurt or pissed either way.
>>
>> "Hurt" you may be. But you have no right to be 'pissed'. Rather, as
>> St. Basil points out in the above-referenced sermon, if you cannot
>> endure it patiently as did the Righteous Job, then the suffering is a
>> gift from God to lead you to repentance. If instead you are 'pissed',
>> you have some serious soul searching to do.
>
> I'm not, of course, really talking about me, but about the question
> we are addressing.
Well, God addresses it in many ****tions of Scripture. God allows evil so
that a greater good may come.
>>>We wouldn't let a human off with that excuse for sure.
>>
>> True. But so what? You are the last person I expected to insist that
>> God "play by the same rules".
>
> Yes. That's part of the point. 1. What rules should God play
> by and 2. Why are they different and 3. Why do these rules make
> sense?
God plays according to His own rules. But God cannot change the rules, nor
can He brake the rules. One rule is that He cannot lie. God cannot make
another God. Back to voluntarism and essentialism. A thing is not good
because God does it, but God does it because it is good. God acts
according
to His nature, which is good.
>>> It's one of mankind's toughest questions (and I don't expect
>>> to have the answer to it.)
>>>It boils down to the question: Why did God create Satan?
>>
>> Well, when He created him, he was wholly good. But by his own free
>> will, he chose evil forever.
>
>
> But God is transtem****al, so in the act of creation, there was not
> before and after. Even if you assign to God only foreknowledge,
> you have the same problem. God foreknowlingly created the prince
> of darkness with sure certainty.
Of course. God created not only Satan but everyone else with such
knowledge. Satan fulfills God's purposes exactly as God planned (as does
every other creature). Satan is not allowed to tempt us except for our
good,
(1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is
common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted
beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way
of
escape, that you may be able to bear it.)
The im****t of this passage is immense. God only ALLOWS temptation to
enter
our lives which we CAN bear. That is, He does NOT allow us to be tempted
beyond our ability to keep from suc***bing to it. Every temptation is for
our good, as James states.
>>>You can
>>>soften it by saying "Why does God permit Satan to exist?" but
>>>it's the same question.
>>
>> No, it is different. The difference is significant. God allowed His
>> creation to turn to evil, and He _tolerates_ the evils done only as a
>> means to eventually produce some good out of it.
>
> This is still a time-bound statement. God "tolerating" is God putting
> up with evil for a while. There is no "while" with God. There is
> no "turning to evil" (which implies time.) God sees the thing
> in it's eternal state, perhaps good at one end but evil at the other.
> God doesn't "endure" evil for a while knowing that later He'll
> fix it and won't have to anymore. Eternity is a different perspective
> altogether.
Nonsense! He Himself tell us that He ENDURES such! Romans 9:22 What if
God,
wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much
longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
What will you do, nullify truth by clinging to "what if?"
>> So once more, very great good came out of the suffering that God
>> allowed Satan to inflict on God Himself.
>
> Yes, great good came out of it. But this doesn't go to the
> question of whether this suffering was "allowed" or "abetted".
> If great good came out of it, then perhaps we should blame
> God after all?
Depends upon what you mean by "abetted." If you mean only that God
orchestrated events in time so that His perfect will would be carried out
by
the free wills of the creature, then yes. But if you mean that He caused
the
creatures to choose to do the evil, then no.
>>>A lot depends on what was translated as "free-will" and what
>>>was meant by it.
>>
>> True. The word used was "autexousia", which is discussed in greater
>> detail in Book II of the same work, in the sections subtitled
>> "Concerning Man", "Concerning Events", and "Concerning Providence".
>> Also im****tant it Chapter 25, which has:
>>......nor to chance,
>> for the actions of men are not rare and unexpected: nor to accident,
>> for that is used in reference to the casual occurrences that take
>> place in the world of lifeless and irrational things. WE ARE LEFT
>> THEN WITH THIS FACT, THAT THE MAN WHO ACTS AND MAKES IS HIMSELF THE
>> AUTHOR OF HIS OWN WORKS, AND IS A CREATURE ENDOWED WITH FREE-WILL.
>
> A weakness in the argument is the usual one that, having eliminated
> some possibilities, it is (falsely) assumed that ALL possibilities
> have been eliminated. The argument against "free will" (after it
> is appropriately defined) says that man _had it_ and lost it in Eden.
> The above argument wants to attribute free-will to _unregenerate_ man
> based on the fact that he does evil. Unregenerate man is the LAST
> creature in the universe to which one wants to ascribe "free will".
> Scripture is quite clear that this sort of being is "dead" and a
> "slave" and incapable of any good act.
Same old harangue. Utter nonsense. This contradicts Christ Himself.
Matthew
7:11 "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your
children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things
to those who ask Him!
>> Further, if man is the author of no action, the faculty of
>> deliberation is quite superfluous for to what purpose could
>> deliberation be put if man is the master of none of his actions?
> And a rhetorical question is never an argument.
Where ARE your Scriptural arguments?
>> Again, the word translated as "endowned with free-will" is
>> "autexousios".
>>
>> I suppose I should also point out, that when he says "there are many
>> who deny this", those were Manichees and superstitious believers in
>> astrology. No Catholic, no Orthodox, no Monophysite, nor Nestorian
>> would deny us free-will!
>
>
> But Lutherans do. And Luther beat the pants of Erasmus and Erasmus
> admitted it. (His final argument being "well, Ok, but you can't let
> something like this out, or the people will start sinning too much.")
Nonsense again.
>
>> What is more, he even gives the same reason that St. J. o D. does,
>> namely:
>>
>> quia ipsa divina praecepta homini non prodessent,
>> nisi haberet liberum voluntatis arbitrium, quo ea faciens
>> ad promissa praemia perveniret (2.2)
>>
>> Because the divine precept would not have been given to man,
>> unless man had free choice of the will, for which the
>> promised prize would have come to him had he done [the
>> commandment].
>
> How does St. Augustine know what God "would do" or "would not do".
> Divine precepts might have other purposes than he suspects.
> Rhetorical questions are never good arguments.
He wasn't quoting Augustine.
>
>>>What we mean today by it is a will that can
>>>stand independently of God and Satan and make a choice for God
>>>or against God or for Satan or against Satan, regardless of
>>>the influences brought to bear by Satan or God or pizza or
>>>L. Ron Hubbard.
>>
>> Again: who is this 'we'? Once more, you are tarring with too wide a
>> brush, here. Most people who use the term 'free will' have never been
>> that specific about what it means. There is a good reason for this: it
>> is hard!
>>
>>> This is the stuff of decision theology.
>>
>> I am not sure I even want to know what this 'decision theology' is.
>
>
> We might as well go there anyway. The very heart of the problem
> with ascribing "free will" to man is that it puts the burden of
> his salvation direction upon his own shoulders.
Heaven forbid that God should give man a choice as to whether he will be
saved or not!
>Specifically in
> the "altar call" denominations such as you may have seen on a
> Billy Graham TV special. The doctrines run like this: A child is
> born innocent, is in no need of Baptism.
Obviously he cannot be baptized. The ones we are to baptize are those whom
we have taught.
> At some point, the child
> reaches an "age of accountability", and then hopefully has been
> instructed in the Christian faith (and "faith" in these religions
> is more intellectual assent than trust in the heart) so that at
> some point the child (or perhaps adult) make his "life changing"
> DECISION to give his heart to Jesus and THEN is baptized. This
> decision is nothing but obedience to the 1st and Greatest Commandment.
You keep making this absurd statement.
> The picture at this moment of decision is God standing back,
> hoping against hope that the child/adult will make the right
> decision, but God won't interfere, except perhaps for holding Satan
> back from interfering also.
But I maintain that it is NOT a decision.
> The child is complete free for the crucial
> moment. (An eternity of bliss vs. an eternity of torment lies
> in the balance, and God, who went to the Cross out of infinite love,
> won't step in here? Oh, well.) The child who chooses correctly
> will proudly tell you the date, and maybe even the time _he_ chose
> Jesus over Satan. Now that he has chosen correctly, Jesus swoops
> in and his rewards start pouring in. He gets faith and Spirit and
> what not.
>
> THAT'S "free will" in action. I hardly care if you want to
> claim that you have "free will" in choosing peas over corn. But
> Adam and Eve, who were perfect, didn't have wills that could
> withstand the influence of Satan,
Bart you make too many wild assertions which directly contradict
Scripture.
They COULD have withstood the temptation. They freely choose to sin.
> so I can only be astonished
> at the grandiose claims from their corrupted descendants who
> claim to be completely immune to him.
Wild misdirection again! No one has claimed to be "completely immune to
him." Can you only argue by making absurd false assertions?
>>>What's so benevolent about a Father who abandons His children to
>>>the wiles of Satan?
>>
>> Because they are _not_ abandoned! Remember the example of St. Antony,
>> who was tormented by demons in the desert: afterwards, he asked God in
>> prayer, "why did you abandon me"? The answer was, "I was at your side
>> all that time".
>
> I'm not talking about tem****al suffering, but eternal damnation.
God has provide salvation for all. God draws ALL to Christ. The one here
who
teaches that God chooses a few, and "allows" the rest to be damned is you.
>> It is a terrible temptation to believe that God has abandoned us
>> during our times of suffering/temptations. But it is always a sin to
>> believe this. We are allowed, even encouraged, to cry out in our pain
>> as the Psalmist did (Ps 3:1, 13:1-2), but again, we must _never_
>> believe He has abandoned us.
>
> But that is what the free-willers believe: That God leaves them
> to choose _freely_ between Him and Satan. And if they choose wrongly
> they are ETERNALLY SCREWED.
>
Not exactly. We teach that God desires the salvation of all. That He draws
all to Christ. But that He does not FORCE them to be saved. He does not
save
them against their will.
Gary www.faithalone.org
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