tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993865619440350763.post5728878695428405551..comments2023-10-30T05:58:54.390-07:00Comments on Contra Gentes: Second Response to Persiflage on the DecreeSaint and Sinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14166699860672840738noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993865619440350763.post-84858532867304488352009-11-23T08:40:44.982-08:002009-11-23T08:40:44.982-08:00its good that somebody has the streght to thinkand...its good that somebody has the streght to thinkand find theology but its the simple life that wants an answerdudiviehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06722293949978913107noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993865619440350763.post-33496949099075363252009-03-30T12:05:00.000-07:002009-03-30T12:05:00.000-07:00hey, I'm back online - a couple problems knocked m...hey, I'm back online - a couple problems knocked me off for a couple months, but I've still been thinking about this stuff<BR/><BR/>and you know what, I agree with most of this, but you do say a few things that I just could never say -<BR/><BR/><EM>"Job ascribes both well-being and the disaster that fell upon him ultimately to God."</EM><BR/><BR/>- well, only in the sense that Job knows God is sovereign and <EM>allows</EM> evil to happen. Job is not referring to God as the cause of evil here. You sound like you'd agree that Job asking his wife if God doesn't give out both good times and hardship is clearly not ascribing moral evil to God's authorship.<BR/><BR/><EM>"Theses texts don’t simply say that God uses (already-existing) evil or calamity and makes good out of it. They name God as the ultimate cause of the evil act."</EM><BR/><BR/>Here is simply where we differ my friend. You think I'm fitting these verse to my own personal theology to make them <EM>only</EM> mean what I want. I think you're fitting them to your personal theology to make them mean <EM>more</EM> than they actually say. I feel like we'd just keep going in circles if you keep insisting a verse means that ... ultimately ... God is the actual cause of evil actions. In every single one of these verses you're making an inference to say, "so we can obviously infer from here that God caused evil." I don't think it's obvious. And I refuse to make the inference because I believe other inferences are equally easily drawn in the light of the rest of Scripture. Logic does not demand God to be the cause of evil, nor does it demand that if He isn't then He can't be sovereign.<BR/><BR/>Examples - <BR/><BR/>Genesis 50:20<BR/><BR/>Again, God <EM>meaning</EM> the evil actions of men for good DOES NOT NECESSARILY mean that God caused those men to enact evil. God can mean everything for good, whether He causes it or whether he allows it.<BR/><BR/>You conclude - <EM>"But if God “meant” the actual event of selling their brother into slavery, then God must be the ultimate cause."</EM> The fact that you can just immediately conclude things like this boggles the mind. I believe in a God so sovereign and so powerful that he can allow evil to exist and then use that evil to accomplish good anyway. This means that there are a hundred different variations of evil that Joseph's brothers could have done to Joseph. And whatever it was, God was still going to direct the outcome to accomplish His particular goals. This is not the same thing as the Holy Spirit convincing the hearts of Joseph's brothers to do evil, or God commanding evil spirits to convince them to do evil. This violates your point #6 - "God does not coerce men to do any morally evil actions." If God didn't somehow coerce Joseph's brothers to sell him into slavery then how could God have been sure of meaning the outcome for good. Because God can do or allow whatever he wants, that's why.<BR/><BR/>I get your point with I Samuel 2:25, Rev. 17:17 other other verses. I do. But I just can't make the inference you're making. God is not the ultimate cause of a person's hardened heart. God can still use a person's hardened heart to accomplish good without being the "ultimate cause" of evil.<BR/><BR/>Pharaoh is the same exact situation - a hardened heart.<BR/><BR/>1 - denying that both God and Pharaoh hardened his heart would be flatly denying Scripture. The question is either why or which came first. The logical conclusion being that if God hardened Pharaoh's heart first, then God went way beyond "tempting" a man to do moral evil, God coerced Pharaoh to do moral evil, coerced Pharaoh to disbelieve, and prevented Pharaoh from coming to repentance - all things you've already said God doesn't do.<BR/><BR/>2 - Psalm 105:23-45 never says why or when God hardened the Egyptians hearts during the story, Exodus does<BR/><BR/>3 - G.K. Beale, like many determinists, has the beginning assumption that if God predicts a future event then that necessarily means God actively used his power to make/coerce/ordain that event to happen. He really should get rid of that assumption or show some supporting Scripture that declares all God's foreknowledge = God's future actions. I'm simply denying this assumption because of God's allowing the existence of evil. Sure, God predicts that Pharaoh's heart will be hardened. Then the first time this happens it specifically says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart like God said he would. No one can deny the progression in these verses. All you can do is say that Scripture's telling how Pharaoh hardened his own heart first and then God only hardened his heart afterwards, is a meaningless coincidence that <EM>really</EM> just means that God did harden Pharaoh's heart first, as if Pharaoh needed God's help to do that in the first place.<BR/><BR/>God takes pleasure when justice is done. God is not a sadistic, arbitrary tyrant. He does not take pleasure in moral evil or in the death of the ungodly. Agreed.<BR/><BR/>You said - <EM>"God hardened those who rejected Jesus so that they would not repent ..."</EM><BR/><BR/>I'll I'm saying is that this flatly contradicts when you said <EM>"God does not prevent men from coming to true repentance ..."</EM><BR/><BR/><STRONG>The Compatibilist's proximate cause versus ultimate cause -</STRONG><BR/><BR/>I'm not buying it. It's way too fancy for me, and I don't think God is this tricky, or makes it this hard to understand His specially revealed will.<BR/><BR/>I've already been telling both determinists and compatibilists that if what they mean by God being the "ultimate cause" of evil is simply that if God hadn't created the universe, then evil would not have existed, then I have no problem here. But both have made it very clear that mean something much for than that by ultimate cause. Your "ultimate cause" here is not just holding the existence of the universe together, it's not just creating morally volitional free creatures - it's taking an active part in directly causing the existence of morally inherent evil. The determinists just say God directly ordained Adam and Eve to sin. The compatibilist tries to have it both ways, will say things like Pharaoh and God both hardened his heart both at the exact same time. But what the compaibilist ignores is precisely who God is and who Pharaoh is. Because God is the sovereign creator of the universe, and because Pharaoh is a finite fallen created being, it doesn't matter that Pharaoh is hardening his own heart - all that matters is God is hardening his heart in order to get him to do specific acts of evil. And that's being more of an "ultimate cause" of evil than Scripture allows for.<BR/><BR/>(sigh) I'm not attributing all of my above understanding of compatibilism to you, I know you haven't said all that, and probably wouldn't agree with it all.<BR/><BR/>Basically, what you are doing is taking Scripture and making inferences from it to advocate a particular theological position. I won't deny that I may be doing the same sort of thing with passages like Ezekiel 18, 33, and Habbakuk 2. But the fact that we both CAN draw completely contradicting inferences from different Scripture may just lead us to conclude that we can't necessarily draw them, and might be better off simply taking the Bible at it's word, saying nothing more and nothing less. It certainly is a reason to argue that either of our inferences are not logically mandatory.<BR/><BR/>Hardening Hearts - I don't deny that God is the cause of hardening at some point (2 Thess. 2:11, Rom. 11:7-10, Isa. 63:17, etc.). The questions is whether God hardens the hearts of men first, thus completely destroying all their ability to respond to Him and do what he says.<BR/><BR/>And sure, call me old-fashioned, but if Acts 17:30 and other verses where God gives out commands, is really God commanding behavior in men (where their disobedience results in punishment) where He has actively ensured that they cannot do what he is telling them to do, then God is an arbitrary and capricious tyrant, and I should become an atheist. Thus my disgust with the determinist interpretation that says that God told Adam and Eve not to sin, and then ordained/used his power to coerce/created them to sin anyway.<BR/><BR/>But this again assumes the Principle of Alternative Possibility (nothing wrong with that, nor is it against Scripture), or the specific philosophical theory of "Libertarian Free-Will"? On the contrary, I beg to differ. Simply because I reject one man-made philosophical idea about God's sovereignty and man's free will does not force me into some other man-made box about it either. This is not an either/or anymore than the false assumption that you've got to be either a Calvinist or an Arminian. Screw any rigid absolute acceptance of man-made absolute philosophical systems and definitions, and stick with the Scripture instead. Philosophy and philosophical terms are useful, and even necessary - but their is no system - Compatibilist Free-Will, Libertarian Free-Will, Determinism, that is required by Scripture. All of these systems come with way too many inferences and other conclusions that they then demand you have to start agreeing to if you simply happen to agree with one.<BR/>_______________________<BR/><BR/>Basically, I understand the assumptions you hold, and for the most part why you hold them - this colors how you are interpreting these verses just like my assumptions affect my interpretation. In order to interpret Scripture correctly however, you are helping me rethink my assumptions. Because the only assumptions that we are supposed to have that affect our interpretation of Scripture are necessary truths demanded by Scripture itself. I appreciate your continued input about this. Keep it up. If you can name specific assumptions that I have that are wrongly affecting how I look at Scripture, I want to get rid of those. One assumption that I think you have that would definitely color Scripture interpretation is -<BR/><BR/>"If God is not the "ultimate cause" of sin and evil, then God is not sovereign or in control."<BR/><BR/>I could be wrong about you're agreeing to this though, and of course "ultimate cause" could only refer to the fact that the universe depends on God for it's very existence, in which case I'd even agree with it too.Persiflagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02369952596655284033noreply@blogger.com