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Source: (consider it) Thread: Purgatory: Is Calvinism the Asperger's Syndrome of Protestantism?
Gamaliel
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@leo, that's interesting, but a tangent as you say. I s'pose it shows how much Jesus was in line with the main thrust of Jewish thinking in his day to a great extent - which is something I keep hearing Rabbis saying on the radio, pointing out it out in a kind of, 'Move along folks, there's nothing to see ...' way.

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Jengie jon

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Nah, I have been arguing with him for forty odd years, he is a trained theologian and yes an authority on Reformed Theology*, but he also has a love of argument, that means he will play devils advocate for the sake of it. I learned my theology through debate often acrimonious and he takes no hostages. If I can persuade him of anything, he will have tried to find the problems with it, that is how his brain works. Actually that is wrong, I did not persuade, I presented it as my view and expalined why, he now feeds it back to me. So when he changed from a Predestinarian stance to the one I held, I can only conclude that he thought that it was a better explanation.

His courtship to my mother involved a long Arminian/Predestinarian debate and they basically acknowledged they had argued themselves to stalemate when they wed.

Jengie

*If you really want to be sure of that his Oxford Doctoral thesis is on theological use of Augustine in the work of John Calvin.

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mousethief

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quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Human understanding of causality is strongly linked to our experience of time. Something happening prior to something else causes something, something happening afterwards doesn't.

I assume you mean that something has to be prior to something else to be its cause; otherwise you are guilty of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Being prior is necessary for causation, but not sufficient.

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Gamaliel
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Well, that's the first time I've heard of an Arminian/Calvinist clause in a pre-nuptial contract ... [Ultra confused]

I'm beginning to wonder what this tells us about your family, Jengie ...

And yes, I was aware that your father is an erudite academic of some standing. I wonder how I found that out ... [Roll Eyes] [Razz]

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Drewthealexander
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quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ramarius:
[qb] By "free will" I mean the real possibility that one could make at least two different choices in exactly the same circumstances, both external and internal. It's the genuine power of contrary choice.

I think the closest version of 'free will' to what you seem to be expressing is the libertarian brand, http://tinyurl.com/33at94

The problem is that scientifically anyway, it's very hard to come up with a mechanism for how the libertarian brand of free-will would actually work. This is one reason why most philosophers tend in the direction of some form of compatibilism.

[QUOTE][qb]

But perhaps not the main reason. The article you reference on the popularity of compatibilism (footnote 5 in the Wikipedia article) suggests the following:

'Many of us incompatibilists think we know the answer to this[the rise in compatibilism]: it’s wishful thinking! Philosophers embrace compatibilism because they want it to be true. This view is, I think, common among incompatibilists. Famously, James dubs compatibilism a “quagmire of evasion”. Even more famously, Kant says it’s a “wretched subterfuge.” We can put the incompatibilist’s motivational hypothesis somewhat more precisely as follows:
M: Philosophers embrace compatibilism despite its counterintuitiveness because compatibilism is motivationally attractive.'

An interesting thought, although I must confess to be cautious about anything I read in Wikipedia.

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Eliab
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quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Eliab

Go back and read my post, free will is irrelevant here, Predestinarianism does not preclude the presence of freewill.

Agreed in the general sense (it is logically coherent to believe in both a form of freewill and a form of predestination). But not in the important sense - the freewill that predestinationism allows is (by definition) irrelevant to the question of salvation. The lost soul may have made all sorts of meaningful and free choices in its earthly life, but as far as going to Hell is concerned, it might as well have been constrained.

Actually, I'd question what the point is in believing in both freewill and predestination. It would seem to me to be a very odd sort of God who leaves it up to me to decide between Coke and Pepsi, but is very clear that I don't get any say at all in choosing Heaven or Hell. Why is God remotely concerned for the freedom of those he has set inexorably on the way down to the pit? But I don't think it logically inconsistent, just a bit strange.

quote:
In other words you are objecting to the caricature of Arminianism while promulgating a caricature of predestinarianism.
The view I'm arguing against is that of a God who irresistibly determines that particular individuals will be damned and that nothing anyone does can ever change that.

That isn't a caricature - that is a view that a lot of Christians actually hold. I'm well aware that not everyone who calls themselves Reformed, or Calvinist, or even a believer in predestination holds that view, and if you (general ‘you') don't, I am not arguing against you. But if you do believe that God has long ago selected the population of Hell, then you have a serious problem for divine justice which is not resolved with the evasion* that Arminians also have the problem of people going to Hell. Yes, they do, but they don't have the problem of God creating people to suffer forever without any chance at all of being saved.


(*chris stiles has taken that line on this thread but I don't think you have, so no personal acccusation is intended)

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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
But if you do believe that God has long ago selected the population of Hell, then you have a serious problem for divine justice which is not resolved with the evasion* that Arminians also have the problem of people going to Hell.

No .. I'm not exactly taking that line. All the doctrine of election says is that all human beings - in their fallen state - given an infinite amount of chances would not choose God and that he opens the eyes of some to choose him freely.

[quote][qb]
Yes, they do, but they don't have the problem of God creating people to suffer forever without any chance at all of being saved.

I'm not sure it is an evasion; after all even in an Arminian scheme God is omniscient, and before he creates who knows who will choose and who wont in every possible creation. So he creates knowing which particular individuals in that creation will choose eternal torment (a point brought up in the "Is God's will sovereign?" thread).

Either way you have some action of God in the depths of time which condemns some to hell.

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Dafyd
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quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
I'm not sure it is an evasion; after all even in an Arminian scheme God is omniscient, and before he creates who knows who will choose and who wont in every possible creation.

That is only true if God has middle knowledge, that is, if God knows what free agents would do if God does such a thing. But I think an Arminian view and middle knowledge are inconsistent. If an Arminian doesn't believe in middle knowledge then they believe that God's knowledge of who will and won't choose is logically posterior to the free decisions of the people to accept God's grace and therefore logically posterior to God's act of creation.

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Gamaliel
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I don't see how that follows at all, Chris Stiles. Foreknowledge of something doesn't imply causation, necessarily ...

Anyway, I'm trying to be neither Calvinist nor Arminian is this thread, so I don't have a horse in that particular race.

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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I don't see how that follows at all, Chris Stiles. Foreknowledge of something doesn't imply causation, necessarily ...

It's not just foreknowledge though - it's consequential-ism. "If I do X, then Y will occur".

"If I create this creation, then Bob, Sally and Anne will be saved, but Dave won't be"

"If I create this creation, then Andy and Kenny will be saved and Paul won't be"

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Eliab
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quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
I'm not sure it is an evasion; after all even in an Arminian scheme God is omniscient, and before he creates who knows who will choose and who wont in every possible creation. So he creates knowing which particular individuals in that creation will choose eternal torment (a point brought up in the "Is God's will sovereign?" thread).

I'm not denying that this is a problem, I'm denying that it is the same problem.

Essentially, it is the problem of 'why does God let us make shitty choices?'. It is a problem of God's compassion - whether it is loving to value our freedom over our happiness, whether the alternatives of creating us happy but not free, or declining to create us at all if we are not going to choose him, would be better. The issues are 'Does God care?' and 'What does he care about?'. I don't think locating God's knowledge and decision at any particular point of the temporal sequence substantially changes those questions.

It is a different sort of dilemma to the Calvinist/hyper-Calvinist/TULIPist view that the people who are damned never get a choice at all, God respecting neither their autonomy nor their well-being. That is a problem for God's justice as well as his compassion.

By illustration, the Arminian God is like a politician who thinks hard drugs should be legalised. There is clearly a case to be made for his point of view, even if we think it is grossly iresponsible, we can see that at least the value being promoted (liberty) is a true one. The Calvinist God is like a politician who thinks that for a certain sub-set of the population, hard drugs should be compulsory. It is not at all apparent what good and true values you would need to distort to end up with that view. It does not seem to be an arguable moral position at all.

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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:

It is a different sort of dilemma to the Calvinist/hyper-Calvinist/TULIPist view that the people who are damned never get a choice at all, God respecting neither their autonomy nor their well-being. That is a problem for God's justice as well as his compassion.

Everyone gets a choice. It's just that post Fall the will (being bound) will always choose itself over God.

Arminians have a similar issue with justice - namely why everyone doesn't get an equally informed choice.

I'm not sure compassion and justice stand completely separate here.

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mousethief

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quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
Everyone gets a choice. It's just that post Fall the will (being bound) will always choose itself over God.

This must be some strange new meaning of "choice" with which I am not familiar. If there is only one thing you can "choose" then you have no choice. Unless you can choose one or the other, you're not choosing. That's what the word means.

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tclune
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
Everyone gets a choice. It's just that post Fall the will (being bound) will always choose itself over God.

This must be some strange new meaning of "choice" with which I am not familiar. If there is only one thing you can "choose" then you have no choice. Unless you can choose one or the other, you're not choosing. That's what the word means.
"Hobson's choice" is hardly a neologism...

--Tom Clune

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Gamaliel
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Well, I would suggest that Romans 2 might indicate that it isn't as black-and-white as that, Chris Stiles, and 'their consciences also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) in the day when God will judge the secrets of men ,,,' (Romans 2:15-16) indicates that they may be rather a lot more going on here than simply conscious 'acceptance' of a set of propositions about God.

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mousethief

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quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
"Hobson's choice" is hardly a neologism...

No, no it's not. But it's not the same thing as a situation in which you cannot but choose one thing. It means a situation in which you could choose more than one thing, but the outcome of all your options is bad. And it wouldn't speak well of God for him to offer a Hobson's Choice as regards salvation.

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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) in the day when God will judge the secrets of men ,,,' (Romans 2:15-16) indicates that they may be rather a lot more going on here than simply conscious 'acceptance' of a set of propositions about God.

Absolutely, which is why I wouldn't start with election as some kind of primary doctrine of faith.

At the end of the day, there is a whole lot more going on in salvation than a simple acceptance of a set of propositions (otherwise I wouldn't hold that infants can believe). To his church, God gives a Gospel to preach. Election should be where Romans places it - to comfort the afflicted Christian.

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tclune
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
"Hobson's choice" is hardly a neologism...

No, no it's not. But it's not the same thing as a situation in which you cannot but choose one thing. It means a situation in which you could choose more than one thing, but the outcome of all your options is bad.
FYI

--Tom Clune

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mousethief

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I stand corrected. Give me a moment and I'll think of a clever restructuring of my argument.

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mousethief

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Wait, according to that page, a Hobson's choice still is a choice: take it or leave it. There are still two options between which you can freely choose. To take, or to refuse. That is a true choice.

With the "you can freely choose not to be saved, but cannot choose to be saved" nonsense, this is not the case.

See, I told you I'd think of something.

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Drewthealexander
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quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I don't see how that follows at all, Chris Stiles. Foreknowledge of something doesn't imply causation, necessarily ...

It's not just foreknowledge though - it's consequential-ism. "If I do X, then Y will occur".

"If I create this creation, then Bob, Sally and Anne will be saved, but Dave won't be"

"If I create this creation, then Andy and Kenny will be saved and Paul won't be"

On the other hand it seems reasonable to infer that it is impossible for God to create a world in which Bob Sally and Anne will be saved, unless it is a world that includes Dave that won't be. Is it better to actualise a world in which some are saved are some are lost, or to actualise a world in which no one can be either saved or lost? Should Bob, Sally and Anne be deprived of eternal salvation because Dave, in spite of anything God may do to convince him otherwise, will nonetheless choose to resist God's grace and accept the consequences?
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mousethief

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I this day and age, if you have kids and bring them up in the church, there's a very good chance that one of them will reject their faith. The more kids you have, and the more you allow them to actually learn about things like logic and science, the closer this probability approaches to 1.

Therefore if you have kids and they fall away, you have directly caused their damnation. Conclusion: it is wrong to have kids.

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orfeo

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Love it. Not only is being childless good for the environment, it keeps the population of Hell down as well! [Big Grin]

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Eliab
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quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
Everyone gets a choice. It's just that post Fall the will (being bound) will always choose itself over God.

Then it's a bit like throwing someone out of an aeroplane and telling them that they have a choice about which direction they travel. Technically, it might be true, but the choice is made under such an important constraint that it is a meaningless one.

quote:
Arminians have a similar issue with justice - namely why everyone doesn't get an equally informed choice.
Yes, you're quite right, but how does that help the Calvinists out? Either the Arminians have an answer*, or they don't, but whichever it is, the moral difficulty with TULIP Calvinism remains the same. Dodging the question by saying "but you lot have problems too" (which is now blatantly what you are doing) doesn't do anything to address the objection.

The problem with a theology that has people predestined to Hell is that it portrays God acting in a way which, if a human being did anything remotely like it, would be evil beyond words. You can't defend that by pointing out that alternative theologies have God's justice imperfectly and unsatisfactorily displayed. You might be right, but the better you make that case in justice against Arminianism, the worse Calvinism looks, because on those terms it is further removed from what we think of as just.


(*I can think of two that are commonly held. One would be a relatively liberal/inclusivist view that God judges people by what they knew, so that everyone does in fact get an equal choice to welcome or reject such grace as they knew about. The other would be a ‘workers in the vineyard' answer that God is not commited to exactly equal treatment, so long as every individual is treated fairly, so that everyone gets some chance, even though some are fortunate enough to get a load of clues as well. I'm inclined to the first, myself, but on either view, the major problem in Calvinism, that some people are just fucked over by God from birth with no chance of redemption at all because he never offers it, does not arise. Both are obviously better that that.)

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Leprechaun

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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
Everyone gets a choice. It's just that post Fall the will (being bound) will always choose itself over God.

Then it's a bit like throwing someone out of an aeroplane and telling them that they have a choice about which direction they travel. Technically, it might be true, but the choice is made under such an important constraint that it is a meaningless one.

quote:
Arminians have a similar issue with justice - namely why everyone doesn't get an equally informed choice.
Yes, you're quite right, but how does that help the Calvinists out? Either the Arminians have an answer*, or they don't, but whichever it is, the moral difficulty with TULIP Calvinism remains the same. Dodging the question by saying "but you lot have problems too" (which is now blatantly what you are doing) doesn't do anything to address the objection.


Well, it does, if Arminianism has the same problem. If (like most evangelical Arminians seem to, although you may not) you accept that God knows the future and even predestines where and when people will live and what families they will be born to, saying that, within that, we have a choice is meaningless. Our choices are basically products of our experiences, and if God is sovereign over the latter, he is by default sovereign over the former.

It's why, to be honest, if you think free will is that big a deal then ISTM you would lean towards open theism rather than traditional evangelical Arminianism.

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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

Therefore if you have kids and they fall away, you have directly caused their damnation. Conclusion: it is wrong to have kids.

There is some difference knowing that there is a probability a specific person might fall away, and knowing that a specific person will fall away.

But yes, having a kid is a weighty matter, and is even more weighty for Christians.

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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Yes, you're quite right, but how does that help the Calvinists out? Either the Arminians have an answer*, or they don't, but whichever it is, the moral difficulty with TULIP Calvinism remains the same. Dodging the question by saying "but you lot have problems too" (which is now blatantly what you are doing) doesn't do anything to address the objection.

When you start looking at the doctrine of election, you start to uncover a problem that was always there.

The reason I hold to the doctrine of election is not because I have an answer to that problem, it's because anything else seems to severely affect the Bible's portrayal of grace.

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Gamaliel
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[Confused]

I'm not sure I get what you're trying to say here, Chris. Correct me if I'm wrong but it could be taken - to some extent - towards some kind of special favours/prosperity gospel kind of approach - which, as is generally agreed, has its roots in some aspects of the Reformed approach - only taken to the nth degree.

It has been exaggerated, but in Holland and elsewhere personal prosperity was sometimes seen as an indication of God's favour and election - Weber's Protestantism and the Rise of Capitalism and so on. Ok, I appreciate that the links aren't as clear cut - but the sense of import and responsibility in terms of having families and raising kids has echoes of this to my mind.

Why should the seriousness of having children be any more acute for Christians than the rest of humanity?

Why should it be less of a responsibility or less serious for Hindus, Muslims or people of any faith or none?

[Confused]

I know that's not what you're saying, but the sense of particularity you're picking up on here would see to incline in that direction.

I was reflecting on my redundancy two years ago and pondered how other Christians had lost their jobs in the same organisation as part of the restructuring that brought about my change in circumstances. That would have seemed very odd in certain Christian circles where expectations of 'blessing' and so on almost obviate against the idea of duff stuff happening to anyone who is a believer ... [Roll Eyes]

Conversely, some people with no faith or a nominal faith did well out of the restructure, in terms of promotion, more responsibility and advancement etc ...

The rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous. Why should it be more serious for Mousethief, say or Barnabas62 or yourself or myself to have kids than an atheist, a humanist or an anything else-ist ...

This is the kind of implicit and inherent dualism I find in aspects of what I might call the 'Calvinistic spirit' - it can (not always, but it can) lead to an overly dualistic and binary attitude towards the world - who is 'in', who is 'out', who is 'elect' who is 'reprobate' - why some people get promoted and others don't, why some people lose their jobs and others don't .... and so on and so forth.

Doesn't make much sense to me. We none of us know what's going on with any of this stuff.

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Gamaliel
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How does anything else severely affect the biblical view of grace, Chris Stiles?

I would have agreed with you at one time, but now I don't so how it necessarily follows. It seems to be introducing an unnecessary faith/works dichotomy that isn't there in the scriptures to the same extent - well, it is there if you isolate Romans from the Gospels and the rest of the NT canon and tear out the book of James (of course ... [Razz] )

I sometimes wonder whether the apostle Paul would have raised his eyebrows at the whole faith/works, Reformation/versus Catholicism debate ... although I'm sure he wouldn't have sanctioned the indulgences, penances and so on that were a feature of late medieval Catholicism. That said, I'm not sure he'd have sanctioned some of the enthusiasm of the Radical Reformation nor some of the scholastic and dualistic arguments that flared up on either side.

This is what I mean about the binariness of it all - the either/or rather than both/and ...

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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm not sure I get what you're trying to say here, Chris. Correct me if I'm wrong but it could be taken - to some extent - towards some kind of special favours/prosperity gospel kind of approach - which, as is generally agreed, has its roots in some aspects of the Reformed approach - only taken to the nth degree.

Not sure what was confusing Gamaliel - I've stated my position a number of times in this thread [Smile] I'm sure we'll sort it out next time we manage to chat though.

Yes absolutely, if you hold any belief that holds out different fates for humanity then having a child is a weighty thing.

Yes, the Reformed approach can be distorted in the same way as any number of other things, but I'm not sure I'd hold it responsible for the prosperity gospel - whose roots lie in things like New Thought.

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Gamaliel
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Arguably, New Thought couldn't have come about without the Reformation ...

Think about it.

Now, I'm not, of course, suggesting that every distortion and unpleasantness has its roots in the Reformation or the Enlightnment. That would be equally binary in the opposite direction. Many of the Orthodox seem particularly prone to that tendency - it's not only Calvinists who can be dualistic in this kind of way.

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Eliab
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quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
If (like most evangelical Arminians seem to, although you may not) you accept that God knows the future and even predestines where and when people will live and what families they will be born to, saying that, within that, we have a choice is meaningless.

Why? I know many Christians who have unbelieving or non-practising siblings, and comparatively few families in which all adult siblings have a clear commitment to the same faith. It seems to me to be obvious that although family background is an enormously strong influence, it is entirely meaningful to say that we still have a choice.

quote:
Our choices are basically products of our experiences, and if God is sovereign over the latter, he is by default sovereign over the former.
I don't think that our choices are the products of our experience. I'm not a determinist.

quote:
It's why, to be honest, if you think free will is that big a deal then ISTM you would lean towards open theism rather than traditional evangelical Arminianism.
Open theism here being the idea that God doesn't know the future because there is no future to be known until it happens?

I'm not quite liberal enough for that. There's just too much in the Bible to suggest that God does know the future for me to ignore.

Where I think I do depart from traditional evangelical Arminianism is that I don't think it an absolute requirement that one is an orthodox professed Christian in order to be saved. If, for example, God is invisibly at work in the heart of an atheist to make her more compassionate, more intellectually honest, more self-controlled, and she cooperates with that, and the tendancy of her life is to move towards the light, not to reject it, then I don't think anything prevents God bringing that work to completion. She may disbelieve, but she has not rejected grace, and until she does, I cannot see why on earth God would call time and send her to Hell. I wouldn't, and God is nicer than me. I'm liberal enough to believe in uncovenanted mercy, even though it is (by definition) not in the Bible, and I think that takes the edge off a moral critique of Arminianism.
Note that I'm not saying that the atheist doesn't need grace. She does, desperately. She will never be able to work her way to heaven, and if it were not for Jesus wiping out sins, her case would be hopeless, as would everyone's. What I am saying is that God can make that grace available to her, and something she does, even if she does not recognise its significance, can be an acceptance or a refusal of that grace. Once in heaven, she will be in on exactly the same terms as everyone else: Jesus died to save her.

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orfeo

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quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

Therefore if you have kids and they fall away, you have directly caused their damnation. Conclusion: it is wrong to have kids.

There is some difference knowing that there is a probability a specific person might fall away, and knowing that a specific person will fall away.

Which is PRECISELY what I tried to convey to you a couple of times with analogies relating to car crashes. To see you turning around and saying the same thing to Mousethief is frankly pretty startling.

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Leprechaun

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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:


Where I think I do depart from traditional evangelical Arminianism is that I don't think it an absolute requirement that one is an orthodox professed Christian in order to be saved. If, for example, God is invisibly at work in the heart of an atheist to make her more compassionate, more intellectually honest, more self-controlled, and she cooperates with that, and the tendancy of her life is to move towards the light, not to reject it, then I don't think anything prevents God bringing that work to completion. She may disbelieve, but she has not rejected grace, and until she does, I cannot see why on earth God would call time and send her to Hell. I wouldn't, and God is nicer than me. I'm liberal enough to believe in uncovenanted mercy, even though it is (by definition) not in the Bible, and I think that takes the edge off a moral critique of Arminianism.
Note that I'm not saying that the atheist doesn't need grace. She does, desperately. She will never be able to work her way to heaven, and if it were not for Jesus wiping out sins, her case would be hopeless, as would everyone's. What I am saying is that God can make that grace available to her, and something she does, even if she does not recognise its significance, can be an acceptance or a refusal of that grace. Once in heaven, she will be in on exactly the same terms as everyone else: Jesus died to save her.

You're right - that is quite a departure from evangelical Armianianism!

Are you a universalist Eliab? If you are not, why is God at work in the hearts of some atheists not others? It can't be their choice - for they have rejected even the idea of God altogether. Haven't you just been left with a form of Calvinism, only this time it's not choice that has been expunged, but people's own moral sense altogether?

If you are going to reject Calvinism in an effort to protect free choice, you can't, surely have a systematic where people don't even understand that something is a choice to accept God, and, in fact, were it to be explained that way to them they would reject the explanation! Free will disappears there too!

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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Which is PRECISELY what I tried to convey to you a couple of times with analogies relating to car crashes. To see you turning around and saying the same thing to Mousethief is frankly pretty startling.

Are you possibly confusing me with Zach? As I don't think I was engaged in the discussion around the car crash analogy.

I was just pointing out that his analogy was faulty, and thus omniscience still threw up the same issues in his scheme.

Anyway, this topic has now generated three threads and I think we probably all have said what we believe multiple times over [Smile]

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orfeo

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quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Which is PRECISELY what I tried to convey to you a couple of times with analogies relating to car crashes. To see you turning around and saying the same thing to Mousethief is frankly pretty startling.

Are you possibly confusing me with Zach? As I don't think I was engaged in the discussion around the car crash analogy.

Indeed. The first time I raised it was during conversation with Zach, but not in direct response to Zach.

I referred to it again later, though.

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Eliab
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quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Are you a universalist Eliab?

I certainly hope that everyone will be saved and I think it very possible that they will be. I also think it possible that eternally self-destructive choices exist, and thereful I am not certain that everyone is definitely saved.

quote:
If you are not, why is God at work in the hearts of some atheists not others?
God's at work with everyone! He wants to save everyone. Says so in the Bible.

quote:
If you are going to reject Calvinism in an effort to protect free choice, you can't, surely have a systematic where people don't even understand that something is a choice to accept God, and, in fact, were it to be explained that way to them they would reject the explanation! Free will disappears there too!
What is salvation?

Repenting? Believing in Jesus? Accepting his forgiveness? Living as he commands? Forgiving others? Accepting God's Spirit? Becoming like Christ? Partaking in the divine life?

It's all of that (and more), isn't it? All Christians have started on that road, and (if you hold to assurance of salvation, which I do) are in God's hands to see it to the end. But all human beings, Christian or not, can be (and are) progressing nearer or further from that goal.

An atheist who forgives someone from her heart has done a good thing. And any non-Pelagian Christian ought, I think, to say that whether or not she knew it, she was responding to God's grace. The alternative would be to say either that atheists can't really forgive (which is nonsense) or that it is possible to perform a difficult and painful act of charity independently of the source of all goodness (which is heresy). So why did God give her that grace? Is he deckchair-shuffling or does he want to see her saved? It seems to me that the only answer that takes God's goodness seriously is that when he gives non-believers the capacity to do good, he isn't playing games but is showing his care for them. And when a non-believer cooperates with God, she accepts his grace, and begins to move in the direction which leads to eternal life.

The atheist doesn't understand, of course, that by forgiving an injury she is accepting God, but she does understand that she is forgiving an injury. And God cares about that. That's something he can use. Because he is the God of forgiveness, some part of her soul is, by his grace and her consent, devoted to him. Free will is not violated in the least.

The atheist isn't all the way home, of course. But which of us is? There's work that God still has to do in all of us. Isn't the best judgement on our progress any of us can hope for in this life that God will say "You were beginning to let me save you"? If he might say that to an atheist (as I think he might) then it is quite possible for God to respect the free choices of all for and against him, so that everyone, whatever their background, has some hope of salvation.

The alternative, that some people start and end with no chance at all, is unconscionable, unworthy of God. God does not make people to be damned. If any are lost, it is by their will and against his.

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Leprechaun

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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:


The atheist doesn't understand, of course, that by forgiving an injury she is accepting God, but she does understand that she is forgiving an injury. And God cares about that. That's something he can use. Because he is the God of forgiveness, some part of her soul is, by his grace and her consent, devoted to him. Free will is not violated in the least.

There are about a million things I disagree with in your post. But this bit, I think is simply disingenuous. If someone chooses atheism, to say that some part of their soul is dedicated to God is saying God works in their lives against their expressly stated will. He claims a part of their life even though their stated position is that there is no God. I have no problem with that actually (Calvinists would call it "common grace") but saying that it is free will for God to do this in someone's life while their conscious belief is that he does not exist at all is simply redefining free will way beyond the usual use of that phrase. It's like saying people don't really know what freedom is, but God makes them really free without their knowing. Which is fine, but their actual choice, not to believe in God, is obliterated.

I mean, actually imagine the discussion. "You say you don't believe in God, in fact, you are freely choosing him. You just don't know it."
How will the atheist respond (apart from with great offence IME, because they genuinely believe their own atheism)? By saying "That's not really free will at all."

I think what this discussion reveals is that, in the end, all of us can only hold up our hands and say "God will do what he will do." And that's what I mean by Calvinism (not the five point type which I think is an over-systemisation.)

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Gamaliel
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I think that position is one which many would share, Leprechaun, even if they didn't affix a Calvinist label to it. I can see what you're saying but ultimately don't see how it is vastly different in the final analysis to Eliab's - you are both saying that it is God who saves.

I know I keep referring to the verses in Romans 2 which suggest that some people behave as though they 'have the law written on their hearts' and that God will ultimately judge the secrets of people's hearts and it isn't for us to sit as judge and jury - that's God's prerogative, not ours.

I don't really have an issue with there being people who act and behave in a 'Christian' or more 'salvific' way if you like, even if they would consciously reject the label. I don't see how scripture - taken overall - proscribes such a possibility.

That doesn't necessarily lead to a universalist position, of course - why should it?

I'm becoming very repetitive I know, but it's this binary thing again. I keep coming back to it ...

It goes like this:

Non-Calvinist: 'I am not a Calvinist.'
Binary/dualistic Calvinist: 'Oh, so you must be an Arminian ...'
Non-Calvinist: 'No, I'm not an Arminian.'
Binary/dualistic Calvinist: 'Then you must be some kind of semi-Pelagian ...'
Non-Calvinist: 'No, I'm not a semi-Pelagian ...'
Binary/dualistic Calvinist: 'Then you are a universalist?'
Non-Calvinist: 'No, whilst I believe that the Bible teaches that God desires all to be saved, that does not mean that all will necessarily ultimately be saved ...'
Binary/dualstic Calvinist: 'Ah, so you are an Open Theist ... you think that God cannot see the future ...'
Non-Calvinist: 'No, I am not an Open Theist, I do believe that God knows the future; God knows everything, he is God.'
Binary/dualistic Calvinist: 'Then you must be some kind of heretick of another kind ... does not compute ... does not compute ... does not compute ... (Brain explodes into scattered shreds of Calvin's Institutes, Banner of Truth publications and uber-Scholastic binary code ...)

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Eliab
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quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
"You say you don't believe in God, in fact, you are freely choosing him. You just don't know it."

I'm not saying that.

I'm saying that the atheist is freely choosing to forgive. And God is in favour of forgivenss. God isn't just in favour of Christians forgiving - he is pleased when the gentiles, who have not the law, do what the law commands.

The atheist isn't "choosing God". She is choosing, freely, to cooperate with a God-given ability and impulse to love, and in doing so, moving closer to being the person God wants her to be. I'm saying that God can use that.

I think at the heart of our mutual incomprehension is that you think the atheist has rejected God, and I don't think she necessarily has. She just doesn't believe that he's there. Believing that the cake is a lie is not the same thing as rejecting cake. One is an opinion of fact, the other is a decision based on value.

God can cure mistakes of fact in an instant. That's cost-free to God. It's trivial. It's the conversion of the heart that's the tricky bit, because that has to be free if it's to be worth anything. I'm sying that God can start that process - by offering the grace to do a little better - to non-believers as well as believers, and we can all freely respond by accepting or rejecting him, and it is THAT response that really matters. That is made freely when we freely choose to love and forgive.

Our assessment of the metaphysical probability of the existence of a particular deity is not a choice of the heart in the same way. I'll agree that the two are linked - seeing the beauty of the Christian concept of God is a powerful argument for Christianity, seeing that same God as hateful would be a strong incentive for atheism - but it is possible to have a heart turned towards God (because that is, by definition, what a forgiving heart must be) without explicit belief in him, and without violation of freedom.

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Leprechaun

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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
"You say you don't believe in God, in fact, you are freely choosing him. You just don't know it."

I'm not saying that.

I'm saying that the atheist is freely choosing to forgive. And God is in favour of forgivenss. God isn't just in favour of Christians forgiving - he is pleased when the gentiles, who have not the law, do what the law commands.

The atheist isn't "choosing God". She is choosing, freely, to cooperate with a God-given ability and impulse to love, and in doing so, moving closer to being the person God wants her to be. I'm saying that God can use that.

I think at the heart of our mutual incomprehension is that you think the atheist has rejected God, and I don't think she necessarily has. She just doesn't believe that he's there. Believing that the cake is a lie is not the same thing as rejecting cake. One is an opinion of fact, the other is a decision based on value.


Not really. I think the issue is I think salvation is knowing God, not doing moral things with god-free impulses.

That aside, I can't get past the free will issue, because most atheists I know who forgive truly do so saying "I don't need a god/gods/God to do this." Yet God, according to you over rides that choice.

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Dafyd
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quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
If someone chooses atheism, to say that some part of their soul is dedicated to God is saying God works in their lives against their expressly stated will.

No. It's against their expressly stated belief. Belief is a function of the intellect; desire is a function of their will.
Suppose Lois Lane goes on a date with Clark Kent. Is it true that she's gone on a date with Superman against her will? If Superman had asked her on a date as Superman she'd have said yes. If you say that she went on a date with Superman against her will you'd have to claim not that she didn't believe that she was going on a date with Superman but that she didn't want to go on a date with Superman.
Suppose further that Lois doesn't want to go on a date with Superman but does want to go on a date with Clark Kent. Does she then go on a date with Superman against her will? It would depend on what would happen if she found out that Clark is Superman. If she would decide that her objections to dating Superman vanishes now she knows Clark is Superman, it would be wrong to say that she's doing it against her will, even if she now expresses the opinion that she doesn't want to date Superman.

In other words, not believing God is not enough to say that God is overriding their will. It's not even enough for them to say that they don't need God to do good anyway. It would only be against their will if they would stop doing good once they realised that they do need God.

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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Leprechaun

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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:

In other words, not believing God is not enough to say that God is overriding their will. It's not even enough for them to say that they don't need God to do good anyway. It would only be against their will if they would stop doing good once they realised that they do need God.

This analogy does not work, precisely because in doing good, the atheist is not relating to God, whereas going on a date with whoever is always relational. For an atheist, by definition, doing something good is not connected to relating to God. If God chooses to correct that error of fact he is overriding their choices.

Anyway, I can see there's just an impasse here that we mean different things by free will, and in a way that's useful. I actually have no problem at all with God working in the way that Eliab describes, but for me it's precisely because I am a Calvinist, and I understand that God can choose spiritual significances for people that they don't choose. My view is if you think that, which you and Eliab seem to, you pretty much believe in Calvinism as I understand it.

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Dafyd
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quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It would only be against their will if they would stop doing good once they realised that they do need God.

This analogy does not work, precisely because in doing good, the atheist is not relating to God, whereas going on a date with whoever is always relational. For an atheist, by definition, doing something good is not connected to relating to God. If God chooses to correct that error of fact he is overriding their choices.
If that difference between dating and doing good is meaningful, then it works in the opposite direction to the one you've chosen. What someone does intentionally i.e. their understanding of what they're doing is more significant not less significant if what they're doing is relational. If it's not relational then their understanding of what they're doing is less significant.

quote:
I understand that God can choose spiritual significances for people that they don't choose. My view is if you think that, which you and Eliab seem to, you pretty much believe in Calvinism as I understand it.
I don't think God goes around assigning spiritual significances to things. There's a way in which Reformed theology bears the marks of being defined against semi-Pelagianism. Late scholastic theology has God deciding that there are certain actions (e.g. forgiving, almsgiving, fasting, etc) that, although not intrinsically of any value, God will assign a spiritual significance to. Now I think Reformed theology has a tendency to share basic assumptions with the things it defines itself against. But those basic assumptions are I think in themselves wrong.

The reason forgiveness enabled by grace is a good thing is not that God assigns it spiritual significance. Rather, in forgiving we learn to be the kind of human being who lives in heaven and who imitates in the manner appropriate to human beings our heavenly Father.

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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Leprechaun

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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It would only be against their will if they would stop doing good once they realised that they do need God.

This analogy does not work, precisely because in doing good, the atheist is not relating to God, whereas going on a date with whoever is always relational. For an atheist, by definition, doing something good is not connected to relating to God. If God chooses to correct that error of fact he is overriding their choices.
If that difference between dating and doing good is meaningful, then it works in the opposite direction to the one you've chosen. What someone does intentionally i.e. their understanding of what they're doing is more significant not less significant if what they're doing is relational. If it's not relational then their understanding of what they're doing is less significant.


I don't understand this. I meant that someone's understanding of what they are doing is more significant if it's relational - ie atheists are in many cases choosing to do good things without God because they think it is good to do things without God. That bears no resemblance to going on a date with Clark Kent without knowing he's Superman.

What you are suggesting God does is much more like me helping my neighbour in with her shopping and her "taking that" as me being romantically interested in her and that the shopping help was actually a date. Were I later to discover that everyone thinks we were dating, because she told them that on the basis of the shopping help, that would have been against my will - that's not what I chose to do. I did choose to help her with her shopping, but saying my will was free in that I chose the dating relationship with her would be a nonsense.

That seems to be very close to what Eliab is suggesting God does, taking our works as having a relational significance to him (which I'm happy to use if you don't like spiritual significance) even if we reject that significance. That is an overriding of our free will.

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Gamaliel
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# 812

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Forgive me, but I think you're stretching the analogy too far, Leprechaun. All analogies are partial and I don't think that Dafyd or Eliab were saying that the atheist who does things of which God would approve necessarily has a 'relationship' with God in the sense in which you or I would describe it.

I s'pose my view would be that whilst relationship is always the intention, God may well regard things that fall short of that as the 'next best thing.' I appreciate that this could get into the nit-picking Scholastic territory of 'intention' - in the formal RC sense of the term. The RCs, as you'll be aware, have a whole infrastructure of explanations and so on regarding the meritoriousness of 'intention' and so on.

I would consider such a thing over-systematised - and like you, I would levy the same charge at the TULIP end of the Reformed spectrum. Both, it seem to me, have their origins in late medieval Scholasticism and consequently they are going to share both the strengths and weaknesses of that approach.

I don't think it's a sign of lazy thinking to consign it all to the level of 'mystery' - but it's where I think I'm headed.

'Here I stand, I can do no other ...' [Biased]

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Jengie jon

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# 273

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You'd be interested to note that TULIP the acronym is a twentieth century invention.

Jengie

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Gamaliel
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Sure, but that doesn't alter the fact that Calvinism arose from late-medieval RC Scholasticism and was a product of it as well as a reaction to it.

I'm not sure how the late development of the TULIP acronym alters that in any way ...

[Confused]

I suggest my point still stands, but also that it is open to adjustment ... [Biased]

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mousethief

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# 953

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Does this verse relate to the atheist question? Why or why not?

quote:
1 John 4:7
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.



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Leprechaun

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# 5408

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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Does this verse relate to the atheist question? Why or why not?

quote:
1 John 4:7
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.


I think it probably does but only in the context of this verse.
quote:
1 John 2:22 Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son
Just to underline, I have no problem with God working in this way in the life of an atheist. My beef is the idea that it is compatible with free will.

[ 16. August 2012, 08:55: Message edited by: Leprechaun ]

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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love

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