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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Is Calvinism the Asperger's Syndrome of Protestantism?
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
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
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
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.
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
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
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
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.
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
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]](wink.gif)
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
You'd be interested to note that TULIP the acronym is a twentieth century invention.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
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]](confused.gif)
I suggest my point still stands, but also that it is open to adjustment ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
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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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
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
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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