pajarito 0
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billvon 2,463
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>Still doesn't prevent you from doing what you want.
Actually it does.
If someone believes they are omniscient, and has certain knowledge of what you will do, there are only two possible options:
1) You must do what he predicts you will do.
2) You can do something else, thus demonstrating he is not omniscient.
There's no third option.
Actually it does.
If someone believes they are omniscient, and has certain knowledge of what you will do, there are only two possible options:
1) You must do what he predicts you will do.
2) You can do something else, thus demonstrating he is not omniscient.
There's no third option.
jakee 1,271
QuoteIf I could read your mind, how would that restrict or "control" your thoughts or actions? I just know you so well that I know what you'll do before you do it. Still doesn't prevent you from doing what you want.
Knowing me so well that you know what I'll do demands that my actions must follow a set path determined by my nature and circumstances. There is no room for free will.
Do you want to have an ideagasm?
QuoteThere is no room for free will.
I am omniscient. I predict pajarito will now either:
A) Make authoritative but non-explanatory statements reiterating his earlier stand
or
B) Quietly disappear from the thread.
First Class Citizen Twice Over
pajarito 0
Quote>Still doesn't prevent you from doing what you want.
Actually it does.
If someone believes they are omniscient, and has certain knowledge of what you will do, there are only two possible options:
1) You must do what he predicts you will do.
2) You can do something else, thus demonstrating he is not omniscient.
There's no third option.
QuoteAll theological topics contain pitfalls for the unwary, for God’s truth is never quite what man would have expected; and our present subject is more treacherous than most. This is because in thinking it through we have to deal with an antinomy in the biblical revelation, and in such circumstances our finite, fallen minds are more than ordinarily apt to go astray.
What is an antinomy? The Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines it as “a contradiction between conclusions which seem equally logical, reasonable or necessary.” For our purposes, however, this definition is not quite accurate; the opening words should read “an appearance of contradiction.” For the whole point of an antinomy—in theology, at any rate—is that it is not a real contradiction, though it looks like one. It is an apparent incompatibility between two apparent truths. An antinomy exists when a pair of principles stand side by side, seemingly irreconcilable, yet both undeniable. There are cogent reasons for believing each of them; each rests on clear and solid evidence; but it is a mystery to you how they can be squared with each other. You see that each must be true on its own, but you do not see how they can both be true together. Let me give an example. Modern physics faces an aritinomy, in this sense, in its study of light. There is cogent evidence to show that light consists of waves, and equally cogent evidence to show that it consists of particles. It is not apparent how light can be both waves and particles, but the evidence is there, and so neither view can be ruled out in favor of the other. Neither, however, can be reduced to the other or explained in terms of the other; the two seemingly incompatible positions must be held together, and both must be treated as true. Such a necessity scandalizes our tidy minds, no doubt, but there is no help for it if we are to be loyal to the facts.
It appears, therefore, that an antinomy is not the same thing as a paradox. A paradox is a figure of speech, a play on words. It is a form of statement that seems to unite two opposite ideas, or to deny something by the very terms in which it is asserted. Many truths about the Christian life can be expressed as paradoxes. A Prayer Book collect, for instance, declares that God’s “service is perfect freedom”: man goes free through becoming a slave. Paul states various paradoxes of his own Christian experience: “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing...having nothing, and yet possessing all things”; “when I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Cor. 6:10, 12:10). The point of a paradox, however, is that what creates the appearance of contradiction is not the facts, but the words. The contradiction is verbal, but not real, and a little thought shows how it can be eliminated and the same idea expressed in non-paradoxical form. In other words a paradox is always dispensable. Look at the examples quoted. The Prayer Book might have said that those who serve God are free from sin’s dominion. In 2 Cor. 6:10, 12:10 Paul might have said that sorrow at circumstances, and joy in God, are constantly combined in his experience, and that, though he owns no property, has no bank balance, there is a sense in which everything belongs to him, because he is Christ’s, and Christ is Lord of all. Again, in 2 Cor. 12:10, he might have said that the Lord strengthens him most when he is most conscious of his natural infirmity. Such non-paradoxical forms of speech are clumsy and dull beside the paradoxes which they would replace, but they express precisely the same meaning. For a paradox is merely a matter of how you use words; the employment of paradox is an arresting trick of speech, but it does not imply even an appearance of contradiction in the facts that you are describing.
Also it should be noted that a paradox is always comprehensible. A speaker or writer casts his ideas into paradoxes in order to make them memorable and provoke thought about them. But the person at the receiving end must be able, on reflection, to see how to unravel the paradox, otherwise it will seem to him to be really self-contradictory, and therefore really meaningless. An incomprehensible paradox could not be distinguished from a mere contradiction in terms. Sheer paradox would thus have to be written off as sheer nonsense.
By contrast, however, an antinomy is neither dispensable nor comprehensible. It is not a figure of speech, but an observed relation between two statements of fact. It is not deliberately manufactured; it is forced upon us by the facts themselves. It is unavoidable, and it is insoluble. We do not invent it, and we cannot explain it. Nor is there any way to get rid of it, save by falsifying the very facts that led us to it.
What should one do, then, with an antinomy? Accept it for what it is, and learn to live with it. Refuse to regard the apparent inconsistency as real; put down the semblance of contradiction to the deficiency of your own understanding; think of the two principles as, not rival alternatives, but, in some way that at present you do not grasp, complementary to each other. Be careful, therefore, not to set them at loggerheads, nor to make deductions from either that would cut across the other (such deductions would, for that very reason, be certainly unsound). Use each within the limits of its own sphere of reference (i.e., the area delimited by the evidence from which the principle has been drawn). Note what connections exist between the two truths and their two frames of reference, and teach yourself to think of reality in a way that provides for their peaceful coexistence, remembering that reality itself has proved actually to contain them both. This is how antinomies must be handled, whether in nature or in Scripture. This, as I understand it, is how modern physics deals with the problem of light, and this is how Christians have to deal with the antinomies of biblical teaching.
The particular antinomy which concerns us here is the apparent opposition between divine sovereignty and human responsibility, or (putting it more biblically) between what God does as King and what He does as Judge. Scripture teaches that, as King, He orders and controls all things, human actions among them, in accordance with His own eternal purpose. Scripture also teaches that, as Judge, He holds every man responsible for the choices he makes and the courses of action he pursues. Thus hearers of the gospel are responsible for their reaction; if they reject the good news, they are guilty of unbelief. “He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed.” Again, Paul, entrusted with the gospel, is responsible for preaching it; if he neglects his commission, he is penalized for unfaithfulness. “Necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!” God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility are taught us side by side in the same Bible; sometimes, indeed, in the same text. Both are thus guaranteed to us by the same divine authority; both, therefore, are true. It follows that they must be held together, and not played off against each other. Man is a responsible moral agent, though he is also divinely controlled; man is divinely controlled, though he is also a responsible moral agent. God’s sovereignty is a reality, and man’s responsibility is a reality too. This is the revealed antinomy in terms of which we have to do our thinking about divine command and free-will.
To our finite minds, of course, the thing is inexplicable. It sounds like a contradiction, and our first reaction is to complain that it is absurd. Paul notices this complaint in Rornans 9: “Thou wilt say then unto me, Why does he [God] yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?” (Rom. 9:19). If, as our Lord, God orders all our actions, how can it be reasonable or right for Him to act also as our Judge, and condemn our shortcomings? Observe how Paul replies. He does not attempt to demonstrate the propriety of God’s action; instead, he rebukes the spirit of the question. “Nay but, 0 man, who are thou that repliest against God?” What the objector has to learn is that he, a creature and a sinner, has not right whatsoever to find fault with the revealed ways of God. Creatures are not entitled to register complaints about their Creator.7
This incomprehensible antinomy—God’s will, man’s will, and free will—occupies a large part of God’s truth. Does this subject have a message for ministers and Christians in this day of doctrinal indifference and ignorance? It most certainly does.
Many evangelicals today have a lot of semi-Pelagianism in their blood. They believe man really isn’t all that bad. Certainly he isn’t totally depraved—he can choose to do good because his nature is good.
An understanding of the bondage of the will would produce some radical changes in the common approach to preaching in general and to evangelistic preaching in particular. As has been shown previously, man’s will is a slave to his nature. He cannot decide something or choose to do something that is alien to his nature. This concept would have a profound effect on many departments of theology as well as pastoral work. It is good for us to remember that the bondage of the will was a central theme at the foundation of the Protestant Reformation and thus at the center of all that occurred then in evangelism, preaching, holy living, and organizational restructuring.
Do we not stand in urgent need of teaching that humbles man, strengthens faith, and glorifies God?
--Dr. J.I. Packer
jakee 1,271
QuoteAll theological topics blah blah blah
Allow me to summarise the good Dr. - "God doesn't play by our rules, so no matter how good the counterargument is I don't even need to address it. Deal with it bitches."
Not very conducive to a useful discussion, is it?
Do you want to have an ideagasm?
pajarito 0
QuoteQuoteAll theological topics blah blah blah
Allow me to summarise the good Dr. - "God doesn't play by our rules, so no matter how good the counterargument is I don't even need to address it. Deal with it bitches."
Not very conducive to a useful discussion, is it?
That's the problem. The concept is much more complex than you'd like. We want to "summarize" or dumb it down because we aren't able to comprehend it. It makes us uncomfortable in our finite capacity that we cannot know the mind of God. It is our arrogant pride which makes us think we can.
“God’s truth is never quite what man would have expected.”
jakee 1,271
QuoteIt makes us uncomfortable in our finite capacity that we cannot know the mind of God.
This isn't about knowing the mind of God, it's about pointing out fundamental incompatibilities between the things that religions would have us believe.
QuoteWe want to "summarize" or dumb it down because we aren't able to comprehend it.
The passage you quoted is the ultimate example of dumbing down, its basic message is "You'll never be able to understand so don't think about it - just accept what we say as true." Religion only works when people are willing to turn off their 'god given' faculty for reasoned thought. It's why they've held back so much science over the years.
Speaking of science, are you any closer to admitting that other article was a bunch of codswallop yet?
Do you want to have an ideagasm?
billvon 2,463
So you claim this is an antimony? To describe it:
"It is unavoidable, and it is insoluble. We do not invent it, and we cannot explain it. Nor is there any way to get rid of it, save by falsifying the very facts that led us to it.
What should one do, then, with an antinomy? Accept it for what it is, and learn to live with it."
If by quoting that piece you mean that you do not have a solution to my question, that's a fair reply. It would be more forthcoming, though, to state that you do not know if man has free will; the piece you quoted encourages you to accept that you cannot answer the question, and to learn to live with your uncertainty.
"It is unavoidable, and it is insoluble. We do not invent it, and we cannot explain it. Nor is there any way to get rid of it, save by falsifying the very facts that led us to it.
What should one do, then, with an antinomy? Accept it for what it is, and learn to live with it."
If by quoting that piece you mean that you do not have a solution to my question, that's a fair reply. It would be more forthcoming, though, to state that you do not know if man has free will; the piece you quoted encourages you to accept that you cannot answer the question, and to learn to live with your uncertainty.
If I could read your mind, how would that restrict or "control" your thoughts or actions? I just know you so well that I know what you'll do before you do it. Still doesn't prevent you from doing what you want.
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