Calvinism

[Contarini]

Matt16_18:

The Church teaches that God and man work together in every salutary act. Show me where Aquinas taught that God and man are working together in evil acts.

No act is purely evil. Evil is not a thing, but a defect. God does not cause the defect. God causes the positive quality that gives the act reality. I don’t find this an adequate way of talking about evil, but it is the way Aquinas talks about it. See ST 1, Question 49, Article 2, response to objection 2: “The effect of the deficient secondary cause is reduced to the first non-deficient cause as regards what it has of being and perfection, but not as regards what it has of defect; just as whatever there is of motion in the act of limping is caused by the motive power, whereas what there is of obliqueness in it does not come from the motive power, but from the curvature of the leg. And, likewise, whatever there is of being and action in a bad action, is reduced to God as the cause; whereas whatever defect is in it is not caused by God, but by the deficient secondary cause.”

This is why Aquinas can teach unconditional predestination to life while rejecting positive reprobation. Reprobation simply involves God choosing not to move the wills of certain human beings in such a way as to direct them toward the end of eternal life. God does not do anything in reprobating. He refrains from acting. And since all the good that God does is free and gratuitous, God is (in Aquinas’s way of thinking) fully justified in refraining from bringing about certain specific goods, such as the eternal salvation of those whom God has not chosen.

Matt16_18:

The Thomists argue that they only believe in a negative reprobation of certain men on account of their forseen sins, and that they do not teach the positive reprobation of the Calvinists.

Aquinas makes reprobation conditional on foreknowledge only in a very qualified sense–i.e., God does not cause people to sin, but chooses to “abandon” them, allowing them to fall into sin (of their own free choice) and die in that condition which results in eternal damnation. As far as I can see, Aquinas doesn’t make this “abandonment” conditional on foressen sins. But I can well believe that the later Thomists found it necessary to nuance this point in order to avoid condemnation as Calvinists.

Matt16_18:

But suppose that the differences between Aquinas’s negative reprobation and Calvin’s positive reprobation is really just a matter of semantics.

That’s not what I said. I said that the differences were largely a matter of nuance and semantics. I don’t dispute that there are real differences and that the Catholic Church regards the Thomist position as orthodox and the Calvinist position as heretical. I challenged you to show how Aquinas effectively avoids the conclusion that you impute to Calvin–that God is the source of evil. You have shown no understanding of Aquinas’s position so far. My point is not that Calvin was right–clearly he was insufficiently careful in how he put things and thus fell into heresy. If that was all you meant, then we have no disagreement. But given that the major theologians of Western Catholicism fail (in my view and that of many others) to explain adequately how evil exists without God being the cause of it, we should go somewhat easy on Calvin on this score. Calvin, like Aquinas, did not want to make God the cause of evil. Calvin distinguished between God causing the act and God causing the evil of the act, which is not so different from Aquinas’s position. Calvin was, as you note, a much poorer theologian than Aquinas (I’d hesitate to say that he was a “poor theologian” in an absolute sense–he was brilliant but lacked the background and context to make some necessary distinctions). But, of course, Calvin is not the official authority of “Calvinism” (more properly Reformed Protestantism), any more than Thomas is the official authority of Catholicism. If you want to attack the Calvinist tradition as a whole you need to go to its official standards of doctrine.

 

[Contarini]

Matt16_18:

That would only prove one thing, that Aquinas was wrong on this point. It would not prove that the Catholic Church teaches Calvinism, since not everything that Aquinas taught is the infallible teaching of the Catholic Church.

Very true. But as I’m sure you know, the Pope declared in the early 17th century that the Thomist and Molinist positions were both within the pale of orthodoxy. (This didn’t constitute a definitive declaration that either of them was correct–on the contrary, it halted the debate and allowed each side to maintain its position as a pious opinion.) Actually most Molinists agreed with the Thomists that predestination was “ante praevisa merita”–that God made the decision to save some without regard to His foreknowledge. The Molinists invoked “middle knowledge” to explain how God brought about the salvation of the elect without denying their free will (He put them in circumstances which He knew would lead to their dying in a state of grace). The Thomists taught not only that God chose the elect without regard to their foreseen merits, but also that the difference between the elect and the reprobate was that God gave the elect an “efficient grace” which He denied to the reprobate. This is in some respects closer to Calvinism than anything explicitly found in Aquinas. Yet this was declared orthodox by the Pope.

Matt16_18:

Why don’t you address the issue that I have raised? Can God’s will contradict God’s will? Was it God’s will for Adam and Eve to be both disobedient and obedient to what he had expressly commanded (i.e. that Adam and Eve were not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil)?

I didn’t address it because I had not gotten around to responding to that post yet. You are assuming that the statement “God wills X” is univocal. But this simplistic attitude contradicts most of Catholic theology. God wills things in many different ways. Aquinas gives one account of this in his commentary on 1 Timothy 2:4 and in ST 1, Question 19, Art. 6, and it’s an account that most Calvinists would agree with. Whether this fits Catholic dogma I’m not sure. But given the papal sanction of Thomism, it’s clear that some such distinction is licit for Catholics. (Aquinas actually gives three explanations of 1 Tim. 2:4, but the most relevant one for our discussion is the distinction between what God wills simply and what God wills antecedently.)

Your refusal to address the causative nature of God’s knowledge is fatal to your argument. If God’s knowledge is causative, then Aquinas has a lot of explaining to do. He attempts this explaining in ST 1, Question 14, Art. 10, arguing that God knows evil through the opposite good. In other words, God knows (and thus causes) the good of which evil is a privation. But this implies (though Aquinas does not explicitly spell it out) that God refrains from causing the good of which a specific evil is a privation. I find this a hopelessly inadequate way of speaking about evil acts, such as murder or rape. How can you speak of God causing the act but not causing the “privation” of good that makes the act evil? How can you speak of murder or rape as simply failing to contain a certain good?

You have to address this before you can charge ahead and attack Calvinists for making God implicitly the author of evil. If your own greatest theologian did this, what grounds do you have for criticizing poor Calvin for doing it a bit more clumsily?

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[Matt16_18]

BenK:

To be honest, I’m still unclear about what you mean by a ‘primal state’. It feels like you’re talking about a ‘time before time’, which is nonsense. As long as there has been time, there has been a universe.

Before God created a universe for angels to dwell in, and before God created a universe for man to dwell in, what existed? God. God does not dwell in time, time is God’s creation. The “primal state” of Atheos-sum is nothing other than a synonym for God, (before there was anything created, there was a “primal state”, i.e. God.)

10 is an out-and-out leap in the dark. There is no formal progression from any prior premise to this conclusion.

Yes, you are correct. Atheos-sum has give no reason to come to the conclusion that he has reached in 10. Atheos-sum is doing what all Calvinists do, creating an argument by assuming his conclusion is true (i.e. men have no free will), and then working backwards from his conclusion to develop premises that will support his conclusion.

 

[Matt16_18]

Contarini:

Evil is not a thing, but a defect.

Agreed. Evil is a parasite on the good, and evil has no reality in itself.

God does not cause the defect.

IOW, God never wills a sinful act. Agreed.

God causes the positive quality that gives the act reality. I don’t find this an adequate way of talking about evil, but it is the way Aquinas talks about it.

All you are saying is that what God creates is good, and nothing came to be without God, i.e. “All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.” (John 1:3). Evil is the misuse of the good, and God never wills that angels or men commit sin. What is so terribly inadequate about this way of speaking? The entire Bible teaches that these two things are true, i.e. that the created good only comes into being because God wills it, and that God never wills that men or angels commit sin. This doesn’t explain the mystery of iniquity, but that mystery will never be explained by men.

This is why Aquinas can teach unconditional predestination to life while rejecting positive reprobation.

Aquinas taught that the only reason that we exist is that God desired that we have life. Who would argue that point? Aquinas also rejected the lunacy that God creates some people who are predestined for hell, (postitive reprobation). Other than Calvinists, what Christian believes that God creates humans solely for the purpose of being eternally damned? Such a God would be a monster that no one could really love.

Reprobation simply involves God choosing not to move the wills of certain human beings in such a way as to direct them toward the end of eternal life.

No, reprobation involves God not giving concomitant grace to men that he knows will reject that grace. “So then he has mercy upon whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills.” (Romans 9:18).

God does not do anything in reprobating. He refrains from acting. And since all the good that God does is free and gratuitous, God is (in Aquinas’s way of thinking) fully justified in refraining from bringing about certain specific goods, such as the eternal salvation of those whom God has not chosen.

It is true that God’s grace is never wasted, and that scriptures teach that God hardens the heart of whom he wills, but I don’t believe that Aquinas taught that God positively chooses certain men to be damned. I believe that Aquinas teaches that God withholds grace from men who have made the choice to reject grace.

Aquinas makes reprobation conditional on foreknowledge only in a very qualified sense–i.e., God does not cause people to sin, but chooses to “abandon” them, allowing them to fall into sin (of their own free choice) and die in that condition which results in eternal damnation. As far as I can see, Aquinas doesn’t make this “abandonment” conditional on foressen sins. But I can well believe that the later Thomists found it necessary to nuance this point in order to avoid condemnation as Calvinists.

The important thing here is that God does NOT cause people to sin.

God certainly is acting justly if he allows unrepentant sinner’s hearts to harden because of God’s foreknowledge that these unrepentant sinners will reject any actual graces offered to them that would lead to their repentance.

 

[atheos_sum]

BenK:

Firstly, I have never claimed to be able to offer a proof that human beings are free agents. I think there are reasonable theological and scriptural grounds to believe so, but my only concern philosophically speaking is with the claim that God’s omniscience and creativity precludes the possibility of human free agency.

Lets try and work this through. (What little I knew of proper formal logic notation I’ve forgotten, so bear with me as I just spell it out using capitals for the operators).

1. IFF something is NOT eternal THEN it has a beginning.
2. God is eternal.
3. 1+2 THEREFORE God does NOT have a beginning.
4. The universe is NOT eternal.
5. 1+4 THEREFORE The universe has a beginning.

So far so good. I cannot, however, find any way to formally deduce your 6 from your premises, including the unspoken ones that seem to be implied. To be honest, I’m still unclear about what you mean by a ‘primal state’. It feels like you’re talking about a ‘time before time’, which is nonsense. As long as there has been time, there has been a universe.

In your second argument, 8 formally follows from 7 if we allow the unspoken premises ‘IF someone is omniscient THEN they cannot have false knowledge’ and ‘IF someone is omniscient THEN they have no uncertanties about that which they foreknow’, which most people would. 9 is problematic because of the as-yet unclarified meaning of ‘primary state’.

10 is an out-and-out leap in the dark. There is no formal progression from any prior premise to this conclusion.

If you liked learning formal logic, perhaps you would also like learning modal logic. Modal logic is basically the realm in which I have presented the two arguments above, the realm in which you describe propositions involving necessity, and relating that to knowledge, belief and obligation.

If you understand the primary state, you will understand the second argument, and then you will understand why predestination is necessary.

The primary state (PS) is absolutely necessary for you to accept. But in case this is not obvious to you, I should illustrate the impacts of denying it. If you deny the primary state, then you imply that the universe has always existed, which in turn implies that God could not have created the universe. We know from (1-5) that the universe is NOT eternal and that God created it at some—dare I say?—“time.” It is crucial for your critique to try to downplay this notion of a primary state (PS) in order to deny predestination. You can say that the primary state (PS) is unclear, but if you flatly deny it then you have implied a doctrine more vulgar than predestination—mainly, that God did not create the universe. What in Peter’s name, I would then ask, is your use for God?

There are many ways to show that the primary state (PS) is necessary. I said this before and I’ll say it again. The primary state (PS) is not a “time before time itself began.” Time began ticking once the universe was created; so there was no “before the universe” in a chronological sense. One cannot measure something chronological without a kronos by which to measure it. It would be like trying to measure a beaker of water under the surface of the ocean—what do you measure with respect to what!? There could, however, have been a “before the state of the universe” in a purely existential sense. So, you have two states, (a) one in which the universe exists and (b) one in which the universe does not exist. God exists in both, because by definition he is absolutely autarkic. (That is, God does not depend on the universe existing for Himself to exist. Another way of putting that would be, God’s existence is not measured by the existence of the universe. And yet another way would be, God exists regardless of whether the universe exists. He is auto “self” arky “sufficing.”)

(Moreover, a proposition (P) is necessary if it is true in every possible state of affairs. If you believe God existed in every possible affairs, then by deduction, you believe that God existed in the state of affairs in which the universe did not exist.)

If God had a choice to create the universe, (which premise # 3 says) then God obviously existed in a state in which the universe did not exist (for you cannot make this decision if it had already been made—neither can you make this decision if it had already been eternally true.)

Thus the primary state (PS) obtained.

 

[atheos_sum]

BenK:

Firstly, I have never claimed to be able to offer a proof that human beings are free agents. I think there are reasonable theological and scriptural grounds to believe so, but my only concern philosophically speaking is with the claim that God’s omniscience and creativity precludes the possibility of human free agency.

Lets try and work this through. (What little I knew of proper formal logic notation I’ve forgotten, so bear with me as I just spell it out using capitals for the operators).

1. IFF something is NOT eternal THEN it has a beginning.
2. God is eternal.
3. 1+2 THEREFORE God does NOT have a beginning.
4. The universe is NOT eternal.
5. 1+4 THEREFORE The universe has a beginning.

So far so good. I cannot, however, find any way to formally deduce your 6 from your premises, including the unspoken ones that seem to be implied. To be honest, I’m still unclear about what you mean by a ‘primal state’. It feels like you’re talking about a ‘time before time’, which is nonsense. As long as there has been time, there has been a universe.

In your second argument, 8 formally follows from 7 if we allow the unspoken premises ‘IF someone is omniscient THEN they cannot have false knowledge’ and ‘IF someone is omniscient THEN they have no uncertanties about that which they foreknow’, which most people would. 9 is problematic because of the as-yet unclarified meaning of ‘primary state’.

10 is an out-and-out leap in the dark. There is no formal progression from any prior premise to this conclusion.

At any rate, the standard by which you are judging the primary state is stricter than what you demand of the Apostle Paul. In the first chapter of Ephesians, Paul nebulously describes a state very similar to my notion of the primary state. He says, “Before the foundation of the world,” or “Before the creation of the world.” By your own standards, Paul is being contradictory. If you cut off my nose, then you have spited Paul’s face; you saw off the very limb upon which you sit. Funny how you would allow apostles, but not philosophers, to be contradictory. I, however, don’t think Paul was being contradictory. I think it makes perfect sense the way in which I have described it (i.e. the primary state.)

 

[Matt16_18]

Contarini:

I challenged you to show how Aquinas effectively avoids the conclusion that you impute to Calvin–that God is the source of evil.

And I don’t know why you made that challenge either. When did I bring up Aquinas? But to answer your challenge, the difference is this: Calvin believes that men have no free will, and Aquinas does not believe such foolishness. Because men have free will, they can choose not to cooperate with grace, and thus they are free to commit sin, something that God NEVER wills. Agents with free will, (angels and men) can choose to reject grace, and it is that choice that brings evil actions into being. God is the source of free will, but God is not the source of evil.

If we take Calvin’s position that free will does not exist, then men are nothing but meat robots that must do whatever the great programmer in the sky has programmed them to do. If men and angels are nothing but robots, then the great programmer in the sky is the cause of the evil actions that his robots manifest.

You have shown no understanding of Aquinas’s position so far.

I don’t agree.

My point is not that Calvin was right–clearly he was insufficiently careful in how he put things and thus fell into heresy.

Good, we agree that Calvin fell into heresy. You are the one that brought up Aquinas, not me, and I have no real desire to bring Aquinas into this discussion at all. It seems to me that you are only doing that to obfuscate the issues that have been raised about Calvin’s defective theology. How about if we agree to not discuss what Aquinas may or may not have believed anymore?

I didn’t address it because I had not gotten around to responding to that post yet. You are assuming that the statement “God wills X” is univocal.

Please don’t put words in my mouth. All I am assuming is that God NEVER wills that either angels or men commit sin.

Your refusal to address the causative nature of God’s knowledge is fatal to your argument.

My argument brings out the distinction between God’s perfect will, and God’s permissive will, a distinction that Calvinists don’t make. God’s perfect will was for Adam and Eve to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But God gave Adam and Eve free will, and God’s permissive will was that they were allowed to exercise their free will to choose to accept or reject the graces that they were receiving. By making a choice for disobedience, Adam and Eve sinned, and it is completely Adam and Eve’s fault that they were disobedient and fell from grace. God allowed Adam and Eve to sin, but God never willed that they make a choice for disobedience.

That God allowed Adam and Eve to be disobedient to his perfect will in no way makes God any less sovereign over his creation. In fact, the punishments God metes out to Adam and Eve for their willful disobedience proves that God is sovereign over Adam and Eve.

If God’s knowledge is causative, then Aquinas has a lot of explaining to do.

No, he doesn’t. God is omniscient, and he certainly knew beforehand what Adam and Eve did not know, and could not know, i.e. that their sinful disobedience would bring death into the world. But because God is omniscient, and because he knew the consequences of Adam and Eve’s disobedience, it does not at all imply that his omniscient knowledge of evil caused Adam and Eve to sin. That conclusion is just plain wrong. A parent knows that his children should not do certain things because the parent knows the consequences of actions. If a teenager is disobedient to his parent and gets killed by driving drunk, it is not the parent’s fault that their child was killed because the parent had knowledge that that drunk driving is dangerous.

God knows evil through the opposite good. In other words, God knows (and thus causes) the good of which evil is a privation.

Yes, of course God causes the good. When we read Genesis, as God creates, he declares what he has created to be good. So God is obviously the cause of good. How can creation come into being unless God causes that to happen?

God is the cause of good, but God is not the cause of the abuse of what he has created. (You are calling the abuse of the good “privation”, but we can also call it sin). Agents with free will (angels and men) that use their free will to be disobedient to God’s perfect will are the cause of the abuse of the good. Evil is like vandalism, a vandal doesn’t create himself (which is good), nor does the vandal create the school that he wants to vandalize, he only abuses his free will to make a mess by sinning. To say that “God knows (and thus causes) the good of which evil is a privation” is stating the obvious, and in no way leads to the conclusion that God wills the abuse of good that he has created.

 

[Matt16_18]

Contarini:

How can [Aquinas] speak of God causing the act but not causing the “privation” of good that makes the act evil?

God cause the good of creation to come into being, but God does not cause agents with free will to be disobedient to his perfect will.

Let us drop the discussion of what Aquinas may or may not have believed. Let us talk about what YOU believe. So far, you have avoided answering my questions. Can God’s will contradict God’s will? Was it God’s will for Adam and Eve to be both disobedient and obedient to what he had expressly commanded (i.e. that Adam and Eve were not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil)?Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one…
James 1:13. I say that God tempts no one to sin, and that he most certainly does not cause men to sin either. What do you say?

 

[4_marks]

Trelow:

Now what about us rabid Catholic right-wing religious nut cases?

Religious zealots turn off many people for whom Jesus suffered and died. Catholic religious zealots are no exception.

 

[Matt16_18]

Atheos_sum:

The primary state (PS) is absolutely necessary for you to accept.

Your “primary state” is nothing by a synonym for God. No one is arguing that God does not exist, or that God is not omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.

In the first chapter of Ephesians, Paul nebulously describes a state very similar to my notion of the primary state. He says, “Before the foundation of the world,” or “Before the creation of the world.”

Right. Before the creation of the world, God existed. Agreed. What does not follow is your conclusion that because God existed before the foundation of the world, that when God did create the world, he created angels and men as robots without free will.

How about answering the questions that I asked you earlier. Can God’s will contradict God’s will? Was it God’s will for Adam and Eve to be both disobedient and obedient to what he had expressly commanded (i.e. that Adam and Eve were not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil)?

 

[BenK]

If I understand Contarini correctly, he’s not arguing that Calvin was right, but that Aquinas held a position effectively identical to Calvin (differing only in nuance and the use of certain technical terms), and that it’s therefore hypocritical for Catholics to accuse Calvin of heresy unless they also accuse Aquinas.

 

[BenK]

If you liked learning formal logic, perhaps you would also like learning modal logic. Modal logic is basically the realm in which I have presented the two arguments above, the realm in which you describe propositions involving necessity, and relating that to knowledge, belief and obligation.

I don’t think you are using Modal logic, I think your conclusion just doesn’t follow from your premises as stated.

…God’s existence is not measured by the existence of the universe. And yet another way would be, God exists regardless of whether the universe exists.

Okay, if this is what you mean by ‘primary state’ then I grant it, although it seems like a clumsy term for what is essentially an attribute of God. Now map out for me, formally, making explicit every premise, how ‘God’s existence is not measured by the existence of the universe’ precludes human free agency.
At any rate, the standard by which you are judging the primary state is stricter than what you demand of the Apostle Paul.

Neither Paul nor any of the biblical authors give a rigorous account God’s relationship to time; that is certainly not Paul’s purpose in writing Ephesians. The Bible is not a work of philosophy or systematic theology, but provides much of the data on which a Christian systematic theology is built.

 

[Contarini]

BenK:

If I understand Contarini correctly, he’s not arguing that Calvin was right, but that Aquinas held a position effectively identical to Calvin (differing only in nuance and the use of certain technical terms), and that it’s therefore hypocritical for Catholics to accuse Calvin of heresy unless they also accuse Aquinas.

Actually, I’m not even claiming that much. I’m claiming that it’s quite possible to accuse Calvin of heresy if in doing so you focus on the actual places where he differs from Aquinas and other orthodox Catholic theologians. It seems to me that most of the attacks on Calvin on this thread are focusing on points where much traditional Western theology runs into problems. I have no difficulty admitting that Calvin deals with these problems more clumsily than Aquinas or other Catholic theologians. But Matt shows no understanding of how Aquinas deals with them, or of how close he comes to Calvin’s position. Until you have gone into the issue and wrestled with the answers provided by orthodox Augustinians such as Aquinas, you have no right to attack heretical Augustinians such as Calvin in such broad terms.

Catholics tend to create a sharp dichotomy between the “Catholic” position (which is actually one that even Molina would have found too Pelagian) and the “Calvinist” position, which as they describe it effectively embraces Augustine and Aquinas. That’s what I’m arguing against. If you want to say that Calvin failed to maintain the proper safeguards against a conclusion with which all Augustinians wrestle, then I have no further quarrel.

I myself tend increasingly to think that the whole Augustinian tradition has gotten itself into some needless difficulties. I’m reluctant to say that confidently, given the great importance of Augustine and Aquinas in Western Christianity. But make no mistake: if you reject predestination ante praevisa merita you are rejecting the mainstream of Western Christian theology. And you should do this fully aware of what you are doing–which most Catholics aren’t.

Edwin

 

[atheos_sum]

Matt16_18:

Atheos-sum is doing what all Calvinists do, creating an argument by assuming his conclusion is true (i.e. men have no free will), and then working backwards from his conclusion to develop premises that will support his conclusion.)?

Well, for one, I’m not a Calvinist. And for two, the conclusion was not something I initially assumed to be true. Regardless, how could you possibly know whether it was anyway? I don’t like your generalizations or your stereotypes. My argument, at any rate, is a priori.

Matt16_18:

Your “primary state” is nothing by a synonym for God. No one is arguing that God does not exist, or that God is not omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. )?

A synonym? Hardly. It’s the possible state of affairs in which His existence is necessary—it’s not actually Him.

Matt16_18:

Right. Before the creation of the world, God existed. Agreed. What does not follow is your conclusion that because God existed before the foundation of the world, that when God did create the world, he created angels and men as robots without free will. )?

Yes, all robots, every last one of them!

Matt16_18:

How about answering the questions that I asked you earlier. Can God’s will contradict God’s will? Was it God’s will for Adam and Eve to be both disobedient and obedient to what he had expressly commanded (i.e. that Adam and Eve were not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil)?

A monk, taking a bamboo stick, said to the people, “If you call this a stick, you fall into the trap of words, but if you do not call it a stick, you contradict facts. So what do you call it?” At that time a monk in the assembly came forth. He snatched the stick, broke it in two, and threw the pieces across the room.

BenK:

I don’t think you are using Modal logic, I think your conclusion just doesn’t follow from your premises as stated.

Not that this matters, but are you qualified to say whether it is modal or not?

BenK:

Okay, if this is what you mean by ‘primary state’ then I grant it

Good.

BenK:

although it seems like a clumsy term for what is essentially an attribute of God.

Then I suppose I should have called it “attribute of God”? I’m sure you would have instantly known what I was talking about. But, if you want, we can just call it “the clumsy term” from now on.

Since Kant, no one has been saying that existence (or states of existence) are properties or attributes of the entities in question. States (states of existence) are the realms in which we call things into question—they cannot be properties of the things themselves. St. Anselm made this mistake and thus tried to define God into existence. In the same way, it was later argued, one could define a perfect tropical island into existence.

 

[atheos_sum]

BenK:
Now map out for me, formally, making explicit every premise, how ‘God’s existence is not measured by the existence of the universe’ precludes human free agency.

So, you’re okay with everything up until #9. This one is fairly easy to buttress. So I’ll just focus on #9 for now.

Consider this argument the warrant for the claim in #9. (Familiar with Toulmin at all?)

1. God is omniscient.
2. God is unchanging and complete.

C) □→ God, being unchanging and complete, is omniscient in the primary state.

Definition of salvific consequence: A salvific consequence is the consequence a human being faces with respect to his or her salvation. A positive salvific consequence means a human being goes to heaven. A negative salvific consequence means a human being goes to hell.

3)Every human being has a salvific consequence.

1. Every category of knowledge is a subset of His omniscience.
2. “Salvific consequences” is a category of knowledge

C) □→ God possesses knowledge of “salvific consequences.”

C) □→ God possessed knowledge of “salvific consequences” in the primary state.

BenK:
Neither Paul nor any of the biblical authors give a rigorous account God’s relationship to time; that is certainly not Paul’s purpose in writing Ephesians. The Bible is not a work of philosophy or systematic theology, but provides much of the data on which a Christian systematic theology is built.

Nonetheless, by your own standard for which you judged my argument, Paul implies “time before time” and to you this is, of course, “nonsense.” Or, to be more precise, it was only nonsense when I said it, but not when Paul said it. But I won’t hold that to you.

 

[Matt16_18]

Rand’AlThor

Sigh. As you can see from this thread, the problem with using the argument that I have raised is that no one wants to confront it.

If you do try to use the argument, prepare for a fog of obfuscation to ensue! It happens every time.

 

[Rand_Al_Thor]

Rand’AlThor

Sigh. As you can see from this thread, the problem with using the argument that I have raised is that no one wants to confront it.

If you do try to use the argument, prepare for a fog of obfuscation to ensue! It happens every time.

already has! i was told “we dont understand why…” it’s pretty convienient only understanding God when it helps your argument.

 

[maesoph]

Dear All:

Tim Staples just released a revised tape set on Justification - it’s 7 tapes vs. the older 5 tape set and he spends 1 tape on Luthernism and 2.5 tapes on Calvinism. It’s gruesome stuff, I actually found it quite depressing. I couldn’t imagine a God that, when you get right down to it, basically created Adam and Eve to fail…

One of the most devout people I know is a Calvinist… He’s financially secure, his family is good and he’s got the most stress-free job in the entire universe and I always wondered why he was on prozac for 15 years or so… Now I know!!! If I was a Calvinist, I would be on prozac too!!! LOL!!!

 

[BenK]

C) □→ God, being unchanging and complete, is omniscient in the primary state.

C) □→ God possessed knowledge of “salvific consequences” in the primary state.

The definition of ‘primary state’ was:
.God’s existence is not measured by the existence of the universe. And yet another way would be, God exists regardless of whether the universe exists.

So what we mean is that God, whose existence is not dependant on the universe, (ie. who exits whether the universe exists or not), is omniscient. Okay, granted. Although that should be “God possesses knowledge in the primary state” rather than “possessed”. The PS, being an attribute of God, (ie, not dependent on the universe for his existence), is something he is, not something he was.

 

[BenK]

was told “we dont understand why…” it’s pretty convienient only understanding God when it helps your argument.

It’s so pathetic, isn’t it. We’ll build a most elaborate doctrine of salvation right up to the point when our own beliefs lead to problematic conclusions (ie God is evil) and at* that* point start telling people that they would be wrong to question God and that this doctrine is mystery.