If the elect are saved, and if the rest are damned . .

tabcom · Jun 13, 2007

frnate said:
how does (one who believes in the doctrine) of predestination encourage and help someone conform to the image of Christ?

**2 Peter 1st Chapter comes to mind.

It is going to take the rest of my life to check off this ‘to do’ list:

virtue
knowledge
self-control
endurance
devotion
mutual affection
love

2 Pe 1:10 Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; 11 for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.

nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/2peter/2peter1.htm**

toaslan · Jun 13, 2007

tabcom said:
Yes.

au contraire, tabcom, God did not create evil. First, evil is not a thing, it is the absence of a thing. There is no creation of nothing. Evil is the emptying, distortion, twisting, abuse of good. Evil is to Good as Non-being is to Being: Non-being is no being–it is the absence of Being, rather than the opposite of Being.

God created the angels, and some of them chose to distort themselves–and thus evil, the distortion of good, came about, and was spread to man.

God created men with free will.

God also predestined some men to heaven and some to hell.

Simultaneously, we are both absolutely and completely free, and we are also predestined to heaven or hell. Predestination does not operate such as to coerce our free will: our free will does not change our predestination. It’s Both/And, not Either/Or.

Are you trying here on this thread to dissolve the tension between the dual mysteries of predestination and free will? Both are fully true; Catholics accept that how this works will only be clear when we stand before the Living God and share some direct part in His mind.

tabcom · Jun 13, 2007

antimon said:
ok I stop here. if your god created evil and sin, that is not the God I believe in.

** Then you don’t believe the God of the Bible as much as you think you do:

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create the darkness, I make well-being and create evil;
I, the LORD, do all these things.**

tabcom · Jun 13, 2007

toaslan said:
tabcom, God did not create evil…

**Amos 3:6 - “Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?”
**

antimon · Jun 13, 2007

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things (KJV).

Code:

I form the light, and create darkness, I make peace, and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things (NKJV).

I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things (NIV).

The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these (NASB).

I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I am the Lord, who does all these things (RSV).

‘evil’ is one of possible translation, but not the most appropriate in given context with word ‘shalom’

rbc.org/bible_study/answers_to_tough_questions/answers/30871.aspx
godandscience.org/apologetics/evil.html

tabcom · Jun 13, 2007

antimon said:
But we have a choice. We can choose to accept His grace and obey Him, or we can choose to refuse and disobey Him.

**What I don’t understand, and I ask with complete humility is, ‘how can anyone believe in this statement after reading John 1:13?’

Which were born, NOT of blood, NOR of the WILL of the flesh, NOR of the will of man, but of God.**

frnate · Jun 13, 2007

toaslan said:
Because…
no, can’t do it–need definitions first. Who are the elect? Who are the un-elect? Who says there is nothing we can do about it?
Are we here arguing against the heresy of predestinationism?

In it’s simplest form my definition is as follows:
Elect = those who end up in Heaven
Un-Elect = those who don’t

I’m not really arguing against the heresy of predestination as postulated by John Calvin and re-worked and presented by “tabcom.” All I want to know is, if we have no choice in the matter, why is it so important that anyone believe in “tabcom’s” version of predestination. To me, it is akin to the fervently held belief in the pre-tribulation rapture. Belief or disbelief in either of these issues affects my eternal salvation not one whit so why should I care about them? So far I’ve not gotten anything resembling a stated reason from adherents to either of these beliefs. Go figure.

Peace,
+N

antimon · Jun 13, 2007

tabcom said:
**What I don’t understand, and I ask with complete humility is, ‘how can anyone believe in this statement after reading John 1:13?’

Which were born, NOT of blood, NOR of the WILL of the flesh, NOR of the will of man, but of God.**

John 1:12-13

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

tabcom · Jun 13, 2007

frnate said:
So far I’ve not gotten anything resembling a stated reason from adherents to either of these beliefs.

Have you read my reply to your previous question? It was post#41

tabcom · Jun 13, 2007

antimon said:
John 1:12-13

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

**Thank you for including verse 12.

Do you believe that the Book of John is the inspired word of God?
**

antimon · Jun 13, 2007

tabcom said:
**Thank you for including verse 12.

Do you believe that the Book of John is the inspired word of God?
**

Yes I do. But I don’t believe that your interpretation is better than mine.

toaslan · Jun 13, 2007

tabcom, God did not create evil…

tabcom:

Amos 3:6 - “Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?”

Tabcom & Antimon, I help you out with a definition of evil as nothing, and therefore uncreatable, and you and others return an avalanche of bible verses? You realize there are as many verses to the opposite effect? “The Lord God saw what He had made, and it was good,” sort of thing?

Battling bible verses never solved anything–one verse contradicts another, you know that.

Are you not willing to engage the philosophy I presented? Philosophy, the love of wisdom, underlies theology–without thinking well, we cannot think well about anything including God.

tabcom · Jun 13, 2007

antimon . . . you said:

But we have a choice. We can choose to accept His grace and obey Him, or we can choose to refuse and disobey Him.

**John 1:13 says . . .

Which were born, NOT of blood, NOR of the WILL of the flesh, NOR of the will of man, but of God.

is your statement similar to or different from what John says?

I’m not even looking for an answer from you. I’d like for you to meditate on it.**

antimon · Jun 13, 2007

toaslan said:
Tabcom & Antimon, I help you out with a definition of evil as nothing, and therefore uncreatable, and you and others return an avalanche of bible verses? You realize there are as many verses to the opposite effect? “The Lord God saw what He had made, and it was good,” sort of thing?

Battling bible verses never solved anything–one verse contradicts another, you know that.

Are you not willing to engage the philosophy I presented? Philosophy, the love of wisdom, underlies theology–without thinking well, we cannot think well about anything including God.

I am not good at philosophy and English isn’t my native language, so sometimes I get lost in advanced philosophical texts. But I can try. As far as I know, evil originated when Satan opposed God and I don’t think it’s mere ‘void’ of something.

antimon · Jun 13, 2007

//double post, delete this please

toaslan · Jun 13, 2007

frnate said:
… if we have no choice in the matter, why is it so important that anyone believe in “tabcom’s” version of predestination. To me, it is akin to the fervently held belief in the pre-tribulation rapture. Belief or disbelief in either of these issues affects my eternal salvation not one whit so why should I care about them? So far I’ve not gotten anything resembling a stated reason from adherents to either of these beliefs. Go figure.

May I restate to see if I got your point?

My final destination (heaven or hell) is already set. There is absolutely nothing I can do to change that destination, not for myself nor for anyone else.

So I should not think or speak about it.

If another man is under the illusion that he can have some impact on his destination, I should not disillusion him. I know he can have no effect, no matter what he does. I know that my disillusioning him can have no effect on my end or his.

There’s no reason to try to change anybody’s mind about this matter.

Is that it?

If so, then I see your very practical point–and we are not only practical beings, we are speculative beings. We are oriented to the truth; we have an innate desire to know. It is a good which we, by virtue of being human, desire for its own sake.

So even if the answer to a question has no practical bearing, we still want to know the truth, and we want to correct others when they believe falsely.

And/Or maybe those who believe this way are just so motivated by charity that they just hate to see us all working away at something over which we have no control. Could that be it?

tabcom · Jun 13, 2007

toaslan said:
“The Lord God saw what He had made, and it was good,”

**That occurred before the Fall of Adam and Eve

**

toaslan said:
Are you not willing to engage the philosophy I presented? Philosophy, the love of wisdom, underlies theology–without thinking well, we cannot think well about anything including God.

Unfortunetly, theology is a subject matter I haven’t an interest in.

toaslan · Jun 13, 2007

antimon said:
I am not good at philosophy and English isn’t my native language, so sometimes I get lost in advanced philosophical texts. But I can try. As far as I know, evil originated when Satan opposed God and I don’t think it’s mere ‘void’ of something.

OK, I will try too. And I agree with you that that is when evil began. Let me ask you to help me with another example of what I am trying to say about evil.

What about blindness? What is blindness? Is it a thing? Or a lack of a thing?

Is a stone blind?

If you say the stone is not blind, why isn’t it blind? After all, it does not see.

Church_Militant · Jun 13, 2007

tabcom said:
** Then you don’t believe the God of the Bible as much as you think you do:

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create the darkness, I make well-being and create evil;
I, the LORD, do all these things.**

I don’t see you checking the Hebrew in this verse…

Especially the word “evil”. I’ll bet it doesn’t mean what you are taking it to mean.

tabcom · Jun 13, 2007

Church_Militant said:
I don’t see you checking the Hebrew in this verse…

Especially the word “evil”. I’ll bet it doesn’t mean what you are taking it to mean.

**It is the hebrew word ra. It’s used over 600 times in the Hebrew Bible. **

If the elect are saved, and if the rest are damned . .

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