Calvinism and Open Theism are strange bedfellows?

No, you could not be more wrong... But the ironic thing is that you will never know why you are so wrong because you are unteachable.

 

But, you assert that moral responsibility is dependent upon something that you also necessarily assert as a mystery in every human inexplicable by any human. By doing so, you would then demand that God must create humans with this same mystery that is ontologically autonomous from the Creator Himself. Therefore, if you are not an Open Theist, and you believe that God exhaustively knows all future contingencies, then you are stuck in arguing that an essential part of the Creator is determined by the creation that the Creator determined to create. Catch-22!
We both agree that there is a mystery. It makes sense that the mystery lies with the eternal Creator, not the finite creation.

Sure, you may not know how it works due to your naturally limited capacity to learn the entire body of available knowledge, but there exists scientific material available from those who have studied it.
Contrary to your example, you necessarily assert that moral responsibility must be based on something that is intrinsic to man himself, autonomous from the Creator, and is also necessarily impossible to understand. All because of your a priori commitment to Libertarian Free Will.

And your polemic is based on an a priori commitment to a philosophical tautology.

We both appeal to mystery, but the mystery lies with the Creator Who has formed and fashioned our beings. He knows us better than we can possibly know ourselves. To take the mystery away from the Creator and put it autonomously on the creation because of an illogical tautology is your problem and the burden of proof lies with you.

As I said before, we both appeal to mystery. It makes most sense to place the mystery with the One Who created, rather than autonomously intrinsic in the creation that came from the Creator.
I do not claim to know the answers; however, I can at least understand that pure indeterminist incompatibilism (as argued by LFW proponents) is a tautology when it necessarily asserts that a creature can will and act contrary to its own greatest desire.

1. If one does not act according to one's greatest desire, one has not acted with sanity.
2. If a finite creature can create ex nihilo (i.e. make determinations 100% autonomous from the Creator), then..
2a. God does not have exhaustive knowledge of future contingent actions of the creatures, or
2b. God determined that His creation will autonomously determine a portion of His eternal being--His knowledge (catch-22).

1. Paul, as a finite creature, spoke the inspired words of God from the perspective of a human being and sinner. He related to his audience.
2. Look carefully at the context. It is about Israelites who fell into apostasy.
1Cor 10:5 But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
1Cor 10:6 Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.
1Cor 10:7 Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.
1Cor 10:8 Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.
1Cor 10:9 Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents.
1Cor 10:10 Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.
1Cor 10:11 Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
1Cor 10:12 Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
All these examples are of final apostasy, not common temptation.

3. Look carefully at verse 13 itself. The verse itself is NOT a statement that it is always a real possibility that a Christian can avoid any sinful action. Otherwise, you would have to argue for the real possibility of sinless perfection contrary to Romans 7, Galatians 5:17, and 1 John 1:8-10 among others.
1Cor 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
As the Bible teaches compatibilistically in other places, it does so here as well. Paul gives examples of apostasy from Israelites under the Old Covenant in the wilderness and uses these as warnings to Christians not to do as they did. He, then, also gives a promise of God that the only temptation in which we will actually be allowed to be overtaken are those that are "common to man." We will ultimately be delivered from anything that would otherwise cause final apostasy. This passage is an excellent support for the "perseverance of the saints" that is compatible with the idea that Christians will neither be sinlessly perfect, nor apostate.

Yes, and this is the reality that frustrated Paul in Romans 7 and Galatians 5.

If we are able in the incompatibilistic sense in every, little choice that can result in either sin or non-sin, then how can you possibly argue against the real possibility of sinless perfection? If you say that no one can be sinlessly perfect, then you have the same "dilemna" that I have, and under your rules of incompatibilism, man cannot be morally responsible.

Amen. :thumbsup:

 

2Th 3:2 And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith.

Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Rom 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Rom 8:8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
Rom 8:9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

Phi 1:28 And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.
Phi 1:29 For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;
Why do we say that man cannot autonomously do #2? Because the Scriptures teach that. The conclusion of Paul is that the Law condemns both Jew and Gentile AND that Christ fulfilled the Law with access to God by faith. Paul also argues that even the faith is something that God must give through the Spirit, and that one who "has" faith is a believer.

 

Indeed. The theological ball bounced a lot in those days when the (generic) church was trying to figure out just how Scripture played out.

Well... Just about every person who held to some form of Calvinism -- even before it was called Calvinism -- would disagree with you on that point. WARS have been fought over that point.

You are wrong, this IS your strawman concerning Calvinism, and you are additionally making attempt to use logic to justify your incoherent belief concerning Calvinism. I cannot say it more plainly than that. The God of the Bible IS NOT DETERMINISTIC and only heretical hyper-Calvinism stipulates that to be true. You KNOW that and yet you argue it continually.

Allah is deterministic. We war against that sort of doctrine.

Perhaps your study of the church fathers will enlighten you, but probably not. You have bought in to a number of rather liberal theological approaches of late (I see the rudiments in your responses) and I have to consider that in one of two ways -- either you are ignorant of just where you are headed or you are doing it on purpose -- and if on purpose, then I'm done with you. If you are yet ignorant, then there is hope that docrtrinal reasoning based on Scripture may yet cause you to have a change of mind on the issue.

No... It is based on God's plan, and that plan includes the free moral agency of humankind. We can decide -- just not to the level that you advocate in libertarian free will. We are "slaves" (doulos) to either Christ or Satan. We do not have libertarian free will, but we do make moral choices and are culpable for those choices whether or not we understand them or desire them.

Predestination is not "determinism." If it were, we would have to blame God for some of the blasphemy that we see.

You really should take to understand this issue better... You THINK you grasp it, but every time you begin to write it becomes more clear that you do not -- and worse, that you are mostly on an un-winnable war against God and God's people.

 

Slightly off target here Skan, have you ever read the didache(sp)?

 

GL, this is honest. It is very difficult for me to see how "predestination" is not at the very least "partial determinism". How is it not?

 

The only and best answer I can give is because God says it is not. Again, as has been said multiple times by those who are making attempt to be truthful in these debates, "election" does not equal "salvation." It only equals "election" TO salvation. Salvation also must include all the other components, effectual call, justification, regeneration, faith/repentance (cannot have one without the other), adoption, sealing, sanctification, perseverence, and ultimately glorification before one can truly say that he or she is "saved."

We can argue about the LOGICAL ORDER of the components above, but we CANNOT argue that ALL are required unless we adopt an heterodox view of Scripture and of God, Himself.

 

You define "determinism" as "fatalism" constantly, as do the persons you cite who argue against Calvinism.

 

Read these verses together, not separately. If you read them together, you should see that they interlock and contribute pieces to one coherent truth.

1. Without faith it is impossible to please God.
2. Not all men have faith.
3. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God (see 1,2). Those who are in the Spirit do if the Spirit dwells in them. Only those who are saved have the Spirit.
So, who then has faith, has the Spirit in them, and can, therefore, please God?
4. Faith is given by God, resulting in conversion.

When you try to separate each verse into its own isolated context, you can ask the same question. However, when you take them all together, they answer the question.

 

Oh, brother... You've done it now! Asking for a coherent theology is akin to calling someone a devil worshiper around here. :saint:

 

Both Calvinism, other than Hyper Calvinism, and Arminianism claim everything is not predestined, yet God's knowledge of the future is both exhaustive and perfect. Therefore both teach God is the author of sin if viewed logically, but say God is not the author of sin because they claim like Gnostics, they have secret knowledge that this impossibility is true. Strange bedfellows.

 

Van, your mistake is with the term "viewed logically." While you continually bereate those who fail to view the Scriptures the way you do, you also constantly invoke LOGIC into your own strawman arguments against others.

We do not "view logically" to the end result doctrines such as soteriology, rather, we view them according to the limits placed by God's revelation, i.e., Scripture. Scripture does indeed say that God has exhaustive knowledge, past, present, and yes, future -- this is born out by the many, many accurate prophecies both OT and NT -- and yet the same Scriptures also stipulate that God is not either deterministic nor the author of sin (God forbid that we even utter such blasphemy!).

So, we view ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES RIGHTLY DIVIDED, not as per your continual strawman, logic.

 

Compatibilism is like programing, we always choose what we are programmed to choose. God created us with our compatiblistic programming which predetermines our choices. But because God predestined us though compatibilism, He is not responsible for our predestined actions. Hangs together nicely don't you think.

The doctrines of Arminianism and Calvinism create "needless paradoxes" and should be reformed in light of the logical necessities of scripture, i.e. God is not the author of sin because He punishes us for the sins we commit, therefore everything is not predetermined by God.

 

Van, in all sincerity, I would ask you to do a real study of the tenets of Calvinism, for you are arguing against a strawman of yours or someone whom you follow's invention and not the real thing.

With one sentence you describe the Calvinistic position accurately, then with another you blow it out of the water making you a non-coherent theologian and sounding much like a fundamentalistic ignorant nincompoop (not a swear word, an English translitteration of a French term "ne compte plus", that means "no longer of any consequence").