Featured Perishing without having ever heard the gospel they end up in....

Here, this is a distinction without a difference because we have already established that God did not cause the Fall to occur (God did not cause Adam to sin). Our disagreement is that I believe God could have prevented Adam from sinning and it was not in accordance with his plan to do so.

False dichotomy.

 

How so? I already confirmed that those who are saved, those who are lost, and the Fall are all in accord with God's purposes. And I confirmed those who are saved are not saved against their will, those who are lost are so of their own freedom and Adam's sin was of his own free will.

I think you are just making things up now. Is this a distraction from that request you defend your logic? It is impossible for me to know the extent to which God causes things, restrains things (Scripture teaches the Holy Spirit restrains), allows things, or may some combination. Unlike you, I do not pretend to know the mind of God. I am saying that at least, at minimum, I believe God knew all things before Creation and then God willingly created the world (so by that definition, God planned for/purposed the world to exist and unfold exactly as it has and will). The only other option is to reject the traditional understanding of divine omniscience (which is the only logical choice you have). The problem there is you are rewriting those things that compose your belief to fit your conclusion (a logical error).

Look, you already affirmed the open theistic position (Basinger's) on sovereignty as your own. If that is your belief then by all means let's discuss issues fairly.

Do you believe all is predestined to occur as God knew they would before Creation or do you believe there are things that are by definition unknowable even to God?

 

Six Hour Warning

This thread will be closed sometime after 6 AM Pacific.

 

You don’t understand. I am not arguing conditional vs unconditional election (or even corporate vs individual election) with you because those views exist within a traditional understanding that you reject. Your position on the Fall is nothing if not neo-orthodox and your definition of divine sovereignty is, by your own admission, open theistic. I have chosen to argue from the broader Christian standpoint that accepts divine omniscience as incorporating both contingent and possible outcomes. What you reject is broader than Calvinism.

 

Yes, the thread will close soon. But it is not closed yet.

My point is that you hold an open theistic position on divine sovereignty. I thought this was obvious from another thread, but you pretended to take offense to the term "open theism". Here you affirm that you indeed hold the open theistic model of divine sovereignty (as defined by David Basinger). For this reason I have taken a broader stance on "predestination".

If you start another thread, then perhaps you should take this into consideration. You are not in a position to argue against Calvinism alone when it comes to this topic. It would probably be better to take a broader stance. I've offered two resources that may help you form a better argument. "Most Moved Mover" by Clark Pinnock and "God's Foreknowledge & Man's Will" by Richard Rice are a couple of more I think you will find helpful.

 

I am not sure what the last sentence means. But as to the first, as I have stated I am not trying to clarify Calvinism. I am confident that there are many Calvinists who disagree with me. What I am saying is that you are arguing against the traditional understanding of providence/sovereignty, not Calvinism. You are arguing against Calvinism, Arminianism, and many "free-will" theologies. Your argument would be better if you would argue against the broader disagreement.

In other words, I am trying to help your argument. The reason that your logic has failed in your arguments is you are trying to fit them where they do not belong. You affirm the open theistic model of Basinger and Pinnock, but you are trying to argue from a traditional position.

Brother, check out those books I mentioned. I am not encouraging you to believe heresy (although I suspect you already do), but at the same time you need some consistency in your faith. While I am certain that the "open model" you confirm is an error I, unlike you, believe we are both Christians serving the same God.

 

No, you have not been "charged with Open Theism". I quoted David Basinger's "open model" of divine sovereignty and you said that was what you believed. I am not saying you are an "open theist" (I am not sure where your theology would be defined....it is not Arminianism, that is for certain), only that you affirm the open theistic model of sovereignty as defined by Basinger (which is exactly what you did).

It is obvious you are not a Calvinist. It is obvious you are not an Arminian. I think you hold to some sort of "free-will" theology (that is also obvious). I suspect it is somewhere between Wesleyan and Open Theism. But that, again, is not the point.

The point is that you have sought to denounce one position without being able to defend your own. A "debate" or "argument" goes both ways. When confronted with the failure of your argument you simply ignored the error and continued to attack others. Your position needs work, and others here have tried to point that out to you. There are free-will theologians who have logical positions (my personal favorite is Pinnock...you would disagree with him because he holds to Reformation Arminianism, but if you are interested he wrote "Grace, Faith, and Free Will", and his view does fall within traditional views).

 

What you believe, that things such as the Fall are "byproducts that God, as well as each of us, wishes had not occurred" is not Arminianian belief. Arminianism teaches that God is truly omniscient and all things that occur are "preordained" to occur by God (they do not happen outside of God's plan).

Take, for example, the Fall. Calvinism says that God "decreed" that the fall should occur. Arminianism says that God, knowing that the Fall would occur, ordained that it would occur. Both view the Fall within the overall content of God's eternal plan (they disagree on its ultimate source, but it's immediate source is God as Creator). Your view is not Arminian here, brother. It is open theistic.

 

Oh....and I don't know about the "unfollow" thing. I've noticed that sometimes I get notifications and sometimes I don't about threads I am following. But, as you posted it here, I'm sure the administrators are "notified".