Your very argument is based upon difference of nature and therefore it begs the question.
I am not entirely sure you quite get what "question-begging" is, but, let's continue.
On one hand because God's nature is righteous he cannot lie - it is impossible for him to lie, but that is due to NATURE.
O.K. That is, at least the assumption we all tend to work from. Mind you, I don't for a second think that that is provable, but we tend to assume that is the case. Perhaps he is "CAPABLE" of flasehood (in only the most basic sense), but truly incapable of un-faithfulness or breaking his word once he has spoken it and he is subsequently only "incapable" of lying because he has told us that he
will not (and now cannot) lie....
POSSIBLY, He simply doesn't posses the rote raw capability at all? As in, even if he WANTED TO, He could not do it....
I don't know. After all, is God "capable" of making a mistake??? No. Maybe he also simply
CAN'T lie.
Of course, I don't necessarily think that is the case, but neither you nor I actually could
prove any different. We are working off of assumptions, and I think it is important that we understand that before we claim such grandiose Omniscience about God.
You ask if I can lie and yet you want to dismiss nature as causal in your argument with man.
You can also
NOT LIE as well, Biblicist, ever think of that?
On the one hand, you want to claim that we are constrained to always do what an evil nature would have man do, but then, how do you possibly explain why men can also tell the truth!
You made the error of calling man "rational" earlier. But, a rational being, Biblicist, is one capable of deliberation in their decision making.
i.e. Either to lie in one circumstance, or to not lie in another.
Biblicist, God can't EVER lie....In fact, he presumably can't even genuinely deliberate over the OPTION!... But a man can.
Man actually can "CHOOSE" in that instance: God cannot.
If your argument was consistent you would have to admit that the inability of lying is due to the NATURE of God as there is no other cause to explain why it is IMPOSSIBLE with the will of God
O.K....we will work with that assumption.
and therefore the ability to lie is equally due to the contrary NATURE of man.
Sorry, horrific logic.
That simply does not follow.
It is a fundamental principle that you don't say "therefore" after only one premise. Your argument goes like this
1.) God cannot lie because it is contrary to his nature
2.) Therefore, man can lie because it is his nature.
Sorry, that isn't valid.
Besides, as I suggested, the similarity doesn't even hold up. God simply CAN'T lie, he can't deliberate on the possibility of it.
But that isn't the same as a man who can choose
EITHER TO LIE OR NOT!!!
You cannot possibly explain the impossiblity of lying in God other than his NATURE
For starters:
It doesn't matter if I can explain it or not. Just because one does not have an alternative explanation for something certainly does not mean that we can't demonstrate that yours is invalid. That's a fundamental Principle of Critical Thinking.
Secondly: I did, in fact pose a few
possible (if unlikely) explanations. Which are non-disprovable. Maybe he just doesn't have the rote capacity at all?
Thirdly:
From whence comes the assumption that even if the thing that constrains God from lying is nature that he can't possibly create a being who is not, in fact, capable of making such choices and deliberating on them?
Where do you Calvinists get off assuming that man's nature is a perfect mirror counter-part to God's?
Aren't you guys perpetually reminding us how God is wholely OTHER than a man is?? (And you are quite correct in that) We can hardly understand the
FIRST THING about God and what he is and what makes him tick. But now you conveniently ignore the fact and assume that you can explain in detail how God's will and his abilities in deliberation function.
You are also further convinced, that you have boiled it all down to being simply the mirror counter-part to man's.
Then, again, you only explain
man's capabilities in decision making by appealing to what we assume
God's to be....so......now you are arguing in a circle aren't you?
Num 23:19
God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
1Sa 15:29
And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.
Hmmm....
Maybe man's nature (and subsequently his will) is not quite a
perfect replica of God's????
and therefore you cannot be consistent by attributing lying in man to some other factor than NATURE.
By the same token, you are now forced to explain why men also DON'T LIE in accordance with that same nature...
A
deliberative decision which God
cannot make!