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

I've already warned you once....or maybe that was TCassidy....someone warned you once about falsely declaring the beliefs of others. So I will warn you once again.

I said that our view of God as planning was what?... Hint - it starts with an "a" and ends with a "nthropomorphism".
I agreed that God "decreed" Adam's sin in only one way - what was that, Einstein? (Hint, it was by creating man with the knowledge that Adam would sin and by allowing Adam the freedom to sin).

But you are right. You have been nothing if not "consistent".

 

I know this is your position. I told you before that I enjoy learning other people's beliefs, and knowing them from the other person's perspective (which is the only way you can really understand another belief).

I read a few of Basiger's articles challenging the traditional concept of God back in the 90's. I don't know your age, but I don't think that the position was as popular back then (but I don't know, we are always prone to measure things by our own setting). He was professor of philosophy at Roberts Wesleyan College. He wrote “The Case for Freewill Theism”. I believe that that book may help your arguments here (at least in the logic of your arguments….I know you know what you believe).

The quote that you affirm as your belief, however, was from "The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God". This is why I hinted that you may affirm that position. Both books are well written (although I think the latter makes several unsupported assumptions...it is, though, more a collection of essays by open theists).

Mine are hard copies, but I think both are available in e-format if you are interested.

 

I believe that "nothing comes to pass unless the Lord commands it". Do you believe that?

 

Thanks, I've also enjoyed our conversation (even though it may not always seem so). You've helped me revisit and work on a few things I've been neglecting on this topic.

You will make it back before me. My son is going down tomorrow to talk to present himself for baptism (to be baptized next Sunday). He has been wrestling with being baptized for about 6 months (he was baptized when he was younger, but believes it was because of his friends and wants to be baptized as a believer). Have a wonderful fellowship and time of worship. I'm going to bed.

 

Ah...caught me just as I was about to leave. "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in" .

I may not have been the most articulate, but I was not being unambiguous.

In Proverbs we read that man controls his intent, his plans, and his will. But those same passages tell us that God controls the action, how those things materialize (if they do). And God tempts no one to sin, but sin comes about when we are tempted by our own lusts, and our lusts gives birth to sin (sin is not merely an action, it is an intent).

So what I am trying to tell you is that there is nothing that occurs that is not a part of God's "decree"/ "eternal counsel"/ "eternal purpose". God's plan for Creation did not change with the Fall. The "plan" was always redemption and a New Creation. So Adam's sin was a component in God's plan (it did not fall outside of God's use in bringing about this New Creation of which Scripture speaks). But God did not "cause" Adam to sin. It is not a hard concept to grasp. God's purposes is being fulfilled, but God does not cause sin itself.

 

It seems that way, but I don't know why it is (at least for this topic). The lost are already condemned for rejecting Christ (God manifested and evidenced to them apart from the gospel). John 3 is very clear about this, but it seems to be all but ignored so far on this thread.

 

No, the implication of what I said has always been the same here. This is why I gave you specifics instead of a "Yes" or "No" answer to your questions (although it seems you have applied my answers to your presuppositions).

As I said before, and will say again, the Fall was in accord with God's eternal purposes. Scripture is clear on this, so I do not see why we need to go 'round and 'round here. What part of nothing is given action without God's command or decree do you reject (what part of Lamentations 3 do you find man's opinion rather than God's Word)?

I did not redefine terms. I used Scripture to define "decree" (literally....I gave you Scripture to define the term....yet you say this is "redefining".....that alone should give you a hint of how far you are drifting into your own theological biases). Your rejection of that definition in favor of what ever "floats your boat", well, that is not my problem.

The game we are playing is tiptoeing around your view because you want to reject where your logic leads you. Calvinism looks to these things as predestined as God "decreeing" in terms of causing them to occur in time according to His plan (Beza) or inherently a part of Creation and therefore God's plan (Edwards). Arminianism affirms predestination but bases it on divine pre-knowledge, with some events necessary and others contingent...but all certain. You, however, affirm the "Open Model" as defined by Basinger. The only difference seems to be you are unwilling to admit that God cannot know the outcome of contingent future events and your logic remain intact.

 

I do believe that God saved me. I also believe that the Fall was a part of God's "eternal purpose".

Think of what you are denying by rejecting this. You are denying that Christ is the "Lamb slain before the foundation of the earth" because you are denying that God planned on the Fall before Creation.

Since you reject the Fall and the redemption of man as a part of God's purposes, how do you reconcile Psalm 22 (which was written centuries before the crucifixion) with the events of the Cross? Was it just a lucky guess on God's part? Or do you believe someone the Psalm to be pseudohistory?