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antiskeptic wrote: ».
Just a thought, but given you've mentioned Greg Boyd several times recently I assume you favour a form of open theism. What would you recommend as a good primer for someone like me to understand you better?
As for me, I'd recommend you read J. I. Packers "Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God." In fact, this conversation makes me want to re-read it myself!
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antiskeptic wrote: »As stated, Paul's use of filthy rags deals with salvation by law. That is the clear context. Our righteousness (let's call them our positive responses to God) isn't enough to save by law. Filthy rags only has relevance were we to rely on a by-law defence.
The issue though, is how man's responses to God (resulting in good AND evil) might fit into the mechanism of salvation by faith. That man's righteousness (his 'but I lived a good life' defence) are deemed filthy rags in the context of salvation by law has no automatic bearing on salvation by faith. You cannot extrapolate it's insufficiency in the former mechanism to insufficiency or irrelevancy in the latter mechanism.
But it does - scripture consistently juxtaposes salvation by law and salvation by faith - salvation by our efforts and salvation that rests on what God has done.
Our good works are important, but as a necessary evidence of our justification by faith. They play no part whatsoever in that justification, otherwise we are smuggling in works salvation by the back door.antiskeptic wrote: »The question is indeed how we arrive at this point. You say God choses to for reasons unknown. I say the mechanism aimed at saving all men can result in a particular man fulfilling God's criteria for granting it. This, without confounding the things (some of which above) that are scripturally excluded as being a route for man fulfilling God's criteria
Correct, for reasons unknown to us and not based on anything good in us. I don't know how else we can make sense of passages like Romans 9:6-21. God is sovereign, and his sovereignty extends to salvation. That should be encouraging to Christians.
The danger in what you are proposing (if I understand you correctly) is that it inserts a measure of works into our justification.antiskeptic wrote: »I gave the example of a fish being caught. Does the fish contribute positively to his being caught? Well, no. The fish wills only to escape. Has the fish an input into being caught? Well he does. The extent to which he wiggles to free himself from the hook has a direct bearing on whether he is landed or not. A very direct bearing. If his will is exhausted and his struggle against ceases he will have been landed by the skill, effort amd perserverance of the fisherman. No credit to the fish. If not landed (damnation) it is despite the skill and effort of the fisherman. The fish, like a stubborn, sinful Jerusalem, who God longed to gather under his wings as a hen does chicks, "willed it not"
As above, the flaw in your illustration is that it discounts the existence of a sovereign fisherman with an irresistible hook
There is definitely tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility, but I don't think it's eliminated by your proposal. As I said above, I think you're just introducing more problems.antiskeptic wrote: »The distinction is yours. Common grace, I would argue, is a fundamental element in the attempt to save all. The restraint applied is a by-product of that. Saving grace would merely be common grace come to full fruition. A success for the common attempt to save all, resulting in someone saved.
The idea of common grace isn't a novel one, and merely reflects the fact that God does good to all, whether they are saved or not. I don't think it's really legitimate to blur the two.0 -
But it does - scripture consistently juxtaposes salvation by law and salvation by faith - salvation by our efforts and salvation that rests on what God has done.
Our good works are important, but as a necessary evidence of our justification by faith. They play no part whatsoever in that justification, otherwise we are smuggling in works salvation by the back door.
Correct, for reasons unknown to us and not based on anything good in us. I don't know how else we can make sense of passages like Romans 9:6-21. God is sovereign, and his sovereignty extends to salvation. That should be encouraging to Christians.
The danger in what you are proposing (if I understand you correctly) is that it inserts a measure of works into our justification.
As above, the flaw in your illustration is that it discounts the existence of a sovereign fisherman with an irresistible hook
There is definitely tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility, but I don't think it's eliminated by your proposal. As I said above, I think you're just introducing more problems.
The idea of common grace isn't a novel one, and merely reflects the fact that God does good to all, whether they are saved or not. I don't think it's really legitimate to blur the two.
I'll get back to but for now, you have misunderstood and I haven't elaborated suffiiciently.
Our good AND our bad can be inserted into a mechanism of salvation by faith. Wihout ourgood having anything to do with a 'merited by good' salvation. That salvation is indeed excluded by scripture.
Both the good and the bad drive a person in a direction, just as left steer/right steer have us in a direction.
Insofar as the good contributes, it does so because it allows us see that we are bad.
See Romans 7 man, the good he knows signposts his bad.
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antiskeptic wrote: »I'll get back to but for now, you have misunderstood and I haven't elaborated suffiiciently.
Our good AND our bad can be inserted into a mechanism of salvation by faith. Wihout ourgood having anything to do with a 'merited by good' salvation. That salvation is indeed excluded by scripture.
Both the good and the bad drive a person in a direction, just as left steer/right steer have us in a direction.
Insofar as the good contributes, it does so because it allows us see that we are bad.
See Romans 7 man, the good he knows signposts his bad.
Later.
Thanks antiskeptic, I thought there was a good chance I was misunderstanding you!
For what it's worth, I do think we need to be extremely careful about excluding any hint of works (our goodness / badness) from justification by faith. But looking forward to your thoughts on this.
On Romans 7, I read it as referring primarily to the experience of believers. Again, keen to hear your thoughts on it.0 -
Thanks antiskeptic, I thought there was a good chance I was misunderstanding you!
For what it's worth, I do think we need to be extremely careful about excluding any hint of works (our goodness / badness) from justification by faith. But looking forward to your thoughts on this.
On Romans 7, I read it as referring primarily to the experience of believers. Again, keen to hear your thoughts it.
Works excluded refers to good works as a 'building up brownie points' thing. Such meritousness is excluded. I don't see bad works .. which builds up negative brownie points being excluded from a faith mode of salvation.
Romans 7 has the man exclaim at the end 'who will save me from this body of death?' Indeed, the whole section sees the man writhing and confused and at a loss. That isn't a believers exclaimation, nor is it his confusion - the believer doesn't have to ask that question since he knows who will save him from this body of death. He is not confused - he knows precisely what is going on
I would argue that the space between the end of that sentence and the next "thanks be to God through Jesus Christ" is the transition into salvation. From lost and not knowing who will save. To found and knowing who has saved.0 -
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But it does - scripture consistently juxtaposes salvation by law and salvation by faith - salvation by our efforts and salvation that rests on what God has done.
Our good works are important, but as a necessary evidence of our justification by faith. They play no part whatsoever in that justification, otherwise we are smuggling in works salvation by the back door.
Correct, for reasons unknown to us and not based on anything good in us. I don't know how else we can make sense of passages like Romans 9:6-21. God is sovereign, and his sovereignty extends to salvation. That should be encouraging to Christians.
The danger in what you are proposing (if I understand you correctly) is that it inserts a measure of works into our justification.
As above, the flaw in your illustration is that it discounts the existence of a sovereign fisherman with an irresistible hook
There is definitely tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility, but I don't think it's eliminated by your proposal. As I said above, I think you're just introducing more problems.
The idea of common grace isn't a novel one, and merely reflects the fact that God does good to all, whether they are saved or not. I don't think it's really legitimate to blur the two.
As I have often said, my being a mechanical engineer informs the way I approach theology. Mechanism can be understood by looking at how individual components are connected to the larger entity. You trace your way through bit by bit amd gradually you come to understand the whole.
A key element in this is, as you start to glimpse the whole (even though you don't understand everything) is spotting when someone says component x does this. And it clashes. It doesn't fit in the emerging whole so there must be another explanation.
And I find that's the case. Take your 'God choosing man' view. It clashes. And when you examine what undergirds that idea, you find it founded on
- a limited number of isolated verses or passages. The same old ones get hauled out again and again. Ephesians 'God chose us in him'
- a leap of logic that because man can't choose God, God must choose man. And so, the turning to the above passages.
We have already looked at Romans 9: in context, a passage dealing with Israels displacement. A dealing with an obvious objection that would be raised to the gospel of faith, first to Jew then Gentile. There is absolutely no exegetical basis for extending the context into individual salvation - other than the a priori need to find support for God choses man, due to the aforementioned leap of logic.
The leap of logic drives the reading. Eisegiesis.
We have also dealt with Ephesians 'chose us in him'. Us in him are Christians. They are the addressees of what is said. God chose such and such would occur to Christians. He presestined that such and such would occur to Christians. You cannot haul God chose us to be Christians from a verse talking about what is to be applied to Christians.
Anyway. A clash. Leap of logic and poor scriptural support says that is not how the components connect up.
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As an engineer, I understand the process of wiggling a loose tooth free. When you wiggle left, you put connective tissue to one side under tension. This stress causes connections to break. On the other side of the tooth, connections are placed under compressive forces which too damages connections.
This cycle of successive compression/tension events, connections being broken bit by bit, ultimately weakening the remaining structure to the point where it can't hold out against the load is called 'fatique failure'. The DeHavilland Comet plane failures occurred this way. Successive pressurisations and depressurisations causes connections to break. Cracks. The cracks progressed until the rest of the structure wasn't strong enough to withstand the forces involved. And you had catastrophic, sudden failure of the remaining structure.
Fatigue. A kind of tiredness brought about repeated exposure to loads that of themselves could easily be withstood by the structure.
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Our good and bad are like that. Our good doing involves forces in one direction. We experience nice things, nice feelings, respect, a good name, a clean conscience, inner peace and joy. Contentment. But our sin ensures we are wiggled in the other direction. Our bad brings trouble. A guilty conscience, unease, trouble, guilt, shame, addictions, emptiness. Our sense of something wrong with us is amplified by the fact of our good. We know what we ought to do but we don't do it.
Those forces are at work in everyone. And it produces fatigue. We try to patch the cracks and fill the voids. Why do you think young children are so full of joy and bounce and older people so much less so. Fatigue.
So, not good as is meriting salvation. Rather, salvation brought about by a process of fatigue using our good and bad.
The law (what is good) written in our very being, being but a schoolteacher. Or a crack inducing force.
What is fatigued? Well, our self directed, self interested life. Sin is the output of a life that is self directed and self interested. Think of the worst public sinners. A Hitler. What was he doing but putting self desire above others interests to the very most extreme degree.
The key, as I said at the start is to consider the whole - not a piece of scripture wrenched completely out of context. The whole says the problem of man is self direction (which can only lead to self interest which can only lead to sin). It was the first, original sin. The solution HAS to tackle this problem. And the story of the bible, loud and crystal clear, is God wrestling with this aspect of man. Not through 'sovereign power' but by tooth wriggling. He urges, he pleads, he has enough, he mourns, he cries. He doesn't "God's Sovereign Power"
There simply is no other explanation available which comes anywhere close - when taking in the whole.
I'm not saying I'm right. But the others, reformed most especially are stark raving bonkers!0 -
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antiskeptic wrote: »As I have often said, my being a mechanical engineer informs the way I approach theology. Mechanism can be understood by looking at how individual components are connected to the larger entity. You trace your way through bit by bit amd gradually you come to understand the whole.
A key element in this is, as you start to glimpse the whole (even though you don't understand everything) is spotting when someone says component x does this. And it clashes. It doesn't fit in the emerging whole so there must be another explanation.
And I find that's the case. Take your 'God choosing man' view. It clashes. And when you examine what undergirds that idea, you find it founded on
- a limited number of isolated verses or passages. The same old ones get hauled out again and again. Ephesians 'God chose us in him'
- a leap of logic that because man can't choose God, God must choose man. And so, the turning to the above passages.
We have already looked at Romans 9: in context, a passage dealing with Israels displacement. A dealing with an obvious objection that would be raised to the gospel of faith, first to Jew then Gentile. There is absolutely no exegetical basis for extending the context into individual salvation - other than the a priori need to find support for God choses man, due to the aforementioned leap of logic.
The leap of logic drives the reading. Eisegiesis.
We have also dealt with Ephesians 'chose us in him'. Us in him are Christians. They are the addressees of what is said. God chose such and such would occur to Christians. He presestined that such and such would occur to Christians. You cannot haul God chose us to be Christians from a verse talking about what is to be applied to Christians.
Anyway. A clash. Leap of logic and poor scriptural support says that is not how the components connect up.
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As an engineer, I understand the process of wiggling a loose tooth free. When you wiggle left, you put connective tissue to one side under tension. This stress causes connections to break. On the other side of the tooth, connections are placed under compressive forces which too damages connections.
This cycle of successive compression/tension events, connections being broken bit by bit, ultimately weakening the remaining structure to the point where it can't hold out against the load is called 'fatique failure'. The DeHavilland Comet plane failures occurred this way. Successive pressurisations and depressurisations causes connections to break. Cracks. The cracks progressed until the rest of the structure wasn't strong enough to withstand the forces involved. And you had catastrophic, sudden failure of the remaining structure.
Fatigue. A kind of tiredness brought about repeated exposure to loads that of themselves could easily be withstood by the structure.
-
Our good and bad are like that. Our good doing involves forces in one direction. We experience nice things, nice feelings, respect, a good name, a clean conscience, inner peace and joy. Contentment. But our sin ensures we are wiggled in the other direction. Our bad brings trouble. A guilty conscience, unease, trouble, guilt, shame, addictions, emptiness. Our sense of something wrong with us is amplified by the fact of our good. We know what we ought to do but we don't do it.
Those forces are at work in everyone. And it produces fatigue. We try to patch the cracks and fill the voids. Why do you think young children are so full of joy and bounce and older people so much less so. Fatigue.
So, not good as is meriting salvation. Rather, salvation brought about by a process of fatigue using our good and bad.
The law (what is good) written in our very being, being but a schoolteacher. Or a crack inducing force.
What is fatigued? Well, our self directed, self interested life. Sin is the output of a life that is self directed and self interested. Think of the worst public sinners. A Hitler. What was he doing but putting self desire above others interests to the very most extreme degree.
The key, as I said at the start is to consider the whole - not a piece of scripture wrenched completely out of context. The whole says the problem of man is self direction (which can only lead to self interest which can only lead to sin). It was the first, original sin. The solution HAS to tackle this problem. And the story of the bible, loud and crystal clear, is God wrestling with this aspect of man. Not through 'sovereign power' but by tooth wriggling. He urges, he pleads, he has enough, he mourns, he cries. He doesn't "God's Sovereign Power"
There simply is no other explanation available which comes anywhere close - when taking in the whole.
I'm not saying I'm right. But the others, reformed most especially are stark raving bonkers!
My position, simply, is that God is sovereign at all times and in all places. It would be odd if he were sovereign everywhere with the exception of the most important, most significant area of life - the very issue that led to him sending his Son to die on a cross - the salvation of sinners.
On Romans 9, I think that it's clear that Paul has salvation in view and not merely historical Israel - particularly in verse 11, when he talks about works and calling.
And I get where you're coming from with fatigue, and good and bad pulling us in different directions. From our perspective, that is how things appear. But when I read the Bible, I'm confronted with one who is in, above and over those subjective experiences, and who is perfectly in control throughout. As Paul said, who can resist his will?
But I'm also happy to agree to disagree on this, it's not as if reformed theology is the only valid option open to the Christian 0 -
My position, simply, is that God is sovereign at all times and in all places.
It would be odd if he were sovereign everywhere with the exception of the most important, most significant area of life - the very issue that led to him sending his Son to die on a cross - the salvation of sinners.
If God in his sovereignty decided to create a man with own will and have a man decide his destiny (even if not by the route chose for/choose against), how would that affect his sovereignty? Can God, in his sovereignty not do just this?
His sovereignty isn't affected at all by laying man's destiny in man's hands. And God will surely gather you under his wings, as a hen her chicks, unless he wills it not. Man decides.On Romans 9, I think that it's clear that Paul has salvation in view and not merely historical Israel - particularly in verse 11, when he talks about works and calling.
Paul builds all his argument carefully. He employs connecting words like 'therefore' and 'consequently' all the time, precisely to make sure we follow his train of thought. He places CHAPTER-sized parentheses in the middle of the running argument stretching from Romans 1-11 in order to go and deal with an objection. He deals again with an objection to his gospel in chapter 9.
vs 1-5 Israel/nation
vs 6-9 Israel/nation
vs 10-13. Starts out with "not only that". He is directly connecting to the argument above v 10, adding to it, building on it - for this is his way. Above we have seen that God runs salvation through a spiritual line (represented by a person) not physical lines (also represented by a person). Jacob is the line, not Esau. It is God's sovereign choice that this be so.
vs 14-18 is worth looking at in this context14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
The "whom" isn't an individual - for there is up to this point no dealing with individuals. The context is still spiritual vs physical routes of salvation. The same two routes that Paul has been arguing since the start of the book.
Is God unjust in displacing Israel? Or running salvation down spiritual rather than physical lines? By no means! To consider his dealings with Pharaoh as concerning an individual and to ignore this chapters using of individuals to represent the route and not-route of salvation, is to utterly jump tracks. To do this is to ignore the rail Paul is on and to squeeze out something that simply isn't there. It's nothing short of quote-mining.
On this rock-ism
vs 19-21. In a chapter aimed at dealing with an objection we should not be surprised to have him specify the objection. "One of you will say to me". Objection to what? Well objection to the theme of the chapter - Israel's displacement. It is only by ignoring the use of individuals-as-lineage (think of the salvation line already cast through individuals: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) and switching to salvation of individuals-as-individuals that you can switch tracks to consider individual salvation being dealt with here.
vs 22-29. Look at the references: 25,26,27 ... "my people who are not my people". In other words: My people (spiritual nationhood) who are not my people (because physical Israel had been considered his people). Nationhood talk, it's all nationhood and which nation is truly God's nation.
vs. 30-33. He wraps it all up - the argument of the chapter - with a "what shall we say then". What do we conclude from the above argument?31 but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal.“See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble
Israel/Zion. A nation. A nation displaced. That's the argument. It starts that way. It middles that way (using individuals as lineage). It deals with an objection to that way - pointing to God's sovereignty allowing him to saved how he wants to save. And it ends that way. All nation talk.
Individual salvation? Not a hope. There is no argument being made for it. Just a plucking of seemingly supporting verses (e.g. Jacob loved/Esau hated) right out of their context. You have to ignore all the connecting Paul does in the chapter (and which he does through the book), his tying what he is saying to the previous thing he has said .. in order for your system to work. Indeed, you have to trample all over his motivation for connecting the next thing to the last. He is going step by step through the argument precisely so that we will not do what you are doing - wander off track. And you are breaking that connection (nation > nation > nation > nation) in order to arrive at nation > nation > nation/individual> nation > nation.
As you say yourself above: man's salvation is this most monumental thing. Yet Paul is being reduced by you to sliding in an oblique reference or two to the mode of individual salvation in a chapter dealing with the comparative triviality of national displacement??
This is madness!And I get where you're coming from with fatigue, and good and bad pulling us in different directions. From our perspective, that is how things appear. But when I read the Bible, I'm confronted with one who is in, above and over those subjective experiences, and who is perfectly in control throughout. As Paul said, who can resist his will?
My point was that our good at bad pull us in the same direction: towards tooth extraction. God is not out of control in allowing man to determine his destiny. It would only be out of control if God did not intend that this be so.
Hopefully you might appreciate the paucity of support for Paul dealing with individual salvation. God's will is to run salvation through spiritual, not physical lines. No one can resist his will in this regard. Who'd want to - isn't a salvation open to all far more beautiful than a salvation for a select few: whether the nation Israel or the Reformed elect?
Remember, chapter 9 (and he continues the NATION argument in chapter 10 and 11) is merely (if I might use that word) dealing with an objection made to the gospel of God laid out hithertoe. Paul constructs his argument for salvation by faith vs salvation by law from book opening to end chapter 11. His dealing with objections has to be seen in light of that - for a good argument has to overcome objections. It's all about displacement: faith displaces law and spiritual nation displaces physical nation. Chapter 9 has to be seen in the overall context of an argument spanning half the book.But I'm also happy to agree to disagree on this, it's not as if reformed theology is the only valid option open to the Christian
With all due, if a theology can be constructed from such slim pickings, from such non-contextual, contra-argument-flow slivers, then there will be no shortage of theologies to chose from. Hence, perhaps, the atheist trope regarding the huge variability in "Christian-Truth".
As to whether such an approach to theology formation can be considered valid, I'm less sure.
Paul has made a mighty argument spanning half a book. It is carefully constructed so as to be airtight - he is at great pains to make it airtight. We are to suppose that in the midst of all this, he deals with the significant matter of individual salvation by means of vague, limited and oblique references slid sideways into the middle of the main argument he is making? That he is so stuck for time that he has to piggyback the monumental matter of individual salvation, in most slovenly fashion, onto the main thrust of an argument dealing with national displacement?
To suppose so is to ignore a finely assembled mechanism running carefully and gradually through half a book. It is to throw a spanner in the works. To suppose that someone, so clearly intent on assembling argument to watch-like precision, would be capable of doing such a thing is to confound all reason. Are we to suppose that a perfectionist: a legal and forensic genius (copyright Martyn Lloyd Jones) would throw an extra component in, just like that? Not because it fits the fine mechanism he has built, but because it lay spare on his workbench and, having forgotten to weave it in, he flings it in, last minute, just before closing up the back on the watch.
"I am assembling a fine argument about national displacment. It fits the context of the book majoring on displacement of law by faith. But you know what - I've just realised that I can double track a few verses here and incorporate a whole new topic, a monumental topic, right alongside my primary argument. How very efficient - oh the depths of the wisdom of God". As he says himself, when faced with a bonkers suggestion earlier in the book...
"By no means!"0 -
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I think the reason we're here has a lot to do with what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:2
"Don’t you know that someday we believers will judge the world? And since you are going to judge the world, can’t you decide even these little things among yourselves?"
This is the where its all headed and I think everything we do and experience in life is "Training" for that job. God tested the Israelites in the wilderness to see if they would trust in him and follow his ways. But they continually turned their backs on him. Only two(Joshua and Caleb)out all the original Tribes, where fit to enter the promised land. We are the Israelites, and God is testing us even as we speak God is testing us and training us so that one day we will be fit for the position of Judging the whole Earth. I mean you cant give that job to someone whos wishy washy and flakey, someone whos dishonest or easily swayed by public opinion. It needs to be a person of strong character, who puts God ahead of everything else in life(including his own family). These are not common people. So everything that happens to us, as believers is conditioning us for that Purpose.
Trouble with our judging being a primary aim is that eternity is a long time and judging the world a fairly brief affair 0 -
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