Hey, if you want to chalk it up to my mental ineptitude that I can’t see the logic in the baffelgab…feel free to do so I admit that you made a solid attempt to coerce it out, and kudos for trying!
Oh, I don’t accept your second premise. I agree with the observation that people sometimes commit adultery but would say that this is an example of humans exercising their free will to act counter to God’s will for that situation. This may actually highlight a key theological difference between our systems. Calvinists must conclude that every event that happens must be in accordance with God’s will because he has universally decreed all events (no clashes between the divine and human will are possible). In the (Arminian/ Libertarian Free) system, it is God’s will to allow humans the free (independent) agency to act against his will if they so choose. Hence, God does not always get what he’d rather happen in each instance.
so here you use “will” to mean the revealed will of God… i.e., his moral laws and commands… when people sin, this is contrary to God’s will…
and then you said…
and here, the part I underlined, you are using God’s will to mean his permissive will… what he has permitted to take place, which you very rightly and accurately observed entails him “willing” (permissively) to allow things to happen that are contrary to His will (revealed will)
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
your sentence, “It is God’s will to allow humans the free (independent) agency to act against his will if they so choose.” is a perfect description of the Lutheran/Calvinist doctrine of God’s two wills. it is God’s will that people are permitted to act contrary to his will. I couldn’t agree more.
So despite your odd protestation, you are explicitly stating that you agree with my second premise (as well as the first), and do explicitly espouse this incoherent baffelgab yourself!
so follow me here carefully, and i think you may recognize that you are indeed explicitly agreeing with my incoherent bafflegab…
premise 1: people sometimes commit adultery… this is an example of humans exercising their free will to act counter to God’s will [his revealed law].
premise 2: It is God’s will [his permissive will]) to allow humans the free (independent) agency to act against his [revealed] will if they so choose…
conclusion: “will” as noted in premise 1, and “will” as used (as highlighted) in premise 2, must refer to different concepts.
So thank you for this excellent articulation of Luther’s two senses of God’s will; and hence the lack of any contradiction between the two.
Very well said! I just have to quote it again because it is just so good and perfect, I’ll augment it just a tad…
Absolute perfect articulation of Luther’s, and subsequent Calvinists, understanding of the two different senses of God’s will. well done! Absolutely superb bafflegab if I do say so myself!
No, this is incoherent because if God has created peoples desires, natures and wills (as Calvinism states) then by definition, such a person’s will cannot operate independently or differently that what God has determined it to be.
Daniel, if I had endless time, I could continue to discuss the apparently endless illogical circles of Calvinist semantics but I do have some other pressing work to get to which will probably be more productive at this point. So I’m going to bail from the conversation (with a positive tone) and if someone else wants to pick up this thread, feel free. Again, thanks for the respectful dialog and hopefully the readers of this thread at least learned something new about the Calvinist perspective on free will.
Agreed, and same here. and thanks for the courteous, respectful and engaging and illuminating conversation. a few last comments and i will wrap up myself.
Firstly, again, was sincerely impressed by your excellent articulation of the Lutheran/Calvinist conception of the two wills of God:
Also, i missed your Earlier comment that similarly well articulated the two wills Of God. I think you actually understand this incoherent bafflegab better than you let on:
Again, another excellent articulation of the Lutheran or Calvinist understanding of the teo wills of God. I really don’t think this concept is as much incoherent bafflegab as you would like to think.
Secondly, and with Deepest respect, you are persisting in misunderstanding and misrepresenting the Calvinist understanding of our nature, even after i have repeatedly corrected it. I honestly dont understand why you are continuing to misstate this concept even after repeated correction and multiple clarification. In all respect and fairness, but it sounds like you’re not even trying to understand or hear the correction since you continue to falsely misrepresent the position, and i cant fathom why.
i will never object to someone disputing my position… I vehemently object to someone misrepresenting my position.
As repeatedly clarified and illustrated, Calvinisms understanding of our nature means that we are precluded from acting against our nature, and hence cannot make certain choices due to the limitations imposed by our nature… but our wills and choices are not determined, forced, coerced, dictated by that nature. they can indeed choose anything among the myriad choices available to us at any moment, simply not those choices that would literally be against our nature.
As I repeatedly illustrated by considering eternal life, our God-given, glorified, sinless nature in eternity will mean we will not experience temptation to sin. Our new God-given glorified nature will preclude our ability to sin. It simply does not follow from this - of having a new nature given by God - that we will not be able to act independently or freely. you don’t seem to think that we will be mindless automata in heaven, unable to make free choices, simply because (as you seem to agree) God will have directly given us a new glorified sinless nature, which precludes our ability to you sin. But we will be absolutely free, even with that God given nature, to freely choose to do whatever we want throughout eternity. Having a God-given (new) nature does not force us into certain choices, rather we are free to do anything that is not against that nature. I honestly don’t see why this is a difficult concept to understand.
I never did get back to you on this, but I’d want to give a careful definition rather than shoot from the hip on that. when I have time I’ll try to get back and honor this request.
Finally, i did appreciate the discussion, it was illuminating to me, in particular the ways that people still maintain such significant misunderstandings about what we Calvinists believe. i dont mind at all people disagreeing, but persistent misrepresentations, while troubling, are yet illuminating.
And to bring it back home to the main topic, it really was Extraordinarily illuminating, how much the persons understanding of how God’s intention and plans being compatible with human freedom impacts the question of inspiration.
if someone is adamantly opposed to the idea that God’s sovereign intent can really be compatable with human freedom, then, yes, I can understand why such a person would Include that, if every word in scripture is exactly as God intended it, then they would have to conclude that said human who wrote it was a puppet, automaton, or amanuensis… and they would therefore I suppose have to conclude that inspiration literally meant dictation.
This is absolutely false, of course, because anyone who holds the traditional view of in errancy and verbal plenary inspiration, especially as articulated in the Chicago statement, certainly understands some aspect of compatiblism in these two concepts. They explicitly deny dictation, As the signers of that document obviously recognized some aspects of compatiblism… That the words were both exactly what God intended, and the words were written according to the experience and personality and free intent of the human author. Basically, compatiblism, applied to Scripture’s inspiration.
And with that, I will wrap up the conversation myself. Thanks again!
Didn’t want to ignore your sincere request, but other priorities intervened.
In short, I would simply observe that no one (that I know of) claims that Paul, as a human being, was inerrant in every word he ever spoke. @Marshall 's observation is one of many that we could note of Paul’s errors that are recorded in Scripture. Another of which is the famous section at the beginning of 2 Corinthians, Where Paul had to defend himself against accusations of him being unreliable, due to his change in travel plans.
(personally, I seriously relate to this particular example being a parent. How many times have I told my children about a general intent or plan that I hoped to accomplish, and if it does not come to fruition, they attack me ruthlessly saying, “you promised!" And I have to again explain to them the difference between a plan and a promise… )
But more to the point: if I were writing an email to a military colleague, and in the course of that email I told a fellow officer, “yes… I will meet you for such and such meeting at 4:30… sorry, correct that. I meant to say 1430…”
Only a complete pedantic annoying hairsplitting faultfinder would write back and say, “your message was erroneous, and it contained an error. Hence I can’t trust you to be reliable in your communications and can’t trust this message to be reliable.”
In fact, in the course of that particular communication, I made a minor error, and corrected it, and then communicated the correct information… and thus the final communication that I sent was indeed without error - at least without error by the standard of any normal person that was not a complete pedantic annoying hairsplitting faultfinder. Having clarified that the actual meeting was indeed at 1430, and permitting my previous typo of 4:30 to remain, accomplished two things - it inerrantly clarified the fact that I was not personally without error… AND IT SENT AN INERRANT MESSAGE. The meeting was indeed at 1430, and that correct and inerrant information would have been received and understood by anyone who was not a complete pedantic annoying hairsplitting faultfinder.
The Bible is absolutely full of accounts of lies, errors, sins, false motives, and the like. Psalm 51 is such a beautiful example. David is verse after verse acknowledging his faults and his errors. Does that mean that Psalm 51 cannot in any sense beat inerrant, since it is a laundry list of his errors and sins? I think that is ridiculous. It is God’s inherit communication of a template prayer of repentance to inherently explain a perfect and God sanctioned example of how to pray when we are in such circumstances. Only a complete pedantic annoying hair splitting fault finder would try to claim that Psalm 51 could not be inerrant, as it expressed that the author was guilty of sin. When the entire purpose was to show a perfect example of penitence.
But bottom line, the example that @Marshall pointed out Is indeed a perfect example. No inherency believing Christian like me affirms that the gospel writers, Paul, or any other writer of any part of the Bible, themselves were inherent. And that obvious fact is reflected in the very words of Scripture such as in the example he gave or others I could point out.
At the same time, the very passage that Marshall pointed out was written in such a way that the final communication was, in fact, without error. Paul corrected his mistake and gave the correct information in the course of his writing. Thus any reader, who was not a complete pedantic annoying hairsplitting faultfinder, would have received correct and thus have indeed received inherent information.
Scripture is inerrant, we believe, but not woodenly inerrant. It is organically inerrant as God is writing it but is doing so very organically at the level of very broken, sinful, fallible humans. Thus it is not surprising at all that Scripture would be full of real, raw, dirt-under-the-fingernails kinds of human foibles, perspectives, and the like, and yet, if God’s own words, that he would simultaneously and concurrently ensure that what he is commmunicating is indeed true. (and thus, by very nature and definition of being truth, thus be without error, or inerrant.)
Standing by if I can answer any other questions or clarifications.
Such as the God who orchestrated the Death of His beloved son - the most evil act that could be imagined in all of human history? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all?
Whose death was “according to the definine plan and foreknowledge of God”?
Those who killed him did “whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place”?
God orchestrates these evil things that happened in the ultimate and incomparable display and act of love, no? This is what perfection in Christ looks like.
Thanks Daniel. That’s a very thorough answer, though to the issue I had tried to set aside as not the point:
I’d still be interested if you have any thoughts on that part. Based on how 1 Cor. 3:3–9 resumes the discussion Paul started in 1:10–13, it seems like the passage between was triggered by Paul’s little flub. His magnificent defence of why God speaks through imperfect messages from imperfect messengers seems to have been prompted by Paul making a mistake and recognizing that his memory’s not up to the task of fully correcting it.
It’s Paul’s reaction to his mistake, not the mistake itself, that I think should teach us to not expect unerring perfection from Scripture.
I’d respetfully observe that even the Psalms you quote aren’t directly endorsing human vengeance, but they are prayers to God that He would exact said vengeance (albeit potentially through human mediators)
I’d have to give thought to how and whether, and the relevance, of which Scriptures we have a record of Christ quoting.
(NB, as with anything in the Bible, we only have the record of what the Evangelists chose to record, given their limited resources, time, supply of papyrus, etc., allowed them to do so. After all, “there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” Perhaps he did quote to his disciples from these other books and we just don’t have a record. This is an argument from silence and we simply don’t know.)
but what we DO know, is that Jesus taught various things in strict prose as well as parables that certainly are analogous or reflective or perhaps even allusions of those imprecatory psalms or psalms of vengance…
Some things that are recorded that Jesus DID say include:
" what about my enemies who did not want me to be king over them? Bring them here! Kill them in front of me!'"
" You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’"
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”
““What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.””
“These men will be punished most severely.”
“it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”
"They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls…because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
And plenty more I could quote if I wanted to spend the time. Point is, I’m not seeing some kind of categorical difference between the language or tone of the imprecatory psalms, and other such psalms of despair, lament, or vengeance, and the words that Jesus himself used, no? (and I haven’t even touched on Jesus’s depictions of hell…)
I’m skeptical, though I wouldn’t categorically rule it out. As my wife who is a medical professional taught me, anytime you read in medical literature that some medication “may” have such and such benefit, you should read that as “may or may not.”
Sure, in theory, it is possible that Paul’s momentary lapse in memory about who he baptised was the impetus for the next discussion. And it is possible that his momentary lapse in memory was NOT the impetus for such. As such, I would not be interested in pursuing that any further. It would be an interesting speculation, but nothing further. It is entirely conceivable that for his intent in writing what he did to the Corinthian church he had every intent of writing what he did about his own weaknesses, and his lapse of memory was an interesting coincidence. No idea, but nothing to build any further doctrine or insight on, in my own humble opinion.
But if you really want my own personal opinion, his discussion about his own weakness and inadequacy as a messenger compared to the glory of the message is so structured, developed, intentional, purposeful, organized, and downright poetic, I have a hard time believing that that was spontaneously triggered simply by his simple memory lapse about who he happened to have baptized earlier in the introduction of the book.
For that matter, when discussing hypotheticals or speculatives, it is possible that Paul had his discussion of his inadequacy as a communicator in mind the whole time, made the flub about who he baptisized, and then decided, “Hey, this is a perfect time for me to roll into that discussion about me being a weak messanger as I had planned.” We have no idea.
This discussion like many others I’ve had has been very influenced by C.S. Lewis’s article on “Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism,” where he warns about the dangers in over-developed speculation on putting much weight on theories about why the ancients wrote what they did, and what inspired or triggered them to write such and such…
Only the other week a reviewer said that a fairy-tale by my friend Roger Lancelyn Green was influenced by fairy-tales of mine. Nothing could be more probable. I have an imaginary country with a beneficent lion in it; Green, one with a beneficent tiger. Green and I can be proved to read one another’s works; to be indeed in various ways closely associated. The case for an affiliation is far stronger than many which we accept as conclusive when dead authors are concerned. But it’s all untrue nevertheless. I know the genesis of that Tiger and that Lion and they are quite independent.
-Now this surely ought to give us pause.
Hence, as per Lewis’s advice, I am very reluctant to make any conclusions about what was in any ancient writer’s mind, and what specific things incited him to write whatever he did.
Which in human terms makes God an accessory to rape, arson, murder, fraud, embezzlement, and every other form of depravity.
But the Calvinist doctrine says that God has decreed all actions, which means that the distinction between “two wills” is meaningless – God decrees all the sins that happen.
This applies nicely to the scriptures, but does not point to inerrancy in the sense of factual and other errors.
That cannot be found in the text – it is a (rather common but strange) human interpolation.
Oh, you misunderstood what I said is incoherent. The bolded sentence is what results from Libertarian Free will and is the stance I hold.
The fact that you think Calvinism teaches this is what I said was incoherent.
So since you like Google searches so much I asked whether, in the view of Calvinism, people could act against God’s will (i.e. the universal divine decree). The returned answer was:
In Calvinism, the universal divine decree, often called God’s eternal counsel or will, means that everything that happens, including all human actions, is predetermined by God. Therefore, people cannot act against the universal divine decree, as it is understood to encompass all events, including human choices, and is the ultimate cause of everything
Daniel, I’m not fussed if you prefer a different reconstruction of how Paul’s words came to be. I would just like to get to discussing the words. For instance, you suggest this:
That works too, since it still acknowledges that Paul connects that long discussion to his flub. He makes his mistake, realizes he can’t fully correct it, then writes “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel – and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.” A cliché of exegesis is when you see a “for,” ask what it’s there for. This “for” connects this new discussion with how he’s just made himself look a little foolish.
Thanks to this, we’re not left guessing what he means by foolishness. He starts with an example: making a mistake about past history and not having a good enough memory to fully correct it. Put another way, he made an error, then launched into a discussion of why errors don’t invalidate his message. God decided to use even the foolishness of Paul’s proclamation to save those who believe (1 Cor. 1:21).
There’s more to foolishness than that. It’s also about not fitting Greek rules for persuasive discourse. But it’s not less, because Paul chose to use his own example of appearing foolish to launch the discussion.
As a whole, that discussion teaches us to not expect a message from God to meet our standards. Jews ask for signs and modernists demand inerrancy, but Paul proclaims Christ crucified. Some ancient courts only heard testimony from respected men, but God chooses women to first proclaim Christ resurrected. This seems to be a pattern. God chooses what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.
Inerrancy seems to be the modern mind’s iteration of defining how God must speak for us to listen. Paul’s advice to us? Cut it out.
sure, but that bolded sentence ( It is God’s will to allow humans the free (independent) agency to act against his will if they so choose.) is what results from what we Calvinists believe, and is the stance I hold!
I think your view of Calvinism is perhaps more of a caricature or misunderstanding than you suspect.
Sure, but neither could people act against God’s foreknowledge, which even all Arminians affirm…
I respect your conviction that your interpretation is the sole correct understanding of Paul’s words here… I hope you’ll similarly respect my own conviction that I simply don’t share it.
To Quote the movie The Princess Bride: “I don’t think that word means what you think it means”…
Again, with due respect, our conversation has converged to some very similar ones I’ve listened to on youtube channels when Calvinists try to explain freedom and determinism to outsiders. Even after hours of discussion, to get a clear definition from the Calvinist is like trying to nail Jell-o to a wall . The amusing thing on some of those youtube interviews is that even the different “Calvinist” guests often begin to contradict each other about the truth or falshood of various propositions put to them as if they themselves have trouble navigating the jargon. Same words, multiple dictionaries.
So hey, if you are convinced that your system is coherent and you are satisfied, more power to 'ya. It’s not my intent to argue you out of something you see no issues with. I just can’t make it make sense to me.
Not true because Arminians hold that God’s foreknowledge does not equal determinism, as @knor explained earlier whereas Calvinists say that God predetermines (causes) all future events. So those two views are NOT, in fact, philosophically the same. Although @knor would disagree with me here, I do actually see philosophical issues with God “foreknowing” free, contingent events which is why I have moved to Open Theism—the position which I think makes the best logically consistent framework for Libertarian Free will. (but all that depends on the nature of time too…)
Fair enough, but I’ll note that it was you who insisted that Luther’s idea of God having two different wills was inherently contradictory… until you yourself turned around and affirmed Luther’s very concept - the very idea of God having both a revealed will and a permissive will which are indeed different.
Maybe that word “contradiction” doesn’t mean what you think it means…?
And with that I promise I’ll end my part of the conversation, and let you have any last words if you’d like.
Apparently you think that because I can quote Luther to show that I know what he said, means that I also think his two-wills idea is actually coherent?
thanks for the conversation and have a good evening!
I admit that you made a solid attempt to coerce it out, and kudos for trying!
