tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post5737242520403096864..comments2024-03-16T21:32:23.088-04:00Comments on A Sure Word: Predestination: A Series on Election, Part 5 – Irresistible GraceRKBentleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566375018731000081noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-44060712191665901962015-02-17T22:05:18.215-05:002015-02-17T22:05:18.215-05:00Actually, I wasn't asking how we can be accoun...Actually, I <i>wasn't</i> asking how we can be accountable for our sins if all our choices are subject to God's will; I was simply asking why a mere fallible fellow human would [a] say that we don't have free will or moral accountability, yet [b] act as though treating other people (whether we treat ourselves that way is a separate question) as morally accountable is something we can be blamed for.<br /><br />On the other hand, the underlying problem, as I see it, is that God is said to want certain outcomes (that we all love and obey Him), and yet governs the world (e.g. causing/allowing all humans to be born with a sin nature that compels them to reject Him) that work against that presumed goal. God seems to be His own worst enemy (of course, when you're the only omnipotent, omniscient Being in the universe, good enemies are hard to find). And your subjective impression that you are morally responsible for your sins, on the assumption of absolute divine sovreignity, cannot be more reliable than your subjective sense that you actually have free will to choose some things and reject others.Steven J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15638850493907393069noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-19977097432945820282015-02-17T17:26:30.466-05:002015-02-17T17:26:30.466-05:00Steven,
As I said in my replies to your previous ...Steven,<br /><br />As I said in my replies to your previous comments, the idea of free will seems incompatible with the sovereignty of God. I can only repeat the same examples I've used already: Judas betrayed Jesus of his own free will. However, it had already been foretold that Jesus would give His life as a ransom for many so Judas' betrayal still accomplished God's will.<br /><br />You ask how we can be held accountable for our sins if all of our actions are subject to God's will? I only know that I KNOW I've done wrong when I sin and it is right for God to demand justice. If I could understand everything about God, He would be a very simple God. Instead, I acknowledge there are things I can't understand and I trust that He who is perfect is simultaneously all loving and completely just. I know that He will do what is right.<br /><br />Thanks for your comments. God bless!!<br /><br />RKBentley RKBentleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00566375018731000081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-63814873205731657422015-02-13T23:46:55.746-05:002015-02-13T23:46:55.746-05:00Jerry Coyne (you referenced his blog a few weeks a...Jerry Coyne (you referenced his blog a few weeks ago) once posted a querulous note to the effect of why philosophers who acknowledged (correctly, in his view) that all our decisions follow necessarily from a chain of cause and effect tracing back to the Big Bang bother to twist themselves into knots arguing that this is compatible with free will. He apparently did not consider that this decision (for a "compatibilist" concept of free will) was, on his own principles, the inevitable outcome of a chain of cause and effect tracing back to the Big Bang.<br /><br />This is a central paradox of free will (or rather, the denial of it): if I don't have free will, why do you think I <i>chose</i> to believe I do? If the criminal is not responsible for his actions, why should you blame me for my (presumably equally unfree) desire to punish him?<br /><br />This seems to me to be Spurgeon's problem. If he'arguing with non-Calvinist Christians, and acknowledging that they <i>are</i> Christians, then obviously, you can be saved without accepting Calvinism. If he holds that all True Christians will realize that Calvinism is the truth, then he's arguing with people who, on his own principles, <i>cannot</i> be brought to agree with him unless God reaches down and changes their minds. And God, even if He chooses to work through preaching, is presumably not constrained by whether that preaching is Calvinist in content (after all, it's not as though, on Calvinist grounds, mere preaching can change our comprehensively depraved minds).<br /><br />So if Spurgeon was right, there's no point to his utterance; of course, if he's wrong, then he ought not have said such things and misled people.<br /><br />In any case, another perennial problem in discussions of free will is that you can't really tell whether people could have chosen differently. All you know is that they <i>didn't</i> choose differently, which no more means that they never could have then the fact that a truck has been driving east all day proves it is incapable of driving west. Spurgeon's argument thus doesn't support his conclusion.Steven J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15638850493907393069noreply@blogger.com