Maybe it would be est if questions asked were answered when asked and answered without personal commentary and misrepresenting others' posts.
The answers to the questions asked, btw, are all "No."
Two letters. "n" and "o".
What questions? Not sure I understand why anyone's questions are to be considered as asked. After all, they do assume certain things not in evidence. For example, the below.
The problem here is not on my end and I have
encouraged you multiple times to be cautious with the notion everyone else shares the inability to understand that
you experience when contemplating these matters. If it is not possible for
anyone to understand then it is also impossible for you to ever learn
. I'd say it was "convenient" if I did not hold you in higher esteem. No knowledge can or will ever be garnered from God's revelation we'll all always be ignorant on this side of the grave. This is the logical necessity of appeals to inability.
Yes, that is very encouraging. Yes, it is difficult for me to understand how someone else thinks their assessments of the infinite and eternal are altogether valid while yet temporal, and demands that I answer according to their parameters.
It's also completely unnecessary as far as this op goes. We experience simultaneously existing mercy/compassion and justice/justness routinely, in big ways and small. That salvation entails both isn't particularly surprising and while it may not be obvious in the beginning, its shared territory of both mercy and justice is not hard to comprehend. To say these things must happen, must happen solely in one specific way, and God has no other option is irrational. It's a mockery of a mock god. This should be obvious in the fact God's purpose creation will glorify Him is demonstrated in two different ways (eternal life versus destruction) and either of those can (and is) meted out at any time God so chooses regardless of temporal circumstances
But I didn't say God has no other option. What I said is that there is only one way to do what God is doing —that is, if indeed he is doing so according to the principle of cause-and-effect that he has humans using as logical. I have repeatedly gone out of my way, to several members here, to show that I am not dealing with whether or not God can do something, but that our notions of what he can and cannot do are not in themselves valid. He is doing what he is doing, and anything else he could have, might have, can or can't do, is, by our way of thinking, bogus consideration. (I'm not even saying that what he WOULD HAVE done is bogus. (Many places it is evident that what he would have done, were we to have obeyed/disobeyed/etc, would be different; but the fact is it is not different—we did not obey/did obey/ etc, and, as we can see, what he decreed came about perfectly.))
Hmmm... If the "it" is divine mercy/compassion and justice, then nothing in this discussion should be about God having any need. That would compromise divine aseity and simplicity and thereby fail prima facie. I have not read your posts to assert a need upon which God is dependent exists. However, the premise God can do only that which has been done is a compromise on aseity and simplicity. The dependency(-ies) created by strict determinism is paradoxical because (as I have already posted) it is a post hoc argument that defines God by temporal matters and then surrenders further understanding and any and all dissent with the sophistry of "It is beyond our comprehension."
No, "it" was not divine mercy/compassion, and no, this discussion is because I present the fact that God does not "need" nor does "he has to". The "it" I was referring to is alluded to soon after alluding to it: I was alluding to our notion of 'possibility', or maybe better, that the notion of possibility applied to God is what I am protesting; since he does only what he does, who are we to venture into what he could have done? Are we about to protest about what he
should have done? Here ya go:
makesends said:
Maybe it would be more clear for me to say, I'm not applying it to God. I'm applying this to us. It is WE who think of possibility. God doesn't need that.
Once again, I have gone out of my way —in fact, this tangent is a result of my protest to —ha!, I don't even remember who; maybe
@JesusFan ?— who said that God had to do—aarrgh, now I have to find it to quote it right! Ah, yes, post #46:
JesusFan said:
REven if we were to stae God could do many different things or say many different ways, what he did do is what He only could have done
—to which I answered: "
Wrong way to look at it, or, at least, wrong way to state it. It is logically impossible that he would do other than he did— it is not that a question of what he could or could not do. It is not for lack of power or ability, but only that his decree is absolutely "universal" (sorry, no pun intended.) It is not that he cannot do the logically self-contradictory, (such as to make the rock too big for himself to pick up), but that the logically self-contradictory is a non-thing. Foolishness. So with whatever he does. HE does it, and that includes the whole of history and beyond. There is no fact that is outside his decree. He is not a co-inhabitant with us within a larger context of possibility."
Notice the phrase, there. Here, I'll highlight it for you and bring up the font a little bit. "
It is logically impossible that he would do other than he did."
But, I wouldn't want to call the arguments concerning whether God can or cannot do other than he did, "a strawman". That would have the tendency to invoke the site rules.
It becomes apparent when questions like those asked in
Post 54 are presented.
Re post 54, notice that I didn't assign moral responsibility for her death to anyone but the guy that shot her.
Any god can make action figures and make them do only what He wishes. That kind of god and that kind of creation makes a mockery of mercy and justice. That god is not a God. That god is not God. I can look over my fence and watch my neighbor's six-year-old make his creation do what he wants it to do and the idea those actions are the only thing he could do is laughable because it the exact opposite of reason and understanding. That child is willing and acting as a temporal creature in a temporal environment and audacious to assert that same condition exists for the Creator of time and space.... and then tell me I am speculating over my head.
No, I try not to say things against the rules, such as, "you are speculating over your head."
I disagree and find that woefully ignorant.
Nice digressionary cop out (and a bit of a strawman
So much for practicing what is preached. Your views alone are worth looking at, but no one else's
That is the dumb argument!
And I do not know whether you realize this but that's a pile of hogwash.
The answers to the questions asked, btw, are all "No."
Two letters. "n" and "o".
(Makes shakes head in incredulity). Your kindness to condescend to such an unworthy opponent with such a length of letters is amazing. I love and admire you, too, bro.
No (josh shakes head in incredulity). It is not our "seeing" that defines the end of a matter......
I didn't say our seeing defines the end of a matter. I said it will happen when we see it. Far be it from a monergist to assess coincidence as causation!
and you've just contradicted yourself because your entire argument is predicated on the inherent flaws in human thinking preventing understanding ("seeing"). It cannot be had both ways. Either humans are capable of seeing or they are not. The foundational presupposition of divine revelation is that it is understandable. There are caveats, such as when God purposefully veils understanding for a period of time, or when God deliberately blinds someone(s) from understanding. Those are the exception to the rule, not the rule.
I will give you credit, though. I wouldn't go nearly so far to prove a strawman wrong!
SMH
