Predestination, Honesty, and Sin

[makesends]

makesends said:
Redemption is not from 'good death'.

That is incorrect.

A good and sinless man died and was then resurrected. His "good death" is the means of redemption

He was not redeemed from 'good death'. Nor are we, nor anybody else. We are indeed redeemed BY his 'good death'. You are imposing an anguished twist onto an otherwise simple meaning.

makesends said:
It is agreed that Christ, in and of himself, is the reason for all of this, and no mistake.

And now your own post has contradicted itself.


So, I am therefore out. I will not trade posts with someone whose posts chronically contradict themselves and never corrects the errors or repents of the thoughtless practice.

Assertion only. How have I contradicted myself? I have indicated that redemption is not of itself a stand-alone decree, by definition of the word, redemption. Here, I begin to 'get into' the reasoning you demand, since you wish to separate the decree of redemption from the decree that there be sin from which to be redeemed. You interject, separate the statement from its context and cry, "Contradiction!" adding to it consternation and offense as though, "I'm going to take my ball and go home", wins the day.

makesends said:
The taking into consideration of all the peripherals in the story [of history and its causes] does not encroach on that fact. They only affirm it.

That modern Christendom has a paradoxical fascination with the subject of sin is indeed at issue here —they focus on it as though it is endemic to 'what is' and to which God has set himself in opposition. Paradoxically, and to their shame, they seem to think that it is a blemish on God's decree, yet, in and of itself, something that man has the power to deal with apart from God, and "no big deal".

That compromises divine aseity. This portion of your commentary 1) contradicts your own position and the emphasis you in particular place of God's aseity and 2) ignores the explanations I have posted multiple times.

HOW does what I say above compromise divine aseity? I agree that the strange focus, or rather, the fouled understanding of sin they engage in compromises the doctrine of divine aseity. I don't agree with them. But if you are directing that at my first sentence of the above you (again) separated from its context, then explain how that contradicts my own position on aseity and compromises aseity?

 

[makesends]

makesends said:
To eat from the 'Tree of Life' indeed brings about ('opens') the Kingdom of Heaven, but that is not Redemption. It can be argued to, legally, result from redemption, or to, practically, result in redemption, but it is not redemption.

Then you have either once again contradicted your own pov or just afformed my own. If there's no redemption where there is no sin, as you just stated, why would the tree of life be redemptive under such circumstances? What would be its purpose when no sin exists? Well, that question has already been answered...... and ignored.

"Redemptive" is not "redemption". The sloughing of words there looks like careless sleight of hand. Furthermore, the speculative '"Tree of Life" principle' of producing eternal life upon 'good death' is not even redemptive. The Son of God (represented in this context as the Tree of Life) is redemptive to sinners. (He is also Redemption for sinners, or the Redemption of sinners FROM death. Not from the mortality of 'good death'.) SO, to answer questions according to false parameters would be dishonest. (I commend you, if in that other thread you refuse to answer questions assuming there are anthropomorphisms, if you think there are none, and thus the questions are bogus. But I didn't even do that with the bogus speculative notion of Adam's innocent 'good death' prior to his disobedience—I answered the construction. And mentioned how the rendition you came up with for 'redemptive' as though it meant, 'redemption' was grammatically bogus and, as there was no such death as far as we know, the speculation was bogus on its own merits.

makesends said:
I do sincerely agree, that of itself, God's end result (to include ALL its particulars and perfections) is THE reason for creating, but the various means used to get there are also part of the decree. To suppose that there could be (or could have been) any other way is, at least empirically, not available to us to do more than to speculate on.

Yep. None of that is a point of disagreement. The problem is there's an unstated "only" in within those words as they pertain to your often asserted determinism. The "only" is "Only what accomplishes that goal was decreed," and "God could not possibly have decreed anything that doesn't accomplish that goal. There are no extemporaneous occurrences outside the single, solitary specific goal of salvation (or God glorifying Himself through His redress (His dependent redress) of sin."

God's determining your choice of ice cream is instrumental in His saving you from sin.


This too has been pointed out multiple times.

Sloughing again, messily. God's determining my choice, my ability to choose and what I choose, has to do with the character of that particular member of the Body of Christ that I am to be. (That, among ALL the other things decreed concerning me, is the ONLY way I will be THAT particular member of the Body of Christ.) Not simply "with (or by) redemption". Yes it can be separated in our minds that way from redemption. But the whole of God's decree combines it all, not mixed or confused, but not separated, either.

But that's beside the point. The point of contention here, that I'm seeing right now, is that the term, "redemption", does not apply to things that don't need to be redeemed, and specifically in Scripture, redeemed from sin. (I.e. you are defining 'redemption' in ways that (as far as I know) neither God nor the dictionary does.) But I am not the purveyor of truth.

makesends said:
To advance notions of a definition (viz. 'redemption') as if on its own is still a valid concept as what it was intended to do in its final result (our acceptance into the Kingdom of Heaven) as though separate from God's logical ordering also of what it was decreed to undo, is to me simply unimportant at best. I say this, while I do appreciate the importance of remembering that the nature of God does not include the nature of sin, which was also an intended result as means to the end.

I'm not sure how that's relevant when trading posts with me. I do not believe salvation occurs "as if on its own," and do not think the concept is valid at all.

Then I won't do more than to mention the appearance of contradiction against things you have said earlier, in that sentence.

 

[Josheb]

Redemption is not from 'good death'.

That is incorrect.

A good and sinless man died and was then resurrected. His "good death" is the means of redemption.

He was not redeemed from 'good death'.

Moving the goal posts.

The first post quoted states "Redemption is not from 'good death'." The second post quoted changes the word "redemption" to "He." Please correct that error.

Nor are we, nor anybody else. We are indeed redeemed BY his 'good death'. You are imposing an anguished twist onto an otherwise simple meaning.

There's a problem of ambiguity because the word "from" can be correlative or causal. When "Redemption is not from 'good death'" that is a red herring because no one believes good death (dying after having lived a sinless death) requires any redemption from sin. Please fix that error. Post 15 is a response to Post 8, which nowhere mentions the phrase "good death," Post 8's single mention of the word "death" is a simple observation Jesus made his statement before he died. Post 8's use of the word "death," is not a doctrinal comment of redemption. Posts 7 and 8 do not mention "redemption," either.

We are redeemed by Christ's "good death," and from that good death we receive redemption from sin.

But that is all irrelevant of the point originally being made, which is.....

If sin is the only reason God has a plan and the only reason God created creation is to address the problem of sin...... then God is dependent on sin and His aseity is compromised. There must, therefore, be either a different or an additional purpose for God creating creation (one that does not require sin's exstence).

To my thinking, this is a bit of a glossing over the facts, for the sake of ensuring God's Aseity is not compromised in the minds of the readers. Redemption is not from 'good death'.

What does that have to do with the fact God cannot be dependent on sin and Christ said he was the resurrection long before he'd died and resurrected?

That modern Christendom has a paradoxical fascination with the subject of sin is indeed at issue here —they focus on it as though it is endemic to 'what is' and to which God has set himself in opposition. Paradoxically, and to their shame, they seem to think that it is a blemish on God's decree, yet, in and of itself, something that man has the power to deal with apart from God, and "no big deal".

Great. How is the commentary on what others do germane to the premise God cannot be dependent on sin and if He is viewed that way (intentionally or unintentionally) that compromises His aseity?

It is true that God indeed is first and above every other fact...

Not if He is dependent on sin.

 

[makesends]

As I read your post here, another writer comes to mind. Have you ever read Van Til? He is definitely a bit tougher person to read than the average. But Van Til brought forward a concept called "analogical reasoning," which is that we reason analogously from God when we are connected to truth. Another author described it in a similar way (alalogia entis: analogy of being); the author was Eric Voegelin in a book called Science, Politics, and Gnosticism. Another author, John Frame, had made these thoughts a bit more accessible for the average reader; Frame was a student of Van Til. I'm specifically addressing your comments regarding, "we have God's ability to assess fact" and that "God is the very beginning and upholder of all other fact."

I've also seen this demonstrated in the form of modernism (in a bad way) where all fact is reduced down to the imminent (Voegelin calls this deicide: i.e. the murder of god). All is reduced down to the same level of man so that man can then legitimately be able to become an ultimate knower. Consider the following link (post #4 for further detail along this line of thought).
https://christcentered.community.forum/threads/the-creator-creature-distinction.1290/

You stated, "adopt a stance that assumes a thing predestined is a thing automatic," I have definitely seen this assumption in action. This is especially true when people say that Calvinists should just ignore witnessing, since God has chosen. But this ignores the means that God uses, and it ignores the fact that we don't know who the elect are. They view God's sovereignty in Calvinism as something automatic, as something that ignores the progress of history, in which case they demonstrate a very truncated, poorly thought out view of Calvinism, which is not actually Calvinism. . . . However, while I do agree that this assumption is made at times, I struggle to see this assumption in the case the opening post describes. It is certainly possible for the other person to have had this assumption, but I saw no indication of that assumption being used. Perhaps I am wrong, and I'm just missing what your assessment is pointing toward.

As I remember, I intended it as descriptive of a modern mindset common to both themes, or as introducing the fact that the mindset is common to both themes, a mindset you described and that I describe below, via Shaeffer. I did so in order to demonstrate how badly that mindset fails, yet, to bring forth the realization that it pervades even OUR thoughts to some degree. Notice how easily we categorize everything as either natural, or metaphysical, as if the two have a definite boundary between them. That leaks over into this discussion and the other threads like it, the somewhat deistic notion, for example, that God is not intimately involved in every detail that exists, or at least, that he can be considered in terms of leaving things to develop/evolve on their own 'naturally' as though the principles by which they do so are in and of themselves existent and effective, apart from his 'intervention'. It gets worse: Now we have the strange (and self-contradictory) notion that man in and of himself is not entirely influenced in making his choices—that he is actually spontaneous, as though he is a little first-cause— simultaneous with the assertion that man is a natural product of his environment —it's not very much his fault; we should "understand" him...

As I have remarked elsewhere, most believers that insist on their own causation via self-determinism will agree with me (if they don't know I am Calvinistic), on the absolutely pervasive chains of causation, even to the point of influencing choice, until I mention that GOD is at the head of causation.

This final paragraph will introduce another author and book: One or Two: seeing a world of difference. This is a book written by Peter Jones. I got this recommendation from listening to John Frame's philosophy lecture series. I ended up buying two books, and I have yet to read past chapter one. (Sigh) I definitely need to take the time to read it sometime, if only to skim through it.

At any rate, I hope that these are helpful thoughts. I also think that I've read K. Scott Oliphint where he endorsed the same analogical view of knowing and human knowledge. I bring this up because you stated your struggle with expressing the idea adequately. Perhaps these authors may make it clearer.

Thank you.

Shaeffer says, in his, "Escape From Reason", that historically, and, in particular it can be seen in the philosophy of science, a huge shift has been visible, from "the uniformity of natural causes", to, "the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system". It is no longer natural science, but naturalistic philosophy. (I think he meant to present this as concurrent with, or even a result of, predominant philosophy's transitions over time, but not as causal of that philosophy (or both). I'm not sure it makes any difference, in the end.) I mention this because I think the church, both lay and professionals, and particularly those members who seldom engage in internal contemplation of why they do what they do, don't realize as they expostulate or otherwise go about their day, the philosophy they employ in making their decisions and assessments and even their desires.

Shaeffer, too, decries the assumption that if something isn't 'immediate', (he says, if something is not considered "significant"), it is irrelevant and possibly false.

 

[His clay]

Exodus 20:13
Thou shalt not kill.

Acts 26:28
The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

God's will is typically categorized into two parts: His Secret Will, which encompasses what He sovereignly decrees for all eternity, and His Revealed Will, which includes His explicit commands and guidelines for how to live.

Exactly! I appreciate the simplicity. Understanding two basic categories allows us to move past the false accusation. Predestination and command are two separate realities scripture does not conflate.