If at first you don't succeed, lose, lose again!

KANGAROODORT SAID:

“So now we are on to lifting other comments from my combox.”

And why does that bother you, exactly? Do you think your own comments are indefensible?

“And trying to say that I need to back them up as if the whole world needs to answer to Triablogue.”

To the contrary, it’s fine with me if you’re not up to the task you set for yourself.

“You guys are very predictable.”

That’s a funny accusation coming from a libertarian. Apparently, you don’t believe in the freedom to do otherwise.

Well, that’s progress. Now that you’ve shown yourself to be a closet determinist, I’d encourage you to come out of the closet.

“Just keep making posts and issuing challenges until your opponent is overwelmed and unable to respond to it all.”

I don’t recall issuing a challenge. I guess we have to acquaint you with the dynamics of a public debate.

If you comment on something I say, especially in the form of a criticism, then that’s an open invitation for me to respond. If you can’t take it when people reply to your public criticism of their position, then don’t criticize their position.

You evidently think that criticism is a one-way street. You should be free to criticize Calvinism, but a Calvinist has no right to criticize Arminianism.

Wherever did you get the idea that you can attack someone’s theological position with impunity? I guess you led a very sheltered existence.

“As far as your above claim I have written several posts on the subjects of free will and determinism so your claim that I haven't presented anything is simply false (and some of them are even exegetically derived).”

“Exegetically derived” once you load the dice with your Arminian presuppositions.

“I am not here to please you or cater to your needs.”

Do you ever listen to yourself as you carry on this way? Instead of dealing with the issues, you emote like a schoolgirl who was snubbed at the prom.

I did a high and dry post on the difference between *affecting* and *changing* an outcome. You responded with a me-centered pity-party.

I then did a follow-up post in which I questioned whether, given your Arminian commitment to divine foreknowledge, it was consistent for you to say that prayer has an affect on God. And you respond to that with another round of self-pity.

“I regret having anything to do with you guys.”

Yes, losing the argument can have that affect on a person.

“(And regrets are a strange thing indeed if we do not have the power of contrary choice as you claim).”

What do you think you accomplish when you trot out this schoolboy objection to determinism? Do you think you’ve said something original? Something your Reformed opponent has never thought of before? Do you think this halts us in our tracks?

This sort of objection would be acceptable if you were just a kid who had never taken a course in philosophy. Never read a book on the debate between freewill and determinism.

But there are well-trodden replies to this sort of objection. You don’t help your own position by operating at such a retrograde level.

Let’s take an example: one function of regret, in Reformed theology, is that God uses regret about the past as a means of changing our outlook with a view to the future.

It isn’t about “if only I could do it all over again”—which is backward-looking—but about, “having screwed up my life, I now see my need to turn my life over to Christ”—which is forward-looking. Regret is perfectly consistent with Calvinism.

God decrees that certain people have certain motives, since motives function as an incentive or disincentive to a particular course of action. Regret can be an inducement to evangelical repentance.

“Then why do you guys keep going on and on about it?”

Why does Toto pull the curtain back?

“And this isn't an arbitray statement? I could come up with all kinds of arbitray definitions for what Calvinism is, as could anyone.”

You *say* it’s arbitrary, but you don’t *show* it’s arbitrary.

Moreover, you’re quoting my conclusion without quoting my supporting argument.

“Which is philosophical assertion based on a Biblically unfounded correlation between physical death and spiritual death. It is far from exegetically derived.”

It’s Scripture that uses the metaphor of spiritual death. I didn’t invent that correlation. And it’s Scripture that distinguishes between spiritual death and the new birth.

“You guys feel like you are defending Biblical truth by trying to make a fool out me.”

You’re the one who keeps casting the issue in terms of making you look foolish. Does this reflect a Freudian guilt-complex on your part?

I’ve been endeavoring to discuss the theological issues. But you keep responding by talking about yourself, and how you feel about us, and how you feel we feel about you, and how you feel we feel about how you feel about our feelings…

It’s like a parody of adolescent girl-talk.

“Strangely, it would seem that God has decreed from eternity that I would reject Calvinism and defend Arminianism. If that is the case then I don't know why you are battling me. I am just doing what God wanst me to do. God apparently wants us to disagree and is apparently to blame for all the confusion that this debate generates, which is strange for a God of whom the Bible declares is not the author of confusion.”

That’s a lovely example of ripping a passage out of context. Paul is making the practical point that in a church service, everyone shouldn’t speak at once.

If you want to cite something relevant in 1 Corinthians, try 1:18-3:23, where God is responsible for setting up a number of theological pawns who function as a foil to the gospel. God does that, as Paul explains, to highlight the ironic wisdom of the gospel in contrast to the folly of the worldly-wise.

“But that is just me expecting things to make sense again and you have already pointed out how foolish that expectation is.”

If you were sincere about wanting things to make sense, you’d attempt to explain how, by your own lights, prayer has an “affect on God” even though God foreknows your prayer, foreknows how or whether he will answer your prayer, as well as foreknowing how the answer, assuming it’s answered, will figure in the outcome.

Do you think your prayer can change a foreknown future? How is that possible?

And, if it doesn’t change the future, then how does your position differ from mine—except that I’m able to ground divine foreknowledge in divine foreordination, whereas divine foreknowledge is groundless in Arminian theology.

“I wish I had the luxury of defending an unfalsifiable dogma like you guys.”

Meaning what, exactly? Do you think Christian beliefs should be falsifiable? In what sense?

Do you think Jesus may have been a fraud? Is that the kind of thing you have in mind?