The marsupial playground

“The gentlemen at Triablogue are apparently hurting for material. For someone as dumb as I apparently am, who is defending an obviously indefensible sorteriological position, they sure seem to give me a lot of attention. Why do they feel like they need to addrsss my arguments if they are not a threat to their position? Do they really believe that someone might be taken in by my foolishness? They have even lifted comments written by commenters in my comboxes and dedicated entire posts to ‘refuting’ those threatening comments. Just what has gotten these gentlemen so freaked out and rattled?”

http://arminianperspectives.blogspot.com/2008/03/leaving-play-ground-for-now.html

Would Ben say the same thing about Christ when he defended himself against false allegations? Would Ben say the same thing abut St. Paul when he defended the gospel, or defends his apostolic credentials?

Does Ben say the same thing about Christians who defend the divinity of Christ against Jehovah’s Witnesses? Does Ben say the same thing about Christians who defend the Bible against the aspersions of Bart Ehrman or the Jesus Seminar or Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens?

For that matter, isn’t Ben’s own tone pretty defensive? Doesn’t he (and his sidekick—Thibodaux) spend a lot of time defending Arminian theology?

Yes, it’s possible that someone might be taken in by his “foolishness.” Right off the bat, I can think of at two least people who’ve been taken in by his foolishness—Ben and Thibodaux.

“For some reason they have targeted me for the purpose of throwing their theological eggs at.”

How does my post on the analogy between prayer and time travel amount to throwing eggs at Ben?

“Instead, Paul became more insulting and put pictures up all over his post of things like dead kangaroos.”

Since Ben has plastered his own blog with pictures of kangaroos, why does he get so irate when Manata does the same thing in a post responding to Ben?

“I am amazed that I have somehow managed to get them so riled up.”

Reading through Ben’s post, which is pure ad hominem invective from start to finish, it sounds to me like Ben is the one who’s “riled up.”

“The games continue as Steve Hays chimed in with his own post correlating Calvinistic prayer with theoretical issues relating to time travel (which only demonstrates how difficult it is for Calvinists to ‘make sense’ of simple things like intercessory prayer).”

How is my post a “game,” exactly?

“I might even explore the mysteries of time travel with Steve Hays, but these things are not my priority right now.”

Which was not the point of my post. As I explained in my post, I was using time travel to illustrate the distinction between *changing* an outcome and *affecting* an outcome.

The libertarian objection to the Reformed doctrine of prayer is that, since God has already decreed the outcome, our prayers are ineffective.

I simply drew on Dainton’s distinction to show that this objection is intellectually confused. It’s possible to contribute to an unalterable outcome.

Our prayers don’t change the outcome precisely because, in case of answered prayer, our prayers already figured in the outcome. They were built into the outcome.

God has decreed the future, and God has decreed our prayers. God has decreed our prayers to function as a factor in the outcome. Our prayers *affect* the outcome without *changing* the outcome. And I quoted Dainton’s discussion of time travel to illustrate that distinction.

(Notice, I didn’t say that our prayers have an affect on God.)

What is Ben’s alternative? Is Ben an open theist? Does he deny that God knows the future?

For the moment, let’s bracket foreordination and simply play along with foreknowledge. What does a classic Arminian think that prayer does? Does he think that prayer is a way of changing God’s mind?

But according to classic Arminianism, God foreknows our prayer. So if God answers our prayer, then he’s already factored the answer into the outcome before we, as timebound creatures, ever prayed to God.

Or does Ben believe, not that God changes his mind in answer to prayer, but that he hasn’t made up his mind before we pray?

But how is that consistent with divine foreknowledge? If God knows the future, then God foreknows our prayer, and foreknows how or whether he will answer our prayer. God doesn’t have to wait until we pray to hear our prayer.

Notice that I’m arguing on Arminian assumptions.

kangaroodort said...

“As far as sticking to exegesis you have apparently not read much from Triablogue as they are often all about philosophy.”

Apparently Ben hasn’t read much of Triablogue. We respond to philosophical objections on philosophical grounds, ethical objections on ethical grounds, and exegetical objections on exegetical grounds.

“I personally think that the Bible is quite clear that our prayers have a genuine affect on God.”

What affect? To change his mind? How can a God who changes his mind all the time answer prayer?

There’s a drought. Joe is a farmer. He prays for rain to save his crops. God was planning to have another sunny day tomorrow, but in answer to Joe, he changes his mind and decides to make it rain. On TV, Joe hears the weatherman say it’s going to rain tomorrow.

But Mary has a wedding tomorrow. She prays for sunshine since rain would spoil the outdoor reception. God hears her prayer. So God scraps plan B to make it rain and reverts to plan A—in answer to her prayer.

When Joe switches on the TV, later in the day, he hears the weatherman now say it’s going to be sunny and dry.

So he prays for rain again. God hears his prayer and changes his mind again.

Ted is a banker. He prays for drought so that he can foreclose the mortgage on Joe’s farm in order to pay for his daughter’s tuition. God hears his prayer and…

“The burden rests on those whose theology (or philosophy, if you will) would undermine what the Bible seems to plainly pre-suppose.”

Okay, so, by his own admission, Ben doesn’t have exegetical argument for his position. Rather, it’s a question of what presuppositions he brings to the Bible.

Guess, what, Ben, that’s a *philosophical* question.

“The Bible seems to plainly pre-suppose that man has the feedom to choose in the sense that people have always understood ‘free will’, etc.”

“Plainly presuppose”? What’s that suppose to be, exactly?

If something is plainly stated, then it isn’t presupposed. Rather, it’s explicit.

For Ben to claim that his interpretation turns on a “presupposition” is actually a backdoor admission that his interpretation doesn’t derive from what is plainly stated in the text. Rather, this is something he brings to the text.

Something can’t be plainly presupposed. It’s either one or the other.

“The burden of proof rests with those who wish to calim otherwise.”

No, the onus is not on a Calvinist to disprove Ben’s philosophical presuppositions. On the one hand, Ben isn’t even attempting to do exegesis since, by his own admission, this is not about something asserted in the text of Scripture—but an extrascriptural presupposition which he imports into the sacred text “to make sense of” Scripture.

On the other hand, Ben is not attempting to defend his extrascriptural presupposition, either. So he hasn’t presented any argument for his position. Not from Scripture. And not from philosophy.

It’s not up to the Calvinist to offer a counterargument to Ben’s nonexistent argument. Unless and until Ben can muster a supporting argument for his claim, there’s nothing for us to disprove.

“Calvinists affirm monergism and determinism. They should therefore explain how intercessory prayer makes sense within such philosophical assumptions.”

Been there, done that.

“Arminianism doesn't need to engage in 'philosophy' to make sense of intercessory prayer because intercessory paryer fits perfectly within an Arminian framework.”

Actually, it doesn’t even fit within an Arminian framework, for reasons I just gave.

But assuming that it did, that begs the question in favor of the Arminian framework.

Murdering your political opponents fits perfectly within a Marxist framework. Does that make it true?

“Arminianism is rather simple and takes the Bible at face value.”

No, Mormonism takes the Bible at “face value.”

At one end of the spectrum, Calvinism has a consistent hermeneutic, with its doctrine of divine accommodation. That’s why we treat certain descriptions of God as anthropomorphic rather than literal.

At the other end of the spectrum is Mormonisn, which takes every description literally. This is the basic continuum:

Calvinism>Arminianism>neotheism>Mormonism.

Arminian hermeneutics is an ad hoc compromise—to the left of Calvinism, but to the right of neotheism and Mormonism.

“But you then either make sanctification unneccessary for salvation, or you admit that ‘salvation’ is not monergistic.”

Calvinism never said that ‘”salvation” is monergistic. Elements of salvation are monergistic, like election and regeneration.

“And by your own definitions you make sanctification a ‘work’ of man because you also claim that unless God unconditionally and irresistibly regenerates the sinner, then faith as a condition would really be a ‘work’. Why not say the same with respect to sanctification?”

i) We don’t say the same thing with respect to sanctification between the regenerate are no longer dead in sin. The unregenerate are passive in regeneration because they are dead in sin. Once regenerated, their spiritual condition is different.

ii) Calvinism doesn’t deny that Christians perform good works. But these are gracious works.

“If God alone keeps you, then how is sanctification synergistic as you say? According to you, if you are at all responsible for your spiritual progress, then you will fail, so how can you say that sanctification is co-operative as you did above?”

“Synergism” is a term of art. A technical term.

In traditional usage, it means more than it’s etymological compound (“work with”).

Consider, for example, what it means in Catholic theology, a la supererogatory merit or congruent merit. Or consider what “works of the law” mean in Pauline usage.