Sockpuppetdom

“It's been a week now, still no word from Triablogue about whether they used sockpuppets. We did get a response from Ben stating that he and Tom M. are real people (the post from March 13 has been updated accordingly), even graciously inviting us for coffee if we ever pass through Nashville -- which I may take him up on since I go by that way on occasion. Having resolved some of our curiousity, it makes me wonder why the members of Triablogue have not been so forthcoming with an answer.”

http://www.junkyard.indeathorlife.org/

Well, if you must know, Thibodaux and Kangaroodort are two of Manata’s sockpuppets. According to the Encyclopedia of Sockpuppetism, there is only one true existent, known as the Hand. The rest of us are puppetical projections of the Manatan hand.

But in any good puppet-play, you need heroes and villains. The fictional characters of Thibodaux and Kangaroodort are two stock villains in Manata’s cosmic puppet-show.

“Talk about your sincerest forms of flattery, I've not heard such brilliant comebacks since fourth grade. Looks like his arguments aren't the only things that lack any originality.”

This reaction is known, in the clinical literature, as the Sockpuppet Syndrome. Because puppetheads like Thibodaux are illusory, they suffer from an inferiority complex. They then attempt to compensate for their low self-esteem by resorting to self-important comparisons.

An early symptom of Sockpuppet Syndrome is Arminianitus. A puppethead resents the fact that the Hand is the only true existent. If left untreated, this psychotic condition results in delusions of grandeur as the mental patient frantically aspires to transcend its puppethood by asserting its imagined autonomy in relation to the Hand.

But, this too, is part of the show, as the cosmic Puppet-player manipulates his little toys.

“Sorry Hays, there's no divine promise that no saint will ever violate the warnings delivered to them.”

This statement disregards, without benefit of argument, the many explicit and implicit prooftexts for the perseverance of the saints.

“I never said anything about being preserved despite doing x, but that Calvinism makes both doing x and suffering y out to be not genuinely possible for the saints to whom these warnings were delivered.”

Notice that he’s merely rehashing his tendentious claim about what makes something “genuinely possible.”

J.C. has no argument for his position. Just assertion. That’s why he can never advance the argument—since there was no argument to begin with.

“I said that I didn't mention meaninglessness in the quote Hays cited, not that I never argued it at all.” Once again Hays handles the data very poorly.”

What I did was to point out the inconsistency in J.C’s objection.

“And Hays misses the point from my original challenge, in that the 3 major warnings cited therein are directed specifically at the saints, especially Revelation 22:19, since no unregenerate man has any part in God's kingdom (Ephesians 5:5).”

i) Notice he now thinks I should reference his original challenge, although, when I did that before (see above), he accused me of handling the data “very poorly.” J.C. can’t make up his mind.

ii) Also observe J.C’s exegetical ineptitude. Rev 22:19 isn’t “directed specifically at the saints.” Rather, it’s generally addressed to any reader whatsoever. Cf. S. Smalley, The Revelation to John (IVP 2005), 583.

“I agree with the first sentence, which is why such warnings are so disastrous for Hays' theology.”

They’re only “disastrous” for Reformed theology if J.C. uses Arminian theology as the yardstick, which begs the question.

“And the tail-chasing by Hays continues, I never argued that a warning was not genuine unless it was useless, for a warning being possible to violate does not make it ineffective, as was brought out in my last reply. This does not negate their deterrent effects, but rather my statements that they are possible for the saints to violate fully supports its use as a deterrent, as opposed to the Calvinist doctrine which concludes that such violation is not a genuine possibility for the saints.”

If the purpose of a warning is to deter x from doing y, and x does y anyway, then the warning was obviously ineffective. A warning cannot have a deterrent effect if it fails to effect the outcome (i.e. avoidance of the hazardous conduct).

If x can violate the warning, then that nullifies the deterrent value of the warning—since the warning failed to deter the agent from doing what he was forewarned to avoid.

J.C. has defined his terms in such a way that, as a matter of principle (as well as practice), for a warning to be genuine, it must be possible in each and every case for the warning to be unavailing. That’s a necessary condition of what makes a warning genuine. So a 100% failure rate is consistent with a divine warning.

A warning can’t be genuine unless it can always fail. If God’s warnings were always successful, then they wouldn’t be genuine.

So by claiming that God’s warnings are always effective, the Calvinist is guilty of making God’s warnings of none effect! Such is the Looking-Glass world of Arminian logic.

“Pure nonsense. To be effective as a deterrent, it need only deter one or more of those warned, not all without exception.”

If a warning only succeeds some of the time, then the outcomes lies, not in the efficacy of the warning, but in the compliance or noncompliance of the agent.

“To make matters even worse for Hays, the addition of a consequent makes the warning fully effective and meaningful whether heeded or disobeyed. If one disobeys, it does not make the warning void -- the violator merely suffers the consequences as the warning states.”

As usual, J.C. can only keep one idea in his puppethead at a time. As I already said, a divine warning has either of two different purposes. So I anticipated his lame objection before he raised it.

“And trying to explain the possibility of such a consequence away by stating that God would never allow the antecedent to occur is contrary to such a purpose, as we've already covered.”

Notice that J.C. is simply repeating himself—because he can’t refute my counterargument.

“And we only thought his arguments concerning foreknowledge were awful”

To the contrary, J.C. was never able to explain how God could foreknow the outcome if the outcome could go either way.

“For all his rhetoric, Hays never does give a clear answer as to why it's gospel truth according to the purpose of God for the apostles to sincerely warn the redeemed against the possibility of falling from God's grace with the worst of consequences, but it somehow becomes false teaching when we believe that what they warn against could actually occur.”

Of course, this is a tendentious statement of “God’s purpose,” in which J.C. uploads his Arminian definitions into all the key terms.

But we shouldn’t be too hard on him. Sockpuppets have a limited repertoire of scripted responses.