Monday, August 31, 2009

Debating a weasel

Victor Reppert has started a new series on Calvinism:

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2009/08/piper-on-divine-compassion-for-lost.html

It’s striking that Calvinism is the only theological tradition Reppert attacks.

Before I comment on the specifics, I’ll make two preliminary observations:

i) If Report’s past performance is any guide, this is how the debate will go. I (and possibly some other Reformed commenters) will present specific counterarguments to Reppert’s allegations.

Reppert will weasel out of my response by ignoring most of what I say, repeating himself, and retreating into the citadel of his godlike intuitions.

Robert/Henry/Sockpuppet, who tells us he’s too busy to spend much time on the internet, will suddenly find time to post long, repetitious comments. He will also deplore the tone of Reformed apologists while, at the same time, lacing his comments with defamatory aspersions about Calvinist and Calvinism.

ii) To make an exegetical case for Calvinism, two, and only two, conditions must be met:

a) Calvinists must furnish prooftexts which, on the best interpretation, positively teach Calvinism.

b) Calvinists must show that other passages are neutral on Calvinism.

For example, it’s unnecessary to show that Jn 3:16 is inconsistent with Arminianism. Rather, it’s sufficient to show that Jn 3:16 is consistent with Calvinism. An interpretation of Jn 3:16 which is consistent with either Arminian or Calvinism is sufficient to permit Calvinism.

Moving on to Reppert:

“The debate about Calvinism is hinges heavily, of course, on Scripture passages. To me, one of the most fundamental themes of Scripture is the universality of God's love, which is manifested in acts intended for our salvation.”

The Biblical theme of salvation is no more or less fundamental than the Biblical theme of judgment. Both historical judgments and eschatology judgment are pervasive themes in the OT and NT alike. So Reppert his already skewing the evidence by his selective and lopsided appeal to the thematic emphasis of Scripture.

“John 3:16 is only the tip of the iceberg. Passages like Ezekiel 18:23, I Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9 can be advanced.”

Notice that all we’re getting from Reppert is some perfunctory prooftexting. No exegesis. Let’s briefly run through these passages.

Ezekiel 18:23

This is what the passage says: “Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Lord God. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?”

i) In context, that has reference, not to humanity in general, but to the exilic Jewish community.

ii) Moreover, the Babylonian exile was, itself, a divine punishment. A divine punishment resulting in many fatalities when Jerusalem was razed and the inhabitants deported. God willed that outcome.

John 3:16

To my knowledge, Andrew Lincoln is not a Calvinist. Here is how he interprets Jn 3:16:

“Some argue that the term ‘world’ here simply has neutral connotations—the created human world. But the characteristic use of ‘the world’ (ho kosmos) elsewhere in the narrative is with negative overtones—the world in its alienation from and hostility to its creator’s purposes. It makes better sense in a soteriological context to see the latter notion as in view. God loves that which has become hostile to God. The force is not, then, that the world is so vast that it takes a great deal of love to embrace it, but rather that the world has become so alienated from God that it takes an exceedingly great kind of love to love it at all,” The Gospel According to St. John (Henrickson 2005), 154.

Question for Reppert: how is Lincoln’s interpretation incompatible with Calvinism?

1 Tim 2:4

To my knowledge, Philip Towner is not a Calvinist. Here is his interpretation of 1 Tim 2:4:

“The purpose of the reference to ‘all people,” which continues the theme of universality in this passage, is sometimes misconstrued. The reference is made mainly with the Pauline mission to the Gentiles in mind (v7). But the reason behind Paul’s justification of this universal mission is almost certainly the false teaching, with its Torah-centered approach to life that included either an exclusivist bent or a downplaying of the Gentile mission,” The Letters to Timothy & Titus (Eerdmans 2006), 177.

“Paul’s focus is on building a people of God who incorporate all people regardless of ethnic, social, or economic backgrounds,” ibid. 178.

Question for Reppert: How is Towner’s interpretation incompatible with Calvinism?

2 Peter 3:9

To my knowledge, Richard Bauckham is not a Calvinist. Here is his interpretation of 2 Pet 3:9:

“God’s patience with his own people delaying the final judgment to give them the opportunity of repentance, provides at least a partial answer to the problem of eschatological delay…The author remains close to his Jewish source, for in Jewish though it was usually for the sake of the repentance of his own people that God delayed judgment,” Jude, 2 Peter (Word 1983), 312-13.

Question for Reppert: how is Bauckham’s interpretation incompatible with Calvinism?

Continuing with Reppert:

“And there's more. I mean, there is joy amongst the angels when one sinner repents (Luke 15:10). But why, if God made the sovereign choice to bring about the repentance before the foundation of the world?”

i) How is that incompatible with Calvinism? Can’t the angels rejoice when the elect repent?

ii) Angels have no say in who is saved and who is damned.

iii) The only reason angels are in a position to rejoice over the salvation of a sinner is because some angels are elect angels (1 Tim 5:21). Their own heavenly status depends on God’s election.

“Jesus wept over Jerusalem. What would there be to weep about if Jesus had the power to hit everyone in Jerusalem over the head with irresistible grace and bring them to repentance, which after all is how anybody comes to repentance, on the Calvinistic scheme.”

i) Jesus also ate, slept, suffered fatigue, got angry, had second thoughts (Mt; 26:39; Jn 7:1-10), and so on. Does Reppert think that whatever is true of God Incarnate is also true of God qua God?

ii) Lk 19:41-44 anticipates the bloody sack of Jerusalem by the Roman army.

As far as Jesus’ power is concerned, is it Reppert’s position that when he ascended and sat at the right hand of God the Father, Jesus didn’t have the power to prevent the Roman army from laying siege to Jerusalem and massacring the inhabitants?

“Ephesians 4:30 talks about grieving the Holy Spirit. How can you grieve someone who is unilaterally causing you to do everything you do?”

Of course, that’s a straw man argument. Calvinism doesn’t teach unilateral divine causation. Rather, Calvinism teaches both primary and secondary causation. And Calvinism also teaches that sanctification, unlike regeneration, involves human cooperation in the means of grace.

“The attempt to provide ‘Calvinist’ interpretations of these passages which index God's love and compassion to the elect and only the elect strike me as just plain desperate.”

i) On Jn 3:16, 1 Tim 2:4, and 2 Pet 3:9, I quoted commentators who, to my knowledge, aren’t even Calvinists.

Likewise, the fact that Lk 19:41-44 anticipates the sack of Jerusalem is not a Calvinist interpretation. Consult any standard commentary.

Likewise, the Exilic setting of Ezk 18:23 is hardly a “Calvinist” interpretation.

ii) Moreover, claiming that “Calvinist” interpretations are “desperate” is not an argument, but just a tendentious assertion. And it’s not as if Reppert even bothered to exegete his prooftexts.

“In the exegesis of John 3: 16, for example, it is argued that the most impressive thing about God's love for the world is God's loving that world in spite of its rebelliousness. The idea is that if we are sufficiently impressed by the fact that God loves humans even though they are sinners, we can somehow limit the scope of God's love to the elect only and still accept the sense of the text.”

i) Who said a Calvinist has to limit the scope of Jn 3:16? That misses the point. Jn 3:16 is neutral on the scope of the atonement. Doesn’t say one way or the other.

ii) Moreover, suppose we interpret “kosmos” in Arminian terms. Let’s say that “komos” is a synonym for “everyone.” Suppose we plug that denotation into another Johannine passage–like 1 Jn 2:15: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

The ironic upshot of that denotation is that if a Calvinist were to interpret 1 Jn 2:15 according to Arminian semantics, then this would mean that God forbids Christians from loving everyone. Indeed, if we love everyone, that goes to show that we aren’t even Christians. If you love everyone, then God doesn’t love you.

“Apparently God wants us to preach the gospel to every living creature.”

He does? To take one example: until the advent of modern pharmaceuticals, it wasn’t possible to evangelize sub-Saharan Africa. White missionaries had no resistance to the tropical diseases.

So did God want us to preach the Gospel to sub-Saharan Africans for all those centuries before it was medically feasible to do so?

“Why? Is the offer made in good faith? How can it be if the people to whom it was made were reprobated by a sovereign choice before the foundation of the world?”

i) If God foreknows who will accept the offer and who will reject the offer, is the offer made in good faith to those whose rejection is logically certain?

ii) If, on the other hand, Reppert disallows divine foreknowledge, because that’s incompatible with our libertarian freedom, then how can God promise to save anyone when we can always thwart his will? How can he make good on his promise if the human party to the transaction is free to do otherwise?

“Yes, it's a formidable project. But the Calvinist claim that Calvinism has the full support of Scripture hinges on the success of this project.”

Calvinism has the same burden of proof as every other Protestant tradition.

70 comments:

  1. First off, you guys have more debating endurance that I have, so I may not end up tracking down and responding to all the responses on the Reformed side, which will no doubt result in a claim of victory for your side. I will admit, further, that I have learned a great deal about how Calvinist think, and how they set up and understand the issue.

    I hold that since I find Calvinism to be morally repugnance, you need an overwhelming biblical argument to persuade me of it. That means, when it comes to the Calvinist proof texts, there has to be no logical way for the passage to be understood as teaching anything but Calvinism, and the anti-Calvinist texts have to provide no evidence whatsoever against Calvinism. I know you think this shows a lack of respect for biblical authority, but to me it's just good Bayesian epistemology.

    Before you start name-calling, you might want to be a little more careful in "exegeting" what your opponent has said. What I was defending was the doctrine of divine compassion for all persons, including those alienated from God. Now the doctrine of universal compassion is held by some Calvinists, apparently including some as high up the Calvinist food chain as Carson and Piper. I was also very explicit in saying that, up to this point, I am not claiming a proof that Calvinism is false. Now I did read your reply to Walls and Dongell and it looks as if you don't hold the doctrine of universal compassion. But some Calvinists do, and in order to provide an complete argument against Calvinism, these people have to be answered.

    In short I am doing the same thing that you are here, I am showing what would ordinarily be thought of as "Arminian" interpretations of these texts are in fact held by Calvinists.

    So let's get the issue right. The issue is the doctrine of universal compassion, not Calvinism itself. Are we clear on this?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Victor Reppert: "In short I am doing the same thing that you are here, I am showing what would ordinarily be thought of as "Arminian" interpretations of these texts are in fact held by Calvinists."

    I'm the one who suggested doing this in a previous thread.

    However, like in the movie "Princess Bride", I don't think that what think is an "Arminian" interpretation of these texts by Calvinists is really and truly an "Arminian" interpretation.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I hold that since I find Arminianism to be morally repugnant, you need an overwhelming biblical argument to persuade me of it. That means, when it comes to the Arminian proof texts, there has to be no logical way for the passage to be understood as teaching anything but Arminianism, and the anti-Arminian texts have to provide no evidence whatsoever against Arminianism. I know you think this shows a lack of respect for biblical authority, but to me it's just good Bayesian epistemology.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Victor Reppert: "I hold that since I find Calvinism to be morally repugnance, you need an overwhelming biblical argument to persuade me of it."

    Brett: "I hold that since I find Arminianism to be morally repugnant, you need an overwhelming biblical argument to persuade me of it."

    Victor, Brett, I'm puzzled. If you find something morally repugnant, why then do you need "overwhelming" biblical argument to persuade you of it?

    It seems like you would really only need a smidgen of biblical argument to allow you then to hold onto your moral repugnance (with an air of self-righteousness).

    P.S. Typo correction to my previous comment:

    "However, like in the movie "Princess Bride", I don't think that what *YOU* think is an "Arminian" interpretation of these texts by Calvinists is really and truly an "Arminian" interpretation.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes, Brett, you can say exactly that. As they say in Bayesian circles, it all depends on your priors. If you do find Arminianism morally repugnant, then you should require very strong biblical evidence to convince you that it is true.

    That's why Calvinists and Arminians are going to be around for a very long time.

    Here's a Bayesian analysis of mine on the problem of miracles.

    http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/victor_reppert/miracles.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. These interpretations of the relevant Scriptures are typical of Arminians. For example, in exegeting John 3: 16, Arminians argue that it shows that God loves every person, not just the elect. Some Calvinists say "Nope. Exegeted properly this love is limited to the elect, not to everyone." But some Calvinists say "Sure enough. That's talking about God's love for everyone. But that doesn't mean that some people aren't reprobated. God loves them all right, and wants them to be saved, but has an overriding reason for reprobating them. Did you happen to notice that I put "Arminian" in scare quotes? I did that for a reason.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I need more evidence to convince me that something is moral which I am initially inclined to think is immoral, especially if it is attributed to God.

    Consider what kind of evidence you would need to convince you that God had broken a covenant. Or, if you are married, and you have never until now been given any reason to doubt your wife's faithfulness, it would take a lot of evidence to convince you that she was having an affair.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I need more evidence to convince me that something is moral which I am initially inclined to think is immoral, especially if it is attributed to God.

    You've admitted in the past that you begin with your moral intuitions, not the Bible. It seems to me, you have the cart before the horse. You should submit your intuitions to the Bible first...figure out what is moral according to Scripture, then decide if what Calvinism teaches is moral or immoral.

    Ironically, you argue just like an atheist.

    Go figure.

    ReplyDelete
  9. You've admitted in the past that you begin with your moral intuitions, not the Bible. It seems to me, you have the cart before the horse. You should submit your intuitions to the Bible first...figure out what is moral according to Scripture, then decide if what Calvinism teaches is moral or immoral.

    Ironically, you argue just like an atheist.


    QFT \;

    ReplyDelete
  10. Theoretically, that sounds good. It's kind of like Cartesian doubt in philosophy: doubt everything, and believe only what you can be sure of. Classical foundationalism it is sometimes called. But nobody really comes to the Bible, or to the study of nature for that matter, with an empty mind, but some people pretend that they do.

    First, Scripture is partially responsible for how I got my intuitions in the first place. Scripture taught me that I ought to love everyone, that I ought to be like Jesus, that Jesus was God, so it looks like I ought to expect that God will love everyone. Now you're telling me that I care a lot more about my non-Christian friend's salvation than God does??

    Second, my moral beliefs are part of why I believe Christianity to be true. As I understand Christianity, God's consistently loving character gives me a moral reason, as opposed to a merely prudential reason, to worship and obey him. I don't worship him because he's bigger than I am and can beat me up (the logic of the schoolyard bully) I worship him because I know that he pursues my good and the good of all whom I love.

    Third Scripture deepens my moral convictions and intuitions. What I find there builds on what I believe already, and helps me see things I might have overlooked and misunderstood about what is good.

    Fourth, when you use the word "intuitions" it seems always implied that these are gut feelings of some kind, when in point of fact as I understand it there is a kind of "intuition" that permits me to rationally perceive that 2 + 2 = 4. On my view, our knowledge of right and wrong is rational, not emotional.

    Fifth, if I were in a tradition that used a different Scripture, (the Qu'ran for instance) you would expect me to start doubting that Scripture because of its moral failings and start looking at the possibility of believing something else.

    Finally, Scripture can certainly change my moral beliefs. But I am more sure of some of those moral beliefs than I am that such-and-such a verse was exegeted correctly by so-and-so. So in the face of at least some biblical evidence, it might be rational to believe that I don't understand everything I need to about that verse than it would be. as Lewis would say, to start believing that what I think of as black is really God's white. Opennness to God and obedience to God does not require neutrality.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I don't worship him because he's bigger than I am and can beat me up (the logic of the schoolyard bully)

    I wonder why you say this. Surely you aren't trying to represent this as the Calvinist alternative...

    I worship him because I know that he pursues my good and the good of all whom I love.

    Well, that sounds like an ultimately selfish motive. I'm not really convinced of the moral superiority of your reasons versus the schoolyard bully. That isn't to say that God is not worthy of worship because of his goodness to us—merely that your priorities seem a bit suspect to me. Even if God did not pursue my good, he would still be worthy of worship, and I would still be obligated to worship him. And, as someone with a Roman Catholic family, although I pray that God will pursue their good by saving them, I feel no more or less obliged to worship him depending on whether he answers that prayer. My worshiping God is not contingent on how I feel about him; it's contingent upon the objective fact that I ought to worship him.

    On my view, our knowledge of right and wrong is rational, not emotional.

    Well, I find that surprising. In our previous debates, when pushed, your reasons have always appeared ultimately emotional. You like to apply a rational veneer—but at this stage it's not fooling anyone.

    Fifth, if I were in a tradition that used a different Scripture, (the Qu'ran for instance) you would expect me to start doubting that Scripture because of its moral failings and start looking at the possibility of believing something else.

    Firstly, that's a reasonable expectation since the Qu'ran really has moral failings. But trying to employ it as an analogy just seems to beg the question as regards whether the Calvinistic understanding of Scripture has moral failings as well. On our view, it is your interpretation which is morally lacking.

    Secondly, that's hardly the only reason we'd expect you to doubt the Qu'ran. Our moral intuitions are not the deciding factor in epistemology or apologetics.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Victor Reppert: "Finally, Scripture can certainly change my moral beliefs."

    Steve has argued previously that you provide moral cover for killers of unborn babies.

    Has Scripture changed your moral beliefs beliefs so that you no longer will provide moral cover for killers of unborn babies?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Actually, I've argued that abortion is, in ordinary cases, morally wrong. So abortion doctors might want to look elsewhere for moral cover. They can try Judith Jarvis Thomson, or Mary Anne Warren, or maybe even William Hasker, who once defended choice in Human Life Review.

    Maybe you can accuse me of being in favor of giving abortion doctors legal cover. But morality and law are two different things.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Bnonn: I did not say that Scripture couldn't defeat my moral intuitions. I said that my moral intuitions provide a basis for antecedent probabilities with respect to how Scripture should be understood and interpreted. If I came to Scripture expecting to find that Christ was a divine being but not human, the biblical evidence would overthrow it.

    I hardly think that God's pursuit of the good makes my worship for him selfishly motivated. You say God objectively merits worship. Why? Are there any characteristics God has that make him worthy of worship? Is God worthy of worship because God says he is? There are plenty of people in the insane asylum who also say that they are worthy of worship.

    ReplyDelete
  15. You say God objectively merits worship. Why? Are there any characteristics God has that make him worthy of worship?

    Yeap. The characteristic of being worthy of worship, for instance.

    ReplyDelete
  16. What exactly do you think grounds ethics, Victor?

    ReplyDelete
  17. I said that my moral intuitions provide a basis for antecedent probabilities with respect to how Scripture should be understood and interpreted.

    And thus we have the creature telling his Creator that his moral intuitions...not what the Creator has said...form the basis of how he interprets Scripture.

    On Judgment Day, Victor Reppert will stand before God and tell Him that the basis of his views about Him is his own moral intuitions.

    So, you begin with an apriori commitment to the universal love of God - on the basis of your moral intuitions - and then work from there.

    So, you don't submit your intuitions from Scripture, rather you construct an edifice that has to be overcome, an edifice constructed of your own moral intuitions...a shining example of creaturely rebellion.

    That's the atheist posture as well is it not?

    Sounds circular to me.

    There's a difference between vicious and virtuous circularity. God says He is worthy of worship. Therefore, yes, He is worthy of worship because He says so. Why? Because He is God, and you are not.

    You're the classic case of the man who would talk back to God in Romans 9.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

    There is something holier about the atheism of a Shelley than about the theism of a Paley. That is the lesson of the Book of Job. No explanation of the problem of unjust suffering is there given: that is not the point of the poem. The point is that the man who accepts our ordinary standard of good and by it hotly criticizes divine justice receives the divine approval: the orthodox, pious people who palter with that standard in the attempt to justify God are condemned. Apparently the way to advance from our imperfect apprehension of justice to the absolute justice is not to throw our imperfect apprehensions aside but boldly to go on applying them. Just as the pupil advances to more perfect arithmetic not by throwing his multiplication table away but by working it for all it is worth.

    C. S. Lewis

    ReplyDelete
  19. No explanation of the problem of unjust suffering is there given: that is not the point of the poem.

    Even if that's true, how about elsewhere in Scripture?

    The point is that the man who accepts our ordinary standard of good and by it hotly criticizes divine justice receives the divine approval

    Uh...whatnow? Could you point me to that particular passage?

    the orthodox, pious people who palter with that standard in the attempt to justify God are condemned.

    You're going to have to point that one out too.

    Are we even talking about the same Job?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Job was restored, and the comforters were reprimanded far more harshly.

    ReplyDelete
  21. VICTOR REPPERT SAID:

    "That is the lesson of the Book of Job. No explanation of the problem of unjust suffering is there given: that is not the point of the poem."

    That involves a systematic misreading of Job. The book operates on two levels. There's the viewpoint of the omniscient narrator and the implied reader. The reader is in the loop. An explanation is given in the prologue (Job 1-2).

    But no explanation is given to Job. He's out of the loop. And, of course, his ignorance of God's ulterior intent is essential to his ordeal.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I didn't want to run the argument in this direction. That is not why I restarted the discussion of Calvinism. My purpose was to ask the question of whether one can consistently say that God loves every person and desires every person, and offers salvation to every person in good faith, and at the same time maintain that some persons are reprobated.

    I would point out that since God is by definition a being omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good, we can't pick out "God" without first being able to pick out "the good." Hence if some being were all-powerful but not good, that being would fail to qualify as God.

    How would you define the term "God?"

    ReplyDelete
  23. Actually, the passage about Job was written by C. S. Lewis. And no, I'm not saying he's inerrant.

    ReplyDelete
  24. I would point out that since God is by definition a being omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good, we can't pick out "God" without first being able to pick out "the good."


    How, pray tell, would you know real, perfect good and real perfect evil apart from revelation from God? Oh, right, your fallen intuition...

    ReplyDelete
  25. Don't we have some knowledge of the good apart from special revelation? Or did I misread that part of the Bible?

    ReplyDelete
  26. I don't argue like an atheist, I argue like an opponent of classical foundationalism who has certain properly basic beliefs.

    ReplyDelete
  27. 1. Sure, we are created in God's image. We know the difference between right and wrong. But here, we're discussing PERFECT good...does the Bible teach we exercise that level of discernment? Rather, it teaches we naturally suppress that sort of thing...so, Victor, your fallen intuition is more likely to lead you to call that which is not good good, ergo to be mistaken with respect to what you declare God to be like.

    Perhaps you should read Romans 1 again.

    I don't argue like an atheist, I argue like an opponent of classical foundationalism who has certain properly basic beliefs.

    It's the essence of atheism to say "I think this is good" and then craft a God of your own making...to begin with your intuitions and then say "Prove them wrong," as it were. That's what you admittedly do. Sure, you say you are correctable, but so does the atheist when he erects an evidential edifice so high nothing aside from seeing Jesus in person could overcome.

    ReplyDelete
  28. It's a mistake on my part to let myself get sucked into the Intuitions vs. Submission to Scripture way of structuring the discussion. We aren't anywhere near this situation. I claim that Calvinists don't have a good way of dealing with a major biblical theme. You can either say God desires the salvation of reprobates, which is going to turn out to be incoherent, or you can say he doesn't desire their salvation, and in fact does not love them. This view is acknowledged by many Calvinists to be inconsistent with Scripture.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Victor Reppert: "It's a mistake on my part to let myself get sucked into the Intuitions vs. Submission to Scripture way of structuring the discussion."

    (1) Is the discussion really structured in this way?

    (2) If so, is it an apt and appropriate way of "structuring the discussion"? Why or why not?

    (3) If not, how would you prefer to "structure the discussion" instead?

    (4) Does a complaint about "It's a mistake on my part to let myself get sucked into..." constitute a tacit admission that you're "losing" the argument?

    If so, wouldn't a wise and humble man realize that such "losing" is actually winning since they now realize that they held onto an erroneous position, and are now free to adopt a better one?

    Don't let pride get in the way of good and true learning.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Ooops. Forget #3 above, Victor.

    I now see how you prefer to "structure the discussion" with:

    "I claim that Calvinists don't have a good way of dealing with a major biblical theme. You can either say God desires the salvation of reprobates, which is going to turn out to be incoherent, or you can say he doesn't desire their salvation, and in fact does not love them. This view is acknowledged by many Calvinists to be inconsistent with Scripture."

    ReplyDelete
  31. Reppert quoted Lewis as saying:
    ---
    The point is that the man who accepts our ordinary standard of good and by it hotly criticizes divine justice receives the divine approval: the orthodox, pious people who palter with that standard in the attempt to justify God are condemned.
    ---

    This flies flat in the face of what God Himself said in Job, namely: "Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?" (Job 40:8).

    This was addressed to JOB, Reppert. God rebuked Job for questioning Him. It wasn't until after Job said, "I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know" (Job 42:3) that God restored him. It was after Job said "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:5-6). Note that Job repented, which means he was in the wrong and needed to repent.

    ReplyDelete
  32. These discussions sure move quickly!
    TUAD:
    I was simply arguing to the man. The point I intended to make was that if we both start the discussion the way Victor starts the discussion it will go nowhere.
    Victor:
    If you do find Arminianism morally repugnant, then you should require very strong biblical evidence to convince you that it is true.
    I am not the standard of truth, and neither are you. We both need to reason through the evidence available to us and seek the truth.
    if you are married, and you have never until now been given any reason to doubt your wife's faithfulness, it would take a lot of evidence to convince you that she was having an affair.
    I don’t think that is a good analogy. I hold firm convictions of my wife’s faithfulness because of years of stellar demonstrated faithfulness, even during some very difficult times. Moreover, it seems that scripture intends for us to tip the scale in favor of people and not to believe ill of one another without strong evidence (1 cor 13). In as much as scripture defines unfaithfulness as a sin, then I would need strong evidence of unfaithfulness before I level the charge. All of this is founded, not in my intuitions, but in scripture. This is a very different picture than what we are discussing.
    I can make a powerful case that mankind is actually sinful. I can make a strong case that sin requires punishment. It is a good and just thing for God to punish those who are guilty. It is a gracious and merciful thing for him to grant a pardon. It seems a better analogy is to paint the picture as a presidential pardon being extended to a genuinely guilty individual without at the same time releasing every single criminal. That seems to most closely match the biblical data. Let’s start with scripture and its standards, not our intuitions.
    But nobody really comes to the Bible, or to the study of nature for that matter, with an empty mind, but some people pretend that they do.
    We are all aware of pre-existing biases. No one here is pretending it to be otherwise. The point is that we need to try to minimize these biases, not rely upon them. Our biases are based upon so many different factors that we will never make headway unless we can minimize the bias to examine things more objectively. When you start with the repugnance of Calvinism and I start with the repugnance of Arminianism, then the discussion will never advance. We apply the rules of hermeneutics to understand what the author wrote and thereby remove as much of our bias as possible. We do our homework in cultural studies to remove as much of our 21st century occidental preconditioning as possible. Less tradition, more grammar. Less western, more eastern. Less pride in myself and more humility before a text.
    It's a mistake on my part to let myself get sucked into the Intuitions vs. Submission to Scripture way of structuring the discussion. We aren't anywhere near this situation. I claim that Calvinists don't have a good way of dealing with a major biblical theme.
    It is hard for me to take you seriously when you say we are nowhere near this situation. You issue a challenge and then insist that we must answer within a very lopsided framework. You do not allow us to examine the very biblical theme you have referenced and see which way the scales tip. To you it does not matter if it actually tips in favor of the Calvinist. Surely you can recognize the wisdom of neither of us slanting the discussion in our favor from the starting gate but rather proceeding in humility before an objective text.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Victor,

    At this point there's nothing for me to respond to because, as is your wont, you keep moving the goalposts.

    ReplyDelete
  34. There are two types of arguments to consider. One is what I would call a moral objection to Calvinism. I happen to agree with the argument, but that is neither here nor there with respect to the points I am currently interested in.

    My point has to do with whether Calvinists can successfully deal with passages that suggest that God loves every person. John 3:16 is an example. In dealing with this biblical theme, there are two Calvinist responses. One is to say that the best exegesis of these passages leads us to "index" God's love, and God's desire to save, to the elect. We'll call that the indexing strategy. The other is what I call the "two wills" strategy. That strategy accepts the claim that God loves all persons, or in particular, God loves all who are in the "world" of persons alienated from God, and indeed God wants them to be saved, but then says that God's love and desire need not result in actions aimed at the salvation of all, such as, for example, a universal atonement.

    In response to the first of these solutions, the "indexing" solution, I'm simply going to defer to the authority of Calvinist exegetes like Carson and theologians like Piper that there is a problem with the indexing response. The two wills response is the more interesting, and the one I wanted to put my primary attention on. It, I believe (and here my specialization in philosophy is more helpful), involves distortions in the use of terms. I really wanted to pose this question: Can a Calvinist consistently and honestly say that God loves those persons he has reprobated? There are two possible answers: yes, and no. I'm not trying to convert any Calvinists here, I'm just trying to see what sense they make out of this question.

    Can we get the discussion properly focused here?

    It doesn't seem that I need to move any goal posts here

    I can accept Steve's criteria for what the Calvinist has to do to show that his view is biblical. He needs good evidence that his position

    ReplyDelete
  35. He needs to provide evidence that Scripture passages like John 3:16 are neutral with respect to Calvinism. There are two strategies for doing this, and I suggest that he pick one.

    The word for this post is trole.

    ReplyDelete
  36. In dealing with this biblical theme, there are two Calvinist responses,

    Uh, no, Victor, there are not "two" Calvinist responses. There are more. For example, another is to see this as a reference to cosmic redemption...that is to say "world" is simply the created order. God loves the created order, and saves the created order by sending His Son to save all the ones believing. On this view, vs. 17/18 recapitulates v. 16. The analogical argument from Numbers is such that God loves the world the same way He loved Israel as a nation, without reference to anything about redemptive love for each and every person.

    Wow, just, wow, Victor...to say there are two Calvinist responses is to display for the world to see, pun intended, that you really haven't bothered to do much investigation of the exegetical literature. In fact, you've given no exegesis yourself...none, zero, zip, nada.

    Can a Calvinist consistently and honestly say that God loves those persons he has reprobated?

    So, it's a distortion of terms and inconsistent to draw a distinction betweeen the sorts of loves God has for persons and groups of persons?

    How so? From my perspective, yours is what James White calls "sloppy agape."

    ReplyDelete
  37. Gene beat me to the punch when he said:
    ---
    The analogical argument from Numbers is such that God loves the world the same way He loved Israel as a nation, without reference to anything about redemptive love for each and every person.
    ---

    To give another analogy: Peter Pike so loves the Avalanche that he will give them money to watch them lose games this year. While this is somewhat "frivolous" it nevertheless highlights the fact that one can "love" a general category without loving all, or even any, of the specific members within it.

    For the record, that's the position I take with John 3:16. It would be like if I said: "For I so love Colorado Springs that I will make my home within that city that whosoever meets with me shall not be deprived of Triablogue." None of that sentence requires that I love every single person in Colorado Springs, does it?

    ReplyDelete
  38. It isn't so much that I am losing the debate, as that whole discussion has been worked to death, and I think anybody who becomes a Calvinist is unlikely to be deterred by the kinds of considerations based on moral intuition that I had been advancing. Calvinists know perfectly well that what they think God has done is regarded by their opponents as morally wrong, something a loving God would not do. Their answer is that they exegete such an understanding of God from Scripture. I can't in my present state of mind, see how such a God would be worthy of worship, but all God would have to do to remedy that would be to pour out a little more of that irresistible grace.

    Arguments of this type don't do very well at meeting Calvinists on their own ground. I do think they give me a reason for not being a Calvinist, but it's hard to imagine someone becoming a Calvinist and then being persuaded by them.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Let me ask Victor Reppert this (because I think this may be where he's hung up):

    Who sends people to Hell?

    Does God send people to Hell? Or do people send themselves to Hell?

    Hypothetically, suppose you answer that you think God sends people to Hell. Would you think that God is "unloving" because He has sent some people to Hell?

    ReplyDelete
  40. "Their answer is that they exegete such an understanding of God from Scripture. I can't in my present state of mind, see how such a God would be worthy of worship, but all God would have to do to remedy that would be to pour out a little more of that irresistible grace."

    As if you weren't clear enough before, Victor, that statement surely condemns you.
    You draw (again) a direct line from someones exegetical conclusions to your state of mind. With your state of mind, of course, winning the day, mocking God roundly in the process.

    Exegesis can only be countered by exegesis. No source (your state of mind especially) but the Bible can rightly be used to draw true conclusions about God.
    Yet you refuse to address the exegesis, saying over and over that "I can't worship a God like that". On what basis can you be considered Christian, even?

    But this has all been said before, many times. You just refuse to listen to Scripture.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Nope. Not sloppy agape. It's consistent with the infliction of very severe suffering.

    If you love your child, will you punish that child severely when he or she goes wrong? Of course. Are you satisfied to leave it with the punishment? No.

    All genuine love seeks a good end for the beloved. My claim is it's not love if there is no good end for the beloved involved.

    Here's D. A. Carson on John 3: 16 (HT: Paul Manata).

    "…God so loved the world that he gave his Son (John 3:16). I know that some try to take kosmos ("world") here to refer to the elect. But that really will not do. All the evidence of the usage of the word in John's Gospel is against the suggestion. True, world in John does not so much refer to bigness as to badness. In John's vocabulary, world is primarily the moral order in willful and culpable rebellion against God. In John 3:16 God's love in sending the Lord Jesus is to be admired not because it is extended to so big a thing as the world, but to so bad a thing; not to so many people, as to such wicked people. Nevertheless elsewhere John can speak of "the whole world" (1 John 2:2), thus bringing bigness and badness together. More importantly, in Johannine theology the disciples themselves once belonged to the world but were drawn out of it (e.g., John 15:19). On this axis, God's love for the world cannot be collapsed into his love for the elect. The same lesson is learned from many passages and themes in Scripture. However much God stands in judgment over the world, he also presents himself as the God who invites and commands all human beings to repent. He orders his people to carry the Gospel to the farthest corner of the world, proclaiming it to men and women everywhere. To rebels the sovereign Lord calls out, As surely as I live ... I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel? - Ezek. 33:11

    Now, is Carson wrong about this? He's a Calvinist, so so far we haven't gotten out of Calvinism yet. But I question whether it makes sense to say that a reprobated person is loved by God, not because that is sloppy agape, but because I don't think the idea of love makes sense if it is not directed toward a good end for that person.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Victor Reppert: "I don't think the idea of love makes sense if it is not directed toward a good end for that person."

    Hence my earlier question to you:

    Who sends people to Hell?

    Does God send people to Hell? Or do people send themselves to Hell?

    Hypothetically, suppose you answer that you think God sends people to Hell. Would you think that God is "unloving" because He has sent some people to Hell?

    ReplyDelete
  43. "If you love your child, will you punish that child severely when he or she goes wrong? Of course. Are you satisfied to leave it with the punishment? No."

    Except that Scripture describes unbelievers as illegitimate children.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Arminians also have a doctrine of hell. It is difficult to see how their doctrine of hell is "directed toward a good end for that person" either.
    You are addressing Calvinism in particular, but it seems that your argument cuts against everything that is not universalism. Is that fair?

    ReplyDelete
  45. No. I didn't say I couldn't worship a God like that. I'm not drawing exegetical conclusions from my state of mind. All of this is beside the point. I said I couldn't worship such a God in my present state of mind, which includes the belief that Scripture teaches no such thing.

    I would be in profound need of God's grace to maintain my faith if I really thought that God was teaching Calvinism through Scripture. So what? I happen to think God has not done that. So I'm not refusing to worship God, or accept the authority of the Bible. My argument is that Scripture does teach that God loves every person and desires their salvation, and that this cannot be squared with the Calvinist doctrine of reprobation without distortion of terms. No aspect of this argument requires an appeal to intuitions, and hence the attempt to discredit my argument by discrediting my Christian faith is simply argumetation ad hominem.

    I am curious if you think that Bible defines the term "God."

    ReplyDelete
  46. God creates persons in such a way that they cannot be happy in alienation from God. However, Arminianism says they are free to remain unrepentant, but if they do, then they cannot be happy. God does everything God can to save them through Christ, but since their libertarian freedom is the only thing that can make them eternally happy, they remain unhappy in spite of God's best efforts to offer them happiness. The doors of hell are, as Lewis says, locked from the inside.

    ReplyDelete
  47. S & S: So you are saying that Carson is wrong and that these people are not loved by God?

    ReplyDelete
  48. God does everything God can to save them through Christ, but since their libertarian freedom is the only thing that can make them eternally happy, they remain unhappy in spite of God's best efforts to offer them happiness. The doors of hell are, as Lewis says, locked from the inside.

    Presumably, then, we must conclude that God continues to try to do everything he can to make them eternally happy—even in hell. So, rather than hell as a place of divinely imposed judgment, you appear committed to a view in which hell is an unfortunate self-imposed place of unhappiness, from which God still wishes to save each and every denizen.

    Is that an orthodox Arminian view?

    ReplyDelete
  49. Victor Reppert: "However, Arminianism says they are free to remain unrepentant, but if they do, then they cannot be happy. ... The doors of hell are, as Lewis says, locked from the inside."

    So is this your way of saying that people send themselves to Hell?

    If so, then let's now take a look at your earlier question:

    "I really wanted to pose this question: Can a Calvinist consistently and honestly say that God loves those persons he has reprobated?"

    The answer would be consistently and honestly "YES". After all, as you yourself have pointed out, reprobates send themselves to Hell.

    Quod Erod Demonstratum.

    Next.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Victor,

    First, it doesn't say that God loves them as children. Scripture usually reserves that terminology for those who have been incorporated into the body of Christ by faith, i.e. believers. People are adopted as God's children when their sins are forgiven. Instead, unbelievers are described as 'children of wrath by nature' (Eph 2).

    Second, as Carson shows, the term 'kosmos', as it is used in John, is complex. As Steve pointed out in his post, a simplistic equation of 'kosmos' = 'every single last human being' doesn't work too well. Let's try Reppertian exegesis on 1 John 2:15:

    "Do not love [everyone] or the things in [the mass of humanity]. If anyone loves [everyone], then the love of the Father is not in him."

    Yeah, great.

    Thirdly, Carson isn't the Calvinist pope (not that I think that he's wrong). There are plenty of exegetes from just about every denomination that interpret the standard Arminian prooftexts in a neutral or Calvinist fashion:

    1 Timothy 2:4
    Philip Towner

    1 Timothy 4:10
    Philip Towner
    I Howard Marshall

    2 Peter 3:9
    Richard Bauckham

    What is your response to their exegesis?

    ReplyDelete
  51. Typically an Arminian will say that the lost eventually, through persistent disobedience, lock themselves into their damned condition, so that there is nothing more that God can do about it. My good friend Jerry Walls, who is higher up the Arminian food chain than I am, and is the author of "Why I am not a Calvinist" endorses something like Lewis's view. The Great Divorce by Lewis is a good source for this kind of a position, and there is a nice essay in Replying to Christianity's Critics, which came out just recently, written by Stewart Goetz that defends hell from a broadly Arminian perspective, along the same lines.

    ReplyDelete
  52. I never said you had to interpret "world" as every person. However, it seems to mean everyone who is alienated from God, and we know already that God loves those in fellowship with him, so who does that leave whom God does not love?

    ReplyDelete
  53. So, to clarify, you deny that hell is a place of divinely imposed judgment or punishment at all?

    ReplyDelete
  54. Well, God has to make it so that no one benefits from wrongdoing. But I don't know that he needs to do anything to make us miserable, any specific action over and above having created us in such a way that we can't be happy except in fellowship with him. And God removes these people from His presence.

    If I say to a child "Don't drink from that bottle. It has horrid red things in it that make you sick and die," when in fact the bottle is poisoned, am I telling the truth, or not?

    ReplyDelete
  55. A simple yes or no is all I'm asking for, Professor Weasel.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Oh please, Bnonn. When you say "divinely imposed" do you mean that God performs some action that make the damned miserable in ways they would not be if God had not acted?

    ReplyDelete
  57. I'm simply asking whether God acts to "send people to hell", in your view, or whether people exclusively act to send themselves there. You appear to be taking the view that God does nothing—that being in hell is all up to the sinners, and indeed that God would take them back if they would only repent.

    Obviously, if that is the view that you're taking, then you're the pot calling the kettle black when you say that you find Calvinism implausible on exegetical grounds. Your view of hell is a heck of a lot less plausible in light of passages like Matthew 5:29-30; 10:28; 23:33; Luke 12:5 and 2 Peter 2 than Calvinism is in light of John 3:16 or any of the other passages you've cited.

    ReplyDelete
  58. "I'm simply asking whether God acts to "send people to hell", in your view, or whether people exclusively act to send themselves there."

    Thanks for following up on this Dominic. I hand the baton off to you and leave the rest in your capable hands.

    Even when Victor shifts the "structure of discussion" to his preferred terms, he's still not able to carry a winning argument.

    Tsk, tsk.

    ReplyDelete
  59. Well, the lost are removed by God from His presence, and that's pretty awful. But their misery comes from within, because they are refusing the only possible eternal happiness we can have, given how God created us. The verses you mention show how miserable hell is, how horrible it is to be without the presence of God. I mean if you get too lead-footedly literal about this sort of thing you end up with threats of hell being threats to send you to the valley of Hinnom.

    ReplyDelete
  60. What's sauce for the goose, Victor. I'm just answering you on your own terms as regards your approach to exegesis. It seems pretty plain, in spite of your "biblical positivist" obfusc^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hargumentation, that you are less concerned with what the Bible says—in part and in whole—and far more concerned with how it can be wrangled into line with your a priori intuitions.

    ReplyDelete
  61. How is judgment not divinely imposed if it was built into the very nature of humans, by God, that they will be miserable out of fellowship with God, and as a consequence of being out of fellowship with God, they suffer eternal misery?

    Everyone reads the Bible and tries to make it fit together, at least if they have a high doctrine and are concerned about reconciling contradictions. People work from different hermeneutical centers in their interpretation of Scripture. It is how people operate.

    No, TUAD, the Calvinists here have been taking the argument outside the framework that I set up. I maintained that Calvinists can either say that God loves all persons and wants them to be saved, which is what the Bible seems to be saying, or not. Tell me which way you want to go. If your answer is yes, explain to me the concept of love under which you can truthfully say that a reprobated person is loved by God, and by this I mean someone created as a vessel of wrath, destined before the foundation of the world for everlasting punishment.

    Passages like John 3:16 are used not to refute Calvinism directly, but to show the Doctrine of Universal Compassion. Nobody has come forward and said "OK, I'm a Calvinist and I do think God loves all persons" or "OK, I'm a Calvinist and I think God does not love all persons." You can say yes, and then specify some biblically acceptable conception of love you are talking about. Or say no, and explain why you think D. A. Carson is wrong when he says that God loves everyone, even though Calvinism is true.

    You can, at the end of the day, admit that this is a problem for Calvinism, but that alterhatives to Calvinism have worse problems. There may be two, or three, or 50 Calvinist accounts out there. I'd like to see one, and I'd like to see if it can be held consistently.

    Trying to prove that I really don't care about what the Bible says is changing the subject. I'm probably not enough of a literalist for you to find my position satisfactory. Since my argument is about the interpretation of Scripture passages, raising other concerns about me simply commits the ad hominem fallacy.

    I don't think of this in terms of winning and losing. I am attempting to show a problem for Calvinism. That isn't necessarily fatal. I may have a worse problem about this, that or the other. But I want to see if people can see a problem with their own position.

    ReplyDelete
  62. No, TUAD, the Calvinists here have been taking the argument outside the framework that I set up. I maintained that Calvinists can either say that God loves all persons and wants them to be saved, which is what the Bible seems to be saying, or not.

    And so far, that's all you've said. If people are going outside the framework, it's because (a) you're following right behind, and (b) you haven't actually set up any kind of argument inside the framework. If you're still working on that, that's cool—but at least recognize that all we have to interact with so far is a dichotomy which you say presents a dilemma.

    Nobody has come forward and said "OK, I'm a Calvinist and I do think God loves all persons" or "OK, I'm a Calvinist and I think God does not love all persons."

    Well, maybe none of the Triabloggers have, but I have explictly laid out my position on my blog, and I linked you to a couple of articles in which I deal with that topic. And I suspect, very strongly, that if you do some pertinent searches here, you'll find that Steve and Gene have done the same (I believe they take option 2, while I take option 1).

    You can say yes, and then specify some biblically acceptable conception of love you are talking about.

    Firstly, we've already been over this. Secondly, why is the burden on us, given that you have yet to even advance an argument? We're not doing your heavy lifting for you.

    ReplyDelete
  63. Reppert said:
    ---
    Nobody has come forward and said "OK, I'm a Calvinist and I do think God loves all persons" or "OK, I'm a Calvinist and I think God does not love all persons."
    ----

    Before you can answer that, don't you first need to answer: What is love?

    ReplyDelete
  64. Reppert said:
    "I never said you had to interpret "world" as every person. However, it seems to mean everyone who is alienated from God, and we know already that God loves those in fellowship with him, so who does that leave whom God does not love?"

    Me:
    Well again, if you make kosmos mean 'everyone', whether by explicit definition or implication (i.e. your view), you are still forced into an absurdity on 1 John 2:15:

    "Do not love [everyone alienated from God] or the things in [the mass of humanity alienated from God]. If anyone loves [everyone alienated from God], then the love of the Father is not in him."

    How would you paraphrase 1 John 2:15?

    ReplyDelete
  65. Yes, if we apply Arminian semantics to 1 Jn 2:15, then God has forbidden Christians to love anyone who's in or of the world.

    ReplyDelete
  66. No, I don't have to answer what love is, exactly. If you as a Calvinist want to join the side that says "Yes, God does love all persons," then I'd like to see what sense you attach to the word.

    I think any sort of agape has to be aimed at the good of the person receiving the agape. Hence, such agape would be frustrated if it the person receiving it were to be deprived of all good.

    Consider what Ann Coulter meant when she said "Liberals love America like O. J. loved Nicole." What the statement suggests is that there is something wrong with saying that X loves Y if X's actions are in fact directed toward the utter destruction of Y.

    Love seems to do at least this, if there is a heaven and hell, then someone who loves someone has a desire for the person to end up in heaven as opposed to in hell. This much at least some Calvinists do attribute to God. So why is Jesus weeping over Jerusalem? He loves the people who live there, and wants them to repent.

    Of course, the fact that Calvinists sometimes agree that God loves all persons, and that this issues in a desire for the salvation of all persons, doesn't mean that these claims are really consistent with the Calvinistic view of reprobation. However, arguing that is the second step in my argument, not the first.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Is anyone who has doubts about the salvation of their loved ones lack the desire to see those loved ones saved.

    ReplyDelete
  68. Reppert said:
    ---
    No, I don't have to answer what love is, exactly.
    ---

    Yes you do (note I'm NOT saying that Calvinists don't have to do so as well).

    Is it loving for God to create people He knows will end up in Hell? That's something non-universalists/non-open theists have to answer, regardless of if they are Calvinist or Arminian, or Roman Catholic or Mormon for that matter.

    Is it loving for God to not instantly kill a murderer who deserves death under the law? Is it loving for God to give that murderer 70 years of life before casting him into hell? Is it loving for the victim if God does this?

    It's obvious that the word "love" most certainly DOES need to be defined, just as much as the word "evil" needs to be defined (something you never did despite discussing whether God is the author of evil). You're a philosopher. You should know how the ambiguities of such a loose term as "love" can cover over a multitude of fallacies that would otherwise stare you right in the face, if you would but just define your terms.

    You said:
    ---
    I think any sort of agape has to be aimed at the good of the person receiving the agape.
    ---

    Suppose I'm in love with a woman and she asks me to help her brother move across town. What if I don't like her brother, but because I love her I help her brother? Wouldn't her brother be the recipient of a loving action on my part despite the fact that I only did it because I love his sister? Can't love therefore be aimed at ANOTHER person even while benefiting someone else?

    You said:
    ---
    What the statement suggests is that there is something wrong with saying that X loves Y if X's actions are in fact directed toward the utter destruction of Y.
    ---

    That's why I said you need to define what love is. What if God shows love toward non-believers because He has elected their children? What if God loves the secularist's children and therefore blesses the parents beyond all measure so that they will raise the children in a home free of abuse? How can you tell, on the basis of action alone, who God loves and who is getting collateral benefits?

    I maintain you cannot do so, and that's why you have to pay attention when God says "Jacob I loved but Esau I hated." If God says He hates someone, it's a good indication that God hates someone, even if He didn't immediately kill Esau (or if you want to take it as a class, He didn't kill off Edom immediately either).

    You said:
    ---
    Love seems to do at least this, if there is a heaven and hell, then someone who loves someone has a desire for the person to end up in heaven as opposed to in hell.
    ---

    But we are sinners and our loving desires may not be righteous love. Lovers of evil are, by definition, unrighteous, are they not?

    You said:
    ---
    So why is Jesus weeping over Jerusalem?
    ---

    Jesus wasn't weeping over Jerusalem because He couldn't care less about a bunch of bricks.

    Sucks when you don't define terms, right?

    ReplyDelete