The "doer of sin"

GODISMYJUDGE SAID:

“He hasn't done that - not in the ways you are implying he has.”

That’s a sheer denial, with nothing to back it up. This is how I’ve characterized Thibo’s position: if God is responsible, then we are not responsible; if we are responsible, then God is not responsible. So he framed the issue in symmetrical terms. He did that repeatedly in response to Nemes.

Do you now deny that this is an accurate characterization of his position?

Keep in mind that this symmetrical relationship, as Thibo views it, is central to Thibo’s objection to Calvinism in his various replies to Nemes.

“There would be more to it then that. God is the source of morality (either by nature or choice). But if man was the source of morality, and had the power and knowledge to create worlds... the senario starts to look like what if this man was God - and we are back to the same problem we started with.”

i) To begin with, you’re shifting the goalpost. You originally said: “But we don't create worlds or harden sinners hearts, since we are not God.”

That’s a far cry from saying the difference lies in the fact that God is the source of morality.

ii) Moreover, your response is evasive. You know perfectly well what Nemes, Manata, and I have in mind. Examples where, if I were to allow a foreseeable and avoidable evil to occur, I’d be at least partly to blame.

iii) Furthermore, if you deny that what is intuitively blameworthy in the case of a human agent is blameless in the case of God, then you disarm Arminianism of its intuitively moralistic objections to Calvinism (a point that Manata has been making in response to you).

If our moral intuitions are unreliable or inapplicable in relation to God God, then Arminians forfeit the right to say God is culpable if he decrees a sinful event.

“Overlap, yes. But God does not perform the same act man does. God didn't throw Joseph into the pit or refuse to let Isreal go or crusify Christ. Further, God's motives were different than Joseph's brothers, or Pharaoh or the Jews and Romans.”

i) Now you’re falling back on your old ruse of drawing metaphysical distinctions as if metaphysical distinctions are equivalent to moral distinctions. But as I already pointed out, to merely draw a metaphysical distinction fails to exonerate the Arminian God. A metaphysical distinction is not ipso facto exculpatory.

You need to show how your metaphysical distinctions absolve the Arminian God of complicity in evil.

This isn’t the first time I drawn your attention to the inadequacy of maneuver. And how do you respond? By simply repeating yourself.

This suggests to me that you’ve bottomed out. You’re not advancing the argument because you have nothing in reserve.

“So there are significant differences in the acts and intentions.”

And as I’ve already pointed out, Calvinism can avail itself of the same distinctions.

You seem to have a very limited repertoire of responses. You recycle the same responses. You rearrange them a bit, but it always comes back to the same circular conversation. I say A, you say B. I say C. You say D. I say E, you say A…

Evidently, you’ve run out of arguments.

“You may have missed the point although perhaps I could have been more clear. I am not saying per Calvinism, God performs sinful acts. Just the oposit, per Calvinism God does not perform sinful acts - and that makes sense to me even from an external perspective. The point however, is that since, Calvinism, denies God is the author of sin while He predetermines sin's occurance; the most viable definition of 'author of sin', per Calvinism, seems to be 'doer of sin'.”

You repeat the same confusion. The “doer” of sin is the sinner. The “doer” is the immediate agent–not a second party (even if the second party is somehow complicit in the deed). The doer is the party who performs the actual deed.

This isn’t difficult to grasp. You may not think that distinction is morally adequate, but that’s not the point at this juncture. The point is get clear on the concept. Whether or not that conceptual distinction is sufficient for theodicean purposes is a separate issue.