Operation: Mop-Up

I’m performing a little mopping up operation on Arminian Perspectives. So watch your step—the floor is slippery:

“I would now like to issue a bit of a challenge for those who are so convinced that libertarian free will is a myth, and that determinism is the Biblical doctrine.”

Notice that Ben is the one who is issuing the challenge. His sidekick issued a challenge of his own:

http://www.indeathorlife.org/soteriology/calvinism/reformedchallenge.php

This is useful to keep in mind when Ben and DC whine about how Triablogue has been pestering the poor little dears. They initiated the challenge. We merely took them at their word.

“Until you answer the following questions, I would ask that you refrain from attacking the contrary position.”

http://arminianperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/11/got-free-will.html

Why should we submit to that request? If the bible teaches predestination, then LFW is, indeed a myth. In that event, we don’t need to answer his questionnaire before we’re allowed to point that out. We don’t need a special permit to reiterate the teaching of Scripture.

And we also don’t need to justify predestination over and beyond the revelation of Scripture. So Ben’s attempt to disqualify his critics is sophistical.

“To the determinist I ask: 1) How do you make sense of regrets if you do not have the power of contrary choice? Why does your conscience bother you when you sin, if you could not have avoided that sin?”

i) How does a libertarian make sense of the fact that a compulsive gambler may well regret placing his dependents in financial hardship because he can’t resist the urge to roll the dice? He feels guilty that he lacks the moral resolve to do the right thing.

ii) Even in a game of chance, the odds are that every once in a while a random outcome will be the same as a predetermined outcome (e.g. loaded dice, a stacked deck). In both cases the gambler would do exactly the same thing, even if in once case—unbeknownst to him—the game was rigged.

iii) As a practical matter, we can only make one choice at a time. So what’s the point of having choices we were never going to make? What difference does it make if you could have one otherwise unless you would have done otherwise?

iv) If Ben wants a philosophical answer, he should consult the literature on compatibilism (e.g. John Martin Fischer).

“2) If God causes all things, then how can you claim that God does not cause sin?”

i) That’s equivocal. God is not the sole cause of everything that happens.

ii) And while we’re at it, let’s keep in mind that, after all these centuries, philosophers still can’t agree on how to define causation.

“If God is the only true actor in the universe, then all creatures are but passive instruments.”

That’s a straw man argument. Monergism is concerned with soteriology, not metaphysics. At even at the level of soteriology, not everything is monergistic. For example, regeneration is monergistic, but sanctification is not.

“3) Where did the first impulse to sin come from in both Satan and Adam?”

i) Why should a Calvinist be expected to answer that question?

a) We have no personal experience of sinless agency.

b) Revelation doesn’t tell us where the first impulse to sin came from.

c) And it’s not a truth of reason that we can intuit, like math.

So any answer is sheer speculation.

ii) At one level, God decreed the fall. But that doesn’t implant a disobedient impulse in Adam.

I’m also not sure that I see a problem. Although Adam was sinless, he wasn’t impeccable, so there was nothing to prevent him from sinning.

And even in a morally pristine universe, there are alternate or incommensurable goods. You can’t experience every good simultaneously. So even in a world without evil, there’s a potential for temptation. You don’t need a predisposition to sin in order to sin.

Suppose Adam and Eve both wanted the same juicy peach. That’s a natural desire for a natural good. But they can’t both have it. A sinless, but peccable, agent would still need to resist the temptation to covet the peach. To envy the good fortune of another. And there’s nothing that hinders him from giving into temptation. Even though he’s sinless, he must exercise a measure of moral restraint to check his natural impulses.

Since resisting temptation is a virtue, that tension can exist apart from the fall. The tree of knowledge was good. Curiosity is good.

iii) What is Ben’s alternative? LFW? But Ben says, “Appeals to mystery are inadmissible.”

Yet the appeal to LFW is an appeal to mystery. As Peter van Inwagen put it:

“But if we know that we are free—indeed, if we are free and do not know it—, there is some defect in one or both of our two arguments. Either there is something wrong with our argument for the conclusion that metaphysical freedom is incompatible with determinism or there is something wrong with our argument for the conclusion that metaphysical freedom is incompatible with indeterminism—or there is something wrong with both arguments. But which argument is wrong, and why? (Or are they both wrong?) I do not know. I think no one knows. That is why my title is, ‘The Mystery of Metaphysical Freedom.’ I believe I know, as surely as I know anything, that at least one of the two arguments contains a mistake. And yet, having thought very hard about the two arguments for almost thirty years, I confess myself unable to identify even a possible candidate for such a mistake. My opinion is that the first argument (the argument for the incompatibility of freedom and determinism) is essentially sound, and that there is, therefore, something wrong with the second argument (the argument for the incompatibility of freedom and indeterminism). But if you ask me what it is, I have to say that I am, as current American slang has it, absolutely clueless. Indeed the problem seems to me to be so evidently impossible of solution that I find very attractive a suggestion that has been made by Noam Chomsky (and which was developed by Colin McGinn in his recent book The Problems of Philosophy) that there is something about our biology, something about the ways of thinking that are ‘hardwired’ into our brains, that renders it impossible for us human beings to dispel the mystery of metaphysical freedom. However this may be, I am certain that I cannot dispel the mystery, and I am certain that no one else has in fact done so.”

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwvanInwagen1.htm

Continuing with Ben:

“Calvinists contend that the elect believe due to the influence of irresistible grace. Arminius and the Remonstrants rejected this partly due to the fact that the Bible plainly says that some do indeed resist the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51)…So my question is rather simple. When a reprobate resists the Holy Spirit just what exactly is he resisting? If the Holy Spirit has no intentions of regenerating the reprobate and has instead decided to ‘pass him by’, then what on earth is the reprobate resisting?”

http://arminianperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/08/quick-questions-for-my-calvinists.html

In the TULIP acronym, irresistible grace stands for regeneration. That’s irresistible, both because it’s a direct act of God, and because the object of regeneration is passive in the process.

In Context, Acts 7:51 has reference to the Word of God. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of prophecy. The agent of inspiration.

In the very next verse (52), Stephen indicts unbelieving Jews for persecuting the prophets of yore. And when they disbelieve him, they repeat the same pattern, for Stephen is a modern prophet, inspired by the Holy Spirit (6:3,5).

In fact, that’s the same interpretation as Witherington’s, in the standard Arminian commentary on Acts: “always opposing the Holy Spirit. The implication is that Stephen is speaking at the direction of the Spirit and to oppose his words is like opposing the words of Moses or others in previous generations” (274).

It’s a pity when I have to point Arminians like Ben to their own writers. Can’t they at least keep up their own end of the argument?

In Reformed theology, the reprobate can disobey God’s preceptive will. They are not resisting the immediate agency of God. Rather, they are resisting the end-product of inspiration: the spoken or written word of God.

“I also want to ask my Calvinist friends how they can harmonize their doctrine of irresistible grace with Isaiah 5:1-4…So according to the Lord Himself, He had done all He could do to His vineyard, and yet it still did not produce acceptable fruit. Shouldn't we be able to answer the Lord, ‘Sorry, but you obviously didn't do all that you could have done Lord. You could have irresistibly caused your vineyard to produce good grapes.’ The Calvinist, to be consistent with his doctrine, could object in such a way. So here are my last two questions for my Calvinist friends. Would you feel comfortable saying such a thing to the Lord? Would you contend that God did not give sufficient grace for the Israelites to produce acceptable fruit?”

i) Well, Ben, we could always begin by keeping in mind that this is a parable. So it’s a mistake to take the details literally.

ii) For example, Ben quotes the following statement: “then he expected it to produce good grapes… when I expected it to produce good grapes.”

If Ben takes that literally, then this would be a prooftext for open theism. God can’t be both foresighted and shortsighted. So did God, in fact, entertain a false expectation?

iii) This also follows from the detail of the watchtower, which would guard the produce on the assumption of a yield that’s worth stealing. Once again, does Ben think that God failed to foresee the outcome?

iv) Then, in the part he didn’t quote, what about the vintner’s punitive reaction (5-6). Does Ben think that God is a disappointed lover who lashes out in a vindictive fit of pique?

How much of this parable does he take literally? The whole thing? Or is he selectively literal and figurative by turns. Is his principle that anything which supports Arminian theology should be taken literally, while anything which opposes Arminian theology should be taken metaphorically?

v) He assumes that the key phrase ought be rendered in terms of what more God “could” have done, rather than “should” have done, although—as Motyer points out—the Hebrew “uses the infinitive to express obligation” (68n3). God did everything he should have done. Thus, the blame lies elsewhere. That’s the point. God did enough to leave Israel at fault.

vi) As I’ve also said, “irresistible grace” is a synonym for regeneration. It’s not interchangeable with all God’s dealings with Israel in general or the church in general. Both Israel and the church are a mixed multitude of elect and reprobate members.

Behind the beat

A while back I did a post on whether the Reformed doctrine of perseverance rendered divine warnings meaningless:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/12/admonitions-of-scripture.html

Although my post wasn’t specifically directed at him, Thibodaux replied:

http://arminianperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/12/truth-and-consequences.html

http://www.indeathorlife.org/soteriology/calvinism/reformedchallenge/results/triabloguechallenge3.php

I haven’t gotten around to responding because I had other things focus on. And there’s not much to respond to his since criticisms suffer from persistent intellectual confusions on his part.

“Translation: The warnings are divine shock value, their consequences mere coercion.”

Wrong. I don’t take the position that God uses coercive methods to preserve his elect.

As I explained at the time, I was examining a coercive model for the sake of argument. An argument from the greater to the lesser.

Libertarians contend that coercion would render warnings meaningless. So the point I was making is that if the warnings are still meaningful even on a coercive interpretation, then they’re meaningful absent coercion. Sorry that J.C. was too obtuse to follow the argument.

“If God's purpose in giving such warnings was to make us live holy unto Him by indicating that if we walk away from Him, He will cast us away, yet you teach a doctrine that states He would never under any circumstance actually do such a thing, then have you not undone the holy fear which God's word was meant to instill in the hearts of His people and again made it of no effect?”

A straw man argument. Calvinism doesn’t take the position that God would never cast us away under any circumstances. The warnings are conditional. If we did such things, God would cast us away.

It’s just that those circumstances will not eventuate. And the warnings are part of what restrains us from doing such things. They serve as a disincentive to apostasy. So the worst-case scenario does not play out—thanks, in part, to the fear of consequences.

It’s easy for Christians to take revelation for granted. After all, we have divine revelation. So we know what’s expected of us.

But suppose we didn’t? We do not enjoy an inborn knowledge of everything that’s expected of us. So we depend on divine revelation to inculcate some of our duties to God and man.

Suppose I don’t know that a certain type of mushroom is poisonous, but you do. So you warn me not to eat that type of mushroom. As a result of your warning, I refrain from eating that type of mushroom.

The warning was hardly superfluous. It furnished me with some important information I wouldn’t otherwise have—information which enabled me to act prudently in that situation.

“The view that the members of Triablogue espouse puts them in a rather awkward position, as when God states 'heed or I shall revoke your part in my kingdom,' their reply is, 'Therefore having our part in God's kingdom revoked is not actually possible under any circumstance by virtue of the fact that God has threatened to do that very thing’.”

This repeats the same mistake. Also, to talk about what’s “actually possible” is slippery, for possibility and actuality are contrary categories.

If something is actual, then it’s possible—but if something is possible, then it’s inactual. It may not yet be actual, or it may never be actual. Indeed, most possibilities remain unexemplified.

“Perhaps as Hays' parallel of stimulus suggests, God preserves the saints by fear of falling away. But if such fear or coercion is His intended purpose in these warnings, then why do Calvinists teach a doctrine that goes directly against any such fear or coercion, which tries to reduce it to no effect in stating that it is not possible for the saints to fall away?”

Notice that J.C. is a one-trick pony. He keeps repeating the same mistakes. But repetition doesn’t make a falsehood any truer.

“ I agree that God does indeed spur we who are His on to glory with warnings, but not with hollow threats of Him committing things He would never actually do based on things He won't let happen.”

J.C. is treating Calvinism as if it were synonymous with fatalism. But in Calvinism, what we do makes a difference, for God often works through means—of which warnings are a case in point.

“So if God's purpose in issuing warnings with the worst possible consequences is to be compared to bogus, yet highly effective road signs, then how is saying 'Don't worry, those signs are feigned, they're just made to scare you, it's not actually possible for you to fall in' not going against that purpose?”

Notice how he always oversimplifies the explanation. To return to my illustration, the road signs would only be bogus if the bridge wasn’t washed out. But if the bridge is, indeed, washed out, and you disregarded the cautionary signage, then your car will plunge into the river below and you will drown. It’s a pity that J.C. can only keep one idea in his head at a time.

“Thus even if fear and coercion unto holiness were the sole intent of the consequences in God's warnings to the saints, the teaching of a doctrine that absolutely no saint can fall away directly contradicts such an intent.”

This is like saying that if I tell you not to eat those mushrooms because you’ll die of food poisoning should you do so, and you refrain from eating them as a result of my advice, then the warning was meaningless.

For J.C., a warning can only be meaningful if it’s ineffective. That’s an odd stipulation.

“The very fact that being cut off from Christ is listed as a consequence for not abiding in Him (which is not an obvious impossibility) suggests its possibility.”

J.C. always poses the alternatives in simplistic terms. “Possible” or “impossible” in what respect? Conditional? Unconditional?

“So if scripture makes it so plain that our perseverance is not dependent upon us in the least.”

Yet another simple-minded formulation. Perseverance involves, among other things, the due use of the means of grace. And God has given his elect a heart to use the means of grace.

“And God cannot fail to uphold His end.”

The means are instrument to the ends.

“Then why would scripture even bring up the contingency of His failure or unfaithfulness?”

Scripture never brings up the contingency of divine infidelity or failure. It does bring up the contingency of human infidelity or failure.

“One need only look at the admonitions in scripture to see what the apostles taught concerning security in Christ; to those engrafted Paul writes, ‘For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either’ (Romans 11:21).”

J.C’s attacks systematically miss the mark. They might be valid against the antinomian brand of eternal security you find in some fundamentalist circles. But they’re irrelevant in reference to the doctrine of perseverance. J.C. always lags behind the beat.

“I agree that God does indeed spur we who are His on to glory with warnings, but not with hollow threats of Him committing things He would never actually do based on things He won't let happen.”

To revert to my illustration, suppose I tell my five-year-old not to eat the mushrooms. But, being a five-year-old, he disregards my warning. As he’s about to pluck a poisonous mushroom, I slap his hand.

Does the fact that I won’t let him eat the mushroom render the warning meaningless?

A bare warning may be insufficient for a five-year-old, but the educational process involves a combination of teaching and discipline so that, as a child matures, he no longer needs parental intervention. At that point in his cognitive development he will appreciate the wisdom of the warning and act accordingly.

The Application of the Order of Benefits of Redemption

I've not responded to a number of comments on my last article on John 6 for a number of reasons:

1. Pike has done a good job.
2. I've been busy.
3. The Arminians have done little more than assume what they need to prove.

If LFW is not taught in Scripture, so much for their argument. To date, not a single Arminian has bothered to answer:

1. Where is LFW taught in Scripture? Until they can demonstrate this action theory is taught by Scripture, every objection they offer fails, insofar as it depends on the insertion of LFW into the text of John 6. The fact that they can't resolve the text without that appeal is proof positive that they have no *exegetical* objections to the text. They are offering *philosophical* objections.

2. Why does one person believe and not another, within the constraints of (a) John 6 (Hint, John 6 actually answers the question-they just don't like the answer) and (b) LFW? I keep asking this question. The answers I get are usually, "Because they decide to do so." That's not an answer. It merely restates the question. Can Arminians not recognize the regressive fallacy when they see it. They are only pushing the question back one step.

Regarding the “new covenant” and Isaiah 54:13 (cross ref Jer 31, Mathew 26, Hebrews 8, Hebrews 10, …) One of the blessings of the new covenant is regeneration, but another is forgiveness of sins. Do you believe people are forgiven before they come to Christ?

The answer to this question is bound up with a couple of issues that need to be disambiguated.

A. What do we,and Scripture, mean when referring to "Regeneration?"

I'd point out, Dan, that there's an archive function on this blog. Before asking me questions like this, you should consult them. I've been over "regeneration" many, many times here.

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/08/regeneration-and-flyswatter-part-two.html

Typically, I refer to "Regeneration" according to the dominant expression articulated by our theologians.

B. We're talking about a logical, not a temporal sequence:

Regeneration / effectual calling. This would be equivalent to "drawing" in John 6.
Faith/repentance (Conversion). This would be "coming."
Justification: This would be forgiveness of sins.

If regeneration does not precede faith, then why don't you affirm that good works precede regeneration?

C. Your question, indeed, objection turns on a conflation of ideas. Let's summarize it:

Regeneration preceding faith is illogical/unbiblical because it means you are saved/justified forgiven, before you are "saved/justified/forgiven."

Answer: These columns reflect the logical or causal connection between these aspects: regeneration, repentance unto life, faith in Jesus Christ, justification, definitive sanctification, adoption and sealing (indwelling), progressive sanctification, perseverance in holiness, glorification. DA = Divine Act (monergistic, e.g. God acts alone w/o man; where He acts alone, men are wholly passive). Div-Human Activ=Divine Human activity (synergistic):

Individual Salvation

Beginning Result Middle Result End

2 DAs 2 Div-Hum Activ. 3 DA’s 2 Div-Hum Activ. 1 DA

(5) Justification

(3) Repentance

(1) Effectual call (8) Progressive Sanct.

via

(2) Regeneration (6) Definitive Sanc. (10) Glorification

(4)Faith in Christ (9) Perseverance in holiness

(7) adoption and the

Spirit’s sealing

* Definitive Sanc. On the one hand Scripture says we are being sanctified progressively, and on the other it says we have been sanctified. DS refers to this act in the mind of God seeing us not only as righteous (justified) with the righteous of Christ imputed to us through faith, but also set apart completely. From A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, Second Edition, Robert Reymond, (Thomas Nelson, 1998, p.711).

This objection is fairly standard fare from anti-Calvinist writing and sermons. It’s pretty unsophisticated, but surprisingly frequent. This is a textbook example of equivocation: The disputant uses the same word in two (or more senses), trading on one sense in one occurrence to lend a surplus sense to the same word in another occurrence. The Arminian is accusing you of equivocating on your terms. In reality, s/he is equivocating on his/her terms.

Let’s reword this objection using biblical terminology. Regeneration precedes faith is logical, because it means you are regenerated before you are justified. The Reformed understanding of the order of salvation is:

Regeneration precedes faith. Men are dead in sin and cannot come to Christ to repent and believe apart from it. Men are not regenerated because they respond to God in faith. I John 5:1 explicitly states otherwise. The conclusion of John’s prologue in his gospel uses passive verbs to describe being born again and adds that men are born not by their own wills, but by God’s alone.

A man is not converted on account of his free will decision. He is converted because God unilaterally acts to regenerate Him. His faith and repentance are a response to God’s grace in doing this. John 6:44: No man can (has the ability) to come to me, unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. Apart from God doing this, nobody would believe. It is simply impossible for an unregenerate person to choose Christ apart from effectual calling and regeneration. They cannot submit their minds to God or understand spiritual truth or come to Christ and believe apart from it.

We understand that there is a sense in which one is saved, i.e., regenerated before one is “saved,” i.e. justified. However, the Arminian must agree that men are “saved,” i.e. justified, before they are “saved,” i.e. regenerated or glorified as well. Calvinists do not say “we are saved before we are saved.” We teach we are regenerated before we believe and are justified. We are not the ones guilty of equivocating on our terms.

Dan wrote to Pete:

P1: Teaching, hearing & learning precede coming to Christ (taken from John 6:45)
P2: Teaching, hearing & learning are not referring to how one gets into the covenant, but instead are the promises given to those in the covenant (taken from your comments)
C1: therefore, being in the covenant precedes coming to Christ
P3: Part of being in the new covenant includes forgiveness of sins. (Taken from Jer 31, Mathew 26, Hebrews 8, Hebrews 10)
C2: therefore, forgiveness of sins precedes coming to Christ.

So I guess I still don’t understand your response.

Pete can respond on his own. I, like you, looking @ your blog, may be gone for awhile, so I may not be able to get back. But I'll just observe before I depart:

1. It depends on what one means by "getting into the covenant." If by this you mean "election," then these are promises that God will certainly bring to pass with respect to those persons. God does not fail to bring the elect to faith. This would moot all your objections.

2. You seem to be suggesting that "coming" and being "forgiven" are equivalent. (1) I've not argued that. (2) Pete didn't argue that. (3) Forgiveness of sins is a divine act, not a human act. True, one must "come"in order to be "forgiven" but all the elect will certainly "come."

3. To summarize then, the reasons that "being taught, hearing, and coming (to Christ)" are "promises" given to those in the New Covenant is due to election. We can think of being "in" the New Covenant in a presumptive sense, eg. in the mind of God. He "foreloves" the elect by chosing them a recipients of the application of the benefits of redemption. Alteraatively, we can think of them from the other side in a temporal, experimental sense, from the perspective of the elect. They stand as condemned sinners outside of the covenant insofar as they are objects of wrath until the benefits are applied, yet God will certainly bring that application of the benefits of redemption upon them.

I'd also refer you to Francis Turretin who, in the debate between the High Calvinists in his day, over what it meant for the covenant to be "unconditional" drew a distinction between a meritorious and instrumental condition. The Covenant is meritoriously unconditional. It is instrumentally conditional. This directly impacts any doctrine of "eternal justification." EJ is generally built upon the conflation of these conditions as unconditional. That's Hyper-Calvinism.

4. "Forgiveness of sins" is, by your own admission "part of" the New Covenant. The question does not involve that fact. Rather, the question is one of historical and/or logical order in which that blessing comes to the person, e.g. it relates the difference between redemption "accomplished" and redemption "applied." Historically, our redemption was accomplished at the cross, well before we were born. It was not applied to us until we believed, and we believed because of the Spirit's effectual call via the instrumentality of the Word (a classic Reformed Baptist formula).

I realize an objection may arise due to the non-temporal nature of God. Hyper-Calvinists draw their doctrine of EJ from that thinking. To anticipate it, as you seem to be following along those similar lines, I answer, with Robert Reymond (from his New Systematic Theology)

This thinking is muddled in several respects.

For starters, God does have a concept of cause and effect in that logic is an attribute of God's mind. He does understand that in order for x to occur as a concrete instance of what is in his mind, y must come to pass. It's an ends-means relation.

We understand cause and effect and the antecedence of x to y; ergo God does too, or else we have no ground for the logical process.

God Himself also grounds the passage of time in His creation. His own Word recognizes that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. The very terms "in the beginning" and "before the foundation of the world," are about a cause-effect relation and a historical relation.

God does exist outside of time, but that also means He orders and grounds time.

Likewise, the objector conflating ontology and teleology. The timeless of God does not mean there is no teleological order to His attributes or the working of His mind. Ontologically, God is unaffected by relational sequence as to His person, but He is conscious of sequential duration, because sequential duration is a part of the ordering of his decree.

We know this because we have a sense of past, present, and future that, because it exists and will exist, is grounded by His mind. In other words, we actually experience this sequential order because we are part of the decree.

For God, all of these are internally intuited and not arrived at chronologically through a process, but the concept or idea of durational sequence or succession is a distinct epistemological, not ontological category. God knows all our thoughts and actions in the past, present, and future,and at the same time knows His own thoughts and actions in relation to each other and to our own and in what order. Thus, He can inspire Paul to say, "He chose before He created." He knows that He created the sea and dry land before He created birds and fish and animals and man. He knows 1 comes before 2 comes before 184, 388.739394. Likewise, He can perceive us as children of wrath prior to our calling and conversion and His children by adoption afterward.

5. All of which renders C2 fallacious.

I'm also a bit concerned about your use of the term "New Covenant." I take it you are a dispensationalist. Is it your position that persons were saved by a different means prior to the era of the "New" Covenant? Just curious.

I'd also point out that Jeremiah 31, if you're a Baptist, would undercut your appeal to Baptist ecclesiology. Baptists affirm the New Covenant is unbreakable. That's why we affirm regenerate church membership.
Presbyterians get around this by positing two dimensions to the covenant, one related to the visible church, the other the invisible, universal church. But as a Baptist, that option is not open to you. If you affirm that folks can lose their salvation, then you deny the New Covenant is unbreakable, thereby undercutting Baptist ecclesiology. I'm asking because I don't recall you staking out your eccleisology. Sometimes it helps to know if we're dealing with a (Credo)Baptist or a Paedo(Infant)baptist.

If you affirm that the NC is breakable with respect to its spiritual elements (eg. personal salvation), then how exactly is the NC better than the Old Covenant, given the the qualifications in Hebrews? How is Christ Mediator of a "better" covenant if he does not/cannot save His people from apostasy?

I suspect dispensationalists and covenant theologians might have very different points of view of end times. This could be impacting our differences on understanding Isaiah 54, and therefore John 6.

The Calvinist understanding of Isaiah 54 is not dependent on Covenant Theology.

Iraq, Al Qaeda, And Media Irresponsibility

Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard has written an article about links between the former Iraqi government, al Qaeda, and other anti-American terrorist groups, as well as how many in the American media have misrepresented those links. I recommend reading the entire article, but here are some excerpts:

This ought to be big news. Throughout the early and mid-1990s, Saddam Hussein actively supported an influential terrorist group headed by the man who is now al Qaeda's second-in-command, according to an exhaustive study issued last week by the Pentagon….

In 1993, as Osama bin Laden's fighters battled Americans in Somalia, Saddam Hussein personally ordered the formation of an Iraqi terrorist group to join the battle there….

According to a 1993 internal Iraqi intelligence memo, the regime was supporting a secret Islamic Palestinian organization dedicated to "armed jihad against the Americans and Western interests."…

In 2002, the year before the war began, the Iraqi regime hosted in Iraq a series of 13 conferences for non-Iraqi jihadist groups.

That same year, a branch of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) issued hundreds of Iraqi passports for known terrorists….

Documents reveal that the regime stockpiled bombmaking materials in Iraqi embassies around the world and targeted Western journalists for assassination. In July 2001, an Iraqi Intelligence agent described an al Qaeda affiliate in Bahrain, the Army of Muhammad, as "under the wings of bin Laden." Although the organization "is an offshoot of bin Laden," the fact that it has a different name "can be a way of camouflaging the organization." The agent is told to deal with the al Qaeda group according to "priorities previously established."…

In describing the relations between the Army of Muhammad and the Iraqi regime, the authors of the Pentagon study come to this conclusion: "Captured documents reveal that the regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al Qaeda--as long as that organization's near-term goals supported Saddam's long-term vision."

As I said, this ought to be big news. And, in a way, it was. A headline in the New York Times, a cursory item in the Washington Post, and stories on NPR and ABC News reported that the study showed no links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

How can a study offering an unprecedented look into the closed regime of a brutal dictator, with over 1,600 pages of "strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism," in the words of its authors, receive a wave-of-the-hand dismissal from America's most prestigious news outlets? All it took was a leak to a gullible reporter, one misleading line in the study's executive summary, a boneheaded Pentagon press office, an incompetent White House, and widespread journalistic negligence….

Again, at precisely the same time Zawahiri was "joining with bin Laden," the spring of 1993, he was being funded by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. As Zawahiri's jihadists trained in al Qaeda camps in Sudan, his representative to Iraq was planning "commando operations" against the Egyptian government with the IIS.

Another captured Iraqi document from early 1993 "reports on contact with a large number of terrorist groups in the region, including those that maintained an office or liaison in Iraq." In the same folder is a memo from Saddam Hussein to a member of his Revolutionary Council ordering the formation of "a group to start hunting Americans present on Arab soil, especially Somalia."…

More recently, captured "annual reports" of the IIS reveal support for terrorist organizations in the months leading up the U.S. invasion in March 2003….

The third section of the Pentagon study is called "Iraq and Terrorism: Three Cases." One of the cases is that of the Army of Muhammad, the al Qaeda affiliate in Bahrain. A series of memoranda order an Iraqi Intelligence operative in Bahrain to explore a relationship with its leaders. On July 9, 2001, the agent reports back: "Information available to us is that the group is under the wings of bin Laden. They receive their directions from Yemen. Their objectives are the same as bin Laden."…

A separate memo reveals that the Army of Muhammad has requested assistance from Iraq. The study authors summarize the response by writing, "the local IIS station has been told to deal with them in accordance with priorities previously established. The IIS agent goes on to inform the Director that 'this organization is an offshoot of bin Laden, but that their objectives are similar but with different names that can be a way of camouflaging the organization.'"…

When bin Laden left Sudan for Afghanistan in May 1996, the Iraqis sought "other channels through which to handle the relationship, in light of his current location." The IIS memo directs that "cooperation between the two organizations should be allowed to develop freely through discussion and agreement."…

What's happening here is obvious. Military historians and terrorism analysts are engaged in a good faith effort to review the captured documents from the Iraqi regime and provide a dispassionate, fact-based examination of Saddam Hussein's long support of jihadist terrorism. Most reporters don't care. They are trapped in a world where the Bush administration lied to the country about an Iraq-al Qaeda connection, and no amount of evidence to the contrary--not even the words of the fallen Iraqi regime itself--can convince them to reexamine their mistaken assumptions.

Bush administration officials, meanwhile, tell us that the Iraq war is the central front in the war on terror and that American national security depends on winning there. And yet they are too busy or too tired or too lazy to correct these fundamental misperceptions about the case for war, the most important decision of the Bush presidency.

What good is the truth if nobody knows it?

What does Heb 6 really mean?

Arminians typically accuse Calvinists of tampering with the obvious meaning of Heb 6 and its counterparts. Let’s begin by quoting the two major passages around which the controversy swirls:

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Hebrews 6:4-6 (English Standard Version)

4For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

Hebrews 10:26-31 (English Standard Version)

26For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30For we know him who said, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay." And again, "The Lord will judge his people." 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

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1.Now, let’s take a few steps back. Ask yourself, if either passage were intended to answer a question, what question would that be? Would it be, Is it possible for a Christian to lose his salvation? Or would it be, Is it possible for an apostate to be restored?

One of the ironic features of the modern debate about the “true” meaning of Heb 6 is that this debate is centered on answering a question which the passage wasn’t designed to answer. The Arminian, in particular, is asking a different question than the text is answering.

For the question which the text is answering is not about the possibility of losing your salvation, but the possibility—or impossibility—of returning to the faith.

So the Arminian is involved in a classic case of agenda-driven exegesis. When you come to a text of Scripture, demanding an answer it wasn’t intended to give, and—in the meantime—sideline the answer it was intended to give, then you’re coming to the text with a theological agenda, and you won’t be satisfied until you make the text answer the question you want it to answer. Your theological priorities are at odds with the text. You insist on putting a question to the text which the text was never meant to answer.

Once again, just stop for a moment and ask yourself, in proportion to the amount of time that an Arminian spends on trying to make the text answer a different question, how much time does he spend trying to answer the question which the text was actually addressing? In particular, how much time does the Arminian typically devote to the possibility, or not, of spiritual restoration, rather than the possibility of losing your salvation?

The Arminian is not allowing the text to set the agenda. He takes almost no interest in what the text is interested in. Indeed, the focus of the text is a very awkward for him since it’s hard for an Arminian to explain why an apostate, if he’s truly a free agent, would be unable to think better of his action, or why a loving God would refuse to reinstate him.

If the Arminian were to actually realign his concerns to correspond with the text, this would be a very problematic text for Arminian theology. That may well be one reason, aside from his eagerness to disprove Calvinism, that he marginalizes the teaching of the text, and substitutes a different question in its place.

In this respect, Donatism, Montanism, and Novatianism were at least asking the right questions. They were asking the same questions of the text that the text was designed to answer. Even if we disagree with their answers, their approach to Heb 6 was at least in line with the type of question which the text was addressing.

So it takes a lot of temerity for an Arminian to accuse a Calvinist of Scripture twisting when the Arminian is the one who is guilty of imposing his own agenda on the text, to the detriment of what the text is really teaching.

2.Apropos (1), if we take the impossibility of restoration at face value, then in what sense is it impossible?

i) There are only two options available to the Arminian:

a) Every apostate is unwilling to repent.

b) God is unwilling to restore any apostate, even if he is penitent.

But both explanations are in tension with Arminian theology. (i) is contrary to the libertarian freedom of the apostate, while (ii) is contrary to the universal love of God.

ii) By contrast, this is not a point of tension in Reformed theology. We could simply say an apostate is a hardened sinner. This explanation combines (i) and (ii). The apostate is unwilling to repent, and he’s unwilling to repent because God is unwilling to restore him. God has hardened him as a judicial punishment for his apostasy.

3.Recently, Ben Witherington has attempted to harmonize the rigorist interpretation with Arminian theology by taking a rhetorical approach:

“Rhetorically speaking, an orator must be able to keep the attention of the audience, especially if the discourse is going to be long…this being the case…the wise rhetor will pull out the emotional stops, use more colorful language, engage in rhetorical hyperbole, up the volume on ‘amplification’,” Letters and Homilies for Jewish Christians (IVP 2007), 203.

“One of the issues that many commentators misunderstand, because of failure to read the rhetorical signals, is that our author to some degree is being ironic here and engaging in a preemptive strike. That is, we should not read this text as a literal description of the present spiritual condition of the audience,” ibid. 204.

“One of the key factors in analyzing this section [Heb 5:11-6:12] is to realize that our author is trying to put the ‘fear of God’ into his audience by using rhetoric to prevent defections, and so one is not sure how far to press the specifics here, since it is possible to argue that some of this involves dramatic hyperbole,” ibid. 205.

“Our author is deliberately engaging in dramatic rhetorical statements for the purpose of waking up the audience. The function is not to comment on something that is impossible for God…In other words, these words were intended to have a specific emotional effect, not to comment in the abstract about what is impossible…In an honor-and-shame culture this is intended to be shocking language,” ibid. 212-15.

“In my judgment, these are the right kinds of questions to ask about an epideictic discourse clearly given to hyperbole at points. Two things result from taking such rhetorical factors into account: (1) our author really does think that at least some of the audience is in danger of apostasy and warns against it and (2) we may suspect that the ‘no restoration’ remark functions as a device to make clear how horrible committing apostasy really is. It is another way of pleading ‘please don’t go there.’ The consequences of apostasy are thereby shown to be grim by the use of hyperbolic language,” ibid. 218.

But there are two potential problems with this maneuver:

i) A Calvinist can help himself to the same rhetorical strategy (see below).

ii) Witherington isn’t consistent in applying the “rhetorical device.” For at one point he also says “our author seems to believe that one can go too far, past the point of no return and no restoration. This text then cuts both ways, against either a facile notion that forgiveness is always possible no matter how severe the sin in question is, but it equally must count against the ‘eternal security’ sort of argument as well,” ibid. 215.

4.Having said all that, I don’t necessarily object to posing questions to Scripture which the author didn’t intend to answer. For a text may contain logical implications that are valid irrespective of what was foremost in the mind of the writer. These are consistent with what he meant, even if that happens to be incidental to his immediate point.

What the Arminian would say is that the impossibility of restoration presupposes the possibility of apostasy. Unless it’s possible to defect from the faith, the impossibility of restoration is a moot issue. So why would the author even introduce this irrelevancy?

5.But even at that level, the inference fails to follow.

i) For it might depend on what is mooting the possibility of apostasy. The deterrent value of these very warnings may serve that purpose.

ii) This is further reinforced by the fact that if an Arminian is going to say the threat is hyperbolic, then the Calvinist can make the same move. Suppose a Calvinist says the possibility of a true believing falling away is a “genuine” possibility, but only in the counterfactual sense that if he went down this road, that consequence would follow—even though that is not a live possibility?

An Arminian will typically argue that this mitigating condition renders the threat “meaningless.” If, however, the Arminian softens the threat by claiming that the terms of the threat are hyperbolic, to harmonize the threat with his Arminian belief in the possibility of restoration, then the Arminian is in no position to attack the Reformed position. If the impossibility of restoration is hyperbolic, then why not treat the possibility of apostasy (however defined) as equally hyperbolic? Why take one literally, but not the other?

In light of Witherington’s rhetorical strategy, which he deploys to defend his Arminian commitments, it’s unintentionally comical to read an Arminian epologist wax indignant, in volleys of quaint, ornate diction, if the Calvinist is merely making the same hermeneutical move as Witherington :

“Translation: The warnings are divine shock value, their consequences mere coercion. I'd already factored in this defense into the challenge, concerning which I point out an obvious problem: All inherent problems aside, even if this were the case and God were simply 'putting us on,' so to speak, for the sake of our living righteously, then is it not better to take the Lord at His word? If God's purpose in giving such warnings was to make us live holy unto Him by indicating that if we walk away from Him, He will cast us away, yet you teach a doctrine that states He would never under any circumstance actually do such a thing, then have you not undone the holy fear which God's word was meant to instill in the hearts of His people and again made it of no effect?… I agree that God does indeed spur we who are His on to glory with warnings, but not with hollow threats of Him committing things He would never actually do based on things He won't let happen… Are we to seriously believe that God's holy word is touting false and misleading doctrine for the sake of our good practice? God isn't mumbling crazy impossibilities, heresy, or idle threats into the air to keep us secure."

http://arminianperspectives.blogspot.com/search?q=Hays

I’d suggest that Thibodaux redirect his baroque indignation at Arminian commentators like Witherington.

iii) Likewise, the Calvinist can also invoke the hyperbolic interpretation to distinguish between backsliders and apostates. The former will be restored, while the latter will not.

6.However, the Arminian objection is fallacious in another respect as well. A Calvinist doesn’t have to treat the possibility of apostasy as a merely hypothetical outcome. He can admit that this is a live possibility. That there are real life examples.

Remember, a Calvinist doesn’t think the terminology of Heb 6 & 10 denotes regeneration. In Reformed theology, an individual can experience what is described in these passages, and yet fall away at a later date—never to return. So this passage has a real world application in Calvinism. We apply it to nominal believers. As one scholar explains:

“More importantly, the above analysis sheds some valuable light on the vexing question of the status of those envisioned in Heb 6:4-6. After analyzing the statements in vv. 4-6, McKnight confidently concludes that ‘[i]f the author is accurate in his description of the readers' experience, then we can only say that they are believers—true believers.’49 However, the preceding analysis leads us in a different direction. It appears that in analogy to the old covenant community the people depicted in 6:4-6 are not genuine believers or true members of the new covenant community. Like their OT counterparts, they have experienced all these blessings (vv. 4-5), but like the wilderness generation they are hardhearted, rebellious (3:8) and possess an "evil heart of unbelief” (3:12, 19).50 More clearly, 4:2 poignantly states that both groups (the wilderness generation and the new covenant community) have had the gospel preached to them, but the wilderness generation to which the readers of Hebrews are compared failed to believe, and therefore the message was of no value to them. Thus, the conclusion of Lane that ‘[t]ogether, the clauses describe vividly the reality of the experience of personal salvation enjoyed by the Christians addressed’ is premature.51 Wayne A. Grudem has recently proposed a similar understanding to the one presented in this section.52 According to him, the descriptive phrases themselves in vv. 4-6 are inconclusive as to whether the subjects are genuine believers or not. Here in Hebrews 6 they describe ‘people who were not yet Christians but who had simply heard the gospel and had experienced several of the blessings of the Holy Spirit's work in the Christian community.’53 The falling away (v. 6) is not a falling from salvation, but a failure to exercise saving faith in light of the blessings to which the readers have been exposed through association with the Christian community.54 The preceding analysis of the OT background to 6:4-6 confirms Grudem's conclusions. Thus in analogy to the old covenant community, those envisioned in vv. 4-6 have experienced the blessings of the new covenant (‘being enlightened,’ ‘tasting the heavenly gift,’ etc.), experiences common to all by virtue of belonging to the new covenant community, but have recapitulated the error of their old covenant predecessors by failing to believe and rejecting what they have experienced. In doing so they come under the covenantal curse."

http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/04-Numbers/Text/Articles/Mathewson-Heb6OT-WTJ.pdf.

7.The reason a Calvinist has to spend a lot of time discussing those to whom the text does not apply (the elect) is because the Arminian wants to apply this text to Christians. That’s why the Calvinist has to shift attention away from its area of applicability (nominal believers) to its area of inapplicability (true believers). That’s the point at which a Calvinist will talk about counterfactual truth-values.

But this doesn’t mean we think the possibility only obtains in some possible world. It also obtains in the actual world. But it doesn’t obtain in the case of the elect.

Expanding on a Comment

Since these comments have fallen into the purgatory that is Non-Main-Page, and since I think it’s important for Christians to have a grounding in the ordo salutis I’ve decided to respond with a new post, giving the appropriate background here.

Dan (GodIsMyJudge) originally wrote to Gene:

Regarding the “new covenant” and Isaiah 54:13 (cross ref Jer 33, Mathew 26, Hebrews 8, Hebrews 10, …) One of the blessings of the new covenant is regeneration, but another is forgiveness of sins. Do you believe people are forgiven before they come to Christ? Doesn’t this view contradict much of the NT? But you seem to be arguing that teaching, hearing & learning are part of the new covenant and precede coming to Christ.

I responded:

First of all, the temperal speed at which everything happens can vary. Many of the steps of salvation occur simultaneous to one another. There remains, however, a logical order. Ignoring the logical order of the decree of God and focusing only on what happens to the sinner during salvation, what you have is:

1. A sinner begins spiritually dead.

2. God regenerates that sinner. The ordinary means by which this occurs is through the proclamation of the Gospel. Sometimes the temporal moment between the proclamation of the Gospel and God's regeneration of the sinner is instantaneous; sometimes it can take years and the sinner is reminded of the previously heard proclamation at a later date. In both cases, however, God must regenerate the sinner so that he is no longer spiritually dead so that he can respond to the message he has heard.

3. That response--the response of the regenerated man--is faith in what was proclaimed by the Gospel.

4. On the basis of that faith, God imputes the righteousness of Christ to the sinner and imputes the sins of the sinner to Christ. The sinner is justified before God.

5. The regenerated man produces fruit and continues along the path of sanctification.

Because this chain is certain (that is, once God regenerates an individual that individual will, inevitably, proceed to step 5), Scripture talks about salvation as step 2 (regeneration, not bare proclamation), 3, 4, 5 and all steps combined. We know that if somoene is at step 3, he is saved because steps 4 and 5 must follow. Likewise if he is at step 4, step 5 must follow.

Of course, as humans we do not have the omniscience that God has. We can only make our best judgment as to whether someone is a genuine believer or not based on the fruits we see in that person's life.

So, with that in mind, the question was asked:
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Do you believe people are forgiven before they come to Christ?
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"Before" is the wrong term here. "Before" implies we look at this temporally; but these events could happen instantaneously and simultaneously.

In any case, logically the claim would be: Regeneration -> Faith -> Justification -> Sanctification. Justification entails the forgiveness of sins, sins our sins are imputed at that point.

In the logical order, therefore, faith preceeds justification; but regeneration preceeds faith. If you define faith as "coming to Jesus" and forgiveness as "justification" then yes, one "comes to Jesus" before one is "forgiven." But this is still after one is made a new spiritual creation that is able to come to Christ.

Finally it was said:
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But you seem to be arguing that teaching, hearing & learning are part of the new covenant and precede coming to Christ.
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Teaching, hearing, and learning do come before faith. How does one have faith in what one has not heard, and how can one hear unless someone has preached it? (I'm pretty sure someone asked that question once....) The fallacy with the question is thinking that knowing about Christ is equivalent to having faith in Christ. Yet we know from James that the demons believe plenty of truthful propositions about Christ, and that doesn't help them at all. One can know every fact about Christ that is possible for humans to know and still be spiritually dead.

However, one cannot have faith in Christ unless one knows who He is. And God has chosen the proclamation of the Gospel as His first means of bringing about salvation.

Now God could still save someone in a different manner if He so chose to do so; but we have no Scriptural warrant to believe He ever does otherwise. He has only revealed to us that this is the method He uses.

I hope that helps clarify it a bit.

Dan responded by stating:

Thanks for your comments. Your thoughts about “dead faith” are interesting. I took your comments to mean, you interpret the phrase “they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father” as speaking of knowledge of Christ without trust in Him.

No, that’s not how I would have taken it (and I don’t think that’s how Gene meant it either, although he can respond for sure). In any case, that aspect of knowledge is not what is being taught by Isaiah or Jeremiah. These passages do not refer to the bare knowledge of Christ at all, as part of the New Covenant; instead, it is the promise of redemptive faith. Salvation is pictured as something God does. He is the active party, ensuring that those who are saved know Him. In this context, the knowledge of God isn’t “brute” knowledge or “bare facts” but rather the intimate knowledge of the personal relationship with God.

Therefore, the passage isn’t really speaking in terms of knowledge qua knowledge, but rather in terms of how God will ensure the salvation of His people by being proactive. In other words, in this passage the knowledge being talked about is redemptive knowledge in His elect.

This is slightly different from what I understood your first question to be.

And to clarify, I wasn’t speaking so much of “dead faith” (at least not in the way that James uses the term, which is a faith without works) but instead I was speaking of having no faith despite having knowledge. This is something that does happen quite frequently. There are people who know many facts about Christ, and who may even believe those facts to be true, yet who do not have faith in Christ Himself. While I cannot go into detail, I know one person who would actually evangelize nonbelievers while remaining convinced that Christ could not forgive the sins in her own life. She did not have faith in Christ despite knowing enough about Him to try to convince others to put their faith in Him. But even if this individual is an extreme example (I don’t really think that’s the case), there are many self-proclaimed atheists who know more about Christ than some believers.

Dan said:

I agree that knowledge is the foundation of saving faith, and shouldn’t be confused with saving faith. This viewpoint seems to fit the passage well. Knowledge comes before faith and the passage says hearing and learning precedes coming to Christ. Also, the quotation from Isaiah does seem be talking about the spread of the Gospel.

Again, I do think at this point we had a little cross-communication, wherein I misunderstood your first question and you misunderstood my response since it wasn’t referring specifically to what you had asked originally. I would maintain, as I mentioned in my first response, that it is still a mistake to think of this temporally. Knowledge and faith can both occur simultaneously, though they can also occur distinct from one another. But the passages regarding the New Covenant are not speaking so much of how one gets into the covenant as they are speaking of what happens to those already in that covenant. These passages do more to assure us that A) salvation in the New Covenant cannot be lost, for God is the proactive party rather than man; and B) sanctification must follow after justification, for God is proactive in teaching and shaping His people.

Dan said:

But the idea that people could have dead faith seems to favor an Arminian viewpoint on the passage. Unless I miss my guess, the Calvinist viewpoint depends on God’s teaching as being effectual. If some that He teaches don’t come to Christ, then the Calvinist viewpoint fails.

Again, this is probably indicative of the misunderstanding of your first question and my first response. If we are speaking of teaching in general terms, then it is quite consistent within Calvinism to argue that those who are Elect will be effectively taught while those who are reprobate will be hardened by that teaching. The teaching then serves two purposes: to bring the believer closer to God and to heap judgment upon the non-believer. This second kind is seen in the atheists who know facts about Christ yet disbelieve, etc.

However, this is not the same kind of teaching being referred to by Isaiah & Jeremiah, wherein those who are already the people of God are taught by God. In that case, they are those who, as God spoke through Jeremiah: “shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Jer. 32:38). They are those whom God says: “I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me” (Jer. 32:39-40). This is all stated just 18 verses before the portion you referenced in Jer. 33, too.

This same thought is expressed in Isaiah, since before he talks of the children being taught by God, he states: “‘For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,’ says the LORD, who has compassion on you” (Is. 54:10). Again, those who are taught are those who are already in the covenant. As such, these passages are not referring to how one gets into the covenant, but instead are the promises given to those in the covenant.

How Yahweh wooed Israel out of Egypt

“The typical Arminian analogy for ‘wooing’ is that of a suitor for a prospective spouse. He ‘woos’ her with dates, flowers, promises, etc.”

This is a correct definition. However, that doesn’t change the fact that God wooed Israel out of Egypt.

The problem is that Bro. Bridges, as a Baptist son of Belial, is dependent on his heretical canon of the Bible, which he inherited from the Rothschids.

But according to the Deuterocanonicals, God delivered Israel from Egypt by wooing her with a box of chocolates. There are, admittedly, some textual variants in Holy Tradition.

The Philoxenian version of 2 Exodus 6:6 says, “Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched box of Godiva double chocolate raspberry truffles, and with great condiments.”

But there is also a 13C Provençal uncial which reads, “French vanilla truffles,” in place of, “double chocolate raspberry truffles.”

Conversely, the Sogdian version says, “Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched box of Ghirardelli milk chocolate squares with caramelized almonds, and with great condiments.”

ThiBENdaux

AP guys have effectively said that they cannot answer my argument about the prophets, so they left that one alone. They said that you cannot interpret language logically, and so need not deal with the logic of my argument. They repeated their misunderstanding of determinism, saying that there can be no means if God determins everything, and saying that we are nothing but robots. I have shown that some things that were determined had means, and I have also given a logical argument which they chose not to challenge the truth of the premises. I also am not impressed by Arminian straw men regarding determinism. But if they want to play the part of the ignorant fool, I won't stop them. Since I can recognize when someone doesn't have anything else to say, but just has to say something, and this is one of those cases, I can conclude that they have been overwhelmed and have no rational rebuttal to my arguments. Either they can actually deal with my arguments in detail, or they can post just to post. But, until my arguments are dealt with I won't waste my time responding. If they don't want to respond to my arguments, but want to say they put up something in order to cater to their fans, then I'll graciously allow them to bow out of the debate.

Wesley's junkyard dog

“No, it's a simple expression that God did not desire or decree such an action, as I've stated before.”

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

That’s no alternative to the anthropomorphic interpretation. Rather, J.C. is attempting to translate an anthropomorphic expression (“It never entered my mind”) into a literal counterpart.

“Additionally, Hays' defense effectively treats anthropomorphisms as some vague, foggy area that is mitigated into nothingness,”

Really? I defined it as “the application of a distinctly human idiom to God.” How is that a “vague, foggy area” which is “mitigated into nothingness?

The only fog is J.C’s foggy grasp of what constitutes anthropomorphic discourse.

“What he misses is that 'anthropomorphisms are still expressing a comparable idea”

A comparable idea to “it never entered my mind” would be “I didn’t see it coming.” So, if J.C. denies the anthropomorphic interpretation, then he’s stuck with the way in which open theism construes a passage like this, amounting to a denial of divine foreknowledge.

[I said] To the contrary, Isaiah's claim moves from the general to the specific. The dependence of foreknowledge on foreordination in this instance is just a special case of a universal principle. Read Oswalt's exegesis for the supporting argument.

[He said] “Thanks, I've read the book itself. It supports no such claim.”

It would be more prudent of J.C. not to make such easily falsifiable claims. This is what Oswalt says:

“There follow in these two verses [Isa 46:10-11] a series of three participles that both substantiate the claim to uniqueness and, at the same time, flow from that claim…Here the three participles make a direct link between predictive prophecy (declaring the outcome at the start) and divine intervention in history (calling from the east a bird of prayer)…As several commentators (e.g., Young) have noted, the three participles move from general to particular to specific. In the first instance, God tells in general what will happen in the future. He can do so because the future is fully shaped by his own plans and wishes. This is the same point that was made in ch. 14 concerning Assyria 9vv24-27). Assyria’s plans for Judah were really of little import. It is the Lord’s plans for Assyria to which that great nation should have paid attention (see also 22:11; 37:26)…The repetition [46:11] serves to emphasize the unshakable connection between promise and the performance, between divine talk and divine action…This parallelism underlines again that the reason God can tell what is going to happen is that what happens is only an outworking of his eternal purposes,” J. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 40-66 (Eerdmans 1998), 236-37.

Continuing with J.C.:

“The 'difficulties' he presented don't really carry any weight, as the divine has already entered the temporal in the person of Christ. Christ existed in time with a divine nature, and therefore, it isn't a problem even from a divine perspective to say that He ‘often’ longed to gather the people of Jerusalem.”

i) It’s obvious that J.C. is ignorant of classic Christian formulations of the Incarnation. For example, “The statement, ‘the Word was made flesh,’ does not indicate any change in the Word, but only in the nature newly assumed into the oneness of the divine person. ‘And the word was made flesh’ through a union to flesh. Now a union is a relation. And relations newly said of God with respect to creatures do not imply a change on the side of God, but on the side of the creature relating in a new way to God,” T. Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Part I (Magi Books 1980), 86-87.

For a more detailed exposition of a classic, eternalist model of the Incarnation, cf. G. Ganssle, ed. God & Time (IVP 2001), 52ff.

ii) J.C’s explanation would also leave God ignorant of time prior to the Incarnation. So he fails to salvage divine foreknowledge.

iii) And even if God knew time via the Incarnation, human beings experience time as present, not future—so tapping into the human experience of time would not suffice for foreknowledge.

“Atemporal constraints on knowledge?”

Yes, as I already explained, an atemporal agent cannot experience time. In Calvinism, though, a timeless God can know time by knowing his plan for the history of the world. But an Arminian has denied himself that option.

“Nor does one have to agree with their analysis.”

He’s free to disagree with Witherington and Fitzmyer if he chooses, yet he mischaracterized the definition of proegno (“to choose beforehand”) as a Calvinistic definition. But it’s not a distinctively Calvinistic definition.

“Proginisko/Prognosis also mean simply to have knowledge beforehand, the strongest argument for which I think comes from 1 Peter 1:2, which employs the noun form Prognosis, and would not likely carry that particular connotation of a Hebrew verb.”

That simply begs the question in favor of the Arminian definition. But one doesn’t have to be a Calvinist to see that Peter is using the word in a predestinarian sense. Cf. L. Goppelt, A Commentary on I Peter (Eerdmans 1993), 72-73.

“They can be, if one is drawn with cords of love (they being a metaphor, as Steve has so kindly pointed out).”

J.C continues to do violence to the imagery. Ropes and cords are not a metaphor for “wooing.” Adding “love” doesn’t make it a metaphor for “wooing.”

Rather, it’s the imagery of an animal trainer. He may be a loving animal trainer. He may be kind to his animals. But he isn’t “wooing” them. Ropes and cords are images of constraint. A way of *making* an animal go where you want it to go—for it’s own good.

“Incorrect, God did woo His people, and they obeyed His voice, and were thus delivered from bondage by Him. Indeed when the good news of God freeing them was proclaimed, ‘And the people believed: and when they heard that the LORD had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped’ (Exodus 4:31).”

That verse doesn’t contain the notion of “wooing.”

“God's drawing Israel with His love is not mutually exclusive with His bringing them out of Egypt by His power or afflicting the Egyptians.”

“Drawing” and “wooing” are not synonymous concepts.

“Hays makes a big deal out of me not answering every one of his arguments.”

To the contrary, it’s fine with me if he issues a challenge; I (and others) rise to the challenge; then he can’t measure up to his own challenge.

“For starters, a lot of his 'points' don't really solidify his case, and I won't waste time shooting down all of them when one will suffice.”

He *says* it, but he doesn’t’ *show* it.

“When Hays cited Welty, I linked to my articles for general responses…My articles on foreknowledge deal with the most common objections to the idea of foreknowledge in relation to election being defined as prescience, including the foreordination/forelove interpretations as well as the appeal to Granville-Sharp's rule in Acts 2:23…I never said ALL of my articles were relevant to what exactly what Welty wrote (Since not all of them are -- does Hays think my counter-cult arguments are supposed to be tailored to answering arguments from Welty too?).”

J.C. is the one who, instead of rebutting Welty’s material, referred the reader to his preexisting articles—as if these would suffice to rebut Welty’s material. Either they do or they don’t. By now admitting that they don’t suffice to rebut Welty, J.C’s original reference was an exercise in misdirection.

When I actually take him up on the offer and went through his fallacious articles, subjecting them to rational scrutiny, he then plays the role of the injured party.

“We are playing by different rules entirely, and the rules I live by are incompatible with theirs.”

That’s true. J.C. and Kangaroodort have one set of rules for themselves, and another set of rules for their opponents. They don’t like it when we hold them to their own words.

If I were in their position, I wouldn’t like it either—but since they dealt themselves a losing hand, they’re stuck with the outcome.

Resources For Easter

Here's a thread from last year that lists some.

Orthodux PSA

Lvka wrote:

Gene, two questions:

-- have You watched Fight Club one too many times?

-- who taught You this ungraceful habbit of closing comments on posts that attack people? Haven't You heard of the right to a reply? (Well, ... this AND deleting people's comments).

1. No, I'm not one for movies at all. I rarely watch them. I'm familiar with the movie, but I've not watched it.

Perhaps you would do well yourself to lay off the pop culture references given the shoddy level of argumentation for your apologetics positions of late. Seems to me a little less time ordering from Netflix and more time reading the relevant material might help. What, pray tell, new material have you contributed to the discussions between "Jimmy," Steve, Jason, and myself?

2. I'm sorry, but where do I find "Lvka" listed as one of the contributors to this blog? Try as I might I can't find it. Perhaps you can direct me to that place.

3. You don't make the rules here. We do.

4. You wrote:

Haven't You heard of the right to a reply?

Beg pardon? Nobody here has a *right* to comment. That's a privilege we can give and take at our discretion. You think you can give yourself that right? I think not. You're screen name is "Lvka" not "Jesus, Miracle Worker From Galilee."

Just to remind you of the rules here which are clearly posted under "Rules of Engagement":

You are here as a houseguest. Behave like one or find yourself back on the curb!

5. I've not made a personal attack that has not been warranted. Orthodox has shown himself to be dishonest many times here and on other blogs. Defying your ban is dishonest by definition. Pretending you are someone else in order to defy your ban is doubly dishonest. Further,he constantly and consistently misrepresents our own argumentation,not to mention the material from which he quotes. He's been corrected on his misrepresentation of our rule of faith alone on at least 3 blogs I read.

Again, from the rules;

By the same token, we reserve the right to use harsh, judgmental language where appropriate. Invective is context-dependent. The Bible employs harsh, judgmental language for apostates, false teachers, and other enemies of the faith. The Bible is full of taunt-songs.

Remember that, in Scripture, most false teachers are professing believers. So merely calling yourself a Christian doesn’t immunize you from judgmental language where appropriate. It is our Christian duty to analogize from Biblical cases to contemporary cases.

So, if you think a "personal attack" was unwarranted, you'll need to do more than assert it in order to convince me. I'm not the one, as in Jay Dyer's case, who used anti-Semitism as an apologetic defense. I'm not running about defying a ban on a blog by posting pseudonymously, to cite only one of "Orthodox's" many transgressions.

If you don't like the rules that are posted - don't come here. It's really that simple.

Incidentally, I, for one, don't understand why all the whining goes on in the comboxes here, and this isn't just applicable to you. Look, folks, the rules are clearly posted. Steve has explained himself, and I second his explanation. You all know all this already, so the fact of the matter is that, by coming here, you accept those explanations and rules. You can't very well voice your disagreement all the while claiming you have certain "rights" on this blog. That's why we have rules posted. Don't like the rules? Don't post. Don't like the way you're treated when you deal in bad faith? Don't come here. Don't like the "tone?" Don't issue challenges. Call us "hypocrites?" How is it "hypocrisy" to follow our own rules? Finally, we can, do, and have had rational, calm discussions with many people in our comboxes - it's only when they prove themselves impervious to correction or worse yet abusers of those comboxes that we call them out.

Further, sometimes it's because we have to put out little fires all over the place due to this incessant whinging that we can't get to other comments. Sometimes others can do it for us, thankfully - for example, there's a dozen or so long stream in a thread on John 6 that I can't get to right now because of tracking down Orthodox's history, not to mention my commitments in the real world - and as a rule I don't usually pursue comboxes after they drop from the front page. I might get to it by the weekend - maybe. One wonders sometimes if some of what goes on here is part of an effort to keep us from responding.

6. The only time I have ever deleted comments on this blog is:

a. When a banned person defies their ban.

b. When a person double posts the same material, usually when they delete their own comment and then repost. The system leaves a note, and I erase the footprint, not the comment.

c. When Orthodox himself was told that his continued defiance of his ban would be a default admission that his past arguments were worthless and not worth the bandwidth to retain. He continued, we deleted his comments from the archives, only retaining what we had quoted in our own replies. Thus, whenever I see his name, his posts get deleted. That's why he likes to post under other names.

d. Excepting the above,the reason I don't delete comments is this: I've been doing internet apologetics for nearly a decade now. I long ago learned that deletion of comments leads to the accusation that you delete folks' arguments that you don't like or with which you can't deal. I'm well aware of the duplicity involved in saying, "Well, you can delete comments." If I did that, people would then say "He did it because..."

e. Another reason I don't delete is because I am a firm believer that there's a certain amount of damage only the opposition can do to itself. I'm quite willing to give my opponents freedom if I know it will expose them.

f. The only other time I would consider deleting comments would be if I had an Anti-Evangelist show up in a discussion. For example, this would happen if David Waltz showed up here in a discussion on Islam, as he recently did over @ Beggars All, in an effort to try to score points for Catholicism at the expense of Protestantism during an evangelistic encounter with an infidel - not because of the conflict between Rome and Geneva, but because that directly imperils the soul of the Muslim. In short, it would be (a) a demonstration that for all their bluster about us being "separated brothers" our Catholic friends are committed to ecclesiolatry, not faith in Christ alone, and (b) that therefore imperils the soul of an unbeliever. I don't have time for that. That's no different than rising up during a sermon in a church and contradicting the teaching. If I can attend Mass at the Vatican while it's been presided over by the Pope (and I have, in fact done so) and be silent, so can Mr. Waltz when I'm trying to evangelize an infidel.

7. The reason that the post to which you are referring has no combox open is because Orthodox has been banned. He doesn't get the *right* to reply. It's also a means to keep you out, as I've come to regard you as little more than a second rate troll who does little more that repeat himself. You long ago ran out of steam here.

8. The fact that you defend the dishonest says a great deal. It speaks to your low standards. You and your Orthodox compatriots reject what "Christ rejecting Jews" say, but you defend each other even when that party is dishonest. You'll even cite Origen, accounted a heretic, in your defense. Apparently, your ethical standards are quite elastic.

9. Finally, I wouldn't suggest you pursue this line of engagement further. Again, from the rules:

Triablogue reserves the right to make exceptions or change its rules on the fly, without advance notice, although we will make every effort to be as arbitrary, inscrutable, and flagrantly unfair as is humanly possible.

This is not the Talmud. We’re not going to lay down case law for every conceivable situation.

This is not the court of appeals. We’re not going to explain ourselves beyond the above.

This is how it works: you get to exercise your discretion, then we get to exercise our discretion.

10. So, I really could care less about your perceived "right" to comment here, simply because it's nonexistent. I've told you before that if you don't like a post - ignore it. If you don't like the content of this blog, nobody is forcing you to read it. So, there's the door, don't let it hit you on the way out.

Oh, and one more thing, the combox here is closed too. Why? As they say, "This one's for you, kid."

Moving on...

Jason has already noticed some similarities between Jimmy and Orthodox...

I've done some quick examination of the archives, where we've quoted Orthodox, our long since banned yet dishonest Orthodox E-pologist visitor who keeps turning up under new names. There are some striking similarities.

1. On his own blog, he has an article in which he summarizes things he's learned from McDonald. It's about a month old. Take a careful look at orthodox-thoughts.blogspot.com. You'll find in that article some of the same things "Jimmy" has stated here in recent history. It's worth noting how familar "Jimmy" is with McDonald. One might think he'd just recently read the book...

2. Jimmy, like Orthodox, has answered our questions with questions to change the subject; for example, changing the subject from Josephus' use of Esther to his use of the 'deuteros.'

3. Speaking of which, "deuteros" is one of Orthodox's favorite terms of the DC's.

4. And "Bzzt," which Jimmy has used here is another favorite reply; as are the words, "assuming (here) what you need to prove," and "leading of the Holy Spirit," and references to "the true people of God."

5. Orthodox never was one of the brightest candles in the sanctuary. It's very, very likely, in my opinion, that Jimmy is Orthodox. I would suggest (a)if he is Orthodox he just come right out and say so; (b) regardless of whether or not he is, he be given a deadline to improve his argumentation or else be banned like Orthodox. That said, I have kept an eye on Orthodox in comboxes elsewhere, and he has begun to show some improvement with respect to his skills at argumentation, if not the content thereof. That is to be commended.

That said, Jimmy and Orthodox may not be one and the same. However, I think there's good reason to think that the correspondence between them is very like that between Robert and Henry, if you get my drift.

And the worst thing is this: If Jimmy the Orthodox is one and the same person, he would do well to just admit it. That might go some distance in getting his ban lifted. It was his failure to deal in good faith that earned him a ban, and it is is perpetual lack of integrity that keeps him banned. Instead, he persists, and because he persists he only digs himself a deeper hole.

The Pied Piperette

PIPERETTE SAID:

“I don't see how Witherington is committing the NTS fallacy. He is responding to someone who is giving a real life example of another person, and rightfully so, he states that it is nearly impossible to say anything about the person's salvation.”

No, he seems to be saying more than that. If a putative apostate returns to the faith, then either he was never truly saved in the first place or else he was never truly an apostate.

That’s a much stronger stance than merely claiming that it’s “nearly impossible to say anything about the person's salvation.”

To the contrary, he appears to be claiming that it is possible to say something quite definite about a person’s salvation; namely:

i) That a true apostate has lost his salvation in the irremedial sense that he can never regain it;

ii) That someone who returns to the faith after leaving the faith never had a salvation to lose.

So Witherington is drawing some lines in the sand. That’s quite different from taking an agnostic position about someone’s state of grace.

Now, perhaps you take him to mean that when he says these are “possible” explanations, he is using that as a disclaimer to indicate that he’s noncommittal on these explanations as the best available explanations.

However, I think the more likely interpretation is this: he is claiming that these two explanations are the only two possible. He’s just not sure which of these two explanations is correct in the case of someone who left the faith and later came back.

He is ruling out other explanations. These are “possible” because other explanations are impossible, given his theological framework.

I think that’s clearly in view when he talks about apostasy as a “soul destroying act.” That’s a very firm statement. So he seems to have very definite views about what is possible or impossible in this situation. The only ambiguity is regarding the which of the two explanations is the best explanation in any given case.

He may not know how they apply at a concrete level, but at an abstract level these two explanations delimit the boundaries of an acceptable explanation. One or the other.

“His response then is keeping to the exegetical basis that he holds to (you can disagree with him if you want on that) in Heb 6 and listing out the possibilities that are applicable to this real life friend that Aleksandra has… I dont see how this is a problem. His theological precommitments are based on his interpretation of Heb 6. An application of one's scriptural/theological understanding to a hypothetical model (which in this case is extended to a friend that is briefly described by "Aleksandra") would be what everyone should be doing...Catholic, Jew, Jehovah Witness, Reformed, Arminian. Agree or disagree with Arminianism, I dont see the problem here.”

i) I’m not sure what you mean by a “hypothetical model.” This is not just a thought-experiment like the proverbial brain-in-the-vat. This is something that actually happens on a fairly regular basis. A man (or woman) is raised in the faith. At some point turns his back on the faith. At a later date, returns to the faith.

ii) More to the point, how do you think your statement avoids the charge of the NTS fallacy? Yes, his answer is conditioned by his theological precommitments. Even if you think they *derive* from his interpretation, rather than *drive* his interpretation, that’s irrelevant to the NTS fallacy.

I take it that Flew’s fallacy is a throwback to the verification principle. Remember his famous parable of the invisible gardener?

“But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?…A fine brash hypothesis may thus be killed by inches, the death by a thousand qualifications…What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or of the existence, of God?”

I view the NTS fallacy as a variant on the verification principle. What real world evidence would ever count against Witherington’s Arminian interpretation?

How don’t see how Witherington’s explanation escapes that charge. The only way to disprove the fallacy is not to deny that it is valid, but to deny that it is sound. To challenge the criterion of falsifiability.

But if an Arminian does so, then so can a Calvinist.

iii)” He is not creating an exception with a different piece of scripture.”

Where did I say he was? Or are you claiming that the Calvinist is creating such an exception?

“It is a different thing to say that one's theology is dictating another piece of scripture somewhere else. If you want to show that, then the parallel would work, but you'd have to find another citation where the same special pleading is found.”

Same issue as above. How do my comments on Witherington depend on my having to find another citation where the same special pleading is present? How does the NTS fallacy hinge on that condition?

“Yeah, but my point was that the parallel doesn't really work.”

Why not? What have you said about Witherington that a Calvinist couldn’t say for himself?