Friday, April 03, 2009

To link or not to link

Over the past few months I’ve noticed a new and growing phenomenon. Bloggers are leaving links at Tblog to drum up business for their own blog. Since this is a fairly recent development, I need to revise the policy on links. Basically, links take three different forms:

1.There are fellow Reformed bloggers who leave a link to drum up business for their own blog.

Fine. We’re happy to direct our readers to your blog. Feel free to hitch a ride. After all, we’re on the same team.

2.There are some hostile bloggers who leave a link in specific response to something we posted. As a rule, that’s fine. That’s part of the debate.

3.Then there are some hostile bloggers who leave a link to simply drum up business for their own blog. This is not in specific response to something we posted. It’s just a commercial.

That is not permissible. T’blog is not a billboard to give you free advertising space for a blog with a vision fundamentally at odds with our own. Such links will be summarily deleted.

5 comments:

  1. Arminian Perspectives has made a post on Free Will in Scripture:

    http://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/the-reality-of-choice-and-the-testimony-of-scripture/

    It seems to be the same stuff you've been over with Dan: proof by definition.

    I don't know if it's worth your time to respond to, but I thought that I'd make you aware of it. If you don't respond to the whole thing, could you respond to their argument from 1 Corinthians 10:13?

    BTW: Arminian Chronicles is doing #3 in your main post above:

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/04/relics.html#comments

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  2. S&S,

    Since I can't stand Kangaroodort's lack of critical thinking, I'm not going to interact with anything he's said. Instead, I'll give you my own exegesis of 1 Corinthians 10:13. (Side note: I'm fairly confident I know exactly what his "argument" is without having to actually read it, given the fact that Arminians are so shallow when it comes to exegesis.)

    In the ESV, the passage reads:
    ---
    No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
    ---

    But of course the first rule of exegesis is to never read a Bible verse. Instead, look at the entire chapter. What is the context of the passage?

    Well, Paul is dealing with people who are struggling with sin. He begins with a history lesson, detailing how many Israelites were provided for throughout the wilderness following Moses. "Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased" (vs 5a). Evidence is that God overthrew them in the wilderness (vs 5b).

    These people serve as examples to us (vs 6). Furthermore, "they were written down for our instruction" (vs. 11).

    After that, Paul points out that we should take heed lest we fall. Indeed, the warning from verse 12 fits immediately with the first part of verse 13. We get:

    "Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man."

    In other words, Paul's point here is that every single temptation that occurred in ancient Israel, that cause the deaths of 23,000 in a single day (vs. 8), that caused the overthrow of the people in the wilderness--all of these things are exactly those things that are "common to man." This warning is that those who fell in the past were not tempted any stronger than any temptation we face today.

    So what is the difference between the non-believer and the believer when it comes to temptation? If the temptations are the same, and so many fell before, then how can any have hope? Well, that's where the second part of the verse comes into play:

    "God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it."

    God provides an escape from temptation. But the question is "for whom"? The answer is supplied in the verse: "he will not let YOU be tempted beyond YOUR ability." And who are the "you"?

    The Christians Paul is writing to in Corinth.

    In other words, we see from the passage that there is a difference between the unbeliever, whom God has NOT promised an escape from temptation, and the believe, whom God HAS promised an escape from temptation.

    This is echoed in 2 Peter 2 as well. Indeed, the chapter follows the same structure Paul uses, where Peter goes through Israel history and shows how God punished the angels who fell, the world in the flood (but spared Noah), destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah (but spared Lot)--"making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly" (2 Peter 2:6)--leading to the conclusion: "then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials*, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment" (2 Peter 2:9).

    * BTW, the word "trials" above is footnoted: "Or temptations". The Greek word is peirasmou, which just happens to be the same root word as in the "temptations" of 1 Corinthians 10:13.

    So, to sum up, 1 Corinthians is telling Christians that we are not bound to sin anymore. It says nothing about unbelievers, who are still dead in their sins and trespasses, as Paul states in several other places. This passage doesn't deal at all with free will, except insofar as Christians are free and non-Christians are not. This won't help Arminians at all, because the Arminian needs the unbeliever to be free, not the believer.

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  3. Peter,

    I think he was using it to argue that God has not predetermined our actions.

    I think that his problem is that he is presupposing incompatibilism a priori and then reading that into the verse. In other words, he is assuming that if one has a choice between two options, then one must have the metaphysical ability to instantiate either choice.

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  4. S&S said:
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    I think he was using it to argue that God has not predetermined our actions.
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    Which only shows he doesn't understand compatibilism. But everyone who's dealt with him before already knows that :-)

    You said:
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    In other words, he is assuming that if one has a choice between two options, then one must have the metaphysical ability to instantiate either choice.
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    Exactly. And we've dealt with that objection many times here on the T-Blog.

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  5. Peter,

    Thanks for the response.

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