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Tuesday, August 03, 2010

"It never occurred to me"

Josh Thibodaux has written a third post, to shore up the wet cardboard playhouse of his second post, which was meant to shore up the wet cardboard playhouse of his first post.

Since he’s generally targeting suspects other than yours truly, I’ll leave that to them. For now I’ll just concentrate on one of his generic claims:

Further problems arise when God Himself refutes such a notion through the prophet Jeremiah [32:35]…God made it very clear that He not only didn’t command such a thing, but distances Himself from the concept entirely in stating it didn’t enter into His mind that they should do this abominable act – a plain denial that it was His contrivance at all.The Calvinist responses I’ve heard given this would be funny if they weren’t so desperately bad. They often try to set up a straw man “literal interpretation” of “nor did it enter my mind” meaning “I didn’t know they were going to do it”, then insist that taking the passage ‘literally’ amounts to Open Theism, so therefore one should accept their view that the passage is some sort of anthropomorphism.

How is it a straw man to point out that if something literally never entered God’s mind, then God didn’t know they were going to do it? What else could a literal construction of “It never entered my mind” amount to?

Literally speaking, that exclamation indicates the speaker was caught off guard. He didn’t see it coming. He was blindsided by the event.

Thibo can reject the propriety of the literal interpretation, but that’s what the literal interpretation conveys.

Besides there being apparently nothing conveyed by this supposed ‘anthropomorphism,’ contextually speaking…

If Yahweh attributes ignorance to himself, then unless you’re a Mormon or open theist, that’s a contextual clue of anthropomorphic discourse.

…the concept of “didn’t enter my mind” is most readily interpreted idiomatically as “I didn’t think this up”, not, “I didn’t see that coming.” This being the case, the choice of ‘Open Theism or Determinsim’ is a false dichotomy.

Of course, that's only Thibo’s convenient assertion. While the phrase is idiomatic, it doesn’t follow that it’s “more readily interpreted” to mean, “I didn’t think this up.”

Why not take it to be a hyperbolic expression of disapprobation?

29 comments:

  1. Ironically, I've been doing a bit of study myself on this very passage of late. It seems to me that in the clause used by Thibodaux as "it never occurred to me", the "it" clearly refers to the command. Which is to say, the passage goes "which I never commanded, nor did it [i.e., issuing such a command] even occur to me."

    Some grammatical evidence for this reading would be the fact that "It never occurred to me" is literally translated as "and-not she-came-up on heart-of-me." The "she" portion of that is because of the genders of the words, and the Hebrew "tsuithim" (command, instruct) is likewise feminine (coming from "tsavah"). Finally, since the clause seems to be a dependent clause, that would indicate that what the clause is referring to came before the clause itself, so as to avoid confusion.

    So it appears to me that it is quite clear that what never entered God's mind was to command the sacrifice of children. Incidentally, this is how the CEV translates the relevant portion of that passage: "I have never even thought of telling them to commit such disgusting sins."

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  2. Peter, that makes a lot of sense. That's how I've understood the passage (and I think that's more or less what Calvin says on it, as well).

    I'd like to see one of the Triabloggers do some exegetical work on that 1 John text J.C. loves to quote so much.

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  3. Steven,

    Here's Calvin's commentary on this section:
    ---
    This doctrine, however, ought to be especially noticed, that is, that there is no need of a long refutation when we undertake to expose fictitious modes of worship, which men devise for themselves according to their own notions, because, after all that they can say, God in one word gives this answer, that whatever he has not commanded in his Law, is vain and mischievous. He then says, that he had not commanded this, and that it had never entered into his mind.

    God in the last clause transfers to himself what applies only to men; for it cannot be said with strict propriety of God, that this or that had not come to his mind. But here he rebukes the presumption of men, who dare to introduce this or that, and think that an acceptable worship of God which they themselves have presumptuously devised; for they seek thus to exalt their own wisdom above that of God himself. And we even find at this day that the Papists, when we shew that nothing has proceeded from the mouth of God of all the mass of observances in which they make religion to consist, do always allege that they do not without reason observe what has been commanded by the fathers, as though some things had come into the minds of men which had escaped God himself! We then see that God in this place exposes to ridicule the madness of those, who, relying on their own inventive wits, devise for themselves various kinds of worship; for they seek, as we have said, to be wiser than God himself. We now, then, perceive the force of the expression, when God says that it never came to his mind, because men boast that it had not been contrived without reason, and glory in their own acuteness, as though they were able to appoint a better thing than God himself.
    ---

    Incidentally, which passage are you referring to in 1 John? I don't follow Thibodaux much since I've generally found him to be more interested in declaring than interacting, so I only know what he writes when Steve is dismantling it :-)

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  4. I don't think the criticism is as strong as you think it is. If the rebuked were doing something that God (supposedly exhaustively deterministic) never commanded nor even ever thought of commanding, it still remains that they were doing something that never came into God's heart to command and which he thoroughly repudiated. You still have the problem of explaining how God decreed a sinful act so abhorent to himself that he never entered his heart to command it. At best you have a pyrrhic victory, for you make God schizophrenic in order to avoid freewill.

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  5. God decreed a sinful act so abhorent to himself that he never entered his heart to command it. At best you have a pyrrhic victory, for you make God schizophrenic in order to avoid freewill.

    Um, God decreed the death of Christ, the most sinful act in the history of sinful acts.

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  6. So it was sinful to kill the sinbearer. I suppose that's one way of looking at it.

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  7. SLW,

    Well, Paul's already provided a great example. But I would like to point out that I don't view this passage as even remotely relevant to the issue of freewill in the first place, so it's hard for me to see that I need to interpret it any way "to avoid freewill." In fact, it is you who are trying to make this verse support freewill when that is not what the verse is about.

    If you want the literal word-for-word interlinear translation of the passage, you get:

    ---

    "and·they-are-building high-places-of the·Baal which in·Ravine-of-Ben-Hinnom to·to-have-pass-of sons-of·them and daughters-of·them for·the·Moloch which not
    I-instructed·them and·not she-came-up on heart-of·me to·to-do-of the·abhorrence the·this so-that to-cause-to-sin-of Judah"
    ---

    Now that's confusing in English no matter how you look at it. The simple fact is that this sort of sentence (and really, this is actually still only *PART* of the Hebrew sentence) would not be permissible using the rules of English. So when it's translated into English one is forced to either paraphrase a lot, or else to have unwieldy English sentences.

    But for what we're looking at specifically, there is only one question, and that is what the clause "and·not she-came-up on heart-of·me" refers to. Again, the "she" is translated as "it" in English since we don't have genders for our verbs. But we have to answer that particular question. What is it that did not arise in God's heart? What is it that God did not want?

    Since this is a dependent clause, again the most logical referent is to what immediately precedes this clause, which is the verb "I did not command them." Of course, it doesn't mean it *MUST* be that verb the clause is referring to, but since that verb is the immediate context, to argue otherwise requires an actual argument instead of just a statement that it's possible to be otherwise.

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  8. I don't think it makes God schizophrenic. The emotional life of God is infinitely complex and cannot be grasped by our finite and limited minds.

    Example:


    When He permitted the suffering and sinful murder of His Son He was grieved. God doesn't take delight in the suffering of the innocent or evil actions of responsible men. He's not sadistic. But in another sense He was pleased because He can see all of reality and the good He was going to bring out of it. Namley, the saving of His people throughout the entire world.

    God's intentions in permitting it were good and He had morally sufficient reasons for doing so. Man's intentions in commiting the act were evil. And God held them responsible for their evil deed.

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  9. SLW said:

    So it was sinful to kill the sinbearer. I suppose that's one way of looking at it.

    8/03/2010 3:29 PM

    Is this supposed to be sarcastic, or an admission that God decreed a sinful act and thus did away with your argument?

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  10. SLW SAID:

    "...it still remains that they were doing something that never came into God's heart to command and which he thoroughly repudiated. You still have the problem of explaining how God decreed a sinful act so abhorrent to himself that he never entered his heart to command it."

    And Arminians still have the problem of explaining why their God knowingly made a world with that abhorrent consequence when it lay within his power to prevent it. What is more, the Arminian God empowers sinners to commit that abhorrent sin by his providential concurrence. So the Arminian God is a necessary accomplice in their abhorrent sin. He collaborates in the sin he repudiates.

    “At best you have a pyrrhic victory, for you make God schizophrenic in order to avoid freewill.”

    At best the freewill defense is a pyrrhic victory, for the Arminian God schizophrenically longs for the salvation of everyone even though he knowingly creates many people whom he will consign to hell; he schizophrenically loves everyone even though he knowingly saves many people who will lose their salvation, thereby leaving them worse off than if he never saved them in the first place.

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  11. "At best the freewill defense is a pyrrhic victory, for the Arminian God schizophrenically longs for the salvation of everyone even though he knowingly creates many people whom he will consign to hell;"

    This is always where the debate winds up. The arminians will attack the calvinist God with the same arguments that would undermine their own concept of God, and in the same way arminians defend the arminian God, they summarily exhonerate the calvinist God.

    That's so often the way the debate goes that it's almost a law of nature. As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, the arminian will repeat the same faulty attack pattern to indirectly argue against their own soteriology.

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  12. Sorry to keep you fellows waiting so long for a response. I had other things that had to be done.

    Paul,
    It was sarcastic. I thought it fit the um.


    Peter,
    You are correct, you didn't associate the passage with the issue of freewill. A number of Arminians applied these passages out of Jeremiah to that subject in the original discussion on JC's blog, it seems now so long ago. Sorry for any confusion or annoyance.

    This specific idiom is used more than once in Jeremiah (7:31, 19:5, and 32:35) in a very similar way as it is in this passage. I find the way it is put in 19:5 is very telling indeed, about the scope and intention of how it is used by Jeremiah. Suffice it to say, I do not find your approach necessitated. The context of the idiom's use not the command of God afterall, but the detestable practices of Judah. Therefore, I find no fault in JC or any of us Arminians using these texts as we have to demonstrate that things happen which God does not decree.

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  13. Steve H,
    And Arminians still have the problem of explaining why their God knowingly made a world with that abhorrent consequence when it lay within his power to prevent it. What is more, the Arminian God empowers sinners to commit that abhorrent sin by his providential concurrence. So the Arminian God is a necessary accomplice in their abhorrent sin. He collaborates in the sin he repudiates.
    It only lay in his power to prevent it if he didn't create free beings at all. You seem to prefer that God not concur with such debauchery but devise it instead?

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  14. SLW,

    Well, I find it very telling how weak the Arminian position is when you have to resort to a verse that is not talking about freewill and which doesn't even mention the decrees of God (the commands of God are not His decrees) to come to the conclusion: "Therefore, I find no fault in JC or any of us Arminians using these texts as we have to demonstrate that things happen which God does not decree."

    It's especially weak when you have the exact opposite stated many times in Scripture. Here's just two of them:
    ---
    (Daniel 4:35)
    "...all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, 'What have you done?'"

    (Isaiah 46:8-11)
    "Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,' calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it."
    ---

    Very telling indeed.

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  15. Peter,
    (the commands of God are not His decrees)
    I am not saying that they are. I've said the command is not the antecedant of the idiom, but the debauched behavior of Judah. Therefore, people do debauched things that God did not devise (or decree).

    The passages you quote speak of God's freedom of action, not exactly the subject of what we are talking about. I'm more than willing to acknowledge that God does what he wants. The Jeremiah passages referenced speak to mankind's freedom of action, that man can do things that God didn't so much as think to tell him to do.

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  16. SLW SAID:

    "It only lay in his power to prevent it if he didn't create free beings at all."

    If they were free to do otherwise, then why didn't God create the possible world in which they do otherwise?

    Are you suggesting that child sacrifice is inevitable? There is no possible world in which child sacrifice does not occur?

    "You seem to prefer that God not concur with such debauchery but devise it instead?"

    You seem to think that's a morally significant difference. Where's the argument?

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  17. SLW SAID:

    "It only lay in his power to prevent it if he didn't create free beings at all."

    That's a false dichotomy. It's trivially easy for the Arminian God to intervene to prevent some atrocity like child sacrifice.

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  18. Steve,
    "If they were free to do otherwise, then why didn't God create the possible world in which they do otherwise?"

    They are free to do as they will, but they are not God and will not will what he would in any possible world.

    "Are you suggesting that child sacrifice is inevitable? There is no possible world in which child sacrifice does not occur?"

    Given the freedom of man and his separation from God, I am suggesting that child sacrifice is inevitable in any possible world.

    "You seem to think that's a morally significant difference."

    God called man made in his image (will, freedom to act, etc.) good. Therefore, it is moral from God's perspective for mankind to act in freedom.
    On the other hand, it is immoral to freely act against the will of God.
    For a season, God balances both moral imperatives, through concurrence and death, not wishing that any should perish (eternally) but that all would come to repentance.

    I think that is a significant moral difference.

    "It's trivially easy for the Arminian God to intervene to prevent some atrocity like child sacrifice."

    Yes, but not so trivial to make mankind in his image (free).

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  19. SLW,

    So in any possible world, man's will is limited by his nature, which is inherently antithetical to God, right? Doesn't sound very free to me.

    In fact, that's the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity. I think you're a closet Calvinist, pretending to be an Arminian.

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  20. Sometimes, Jonah, I think the same thing. ;-)

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  21. SLW SAID:

    “They are free to do as they will, but they are not God and will not will what he would in any possible world.”

    Why would there ever be an insoluble conflict between God’s will and man’s? If a human agent is free to do otherwise, then there’s a possible world in which his will coincides with God’s will.

    If God wills A, and a human agent is free to do otherwise, then there’s a possible world in which the human agent wills A, and another possible world in which the human agent wills B.

    So your God isn’t confronted with a situation in which he wills one thing but the human agent wills the other. That’s not a libertarian dilemma.

    “Given the freedom of man and his separation from God, I am suggesting that child sacrifice is inevitable in any possible world.”

    By definition, something that happens in every possible world is necessary. So that makes you a necessitarian. Not only that, but you are thereby claiming that evil is metaphysically necessary. Strikes me as a rather counterproductive way to defend the freedom of future contingents.

    “God called man made in his image (will, freedom to act, etc.) good.”

    Where’s your exegesis to justify that interpretation of the imago Dei?

    “Therefore, it is moral from God's perspective for mankind to act in freedom.”

    Except that your God concurs in their immorality. So why is predestination objectionable, but concurrence is unobjectionable?

    “For a season, God balances both moral imperatives, through concurrence and death, not wishing that any should perish (eternally) but that all would come to repentance.”

    So why doesn’t God create a world in which all come to repentance? If human agents can go either way, then isn’t there a possible world in which they come to repentance.

    “I think that is a significant moral difference.”

    It’s a significant moral difference for your God to knowingly make a person whom he will send to hell. Hmm. How is that acting in the best interests of the damned? Doesn’t Scripture say it would be preferable for them had they never been born?

    “Yes, but not so trivial to make mankind in his image (free).”

    How is that responsive to what I wrote. The question at issue is child sacrifice. You and Thibo keep quoting that passage.

    Okay. In that transaction, there are at least three wills in play: God’s will, the child’s will, and the child-killer’s will.

    The child-killer wills to kill the child, but the child wills not to be killed. The child is the unwilling victim of the child-killer.

    Why does your God willingly concur with the will of the child-killer rather than the will of the child victim? Explain how that’s morally superior to Calvinism.

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  22. SLW said,

    "Paul,
    It was sarcastic. I thought it fit the um.


    The unfortunate part is that you don't think murder is a sin and you deny Acts 2 and 4, which claim that those who put Jesus to deaht are blameworthy.

    Moroever, it was decreed that Judas would betray Christ, and that was sinful (or will you be sarcastic again?).

    So, God decrees sin.

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  23. Steve and Paul,
    Wednesdays can be quite hectic for me, I am sorry to respond so late to you.

    Paul,
    "So, God decrees sin."

    God decreed the death of his Son. That priests, Jews, or Judas took part in that action through sinful acts is not the same as God decreeing their sin in decreeing the death of his Son; anymore than saying that Joseph's brothers' sin was decreed by God. Their sin was their own, God in foreknowledge and sovereignty caused it to work for the good.

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  24. Steve,
    Why would there ever be an insoluble conflict between God’s will and man’s? If a human agent is free to do otherwise, then there’s a possible world in which his will coincides with God’s will."

    The conflict is one of inability and inevitability at its core. God did not reproduce himself in making man, but made man in his image. The image cannot do as God would do. Somewhere down the line, the image will, will differently than God. Before man was corrupted by sin and subject to death, Adam and Eve willed in opposition to God and fell. IOW, the human agent is not free to be God.

    "you are thereby claiming that evil is metaphysically necessary."

    I may not have much cover from my Arminian friends in making such a claim. Nonetheless, I do believe evil is inevitable given the creation of free moral agents.

    "Where’s your exegesis to justify that interpretation of the imago Dei?"

    Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness
    Emphasized by repetion, the Bible says mankind was made by God to be in resemblance and likeness to him. Of all living things God created, mankind alone was described this way. Since God is not corporeal, and all the animals have flesh and blood, God's image and likeness has to be immaterial and should be seen in the difference between man and animals.

    God does as he wishes. Mankind does as he wishes too, as demonstrated in Adam's behavior in the Garden. Adam named the animals as he willed, and that was their name, though God did the naming otherwise. Adam did whatever he wanted, including breaking the one command God laid down for him.

    Jesus came as a man, but without sin. He was man in every respect (Heb 2:17), truly come in the flesh. Jesus, in his manhood, did as he wished (which was submitting to the Father).

    Therefore, man was made in the image of God which entailed (among other things) a will and the freedom to act upon it. God called that good (Genesis 1:31)

    "Except that your God concurs in their immorality. So why is predestination objectionable, but concurrence is unobjectionable?"
    Concurrence has God acting in accord with his moral judgment that mankind's freedom is good, determinism has God authoring sin.

    "So why doesn’t God create a world in which all come to repentance? If human agents can go either way, then isn’t there a possible world in which they come to repentance."
    Where is the freedom in that?

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  25. SLW said:
    ---
    I may not have much cover from my Arminian friends in making such a claim. Nonetheless, I do believe evil is inevitable given the creation of free moral agents.
    ---

    Wow. I'm not sure you understand the implications of such a view.

    A) This means that you must accept that God created these free creatures knowing full well it was *impossible* for them to do good, that it was *necessary* that they be evil.

    B) Either freedom must be abandoned in the afterlife, or you're stuck with the same problem: given a long enough time-line, all free agents must commit evil; the afterlife is eternal; therefore, evil *necessarily* must occur in the afterlife if we are free agents there.

    It seems to me that to avoid B) you must either jettison your argument or jettison freedom. But to jettison freedom means that, according to your other view (that freedom = being in the image of God) that in the afterlife we will no longer be creatures in the image of God.

    Frankly, I don't see how any of that is Biblical, nor even desirable on a philosophical front.

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  26. Peter,
    A) Yes, I do believe that. Creating free creatures, as he did Adam and Eve, it was a foregone conclusion that they would be sinful, or evil.

    B) Most evangelicals I know do abandon freedom in the afterlife, so that would not be anything new. They believe we will not be able to sin in the afterlife. I do not believe that we would not be able to sin in the afterlife, but that we will not.

    The level of transformation in the afterlife (see I Corinthians 13:12; 1 John 3:2) will have us so intimately related God, and so like Jesus, and so informed as to the vanity of independence, that will walk perfectly in the Spirit.

    Adam did not have this experience, he was in ignorance and had the Devil stirring things up, so he is not the model of what we will be like in eternity. Jesus is. Jesus was free, so will we be.

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  27. SLW said:
    ---
    The level of transformation in the afterlife (see I Corinthians 13:12; 1 John 3:2) will have us so intimately related God, and so like Jesus, and so informed as to the vanity of independence, that will walk perfectly in the Spirit.
    ---

    But surely you can see how this destroys the Free Will defense against the Problem of Evil, don't you?

    Look at it this way. The FW argument against the PoE is that God needed to have creatures with freedom in order for those creatures to have a genuine relationship with Him. The risk of freedom is that free agents can do evil. Therefore, God created agents with the potential to sin so that He could have a genuine relationship with those creatures.

    Yet you've said that a free creature will necessarily sin at some point, so already you take away the potential aspect of the FW defense. Hence, you're left with God creating creatures that He knows full well must of necessity sin, in order to have a relationship with these creatures.

    But now you're saying that in the afterlife we will still have freedom (at least, I get that's what you're saying when you say "I do not believe that we would not be able to sin in the afterlife, but that we will not"). And that means that freedom *DOES NOT* entail the necessity, or even potentiality, of sin existing. Thus, if you assume we will have a perfect afterlife with no sin, and you agree that is still us having a relationship with God, then the FW argument against PoE is completely refuted.

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  28. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  29. SLW SAID:

    “The conflict is one of inability and inevitability at its core.”

    You can’t simultaneously posit the freedom to do otherwise, then do an about-face by invoking inability and inevitability. For inability and the ability to do otherwise don’t mesh. Likewise, if the outcome could go either way, you can’t say it’s inevitable.

    “Before man was corrupted by sin and subject to death, Adam and Eve willed in opposition to God and fell. IOW, the human agent is not free to be God.”

    The fall is irrelevant. The fall has reference to the actual world, but libertarianism is committed to possible worlds. The actual world is where one choice is made to the exclusion of other possible choices. Therefore, the actual world can’t pose a prior limit on the range of choices, given libertarianism.

    “I may not have much cover from my Arminian friends in making such a claim. Nonetheless, I do believe evil is inevitable given the creation of free moral agents.”

    In that case you deny that human agents can do otherwise in the same situation. You deny that there’s a possible world in which Montezuma commits child sacrifice, and another possible world in which he does not.

    “Emphasized by repetion, the Bible says mankind was made by God to be in resemblance and likeness to him. Of all living things God created, mankind alone was described this way. Since God is not corporeal, and all the animals have flesh and blood, God's image and likeness has to be immaterial and should be seen in the difference between man and animals…Therefore, man was made in the image of God which entailed (among other things) a will and the freedom to act upon it. God called that good (Genesis 1:31).”

    That’s not exegesis, that’s Mickey Mouse spooftexting. Here are two examples of how to exegete the imago Dei in Scripture:

    http://98.131.162.170//tynbul/library/TynBull_1968_19_03_Clines_ImageOfGodInMan.pdf

    http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/01-Genesis/Text/Articles-Books/Middleton-ImagoDei-CSR.pdf

    “Concurrence has God acting in accord with his moral judgment that mankind's freedom is good, determinism has God authoring sin.”

    i) That simply begs the question of whether it’s good for God to concur with child sacrifice. You can’t merely stipulate that this is true in contrast to Calvinism. For Calvinism could just as well stipulate that predestination has God acting in accord with his moral judgment that child sacrifice is a means to a greater good.

    To say it’s good for the Arminian God to permit child sacrifice is not an explanation or justification. Rather, that assumes what you need to prove. All you’ve done is to paraphrase the objection.

    ii) How do you define “authorship”?

    “Where is the freedom in that?”

    If, a la libertarianism, there is more than one possible outcome, then there’s a possible world in which human agents freely come to repentance. So why doesn’t your God instantiate *that* possibility?

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