Wednesday, March 06, 2019

The Gospel According to Yoda

Orthodox Lutheran
Maybe the real unelect were the reason-worshipping Calvinists we met along the way. 
#muhDoublePredestination
#muhClayQuestioningThePotterVerseMeansWeCanGetAwayWithMakingGodOutToBeEvil

Hays 
To my knowledge, classical Lutheranism affirms unconditional election. That entails reprobation. Lutherans arbitrarily reject the logical of their own commitments.

Lutheran Memes 
Calvinists love to cry "strawman" then turn around and do the same thing. We have never and will never confess the deplorable, unbiblical, and utterly unchristian doctrine of election unto damnation.

Hays 
I didn't cry strawman and you didn't refute the implication.

Lutheran Memes 
We don't "reject the logic of our own commitments" we actually openly and publicly confess the paradox. Unlike those who try to compress God into a finite box they can comprehend, thereby requiring them to twist and distort Scripture so that its mysteries make sense to their puny human minds, we actually admit the God is a being beyond human comprehension and is allowed to work beyond the limits of our reason.

Scripture says that salvation is by unconditional election. We affirm that.

Scripture says that damnation is the result of our own sin, and God does not desire the death of the wicked but desires that all be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

How can both of these things be true? We have no idea. But we believe they are both true because God said so, and who are we to imagine we know better than God?

Hays 
In which case you forfeit the ability to argue for Lutheranism or argue against Calvinism.

Lutheran Memes 
Ah, yes. So, because we believe what the Bible teaches, we forfeit the ability to argue for sound doctrine or against heresy?

Hays 
If you ditch logic, then the Bible is consistent with anything.

Lutheran Memes 
The Bible is consistent with itself. Remember the warning of Chrysostom, a comprehended god is no god. Let God be true and every man a liar. So what if your pathetic human brain can't fathom the paradoxes of Scripture. Scripture is true whether or not we can understand how. Stop pitting Scripture against Scripture and believe all of it. Stop shoe-horning your man-made doctrines onto God's Word.

Hays 
By rejecting logic, you can't distinguish heresy from paradox.

Lutheran Memes 
Nobody is rejecting logic. We're refusing to subject Scripture (written by eastern minds) to modern western thought processes. Letting Scripture interpret Scripture is exactly how we distinguish heresy from orthodoxy. Shoe-horning Aristotelianism onto an eastern text is the surest way to screw it up.

Hays 
So Aristotelian logic is modern (2500 years old) while the letters of Paul, written in Greek to Greek churches, are eastern.

Are law and Gospel the same or different? Why not both/and? It's paradoxical, you know. Don't let that newfangled Aristotelian logic turn law and Gospel into opposites. That's binary modern western thinking. Away with the law/Gospel dichotomy. Embrace Buddhist both/and.

Lutheran Memes 
Yes, your modern application of Aristotelianism is modern. And yes, Paul's letters are eastern. He was a Hebrew. His epistles are littered with eastern style. Neither the Old nor New Testaments are works of western thought or literature.

As for your second comment, I don't even know where you're trying to go now. You're so wrapped up in your attempt to shoe-horn God into an Aristotelian box that you've stopped making sense.

Hays 
Aristotle antedates Paul by about 500 years. In addition, you're completely overlooking Hellenistic Judaism.

The Eucharist is both the True Body and Blood of Christ and not the True Body and Blood of Christ. It's a paradox. Don't try to shoehorn the antinomy into your finite puny-brained logic box.

3 comments:

  1. Lutherans view Calvinists as heretics?

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  2. So Lutherans follow Augustine. Predestination for the elect and freewill for the damned.

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  3. I appreciate the time I spent in Vedic philosophy. It's taught me to recognize it when it tries to masquerade as something else.

    CS Lewis was right when he said there are really only two religions in the world... Hinduism and Christianity.

    ReplyDelete