Caution in railing against President Biden and others.

[Alien]

Yes, but you cannot know God apart from sin. No sin, no righteousness. No sin, no mercy. No sin no sovereignty etc., etc.

I don't understand. If there was only one murderer in the world, everyone else would be righteous? But, if nobody murdered, nobody would be righteous? And I'm completely lost with "no sin no sovereignty".

[Dave L]

I don't understand. If there was only one murderer in the world, everyone else would be righteous? But, if nobody murdered, nobody would be righteous? And I'm completely lost with "no sin no sovereignty".

Sin reveals God's attributes. Just as hot reveals cold.

[Gondwanaland]

Sort of a weird thing for an omnibenevolent, omnipotent being to do....

Yep. I already have issues with the normal Christian deity, but this uber-Calvinist version is particularly disturbing.

[Sparko]

DaveL what's your attitude about Trump? Did you pray for him? Rail against him?

[Alien]

So you hate God if that is your understanding of Him?

If that were an accurate description of god, I would certainly hate him. I did say that I was describing your view of god, not my own. (In reality I don't have any clear picture of god, if any such being exists.)

We can also make an argument for the lack of free will from a naturalist pov, where each action is totally determined by the state preceding it. I struggled with that for a while, but finally decided that I seem to have free will and that would have to do. The problem with your view (imo) is not whether it has some logic associated with it (if god is all powerful and all knowing he had a choice in how he set up the universe in the first place, where he could determine everything that would follow from that initial setup and thus is responsible for the whole can of worms). There is also (again imo) some scripture that seems to point that way. That's a problem that naturally arises with the idea of a 3-omni god.

The problem as I see it is more with how it makes your god look (as I suggested in the story of the cruel child).

[Alien]

Sin reveals God's attributes. Just as hot reveals cold.

You said "you cannot know God apart from sin", which suggests that sin is the only way to reveal god's attributes. Sticking with the murder analogy, if god wanted us to know that murder was bad, there seem to be lots of alternative ways to tell us that, rather than to force someone to murder then punish him for it. How about just stating it in scripture. Oops, he did.

By the way "hot" and "cold" are just relative and totally subjective terms. What we have is temperature, which is "revealed" by a thermometer, among other things.

[Cow Poke]

You said "you cannot know God apart from sin", which suggests that sin is the only way to reveal god's attributes. Sticking with the murder analogy, if god wanted us to know that murder was bad, there seem to be lots of alternative ways to tell us that, rather than to force someone to murder then punish him for it. How about just stating it in scripture. Oops, he did.

By the way "hot" and "cold" are just relative and totally subjective terms. What we have is temperature, which is "revealed" by a thermometer, among other things.

And "cold" is just the absence of heat, as "dark" is the absence of light.

[alaskazimm]

Yep. I already have issues with the normal Christian deity, but this uber-Calvinist version is particularly disturbing.

This isn't some far out of left field version of Cavinism, that some would term hyper-Calvinism. No, this is pretty much Calvinism 101 straight from the man himself. All these ideas, as distasteful as they are, can be found in his Institutes of Christian Religion.

[Cow Poke]

This isn't some far out of left field version of Cavinism, that some would term hyper-Calvinism. No, this is pretty much Calvinism 101 straight from the man himself. All these ideas, as distasteful as they are, can be found in his Institutes of Christian Religion.

Yeah, I think the "hyper Calvinism" just indicates they take it to the extreme, Like good ol' Dave.

[Alien]

And "cold" is just the absence of heat, as "dark" is the absence of light.

Correct about "dark".

That definition of "cold" would only apply at absolute zero. Otherwise there is always some heat. In typical usage, "cold" actually means "relatively cold". For example, if I say "the A/C is blowing cold air" I really mean colder than the ambient temperature, or colder than my body temperature, or similar.

Sorry, I love to nit pick. You'll get fed up with me eventually.

Do you like my new picture? I like this version of Tweb much better. It used to be that I had to use special software to reduce the number of pixels to fit the frame.Now it's automatic!

[Sparko]

This isn't some far out of left field version of Cavinism, that some would term hyper-Calvinism. No, this is pretty much Calvinism 101 straight from the man himself. All these ideas, as distasteful as they are, can be found in his Institutes of Christian Religion.

No he is way past normal Calvinism.

[Cow Poke]

Correct about "dark".

That definition of "cold" would only apply at absolute zero. Otherwise there is always some heat. In typical usage, "cold" actually means "relatively cold". For example, if I say "the A/C is blowing cold air" I really mean colder than the ambient temperature, or colder than my body temperature, or similar.

Sorry, I love to nit pick. You'll get fed up with me eventually.

Nope - totally agree, I just didn't get specific enough. I was thinking ahead to the "thermometer" vs "thermostat" discussion.

Do you like my new picture? I like this version of Tweb much better. It used to be that I had to use special software to reduce the number of pixels to fit the frame.Now it's automatic!

[Mountain Man]

Jesus says the lost are slaves to Satan. James says you cannot control your tongue. This also disproves free will.

Slaves still have freewill, otherwise history would never have recorded a single slave rebellion, and while we may not be able to tame the tongue directly, the Bible commands us to draw near to God and purify our hearts (James 3) which will have the effect of purifying our speech. As Jesus said, "The mouth speaks what overflows from the heart."

[Mountain Man]

Nobody has free will.

They choose what they want most.

These two statements are directly contradictory. They can not both be true.

[Mountain Man]

Actually I can't vote as I'm not a citizen...

Yes you can, as long as you vote Democrat.