[CRASH]

Originally Posted by sentientsynth

Crash,

I'll notify CRI about this debate. Really I think that every theological body should be interested in this debate. It's hot, "in-house," and very interesting. Hey, I'm here.

CRI may take note of it. But if one were to take CRI as a whole, it's thoroughly classical. A recent CRI mag has this article which I found pretty insightful. Somewhat brief, but good.

I have a lot of respect for both Dr. Hanegraaff and Pastor Enyart. It is their mutual Biblical knowledge and personality that leads me to believe that they'd make for an interesting debate. And good for all involved. Dr. Hanegraaff to openly debate the thesis of his recent work. Pastor Enyart to demonstrate why a growing number of Christians are listening to him. And TOL for publicity, hits, etc. A few debates of the order of magnitude as BRX and the hopeful BRXI would make TOL THE place for online discussion, debate, community, etc.

I'd like that. I know some other folks that'll like that. And with the proper planning and execution, it can happen.



SS

That article is exactly why they should be following this debate! I think they (CRI) would have a harder time countering Enyart's more biblical, logical positions. I totally agree with your other comments.

We should start sending invitations to this debate to all relevant ministries. I am committed to spending at least a few hours doing exactly that - politely inviting Christian leaders, para-church ministries and others (especially the Calvinist types) to this debate wherever I can find them on the web. I will use a hotlink and the artwork Knight put at the front of the debate! Anybody else game for investing a little time into spreading the Truth and bringing more critical mass to TOL?

[chance]

Originally Posted by Berean Todd

Oh please, Lamerson is killing Enyart right now. Bob wouldn't even respond to Lamerson's points in his first post, and Enyart (like all OVers) has hardly touched on Scripture yet. It's all phillosophical, humanistic BS. Lamerson is OWNING Enyart at this point.

And now for some info you didn't know anything about Todd - Enyart and Bob Hill have ALREADY answered ALL of the questions that Lamerson has asked so far. I know precisely because I've read their articles and heard their responses on the radio or through a tape series (like Enyart's Predestination & Free-Will or The Flood). Go to the Predestination & Free-Will section of www.biblicalanswers.com and you can even do a search for specific passages or concepts that you have questions about and get many results where the answer has been supplied or an entire article has been written on the topic.

Here is a taste of the openness response to the so-called "I am God because I have EDF" argument that Closed Viewers attempt to erect using IS 40-48:

Bottom line, these passages point to God's POWER or His ABILITY to BRING ABOUT what He said He would do. What He predicts occurs precisely because He gets involved with his creation and brings His will about through His power. It is NOT some knowledge of the future as totally settled that brings anything about. Such knowledge would make God passive and unable to change anything ever. He would be a captive to His own knowledge. It is God's great power that enables Him to bring about His will, not some passive knowledge of a completely settled future.

Isaiah 46:9-11 Remember the former things of old, For I [am] God, and [there is] no other; [I am] God, and [there is] none like Me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times [things] that are not [yet] done, Saying, 'My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,' 11 Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man who executes My counsel, from a far country. Indeed I have spoken [it;] I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed [it;] I will also do it.

[Jerry Shugart]

Originally Posted by *Acts9_12Out*

Jerry,
You accuse me of not responding to your questions from our debate. I wasted almost an hour re-reading our debate and the discussion thread.

Jeremy,if you spent almost an hour reveiwing our debate and the discussion thread why do you misrepresent what was answered and what was not?You said:

I responded and re-responded to all of your questions throughout the debate and finally post #66 in the discussion thread.

Here are your very last words on post #66:

In my next post, I will respond to Jerry's comments on my questions, and then I will answer his questions...

Jeremy,if you answered my questions on post #66 then why in the world would you say in that same post that you would answer my questions later?

I searched the remaining posts on the discussion thread and you never answered them!

I apologize if you don't like the answers, but I have answered your questions.

You evaded them throughout the debate and even after you promised to answer them you never did.And then when you were brought to task for not answering them you said that you did on post #66.But if you answered them there why did you say at the end of that post that you will answer them later?

And why didn't you answer them later?

[Jerry Shugart]

On the critque thread Jeremy said:

I wonder if Dr. Lamerson would argue that a person who has trusted in Jesus Christ as his/her personal Lord and Savior, believes that Christ died for his/her sins, and believes that Christ was raised from the dead, might be condemned to hell if he/she has not yet believed the reality that Jesus Christ is God?

Here is what the Apostle John said about receiving life:

"But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name"(Jn.20:31).

When the Lord Jesus used the term "Son of God" those who heard him understood that He was making HImself equal with God:

"The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God"(Jn.10:33).

The Lord's response make it plain that the "blasphemy" of which they were accusing HIm was because He said that he is "the Son of God":

"Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?"(Jn.36).

That is why the Jews "sought to kill Him":

"Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God"(Jn.5:18).

When the LOrd Jesus was brought before Pilate the unbelieving Jews said that He should die because "He made Himself the Son of God"(Jn.19:7).

In His grace,--Jerry

[elected4ever]

Originally Posted by godrulz

If we could pick A, B, C,.....Z, then how would God know as a certainty BEFORE we picked? How would He know this from all eternity, before we even exist? How could God know the outcome of the 2010 Superbowl if it has not been played yet? The only way I can think of knowing contingent choices in advance is to control or determine them. Without this, they are uncertain and thus unknowable. Saying God is God does not make it any more coherent. To assume God saw me typing these exact words, mistakes and all (that I just corrected), from all eternity, would assume that the future was already the fixed past. The knowing of a nothing (the future is not yet) is a bald contradiction. The rest of this year is playing out (time is unidirectional) as we speak. December, 2005 is not there to see or know. There are trillions of contingencies that will affect exactly how things pan out. If there is another terrorist attack on U.S. soil, things will be different for many people, than if it is thwarted or delayed until next year. God has a history (His story). He is experiencing reality along with us, but to a greater degree (He does not rely on CNN to know what is happening everywhere).

The effect is not on God's plan but on ours.Just because God knows our plans does not prevent us from making them and just because we have choices does not change God's plan.

[Berean Todd]

Originally Posted by chance

And now for some info you didn't know anything about Todd - Enyart and Bob Hill have ALREADY answered ALL of the questions that Lamerson has asked so far. I know precisely because I've read their articles and heard their responses on the radio or through a tape series

Ok, two points you miss here.

1. Frankly I don't think that I've EVER read sufficient explanation to these questions from an OV'er.

2. Even if Bob has answered them in papers and tape series elsewhere, that has absolutely nothing to do with his avoidance of the questions here in the debate. This is a debate, points have been raised, and Enyart has dodged, simple as that.

[godrulz]

Originally Posted by elected4ever

The effect is not on God's plan but on ours.Just because God knows our plans does not prevent us from making them and just because we have choices does not change God's plan.

How do you read Jonah and Hezekiah? God planned for Hezekiah to die and declared it as such. Then, in response to prayer, He changed His mind and added 15 years to His life. Does this sound like a closed, foreknown future or an open, unsettled, uncertain future?

If the Ninevites did not repent, our Bible and history would be different. The future was open until the response was made to God's conditional (contingent, not fixed/foreknown) prophecy.

[godrulz]

Originally Posted by Berean Todd

Ok, two points you miss here.

1. Frankly I don't think that I've EVER read sufficient explanation to these questions from an OV'er.

2. Even if Bob has answered them in papers and tape series elsewhere, that has absolutely nothing to do with his avoidance of the questions here in the debate. This is a debate, points have been raised, and Enyart has dodged, simple as that.

Announced delay is not dodging. There is more than one way to be responsive in a 10 round debate. A foundation can precede detailed answers. Patience, grasshopper.

[Turbo]

Originally Posted by Berean Todd

and Enyart (like all OVers) has hardly touched on Scripture yet.

It's sad to see you resort to circulating false reports.

[Delmar]

I quite frankly think that those who think the debate is "in the bag" for one side or the other are just flat wrong. Yes, I do believe that one side is right and the other side is wrong, but it seems to me that the idea of this whole exercise is to learn a little something and for God to be glorified.

[titan]

Originally Posted by elected4ever

The false assumption is that just because God knows, that it prevents free choice. Just because God knows we may pick A or B does not mean that God made the choice of A or B for us. The fact is that we do not know if we will pick A or B. That is not the same think as having God pick A or B for us which is what you are implying.

Please reread the post you quoted. If you had read it, it would be impossible to believe I was implying anything of the sort. I was actually arguing with Yorzhik against that implication. In the post before it, which you may be refering to, I found it hard to understand how we had any real choice at all if the outcome was already known. I said nothing about "God picking for us." I accept the distinction between foreknowledge and predestination.

Titan

[godrulz]

Titan: In a nutshell, what are the distinctions between foreknowledge and predestination? What, if any, are their similarities/relationships?

It seems to me that the things God predestines (e.g. first/second coming of Messiah) are foreknown. The things that He does not predestine (e.g. what I will eat next year) are not foreknown.

[Montana]

Originally Posted by DonW

So your God is a moron?

"Gee, I couldn't imagine that they would do that. Dang, I shoulda made them dumber, so they'd only be a little like Me but with so little reasoning ability that they couldn't think of that stuff."


If sinners author their own sin it does not matter whether God has detailed foreknowledge of the sins. If foreknowledge of free will consequences makes God responsible then any sin that is reasonably foreseeable to His infinite intelligence makes God responsible. We know that before creation God had certain foreknowledge of at least some sins that required the sacrifice of the Lamb. How can God then escape responsibility under your theology?

If foreknowledge of sin makes God responsible at what point does this no longer apply? After all, God certainly knew the 9-11 hijackers were going to destroy the WTC Towers even before the planes took off. Therefore, by your reasoning, God was responsible for those thousands of deaths. Every hardened criminal is known to God, so He must then be responsible for every planned violation.

This line of reasoning, carried to its logical conclusion (as you OVers like to say of competing theologies) leads to error.

Foreseeing sins, does not make God responsible for sin. Inventing sins, now that would make God responsible for sin. Your god invented sin in his mind back when he was the only being in existence. My God recognizes that sins will occur as he watched sinners.

You want every filthy, perverted act that happens in the backrooms of homosexual bathhouses to be part of God’s eternal foreknowledge. It is impossible to separate the stuff that floats around inside someone’s head from them as a person. There is scriptural supporting that obvious truth. Yet you want the righteous God to be courting all that filth in his mind an eternity before it ever happens. Now I think we are starting to define “moronic.”

The Open God is not responsible for sin. He is responsible for creating free-thinking people who have made sinful choices. There is a significant difference, between concoct a sin and being able to detect the sin someone else is in the process of concocting.

I disagree that “before creation God had certain foreknowledge of at least some sins.” What God foresaw was that if he made freewill creatures, they would have the ability to obey or disobey. By the time the world was populated by billions of people the chances of rebellion would be certain.

Sort of related to this, I find that Christians typically make lite of God’s creation – i.e., It usually takes longer to build something than it does to design it. God created in six days. Therefore, “God must have thought up His creation in less than six days,” is the attitude.

I think, however, that designing freewill creatures may have been the easy part. For the loving Father, the difficulty was in responding to human beings once they began sinning. The solution was the cross, where God for the first time in eternity would be separated himself from the Son. I do not think that solution was an afterthought. I suspect that the Trinity pondered the ramifications of such a sacrifice for millenniums prior to creating the world.

That God recognized, prior to creation, that humanity would certainly require a savior is not evidence that He foreknew the sins of the world.

[godrulz]

The potential plan of redemption (known in eternity) was implemented after the Fall (certain= Gen. 3). It became actual at the death/resurrection of Christ (Gospels).

[DonW]

Originally Posted by Montana

Foreseeing sins, does not make God responsible for sin.

Thanks for agreeing with me, Montana. QED

Inventing sins, now that would make God responsible for sin... You want every filthy, perverted act that happens in the backrooms of homosexual bathhouses to be part of God’s eternal foreknowledge. It is impossible to separate the stuff that floats around inside someone’s head from them as a person.

So, because you know about "glory holes" and all the perverted stuff in the homosexual bathhouses, you are culpable for such inventions? It is obviously floating around in your head alot, and is therefore impossible to separate from you as a person, so you must be guilty.

Or does your logic only apply when it is convenient for your doctrine? You can be separated from the stuff in your head but God cannot. You can be tempted without it or the knowledge the temptation comes from being sin, but God cannot even know that the sin exists without being guilty.

I disagree that “before creation God had certain foreknowledge of at least some sins.” What God foresaw was that if he made freewill creatures, they would have the ability to obey or disobey. By the time the world was populated by billions of people the chances of rebellion would be certain.

So there are degrees of sin then? Simple disobedience is forgiveable, but not homosexuality? Or is disobedience (heterosexual activity before marriage, for example) "better" than icky homosexuality in the Montana doctrine? Please give us a detailed table of which sins we should watch out for because God didn't see them before creation. Maybe they aren't covered by the blood if God didn't think of them when He designed the sacrifice.

Let's test Montana's teaching. God certainly designed the Garden, including the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He set it up as the one and only test that Adam and Eve had to pass. The only way to fail was eat the fruit. God only had to see the actions of two people, on one day, six days into the future. Surely that is within the powers of God's foreknowledge and foresight.

Therefore, according to your standard, God invented disobedience. We cannot be held guilty if God is the author of disobedience, according to your doctrine. Or your doctrine is fundamentally flawed, get over it.

That God recognized, prior to creation, that humanity would certainly require a savior is not evidence that He foreknew the sins of the world.

So then there is some other reason besides sin that we would need not only a savior as exemplar, but a sacrifice? No, only for sin which God foreknew. He foreordained His own response, He only foreknew the sin. He authored his response, He did not author the sin.

God is not squeemish, Montana. There is no sin that God is afraid to deal with. Perhaps you project your problems onto God, but please don't expect me to follow your example.