Re: Fw: Pharaoh and his hardened heart

From: D. F. Siemens, Jr.

David, one of the utterances was actually a question, not a rhetorical question.

Dennis Feucht
  Sorry, but I see no way to respond rationally to the claims made without writing a couple of books--whose message would almost certainly not be accepted.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
  There are too many unnecessary physicalistic and literalistic presuppositions. It's obvious to me that the first distinction I made was totally missed. As I see it, the later question about language is akin to the rejection of Trinitarian language because the term does not occur in scripture. Further, the matters seem to me to abandon any connection to science for philosophy and theology. So I feel I must let the matter rest.
  Dave

  On Fri, 04 Jun 2004 12:30:49 -0600 Innovatia <dennis@innovatia.com> writes:
    From: D. F. Siemens, Jr.
      The only way I can figure to make a distinction between God-in-eternity and God-in-history to meet your requirements is to go back to a Neo-Platonic emanationism or a similar Gnostic view. But multiple degenerating deities (and evil matter) is hardly Christian.
    If you accept that scripture presents God as both transcending creation and immanent in it, then it is the same difference.
      As for if it ain't Greek its got to be medievals lousing things up, this looks like the same approach I rejected in the other line. The fact is that there is no ecumenical pronouncement on the divine omniscience. Indeed, there are only a few peripheral persons who rejected God's total omniscience. Why? The simplest explanation is that no one of any account had any doubts on the topic: they all accepted it unconditionally. Note that it was areas of major dispute that brought forth councils to produce authoritative pronouncements.
    Then where, David, did you get this language?

    I do not find omniscience in scripture, nor do I find imperial Christianity a credible source of authority. I do not find this language anywhere in the non-papal church of the past, which was by no means marginal.

    The problem with this kind of omni-x language is that it creates logical absurdities that scripture does not. It seems to me to fit a manner of reasoning found among the Greeks more than the Hebrews, whatever the origin onf the word.

    Saludos,

    Dennis Feucht
Received on Wed Jun 9 10:28:10 2004