At 12:47 PM 9/15/2007, Carol or John Burgeson wrote:
>"....Unpredictability is an outcome of having
>free will. It is not, I think, a definition if
>it. ...Much of what I do is sort of
>subconscious -- I think the will gets involved
>only when decisions are made." ~Burgy ... "Are
>humans not even in principle predictable?" ~
>Pim *To a large extent, yes. But not when they
>exercise their free will to make a conscious decision." ~ Burgy
@ Here's a little test for you:
Matthew 11: 20 - 27 -- Then Jesus began to
denounce the cities in which most of his miracles
had been performed, because they did not repent.
"Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If
the miracles that were performed in you had been
performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have
repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I
tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and
Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And
you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the
skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the
miracles that were performed in you had been
performed in Sodom, it would have remained to
this day. But I tell you that it will be more
bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than
for you." At that time Jesus said, "I praise you,
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you
have hidden these things from the wise and
learned, and revealed them to little children.
Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.
"All things have been committed to me by my
Father. No one knows the Son except the Father,
and no one knows the Father except the Son and
those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
Now, what do these verses tell us, regarding the
breadth of God's Foreknowledge?
One question. Simple enough:
God foreknew Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom’s free choice
NOT TO REPENT in the case of His non-performance of such Miracles; AND
God foreknew Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom’s free choice
TO REPENT in the case of His performance of such Miracles; AND
God CHOSE not to perform these Miracles in Tyre,
Sidon, and Sodom, a choice which had as its
perfectly foreknown result the NON-Repentance of
Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom, just as He foreknew.
True, or False?
"This is the predestination of the
saints,--nothing else; to wit, the foreknowledge
and the preparation of God's kindnesses, whereby
they are most certainly delivered, whoever they
are that are delivered. But where are the rest
left by the righteous divine judgment except in
the mass of ruin, where the Tyrians and the
Sidonians were left? who, moreover, might have
believed if they had seen Christ's wonderful
miracles. But since it was not given to them to
believe, the means of believing also were denied them. -- Saint Augustine
* God could have predetermined the cities to
Repent, by electing to perform the miracles.
* God could have predetermined the cities to
NOT Repent, by electing to NOT perform the miracles.
* God chose the latter: to NOT perform the
miracles, thereby predetermining that the cities would NOT repent.
No one is saying that their choice was not a REAL
choice within the contraints of the created
time-stream, only that God -- by his precedent
election to NOT perform the miracles,
predetermined that their choice would be to NOT Repent.
Source: INFANT SALVATION Posted on 06/16/2002
1:42:58 PM PDT by
Matchett-PI http://209.157.64.201/focus/f-religion/701062/posts
That blows the Semi-Pelagian (Arminian), John Polkinghorne, out of the water.
Public Radio Interview [excerpt]:
Ms. Tippett: I think you also bring your theology
and your science together interestingly in seeing
that there's also something going on in the
world, including human beings' interaction with
nature at any given time, that there are sort of
competing freedoms. I think that's a very interesting, complex idea.
Mr. Polkinghorne: Yeah. Well, I think we live in
a world of true becoming. That's to say, I don't
think that the future is fixed; I don't think God
fixed it. I think God allows creatures to be themselves.
Ms. Tippett: Does God know it?
Mr. Polkinghorne: If we live in a world of true
becoming so that we play our little parts in
making the future and I believe God's
providence also plays a part in making the
future, and also the laws of nature that God has
ordained play a part in constraining the form of
the future if that's the sort of world in which
we live, then I think actually even God doesn't
know the future. And that's not an imperfection
because the future is not yet there to be known.
Now, that's a very controversial view, and not
everybody, by any matter of means…
Ms. Tippett: We'll let you have it here.
Mr. Polkinghorne: …has agreed with me about that,
but that's how it seems to me. And I think that,
you see, there's been a very important
development in theological thinking in the 20th
century, and it's reflected in all sorts of quite
different theologians, but they have this thing
in common: They see the act of creation, the act
of bringing into being a world in which creatures
are allowed to be themselves, to make themselves,
is an act of love and it is an act of divine
self-limitation. The theologians like to call it
kenosis from the Greek word, and so that God is
not the puppet master of the universe, pulling
every string. God has taken, if you like, a risk.
Creation is more like an improvisation than the
performance of a fixed score that God wrote in
eternity. And that sort of world of becoming
involves God's accepting limitations, and I
believe, accepting limitations not knowing the
future. That doesn't mean, of course, that God
will be caught out by the future in the same way
that you and I are. I mean, God can see how
history is moving, so to speak, but God has to
react to the way history moves. Now, that makes,
to me, quite a lot of sense about the
world. ..."
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/quarks/transcript.shtml
"Remember the former things of old: for I am God,
and there is none else; I am God, and there is
none like me, Declaring the end from the
beginning, and from ancient times the things that
are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand,
and I will do all my pleasure" ~ Isaiah 46:9,10
"He has made everything beautiful in its time.
Also he has put eternity in their hearts, except
that no one can find out the work that God does
from beginning to end.” ~ Ecclesiastes 3:11
~ Janice
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Received on Sat Sep 15 14:10:11 2007
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