Well how are you all doing? I thought I'd just keep our topic in the forefront of our minds while the subject is still fresh from our last evening. The first thing I had to do when I sat down at my computer was get to my display with a soft cloth to remove all the stab marks from my over-zealous finger the other night. Do LCD's bruise easy?
I hope you all are not feeling like your'e being poked at, sometimes I get this horrible image of me wagging my finger at everyone from some sort of superior position. I am aware that even as we work at destroying all reason for human pride and arrogance so that we can honestly say there are absolutely no grounds for it, pride will raise up its ugly head even while we denounce all reason for it. Such is the nature of the beast!
Let's look at some of the concerns that were raised last night. As usual there were some excellent observations and from all quarters!
How would we know, (if we accept the view of predestination and omnipotence as the prior condition to our faith) when we have taken it too far? Of course there is a danger in taking a doctrine to an extreme, to the point where we exclude other truths that God has given to give us checks and balances. The full Gospel is fully balanced to bring God's children to maturity- how would we know when we had exceeded this balance or tension between the extremes of predestination and freewill?
This is an interesting question, but before we answer, let' s ask another one. Whenever I have had the opportunity and the freedom, I have spoken at length of these themes and this question of extremism is often raised. But do you know that, conspicuous by its absence, is the question that is invariably never asked, and that is:
How would we know if we had taken the idea of human autonomy or freewill to an extreme and excluded other truths because of it?
The very nature of the question about taking predestination too far often belies the implicit bias of the questioner. Whenever the absolute omnipotence of God is raised there is an outcry. Whenever the supremacy of human ability is engendered there is full unconditional , and unquestioned acceptance. I am not getting personal here, honestly this is human nature, and I fully appreciate that this is the stand all people take because paramount in our paradigm is the idea of human autonomy. Why is it (and this is a consistent observation) that whenever the subject is raised there is an immediate reaction to it? Just because a certain view is "mainstream" does it therefore stand true simply by majority rule? History agrees with scripture and shows otherwise. Again I thank God you are willing to listen to scripture.
Just the other day I heard a chilling account of the last words of unrepentant Timothy McVeigh shortly before he was executed for the murder of around 165 fellow Americans (a number of whom were children) following the bomb explosion that ripped through the Murrah building.
McVeigh left a handwritten statement quoting "Invictus", a 19th century poem by British poet William Ernest Henley:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
"...we can read the [last] stanza as an acceptance of whatever judgment or doom death may bring. He accepts no master but himself. He bows to no authority. He is his own god, guide and judge. He is the Captain.
(Henley was a lifelong atheist, and, with his missing leg and braggadocio, he was also the inspiration for the character of Long John Silver in Robert Louis Stephenson's Treasure Island,a Captain indeed.)" (from http://wiki.answers.com)
(Henley was a lifelong atheist, and, with his missing leg and braggadocio, he was also the inspiration for the character of Long John Silver in Robert Louis Stephenson's Treasure Island,a Captain indeed.)" (from http://wiki.answers.com)
"Invictus" in Latin means "unconquerable" or "undefeated".
Compare this with these words:(Matthew 10:28)
"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him (God) which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
Did McVeigh speak from wisdom and light or from darkness and ignorance? Is this human freedom? In a few verses after we read:(Matthew 10:32-33) Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. If we deny the omnipotence of God as he teaches in His Word, and uphold the supremacy of man do we risk incurring Christ's denial of us to the father?
Let's look at this from a pragmatic vantage point.
They say we live in a post-modern society, I think what they mean by that is: a modern society is one which has discarded the "old fashioned, out-moded idea" of an omnipotent God, and a post-modern society is one that has not only cast out the idea of any God, but has also (because God is no longer an issue) jettisoned the idea of any sort of universal morality.
Now lets ask ourselves: what are some of the issues that highlight these last decades?
- On demand abortion
- Sex outside of institutional marriage
- Euthanasia
- Legalization of prostitution
- The rights of children at the expense of parental rights
- Normalization of homosexuality
The "hippie era" was all about "free love" the right of the individual to indulge in pleasure without the responsibility that came with the blessing and again without reference to a higher authority.
Euthanasia is all about the "freedom of the individual" to determine their own death, again without reference to God. Etc.
Homosexuality is about proclaiming "my truth, my reality" as was succinctly spelled out by ex Governor of New Jersey Jim McGreevey
Post-modernism is all about the celebration of mankinds self-determination. It is no accident that nearly all hardsell advertising appeals to the twin opiates: freedom and choice. As I think Swinbourne said "Man worshipping himself"
In an excellent presentation called "Apologetic Evangelism With Post-modern People" Dr, Jerram Barrs said this:
"The greatest idol in our culture is personal autonomy."
Now the rot is setting in "the church" where we are told in order for God to intervene in any given situation we have to "give him our permission"! Is that the biblical basis for omnipotence? I think not!
I have, over the years, regularly heard the phrase: "....release the Holy Spirit..."
What! I did'nt know he was held captive...! I find it hard to perceive how people I otherwise hold a great deal of respect for can say this without pondering the ramifications of what they are actually saying. It goes almost without saying that this atitude is the responsibility of the erroneous and damaging doctrine of absolute human autonomy. Don't they know that when God gave the "keys to the kingdom" He did not mean them to assume that He gave the Master Key???
Sad to say Post-modernism is a disease primarily of the West where the Gospel once had it's greatest impact. In fact it is a direct offshoot of warped theology. The greatest exponents of "free-will theology" have always been, and still are, the Roman Catholic Church. If I am not mistaken this is in large part due to the theology of Thomas Aquinas who, is widely recognized as melding Aristotelian philosophy with Christian doctrine. When more and more "modern protestant" churches espouse the idea of free-will strongly, it is perhaps not a strange consequence that they become more and more authoritarian and "Popish" (infallibility of leadership, unquestionable authority)
When Christian values and ideas held greatest sway in general society in the West, the doctrine of free-will filtered down through society to become an established "fact of human existence" and todays Western civilization is to a huge degree testament to its pervasive evil. (please note I am speaking here of libertarian free-will not compatibilistic free-will and one should know the difference before protesting!)
Having said that let's answer the question:
How do we know when we have become obsessed with omnipotence?
The short answer is when we become fatalistic in our thinking and behaviour. Que sera sera, whatever will be will be, the future's not ours to see..... If we no longer feel the need to speak to people about Christ because he will save whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth, it's all predestined so what's the point of making an effort?- these are attitudes to guard against, and they spring up for reasons other than obsession with omnipotence also.
Now let's ask the question:
How do we know when we have become obsessed with free-will and human autonomy?
Why don't we let James answer that?: (James 4:12,13) There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another? (James 4:13) Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and and get gain: (James 4:14) Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. (James 4:15) For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
In God alone the issue of eternal life and death rest, we cannot dare say specifically who will or will not be saved. We can't even determine with any sort of absolute finality whether it is this day or another day that we will go to a city, and buy or sell or make a profit. What do we really know about tomorrow? Our present life is not eternal but is temporal, just like vapour that is visible one moment and gone the next.
Our atitude should be "If the Lord has determined it so,we shall live, make a profit, save a soul etc., because he alone, in any sort of absolute sense, is self determining and our freedom in this life is at best temporary and illusory. If you don't agree with James's appraisal be assured you are enthralled by your own sense of autonomy.
2.What if the translators got it wrong? IIPeter 3:9 :The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. If we relate this verse with (Isaiah 46:10) 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 46:11) Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: There are by necessity only two ways to uphold the veracity and coherence of the scriptural account and of course truth by its very nature is exclusive, that is, only one understanding is correct and true otherwise we fall into the trap of relativism.
If we affirm, as the scripture gives us to understand, that whatever God plans to do, he brings it to pass, we have a simple definition of omnipotence. This is Isaiah's expression of omnipotence. If we also take IIPeter 3:9 to mean that God is not willing that any person in an absolute sense should perish eternally but come to repentance, then we would see all men coming to Christ in repentance and faith according to the definitions of omnipotence and the will of God.Our experience shows that this is not the case. Which leaves us with only two alternatives-Either omnipotence is in name only (like a V8 with only two sparkplugs) and the will of God is misrepresented or it is effective and therefore we have misunderstood what IIPeter 3:9 is really saying.
(To be continued.........See the POST "Is That All")
My friends I will leave it that for now but I would like you to consider this one verse and if you think about it long and hard and with the prayer that God would open His word in your hearts I'm sure you will come to the only conclusion possible.
(John 17:2) As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. (See this post also http://struth-his-or-yours.blogspot.com/2009/08/power-over-all-flesh.html )
If you are among the growing number of people who see the inherent danger and colossal damage that this incorrigible menace to true freedom has caused register your protest by going here and purchasing this tee shirt which at the very least may provoke some necessary and long overdue serious discussion that would otherwise leave this as a "no go" zone.
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