Weekly Wesly - Notes on 2 Samuel 17:14
2 Sam 7:14 So Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The advice of Hushai the Archite is better than the advice of Ahithophel.” For the LORD had purposed to defeat the good advice of Ahithophel, to the intent that the LORD might bring disaster on Absalom.
Absalom and all, &c. - Be it observed, to the comfort of all that fear God, he turns all mans hearts as the rivers of water. He stands in the congregation of the mighty, has an over - ruling hand in all counsels, and a negative voice in all resolves, and laughs at mens projects against his children. (link)
Here's a youtube clip of a Calvinist who was rather perplexed by Wesley's comments:
Wesley for the most part was using the language of scripture and affirming the providence of God. Not that shocking if you understand Arminianism. My only advice is that it's good to understand something before you reject it.
Absalom and all, &c. - Be it observed, to the comfort of all that fear God, he turns all mans hearts as the rivers of water. He stands in the congregation of the mighty, has an over - ruling hand in all counsels, and a negative voice in all resolves, and laughs at mens projects against his children. (link)
Here's a youtube clip of a Calvinist who was rather perplexed by Wesley's comments:
Wesley for the most part was using the language of scripture and affirming the providence of God. Not that shocking if you understand Arminianism. My only advice is that it's good to understand something before you reject it.
Comments
my advice to you is "understand Scripture" before you start understanding man's understanding of it.
You might be surprised that God's ways are not man's.
Pro 4:7 The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight.
Just so it is clear, God can intervene in the actions of men. He can also prevent men acting on their intentions. He could also prevent a thought developing within a man if he so wished.
So why do we object to God controlling every thought by manipulating neurons? Not be cause he can't, rather because he doesn't.
I don't know if you can hear this but consider "His Faith" in this verse: The Just Shall Live By Faith.
How was Abram declared Righteous?
By works or by "Faith"?
Of course you will say by "Faith".
But consider the "presupposition" that you are establishing by your remarks. Don't you see "His Righteousness" yes?
“So do Calvinists think that Arminianism is Deism? God set up this world and lets all men do what they will with no intervention?”
What I have observed is that Calvinists seem to think that unless God preordains and predetermines everything that occurs God is not and cannot be sovereign. The problem is that they are equating sovereignty with exhaustive determinism. They are not the same. The bible presents sovereignty as God does as He pleases. And that is the kind of sovereignty that all believers believe is true of God, He really does as He pleases in all situations. But to be sovereign in this way He does not have to control us like puppets where our every move is controlled and dictated by Him. Rather, He can be sovereign because He sets up the rules of the game, and He can intervene in the game any time He wants, He can also allow or permit things to happen.
It was interesting that the calvinist in the video make a comment about God then having authority over the wills of men. And that was Wesley’s point, He does have authority over the wills of men and can intervene any time that he wants to with them and their wills. But intervening any time it pleases Him is not the same as directly controlling and directing every other will like a puppet master. If He does **that** then we are just puppets. But God in his sovereignty wanted to create genuine persons capable of doing their own actions. And though we have this ability to do our own actions, God always has the authority and right and power to intervene any time He wants to.
“Just so it is clear, God can intervene in the actions of men. He can also prevent men acting on their intentions. He could also prevent a thought developing within a man if he so wished.”
Right, those are all **interventions** that God being sovereign is perfectly capable of doing and has the right and authority to do. But intervening in situations is not the same as always controlling out wills and directing them.
“So why do we object to God controlling every thought by manipulating neurons? Not be cause he can't, rather because he doesn't.”
Right, the issue between the calvinist and noncalvinist is not whether God **could have** created a world where he predetermined everything and directly controlled everything including our wills and so controlled us like a puppet master controls his puppets. The noncalvinist affirms that God is sovereign and does as He pleases and if he wanted to do that He could have and would have done that. But the biblical revelation indicates that he did not create the world to be like this. He sovereignly decided to create genuine persons with genuine free will who do their own actions for their own reasons. In this actual world that He created he is in authority over it all as He made up all of the rules of the game and He can and does intervene anytime and in any way that He wants to. So He is sovereign as the bible defines it, and yet exhaustive determinism which is foreign to the bible, is false.
Robert
my advice to you is "understand Scripture" before you start understanding man's understanding of it.
Amen.
God be with you,
Dan
we
We? :-) Do you find yourself more or less on the Arminian side of things? We could sure use you at SEA.
God be with you,
Dan
I have not read any of the books you have in your beginners list.
Thanks for the offer about SEA. Kangaroodort asked me also. I had to look for sometime to work out what the acronym stood for. I guess my interest lies in several areas and I can find it difficult just to write my own blog.
Further, you may think some of my theology heretical :) I think that it is possible that people outside of Christendom be saved. Of course that is still thru Christ. See this post, "Who gets saved?"
Given my reading list in times past and likely in times future I am not certain that I will get enough reading on specifically Arminian material. Though kangaroodort might have me reading the entire works of Thomas Ralston :)
If I have different thoughts in the future I will let you know.
i also agree with your observation and Robert's, and related to that, i have noticed that quite a few calvinist brethren misunderstand Free will as absolute unrestrained ability to do anything we want,maybe short of to spring wings and fly.
It was quite a revelation to one of my opponents recently to learn that FW theology doesnt demand that ability, neither does it claim we can just believe things on will, as in "i offer you a million to believe______,would you?" Even when we might want to believe something doesnt mean we can.Circumstances and motivations are not by themsleves capable to make us believe. Even at the threat of imminent danger or death we cant make/force ourselves to believe things we dont believe...
Some see it as extreme or exhaustive Gods determinism or exhaustive ours.
btw, re: books -I recently strated to read (and like) William Graig Lane. I know,i know , you dont have time :) but it's good
you wrote
I am sorry!! Please forgive me?
with gladness.Consider it done.Minor detail though-you ought to offend me first, so i know what for.
:)
btw, great verses from the book of Isaiah, thanks for quoting!He was a smart guy. Even in my pre-christian days i always loved to read Is.
well then, I retract my apology and hold it for a rainy day as I have typed many words!
Pro 10:18 The one who conceals hatred has lying lips, and whoever utters slander is a fool.
Pro 10:19 When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.
It's summer time around here but the clouds sprinkle tinkle a bit though!
Thanks for not taking offense at my many pleadings within the blogsphere here! :)
But now that I think about it, with one such as you, I wanted to error on the side of prudence and offer the apology lest I was overly wordy and then be found to have transgressed your dainty ness? :)
These guys in here are rough skinned and soft hearted. You, well, you probably are soft skinned and soft hearted. :)
Oh well, I noticed it. He probably has watched Dr. White's pleadings too? :)
Birds of a feather flock together!
But you can know the depth of evil in a man's heart when he hunts pigeons with falcons! Grrrrr
“I also agree with your observation and Robert's, and related to that, I have noticed that quite a few calvinist brethren misunderstand Free will as absolute unrestrained ability to do anything we want, maybe short of to spring wings and fly.”
That brings a chuckle as I literally had a calvinist say to me recently: so you believe that if people have libertarian free will, do you also believe they can fly?”
Not only do the determinists misunderstand the LFW view, they sometimes **intentionally** do so. I say this because they keep bringing up the same really ridiculous and dumb objections that have nothing to do with the view proponents of LFW hold. If someone has a real concern a sincere question that is one thing, but these intentional misrepresentations are quite another.
“It was quite a revelation to one of my opponents recently to learn that FW theology doesn’t demand that ability, neither does it claim we can just believe things on will, as in "I offer you a million to believe______,would you?" Even when we might want to believe something doesn’t mean we can. Circumstances and motivations are not by themselves capable to make us believe. Even at the threat of imminent danger or death we cant make/force ourselves to believe things we don’t believe...”
This refers to yet another intentional misrepresentation: that we believe that a person who has LFW is completely uninfluenced by external or internal factors. That is not our view. It is not that there are no influences, it is that these external and internal factors that influence us, do not ***necessitate*** our actions when we are acting freely.
"Some see it as extreme or exhaustive Gods determinism or exhaustive ours."
Not exactly sure what you meant here, could you clarify, thanks.
“btw, re: books -I recently started to read (and like) William Graig Lane. I know, I know , you don’t have time :) but it's good”
Which William Lane Craig book are you reading?
Robert
“It is likely that I am Arminian, but I seek to have a scriptural view. That the scriptural view may coincide with Arminianism is entirely possible.”
You sound very much like me. I want to be biblical first, and if something coincides with, or is biblical, I will accept it. In fact I would go far as to say that if something does not coincide with the scriptural view, then reject it whatever it calls itself.
“I just have not read enough specifically Arminian material. I have read a lot of Calvinist material as I enjoy several of them as authors. Some of my response is reading Calvinist explanations and thinking they do not align with the Bible.
I have not read any of the books you have in your beginners list.”
You should read the Arminian literature for yourself and see if it is biblical or not.
“Further, you may think some of my theology heretical :) I think that it is possible that people outside of Christendom be saved. Of course that is still thru Christ. See this post, "Who gets saved?"”
Again you appear to hold a view similar to mine. By the way I reserve “heretical” for someone who denies essentials of the Christian faith. Example – someone denies that Jesus rose from the dead, then they are heretics.
Regarding the issue of is it “possible that people outside of Christendom be saved.” I would throw out the term “Christendom” and replace it with **God’s people.** The issue then becomes who are His people? Or how does one become one of His people? As you correctly note “Of course that is still thru Christ.” My wife and I have a lot of experience working with people with developmental disabilities. So I have thought thru this issue. It is similar to the question about what about babies and children who are mentally incapable of having a faith response to the gospel? And also what about those who literally never hear the name of Jesus and never have the opportunity to hear the gospel message concerning Jesus?
It seems to me that we must make a distinction between those who are able bodied and able minded who do hear the gospel (they must believe in Jesus or they cannot be saved) and those who are not able bodied and able minded or lack opportunity to hear the gospel message. So how would these people, babies, mentally disabled, those who never hear the gospel about Jesus be saved? Well it would have to be thru Christ, so how could that happen? The bible says Jesus died for the world and that God desires to save all people. Well he literally cannot save the babies and others thru a gospel presentation about Jesus (because they are incapable of understanding it, or they never had the opportunity to hear it). But could he still save them thru Jesus? Yes if the atonement of Christ on the cross is sufficient for all, and God applies it to them. What if as an act of mercy he also applies it to some who never did respond to the gospel message (because they did not have the capacity to do so, or never had the opportunity to do so)? Salvation is always through the mercy of God, it is never earned or merited by our efforts. And the cross of Christ is sufficient to save all. Those who reject it consciously will be separated from God.
But if God wants to apply it to babies and small children and the mentally disabled and those who never heard, He has that right because as Paul says in Romans he is both “just and justifier”. So while there are various views on the fate of babies, mentally incompetent, etc. it is only heretical if you deny essential biblical doctrine. The bible does not expressly tell us about the fate of those incapable of having a faith response due to lack of capacity or those who never hear about Jesus, so there are differing views.
Robert
Don't get me wrong about reading, I do read, and a lot; though perhaps more on the net these days than on paper. It is just that my interests are broad and the time commitment to 1 topic (Arminianism) with several books may be difficult. Further, many of the books I would read are not easily available to me so I tend to buy them. My sister-in-law saw my bookshelf and said, "Here are all the books I saw in bookshops and thought nobody bought."
The only topic I read exhaustively on is creationism.
I also don't particularly like reading books written in the style of greater than 50 or so years ago. I can understand it but it is harder work than modern writing (for me anyway). I don't much care for KJV either for the same reason. This is probably because languages are not my forte, rather science.
I have started reading Craig's book Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. Looks to be good and I believe he gives a defence of Arminianism in there somewhere.
I was using the term "heresy" somewhat loosely and humourously. I tend to use the term for any belief that is not true, irrespective of the otherwise orthodoxy of the proponent.
I see the heresiness of incorrect beliefs at least partially dependant on why people hold them. For example, I am more concerned about a protestant turning catholic than a catholic from childhood. And more so if they had strong grounding in protestantism rather than nominal.
I meant to say that *some*( in fairness to C brethren/sistren i admit that not all) usually see that everything is or fully determined by God or fully by human, and deny anything resembling synergy in any sense.
To me it causes logical problems with trying to pin the blame and responsiblity for sin on man, but i promised i will try to get deeper understaning of C theology before judging.
Not exactly sure what you meant here, could you clarify, thanks.
Sorry, that is what i am trying to pass for decent english :)))
I am reading "The Only Wise God",he touches few subjects, but the most interesting view is how foreknowledge and free can coexist.
O.
Agreed. Most Calvinists I consider to be worthy of debating with usually try their best to understand the opposing view.
Oh,I wasnt trying to be sarcastic, you indeed have no time to read it all. People that actually read never have time- the ones who do have time , dont read. I cant understand KJV/old theol. authors much , but do like the old sermons.
W C Lane is good apologist,but in academia environment - in debates with non christian scientists that is - he is often a bit behind.There are some real sharks . I've seen people clearly beat him in apologetics discussions.
Which still makes him an excellent author.
O.
You are not multiwordy, but rather mutiprooftexty.
i always want to give a smart alec reply :).. if the Calvinists only had considered Romans 9:6, etc... and quoted it to James Arminius, this entire debate in the Reformation would never have started! Why are you born in the wrong century. ;)
O
born in the wrong one? hmmmm, maybe that is why? Why, why, why Lord was I born for such a time as this?
I do lay claim to ancient words though:::>
Psa 139:15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Psa 139:16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
I guess we shall both agree that in His Book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, and now I am here blogging with you too!
Have your days yet come or are you an angel sent to blog with me? :) ah, us? :) ah, no, them? :)??
Oh well!
Then?
God be with you,
Dan