Brandan

> IAN: I too believe God is logical - but that His logic is often higher
than ours.  That does not mean it is illogical, only that ours fails to rise
above our natural limits.  The book of Job is indicative of that.  Just look
at the logic of Job's comforters.
> BJK: Yeah, look at their logic... it's faulty.  I don't understand your
point.
> IAN: But in their human wisdom they were misrepresenting the truth of God.
They and we need to recognise our limits.
> BJK: Our "logic" as men is no logic unless it's derived from the Word of
God.  That was the problem with Job's comforters, and that is the problem
with those who say our logic is not like God's.  The thing is, we were
created in God's image, and we can USE the logic that HE uses.  If we don't
use His logic, then we're not using logic but subjective feelings.  If God's
logic was different from our logic, we could not understand the Bible
because the Bible would appear illogical to us.  Tell me does God expect us
to embrace stuff that makes no sense in His word?  Yes of course at times
when reading the Bible, things do not make sense, but over time, we should
come to an understanding because God's word interprets itself and in no way
contradicts itself.  To state that the Bible is full of contradictions that
we have to "swallow by faith" is in my opinion opening a door to heresy.

My point was that human logic, e.g. God rewards the good and punishes the
evil, so suffering indicates sin, is incomplete.  You are perfectly right in
your insistance that God's logic is the only perfect logic, but is God not
revealing a difference in human and Divine 'logic' when the apostle writes
in 1 Corinthians 1:20, 'Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the
disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?'  I
used 'human logic' in that sense - human intellectual understanding that
functions well in as far as it recognises its limits.

I am not suggesting the Bible contradicts itself:  that is your
interpretation of my assertion that Christ displayed two wills.  Is not God
free to desire something that He choses not to acquire?

If I as a man can desire something I chose not to acquire, why should God
have less freedom?  For instance, A man desires his son to complete his
homework before going out to play.  He avoids it but until now Dad has
insisted.  Tonight, Dad's going to let him have his rebellious way and then
find out what it's like to either do the work when he's exhausted or
tomorrow morning face the music from his teacher.  Dad still desired his son
to do the homework early, but preferred to set that desire aside in order to
discipline his son through consequences.

Or, An employer desires that his employees attent for the full shift they
are paid for.  He has found that if he leaves the plant gates open many
leave early.  Since finding this out  he has kept the gates closed till the
shift ends.  But today he is going to leave them open.  He still desires all
his employees to do their full shift, but today anyone found to have left
early will be fired.  He wants to weed out the shirkers.   Both these
examples show two wills at work without loss of logic.

Likewise, God can desire the repentance of everyman, but for His own good
reasons choose to give such repentance only to the elect.

> IAN: The case in point: Mat 23:37.  You say this cannot mean that Christ
had a will that was frustrated.  If He had wanted to save these Jews, they
would have been saved.  But your interpretation of the text only moves the
dilemna from His will to save to His will to evangelise.  One or the other
was frustrated.
> BJK: Christ was frustrated only in the sense that He was restricted
physically.

ANY frustration of His will would invalidate your proposition.

> Ian: Why not let the text speak for itself - Christ wept over the city!
> BJK: Huh?  Where in the entire chapter of Mat. 23 is Jesus expressing His
desire to save all men?  Where is He weeping over Jerusalem?  In Jn. 11, we
see Jesus weeping, but He's expressing His love and emotions for His people.
My friend, you are reading WAY too much into this text.

Yes, a slip on my part.  I was thinking of  Luke 19:41, 42 'Now as He drew
near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, "If you had known, even you,
especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now
they are hidden from your eyes.'  Does it not confirm Christ's desire for
lost mankind?

> Ian: He was grieved over their unbelief.  Yes, He could have changed all
their hearts and brought them to His feet in repentance and faith.  But He
chose not to.  Yet He was still grieved at their unbelief.  He allowed His
will to be frustrated.  Put it another way, He willed that His will would be
frustrated.  One will establishing the frustration of another will.
Illogical?  Only to merely human minds.
> BJK: That is one of the most amazing things I've ever read.  Here we have
in your theology a God who wants to save all men, but doesn't.  Here we have
a God who has two contrary wills.  What you have done is robbed God's
sovereignty and created a situation where God is impotent to do what He
desires.  What's even more amazing is you admit this is a contradiction,
that it makes no sense in the minds of men, that it is illogical, but we
have to accept this contradiction by faith because "God's logic" is "higher"
than ours.  Since when was Christianity an irrational religion?  Where in
the Bible does it say we should ignore our intellect?  If God's logic and
man's logic are different in that God's logic is "higher", then we can't
understand anything about God!  If God's logic is different than man's
logic, then when God identified Himself to Moses as "I AM THAT I AM", maybe
Moses should have understand Him to mean that He wasn't God.  When God said,
"You shall not murder", maybe we should understand it to be "You shall kill
as many people as possible."

First, God is not impotent to do what He desires; He choses not to do so.
Second, we are to use our reasoning - but with the awareness of its limits.
 The plain things God reveals we can understand: the 'higher' things we
believe to be right because He says so, not because it appears so to our
reasoning.  The Problem of Evil that philosophers and moralists debate
should be no problem to the Christian.  We say with Job,
        "I know that You can do everything,
        And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.
        You asked, "Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?'
        Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
        Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
         Listen, please, and let me speak;
        You said, "I will question you, and you shall answer
        I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear,
        But now my eye sees You.
        Therefore I abhor myself,
        And repent in dust and ashes."

>I've attached Calvin's and John Gill's interpretations of Mat 23:37 so we
can see that your interpretation of Mat 23:37 is >Arminian and not
traditional Calvinism.

Check out Calvin on Luke 39:41.  Something of my position is stated there:
"And wept over it. As there was nothing which Christ more ardently desired
than to execute the office which the Father had committed to him, and as he
knew that the end of his calling was to gather the lost sheep of the house
of Israel, (Matthew 15:24,) he wished that his coming might bring salvation
to all. This was the reason why he was moved with compassion, and wept over
the approaching destruction of the city of Jerusalem. For while he reflected
that this was the sacred abode which God had chosen, in which the covenant
of eternal salvation should dwell - the sanctuary from which salvation would
go forth to the whole world, it was impossible that he should not deeply
deplore its ruin. And when he saw the people, who had been adopted to the
hope of eternal life, perish miserably through their ingratitude and
wickedness, we need not wonder if he could not refrain from tears.
As to those who think it strange that Christ should bewail an evil which he
had it in his power to remedy, this difficulty is quickly removed. For as he
came down from heaven, that, clothed in human flesh, he might be the witness
and minister of the salvation which comes from God, so he actually took upon
him human feelings, as far as the office which he had undertaken allowed.
And it is necessary that we should always give due consideration to the
character which he sustains, when he speaks, or when he is employed in
accomplishing the salvation of men; as in this passage, in order that he may
execute faithfully his Father's commission, he must necessarily desire that
the fruit of the redemption should come to the whole body of the elect
people. Since, therefore, he was given to this people as a minister for
salvation, it is in accordance with the nature of his office that he should
deplore its destruction. He was God, I acknowledge; but on all occasions
when it was necessary that he should perform the office of teacher, his
divinity rested, and was in a manner concealed, that it might not hinder
what belonged to him as Mediator. By this weeping he proved not only that he
loved, like a brother, those for whose sake he became man, but also that God
made to flow into human nature the Spirit of fatherly love."



In Him

Ian

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brandan Kraft" <bkraft@...>
To: <soundofgrace@...>
Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2003 5:18 PM
Subject: Re: [soundofgrace] Arminianism Raises Its ugly head....tonight