Matthew Johnson wrote:
> In article ,
lsenders{at}hotmail.com
> says...
>
>
> >To state that He "foreknew" us speaks of relationship,
> >not intellectual encompass.
>
> So YOU say. But Scripture does not.
>
Elsewhere you have mentioned "foreknew" used in Acts with the
suggestion that you have proven my theorem wrong as to not indicating
"fore-knowing" as in prescience, but than foreknowing as in
relationship.  I looked it up and it is Peter who is speaking in Acts
2:23.  This, however, isn't the only time Peter mentions it
_in_the_same_context.  Check out 1 Pet 1:20.  I'm sorry, but you have
yet to prove me wrong.

Also, though I know what I am about to say is never going to sink in,
if you are going to post an objection, why not put forth a little
effort and develope your point.  You readily enough chasten those who
just through out bare verses, and yet you do it often enough, with the
presumption that your interpretation is the same as fact.
>
> Finally, Loren, remember that even the physics you are so fond of
upholding as
> an example of the rational order of God's creation has discovered
some pretty
> severe limitations to causality. The details would belong in
sci.physics rather
> than SRC, but surely any of the several physicists in this NG will
confirm that
> Bell's Theorem implies that either causality or locality MUST be
violated.
>
> If you really take to heart that example, you will NOT find
Augustine's
> conclusions concering causality free-will so unacceptable.
>
Oh we could get into a long discussion as to where the father's
presuppositions were based in their development of their argumentation,
but not today.

I feel that you make the same error that the non-Christian does.  You
confuse the Greek notion of determinism or "system" with the biblical
Christian idea of God's control of all things.  You identify more with
the non-Christian idea of indeterminism, namely, that of free will or
human autonomy than the biblical view of man being created responsible.
 The basic reason for your failure in both these identifications is
simply your refusal of the absolute authority of the Bible.  You refuse
to accept the biblical doctrine that God is in control of every thing
-the biblical principle of continuity- which in itself requires the
Christian principle of indeterminism.  These are correlative of
another.  Simply put, it is a mystery and CANNOT be penetrated by the
puny mind of man.  The relationship between an all controlling,
sovereign God as expressed via the authority He has given to His
written word, and the responsibility of man is NOT contradictory since
it is in God that it finds full and final internal coherence.  The
problem lies in that the human mind cannot rise above its *appearance*
of being contradictory.  Hence the need of supernatural revelation and
after the fall, of the inscripturation of just such revelation from the
Designer and Sustainer.  The biblical idea of unity presupposes the
self-identification of God and His finished revelation to men in
history.  It involves the idea of God's giving this self-identified
revelation a system of truth, which is anthropomorphic in its
expression and yet all-determinative in its content.  These two ideas
of self-identification and of an authoritative system are directly
involved with one another.

ALL adjudication of heresy involves one's criterion of judgment.  You,
like the Greek's, assume and maintain the idea that man is free, that
is, autonomous.  You believe (as revealed by your allegorical
methodology removing the historical character of the biblical doctrine
of creation in general and the creation and fall of men in particular)
that man retains the ability to act or not act, rightly or wrongly,
without regard to the plan of God.  In fact, you have written
belittling comments of my emphasis on the Decree/Plan of God, so I know
I am not wrong in my analysis of your presupposition arguments.  Your
refusal of both the doctrine of the depravity of man and the necessity
therefore of the three sola's, grace, faith and scripture, places you
exactly in the same camp as Plato where he speaks of God as the
nameless one.  For the god of the Greeks, being the god of all apostate
thought, was utterly indeterminate and your position so requires as
well.  And it is just such a god which cannot name or identify himself
_because_ Man_ has_not_identified_him.  Your final point of
adjudication always rests in the reasonability of the autonomous man.

And so, like many of the early fathers, and certain like the Roman
system, you practice that those who take reason as autonomous and who
therefore make man the final point of reference in predication are
essentially right in their methodology.  The RC system and the EO
system are bedfellows in their basic presumptions.  Your systems are
made up of two mutually exclusive principle, that of the biblical
Christian and that of the non-Christian.  Like the early church
fathers, you do not clearly recognize and give credence to the fact
that the Christian principle of continuity and the Christian principle
of discontinuity are involved with one another.  That such is the case
may be observed from one reoccurring fact.  In their apologetical
presentation of Christianity to unbelievers, the were confronted with
both the non-Christian principle of continuity and the non-Christian
principle of discontinuity.  The former is found in the particular in
the idea of Form as the all-embracing universal idea.  The latter if
found in particular in the idea of indeterminate matter as an original
constitutive factor of reality.  Though you refuse to acknowledge it,
the fathers tended, by and large, to identify the non-Christian
principle of continuity with the Christian principle of continuity and
therefore the non-Christian idea of system with the Christian or
biblical idea of system.  However, it is the non-Christian idea of
system which was rationalistic and deterministic.  It implied the
disappearance of human personality and with it the individual reason of
men.  And so, as those of us who have worked in non-Christian oriented
scientific labs know all too well, it is often charged that Christians
are holding to rationalism and determinism.  Often the reply is that
"we believe in free will."  "We are not determinists nor are we
rationalist."  And like too many Christians, you feel that to defend
yourself you have to appeal to the non-Christian idea of discontinuity
in order to remedy the hard position you have placed yourself in.

The Reformer does not make this mistake to begin with therefore he does
not have to synthesize his position.

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