Matthew Johnson wrote:


> >  You
> >confuse the Greek notion of determinism or "system" with the
biblical
> >Christian idea of God's control of all things.
>
> You miss the point, Loren. It is you, with your slavery to Calvinism,
who have
> confused the Greek notion of determinism with the CHristian idea of
God's
> providential control. That is why you reduce us to automota.
>
I would suggest the take another look at the fathers.  This was their
failure as well.  Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin Martyr,
Athenagoras, Irenaeus, even Tertulian, the founder of Latin
Chrisitanity, all failed at exactly the same point that you do,
Matthew.  And grant you, like these just mentioned, you hold to a
committment to the Rule of Faith and you readily maintain the truth
against heresy, yet like these men you seem to think of a general
theism maintained by the same presuppositions of men who were not
Christian and of Christianity as adding something to this general
theism.  And like Tertulian, great strides have been made in
Trinitarian discussion, yet there remains to some extent a bounding to
the principle of cosmological Logos theology.

> >  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.
>
> But what YOU call "the biblical view" is NOT. Again, if you would
actually LOOK
> at the Augustine citation, you would see how he explains that that
> 'responsibility' in turn implies MAN HAS FREE WILL.
>
Again, one must distinquish between his earlier work and his later
work.  For instance, his Christian theology did not allow for either a
non-Christian a priori or for a non-Christian a posteriori type of
reasoning.  Innate knowledge and acquired knowledge are involved in one
another.  They are interdependent as they are limiting concepts one of
another.  They are dilectically related to one another.  But they must
be placed upon the Christian presupposition of the triune God as
self-contained and the doctrines of creation and providence, and he did
so place them _in his later work.  But in his earliest writings, and
especially when defending the Christian faith apolgetically, he
employed a non-Christian notion of abstract Truth and therefore also a
non-Christian notion of brute fact.

And what of credo ut intelligam?  Here he maintains that faith preceeds
knowledge.  This meant that faith is someting practical by which the
faithful are brought into contact with objects which are already known
from within.  So this extends to mean that the Platonic or neo-Platonic
theory of truth required a definition of knowldge which assumes that
man inherently knos all things.  Man is potentially omniscient.  Does
he not exist as participant in Truth?  And truth is eternal.  For the
soul of man to exist it must exist as eternal and therefore as being
virtually or potentially omniscient.

The whole point is that even Augustinian theology has a depth of
weakness which was not expunged from Christian theological
presuppositional thinking until the Reformation pinned the ears back on
the Latin (and Eastern) Churches as to the depravity of man as taught
sola scriptura.  This is why the EOC is like the RCC in that it
presupposes man's autonomy and authority.
>
> >The basic reason for your failure in both these identifications is
> >simply your refusal of the absolute authority of the Bible.
>
> Because, as I have so often pointed out to you, the Bible itsels
teaches NO such
> "absolute authority". Neither does the Church.
>
It is both self-attesting and necessitated.  Prior to the fall, man
could receive direct revelation from God.  But now scripturalization is
required.  Any other system reverts to relativistic rationalism.
>
> >  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.
>
> You give lip service to this idea, but then deny it pretty quickly.
>
> >  Simply put, it is a mystery and CANNOT be penetrated by the
> >puny mind of man.
>
> So why do you keep denying free will? Don't you see that when you do
this, you
> claim to have penetrated into this mystery?
>
No, rather I understand the effects of the fall as biblically revealed.
 "in that day you shall surely die," meant, in effect, that when man
sinned, he committed suicide.  And we all know that once man kills
himself, he cannot undo what he has done by an equal act of the will.
Therefore, like his sensibilites, like his intellect, equally so the
will of man fell.  The inclination of the will cannot regenerate
itself.  It is sola deo.
>
> >  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.
>
> That is a pious _sounding_ non sequitur. But you _do_ display quite a
penchant
> for nonsense with a pious ring to it, don't you?
>
YOU  HAVE NO ANSWER.  You have provided no rebuttal to what is written.
 That is because there is no answer to the Reformed proposition.
Because you do not have a sole authoritative, you are left with
relativistic rationalism.  This is why your style of argumentation is
so akin to the failure of the fathers in their recognition of the
import of the Genesis record.  This is why you default to allegory
because you cannot maintain your position and yet retain the historical
character of the creation of man and his historical fall as biblically
revealed.  Your system requires you, at all costs, to retain some sort
of autonomy, which is only to say that in the end, God loses His
soverign place in the universe and falls subject to the whims of man.

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