Salvation is a Gift....now what?

[H]

4. Regarding the origin of sin.  The first sin we know anything about was the rebellion of Satan.  This limits the options.

a. God created Satan with the potential to sin or not to sin, but left him free to decide to sin or not.

b. God created Satan with a nature that forced him to sin, so he could not fail to sin.
   
c. God created Satan sin free but acted upon him in such a way as to make him sin.

Unless you can think of some other options Verne, that's all there is.  Option a. makes Satan a free moral agent...which in the view of many Reformed theologians is impossible.  It violates their idea of God's sovereignty.

Tom,

Satan was obviously a free moral agent, as was Adam. Can you show us where a Reformed theologian denies this?

One of the most interesting, stimulating and enlightening discussions of "free will" that I have come across so far is "FREE GRACE VERSUS FREE WILL" by W. E. Best
(http://www.webbmt.org/EngHTML2/Free%20Grace%20Versus%20Free%20Will.htm).
Here are some extracts that I think might be helpful in this discussion:

"Absolute freedom of the will can belong only to God. No law restrains God’s will, because He is His own law. Since God is sovereign, no power can overcome His will. He is omnipotent. He “...worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:11). God’s will is irresistible, fixed, and everlasting: “...For who hath resisted his will?” (Rom. 9:19). It is everlasting because God does not change: “For I am the Lord, I change not...” (Mal. 3:6). The Lord Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Godhead, is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:. With God there “...is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). God’s will cannot be changed for the better because God cannot be better. It cannot be changed for the worse because God cannot be less than He is.

God’s will is subject to no one, but the will of every man is subject to God. … God’s freedom indicates that He is under no compulsion outside of Himself. He acts according to the law of His being. God is self-moved, and unable to sin. ….

Freedom in God is immutable self-determination; conversely, freedom in a finite being—Adam before the fall—is mutable self-determination. The truth that freedom in God is immutable self-determination is the key to the remainder of the discussion of the freedom of the will. ….

Adam’s will was a free will because it was self-determined. ….

Adam’s original uprightness was self-determined but not self-originated. His fall, however, was both self-determined and self-originated. The doctrine of concurrence—cooperation—cannot be connected with Adam’s sin or his fall. God is the author of neither Adam’s sin nor his fall. ….

Adam … was created in a state of mutable self-determination, which allowed the possibility of his fall. And he did fall when he went from an inclination toward God to a selfish, ego-centered inclination. Sinful inclination is the creature’s product and activity. ….

Adam’s sinful determination originated within himself. God did not cooperate in Adam’s evil self-determination. He created Adam a free person. ….

Man must be a free agent to be accountable to God. … Free agency is the power to decide according to one’s character. Free will is the power to change one’s character by volition or choice. Free agency belongs to every man, but the power to change one’s character by the exercise of the will does not belong to mankind. ….

Some people have been mistaken in trying to determine causes of sin. Men have blamed God Himself for sin. God’s decree is not a cause of sin. Proper distinction must be made between God’s decree and the actual action that brought sin into being. God’s decree has no causal influence on sinful action, since a decree as such does not operate to effect the thing decreed. God’s purpose is one thing and His actual bringing into being that which He purposed is another. Sin entered the world by Adam’s fall and not by God’s creative hand.

Everything decreed does come to pass in time, but God’s foreknowledge of an action does not necessitate the action. Whatever man does, good or bad, he does with as much willingness as though his will were really free. Foreknowledge of an action does not actively influence the action itself. God remains omniscient, and He knows every deed that every man will perform. Nevertheless, we must distinguish between God’s foreknowledge of a thing and the activity of the foreknown thing. ….

How can a person be a free and responsible agent if his actions were foreordained from eternity? “Free and responsible agent” indicates that an intelligent person acts with rational self-determination. The term foreordination signifies that from eternity God made certain the course of events that occur in the life of every person and in the course of nature. The same God who ordained all events ordained the free agency of man in the midst of those foreordained events. Free agency is under God’s absolute sovereignty."


 

[al Hartman]

     All parts of this discussion have been stimulating and helpful to me.  It gets pretty heavy at times, but I'm enjoying it immensely and hope many others are too.
     One of the most marvelous considerations, to my mind, is that in that day when we all shall know as we are known, we will all be in full agreement regarding these things which will then be very obvious to us all.
     Our God is a wonderful God!!!

al

[Oscar]

Keeping in mind that that the principle of deductive reasoning is to move from the general to the specific, explain what is logically wrong with the following argument.
1. The Bible states in many places there is only one God
2. The Bible identifies three distinct persons as God.
3. The Biblical teaching that there is only one God is false.

Tom I beg to disagree. Logically, the Jehovah's Witnesses would have it right and we would have it wrong. You canot arrive at your conclusion without allowing a fungible premise. The Jehovah's Witness would ask you exactly what do you mean by "one"?
In my humble opinion Tom, the doctrine of the Trinity is based on faith.
Although it is in my view not possible to logcially expound it (forget about linguistic contortions for the moment), we accept and believe it because God said it!
I would also point out that God's Word specifically says there is nothing logical about the preaching of the cross of Jesus Christ. In fact, the people who invented logic deemed it foolishness...
The just shall live by his faith!
Verne
p.s. Lest I be misunderstood, let me say that I think logic as a reflective tool has its clear uses. We ought not, by and large to be illogical people. Nonetheless logic alone is not a suffuciently adequate instrument to fully expound spiritual truth. Only the Word of God has any such adequacy....

Verne,

A deductive argument is one in which if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true.  The argument for the Trinity I posted is a deductive argument.

Now, as to your example, and your request for an explanation as why it would not be true:

Your "conclusion" does not logically follow from the premises.  In fact, it has nothing to do with the premises.  This merely qualifies as a comment.

What I am saying is that there is nothing in your premises that leads you to your conclusion.

Verne, I am currently reading "On The Incarnation" by Athanasius.
Athanasius is the church father that stood so courageously against the Arians, (which sometimes included the Roman emperor) in the early 4th century.  He led the fight to define the doctrine of the Trinity.   He used logic.

When you say that the doctrine of the Trinity rests on "faith", (I'm not sure what that means), I would ask you a question; How, without logic, can one establish this doctrine?

You say that you believe this doctrine because "God said it".  Can you show me where the scriptures actually say that three persons subsist in one being, or an equivalent statement?

As to your comment that the Word says there is nothing logical about the preaching of the cross:

1. Who said logic was fully adequate to expound the truth?

2. Logic, however, is necessary in order to expound the truth.
Logic is necessary to even think!  And that means about anything.

The verse you are thinking of says, "for the preaching of the cross is foolishness to them that perish".

Is preaching painting?  No.  Why?  Because of the rules of logic.
All A=A.   That is known as the law of identity.  If it weren't true, preaching could be painting.

Why couldn't the preaching of the cross be foolishness and not be foolishness at the same time?  Because of the law of non-contradiction, All A is not non-A.  The statement relies on the rules of logic to make sense.

3. Regarding "the people who invented logic".  People didn't invent logic.  God invented logic Verne.   He created the human mind and Aristotle described how it works.   No one has ever shown that it works in any other way.

If you say, "I disagree", you must utilize two of the laws of logic to do so.





God bless,
Thomas Maddux

[Oscar]

One of the BIG, BIG problems I have with Reformed teaching is that it makes God the author of sin.  Reformed authors realize this, but they attempt to avoid this by authoritative declaration.

I am taking a class on Essential Christian Doctrine, which starts today.  I will have a chance to discuss these things with a trained theologian.  We'll see what develops.

God bless,

Thomas Maddux

Hi Tom,

I was merely pointing out that you misrepresented the "other"  side in your post.  I know that I can speak for all of us by saying that we are getting lots of benefit from your views on this and other topics.

Nevertheless, it is not becoming for us to misrepresent the "other" side.

No one, to the best of my knowledge, has ever said,  "The Bible teaches that God is judging people because He didn't give them faith."  That is, no one says this unless they are trying to either blaspheme----which was certainly not your motive----or they are trying to make a straw man out of reformed folks.

Calling an Arminian a "virulent dog," is pretty low....but so is claiming that a Calvinist asserts that God is handing out gifts, and then punishing those He didn't give a gift to.   It just isn't true.

There may be plenty that is wrong with Reformed theology, but let's at least stick to what this theology really is!

Carry on,

Brent

Brent,

My reasoning in saying that is as follows:

Verne said that the Bible teaches that faith is a gift from God.

John 3 says that God condemns men because they do not have faith.

All I said is that that would mean that God condemns men because they don't have what He didn't give them.  How does that misrepresent "the other side"?

God bless,

Thomas Maddux

[Oscar]

4. Regarding the origin of sin.  The first sin we know anything about was the rebellion of Satan.  This limits the options.

a. God created Satan with the potential to sin or not to sin, but left him free to decide to sin or not.

b. God created Satan with a nature that forced him to sin, so he could not fail to sin.
   
c. God created Satan sin free but acted upon him in such a way as to make him sin.

Unless you can think of some other options Verne, that's all there is.  Option a. makes Satan a free moral agent...which in the view of many Reformed theologians is impossible.  It violates their idea of God's sovereignty.

Tom,

Satan was obviously a free moral agent, as was Adam. Can you show us where a Reformed theologian denies this?

One of the most interesting, stimulating and enlightening discussions of "free will" that I have come across so far is "FREE GRACE VERSUS FREE WILL" by W. E. Best
(http://www.webbmt.org/EngHTML2/Free%20Grace%20Versus%20Free%20Will.htm).
Here are some extracts that I think might be helpful in this discussion:

"Absolute freedom of the will can belong only to God. No law restrains God’s will, because He is His own law. Since God is sovereign, no power can overcome His will. He is omnipotent. He “...worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:11). God’s will is irresistible, fixed, and everlasting: “...For who hath resisted his will?” (Rom. 9:19). It is everlasting because God does not change: “For I am the Lord, I change not...” (Mal. 3:6). The Lord Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Godhead, is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:. With God there “...is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). God’s will cannot be changed for the better because God cannot be better. It cannot be changed for the worse because God cannot be less than He is.

God’s will is subject to no one, but the will of every man is subject to God. … God’s freedom indicates that He is under no compulsion outside of Himself. He acts according to the law of His being. God is self-moved, and unable to sin. ….

Freedom in God is immutable self-determination; conversely, freedom in a finite being—Adam before the fall—is mutable self-determination. The truth that freedom in God is immutable self-determination is the key to the remainder of the discussion of the freedom of the will. ….

Adam’s will was a free will because it was self-determined. ….

Adam’s original uprightness was self-determined but not self-originated. His fall, however, was both self-determined and self-originated. The doctrine of concurrence—cooperation—cannot be connected with Adam’s sin or his fall. God is the author of neither Adam’s sin nor his fall. ….

Adam … was created in a state of mutable self-determination, which allowed the possibility of his fall. And he did fall when he went from an inclination toward God to a selfish, ego-centered inclination. Sinful inclination is the creature’s product and activity. ….

Adam’s sinful determination originated within himself. God did not cooperate in Adam’s evil self-determination. He created Adam a free person. ….

Man must be a free agent to be accountable to God. … Free agency is the power to decide according to one’s character. Free will is the power to change one’s character by volition or choice. Free agency belongs to every man, but the power to change one’s character by the exercise of the will does not belong to mankind. ….

Some people have been mistaken in trying to determine causes of sin. Men have blamed God Himself for sin. God’s decree is not a cause of sin. Proper distinction must be made between God’s decree and the actual action that brought sin into being. God’s decree has no causal influence on sinful action, since a decree as such does not operate to effect the thing decreed. God’s purpose is one thing and His actual bringing into being that which He purposed is another. Sin entered the world by Adam’s fall and not by God’s creative hand.

Everything decreed does come to pass in time, but God’s foreknowledge of an action does not necessitate the action. Whatever man does, good or bad, he does with as much willingness as though his will were really free. Foreknowledge of an action does not actively influence the action itself. God remains omniscient, and He knows every deed that every man will perform. Nevertheless, we must distinguish between God’s foreknowledge of a thing and the activity of the foreknown thing. ….

How can a person be a free and responsible agent if his actions were foreordained from eternity? “Free and responsible agent” indicates that an intelligent person acts with rational self-determination. The term foreordination signifies that from eternity God made certain the course of events that occur in the life of every person and in the course of nature. The same God who ordained all events ordained the free agency of man in the midst of those foreordained events. Free agency is under God’s absolute sovereignty."


 

H,

Quite interesting.  I agree with much of what you say.  However you must admit that Calvin taught that God caused Adam to fall.

For example: "I admit that by the will of God all the sons of Adam fell into that state of wretchedness in which they are now involved: and this is just what I said at the first, that we must always return to the mere pleasure of the divine will, the cause of which is hidden in himself".  Institutes, 23,4.

What you are arguing is that God caused it to happen but he didn't cause it to happen.  

 Huh?

Here's a question for you, my voluntarist friend; If God's will is absolutely free...why is he "The God who cannot lie"?

God bless,

Thomas Maddux

[editor]

Brent,

My reasoning in saying that is as follows:

Verne said that the Bible teaches that faith is a gift from God.

John 3 says that God condemns men because they do not have faith.

All I said is that that would mean that God condemns men because they don't have what He didn't give them.  How does that misrepresent "the other side"?

God bless,

Thomas Maddux

I thought you were refuting Calvinsism, not Verne.

Verne is easy to refute, but even he doesn't say that God judges men because He didn't give them gifts.....

We are judged for who we are,  sinners, and what we do....sin.

Reformed folks are crystal clear on this point.

Brent

[al Hartman]

My reasoning... is as follows:

Verne said that the Bible teaches that faith is a gift from God.

John 3 says that God condemns men because they do not have faith.

All I said is that that would mean that God condemns men because they don't have what He didn't give them.  How does that misrepresent "the other side"?

     I hope to not muddy the waters by asking this:  Isn't the issue here not that God gave the gift of faith to men, but that men refused to accept it?  You may mail me a check, then later condemn me for never having cashed it.  If I don't open the envelope, sign the back of the check and take it to the bank, it serves me not at all, even though you gave it to me and I carry it in my pocket every day.

al

[editor]

Aahhh! Now we are getting somewhere. I did not say that I believed your representation of what the Trinity is! I accept your syllogism as presented as it is clear that although premise one and two appear to be contradictory logically, the Bible does indeed state them both. Tom I could not logically explain to anyone even if I wnated to what it means that "three persons subsit in one", your definition not mine. That statememt clearly defies mathematical logic.  Rather than the flowery and liguistically elegant conclusion you arrived at, my conclusion is that the Biblical teaching of the Trinity while true, defies logic!!!!


Verne
p.s. I hope all understand I am playing logical devil's advocate here... I believe in the Trinity of course, by faith!  

One of our children's devotionals helped quite a bit with the Trinity.

Example one:  The sun.

We see its light, feel its warmth, and require its phototrophic properties.  3 distinct "aspects" sunlight, the character of one sun.

Example two:

H2O, water:  It exists as solid, liquid and gas, yet it is all water.

Perfect examples?  No, not perfect, but surely if water can have 3 "persons," God is also able to exist as a Trinity.

Brent

[editor]

Aahhh! Now we are getting somewhere. I did not say that I believed your representation of what the Trinity is! I accept your syllogism as presented as it is clear that although premise one and two appear to be contradictory logically, the Bible does indeed state them both. Tom I could not logically explain to anyone even if I wnated to what it means that "three persons subsit in one", your definition not mine. That statememt clearly defies mathematical logic.  Rather than the flowery and liguistically elegant conclusion you arrived at, my conclusion is that the Biblical teaching of the Trinity while true, defies logic!!!!


Verne
p.s. I hope all understand I am playing logical devil's advocate here... I believe in the Trinity of course, by faith!  

One of our children's devotionals helped quite a bit with the Trinity.

Example one:  The sun.

We see its light, feel its warmth, and require its phototrophic properties.  3 distinct "aspects" sunlight, the character of one sun.

Example two:

H2O, water:  It exists as solid, liquid and gas, yet it is all water.

Perfect examples?  No, not perfect, but surely if water can have 3 "persons," God is also able to exist as a Trinity.

Brent

I have heard the analogy and so have others. A true sceptic will find it wholly unsatisfactory. One does not normaly have difficulty that a whole can indeed be the sum of its parts, which may differ in aspect. Temperature dependent states of matter is also easy to understand. You can track the individual molecules throught each stage of transformation. The analogy appled to deity becomes very problematic because of the variable of personhood, clearly arributed to each member of the Godhead.
Verne

My kids had no trouble believing it.

[H]

H,

Quite interesting.  I agree with much of what you say.  However you must admit that Calvin taught that God caused Adam to fall.

For example: "I admit that by the will of God all the sons of Adam fell into that state of wretchedness in which they are now involved: and this is just what I said at the first, that we must always return to the mere pleasure of the divine will, the cause of which is hidden in himself".  Institutes, 23,4.

What you are arguing is that God caused it to happen but he didn't cause it to happen.  

 Huh?

Here's a question for you, my voluntarist friend; If God's will is absolutely free...why is he "The God who cannot lie"?

God bless,

Thomas Maddux

Tom,

No, I don't have to admit that "Calvin taught that God caused Adam to fall." And no, I am not arguing "that God caused it to happen". Calvin said that it was "by the will of God" that Adam fell, but that is not the same as saying that He caused it. I interpret him to mean that since Adam fell, it must have been God's will (in some sense) to allow him to fall (as a result of his own free choice), since otherwise God would not have allowed it to happen.  After all, "with God nothing shall be impossible" (Luke 1:37), so it seems to me that He could have prevented it if it had not been His will. But that doesn't mean He caused it.

This basically involves the age-old question of "Why is there evil in the world if it was created by a good God?" People have taken a number of different approaches to this question through the centuries. Some have simply denied that God exists. If God doesn't exist, then the question is clearly meaningless and doesn't need to be answered. Some have denied that the God who created the universe is good (Marcion, for example). Some have denied that God is omniscient (i.e., He didn't know that Satan and Adam would rebel when He decided to create them). Calvin (and many others, myself included) simply bowed in humility before God's sovereignty and said that for His own reasons, He wanted to create Lucifer and Adam, even though He knew they would rebel, thus introducing sin and evil into the creation. As the Lord Jesus said, "Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight." (Mat. 11:26).
What is your approach?

As for your question "If God's will is absolutely free...why is he "The God who cannot lie"?", it reminds me of some questions that atheists have asked, such as "If God is omnipotent, why can't He make a rock he cannot move?" If you answer that question correctly, you will also have answered your question.

God bless,

H

 

[al Hartman]

One of our children's devotionals helped quite a bit with the Trinity.

Example one:  The sun.

We see its light, feel its warmth, and require its phototrophic properties.  3 distinct "aspects" sunlight, the character of one sun.

Example two:

H2O, water:  It exists as solid, liquid and gas, yet it is all water.

Perfect examples?  No, not perfect, but surely if water can have 3 "persons," God is also able to exist as a Trinity.

Brent

I have heard the analogy and so have others. A true sceptic will find it wholly unsatisfactory. One does not normaly have difficulty that a whole can indeed be the sum of its parts, which may differ in aspect. Temperature dependent states of matter is also easy to understand. You can track the individual molecules throught each stage of transformation. The analogy appled to deity becomes very problematic because of the variable of personhood, clearly arributed to each member of the Godhead.
Verne

My kids had no trouble believing it.

     Good!  Then it has fulfilled its purpose, which is to help kids get a sense of the reality of the triunity of God.  Jesus said that unless we become as little children we won't enter the kingdom of God.  Hence Verne's acceptance of the Trinity "by faith."
     In a different context, Paul points out his having put away childish understanding and thought when he became a man, to illustrate that we shall know even as we are known.  In the interim (while not yet having such full knowledge), faith, hope and love abide and are enough to sustain us in our curiosity because they are ours in the Person of Jesus Christ.  In our longing for utter fulfillment, we have need of patience...

     Farther along we'll know all about it,
               Farther along we'll understand why,
                         Cheer up, my brother,
                         Walk in the sunshine,
               We'll understand it all bye and bye.

al  

[Oscar]

H,

Quite interesting.  I agree with much of what you say.  However you must admit that Calvin taught that God caused Adam to fall.

For example: "I admit that by the will of God all the sons of Adam fell into that state of wretchedness in which they are now involved: and this is just what I said at the first, that we must always return to the mere pleasure of the divine will, the cause of which is hidden in himself".  Institutes, 23,4.

What you are arguing is that God caused it to happen but he didn't cause it to happen.  

 Huh?

Here's a question for you, my voluntarist friend; If God's will is absolutely free...why is he "The God who cannot lie"?

God bless,

Thomas Maddux

God's will may allow something to happen by His excercise of divine restraint. Tom that is not the same thing as saying He caused it to happen. This is a very common error in our thinking.
Your query is a good one and I do not know the answer. Lying, and denying Himself are the two things we are explicitly told in Scripture that God cannot do. From a logical standpoint, it would appear to limit His omnipotence. I reject that possibility because it contradicts teaching elsewhere. Logic here again fails Tom.

John 3 says that God condemns men because they do not have faith.

More precisely because they do not believe on the Son. It may be a distinction without a difference but it does not say because they do not have faith.


Verne

Verne,

Calvin's Institutes contain a chapter that is titled: "God So Uses the Works of the Ungodly, and So Bends Their Minds to Carry Out His Judgements, That He Remains Pure From Every Stain".

So, if God "bent your mind" so that you stole a car it would be your fault, not His.   Well, maybe that works for you.

As Robby the Robot would say, "That does not compute".

It doesn't compute for me either.

God bless,

Thomas Maddux

[Oscar]

Keeping in mind that that the principle of deductive reasoning is to move from the general to the specific, explain what is logically wrong with the following argument.
1. The Bible states in many places there is only one God
2. The Bible identifies three distinct persons as God.
3. The Biblical teaching that there is only one God is false.

Tom I beg to disagree. Logically, the Jehovah's Witnesses would have it right and we would have it wrong. You canot arrive at your conclusion without allowing a fungible premise. The Jehovah's Witness would ask you exactly what do you mean by "one"?
In my humble opinion Tom, the doctrine of the Trinity is based on faith.
Although it is in my view not possible to logcially expound it (forget about linguistic contortions for the moment), we accept and believe it because God said it!
I would also point out that God's Word specifically says there is nothing logical about the preaching of the cross of Jesus Christ. In fact, the people who invented logic deemed it foolishness...
The just shall live by his faith!
Verne
p.s. Lest I be misunderstood, let me say that I think logic as a reflective tool has its clear uses. We ought not, by and large to be illogical people. Nonetheless logic alone is not a suffuciently adequate instrument to fully expound spiritual truth. Only the Word of God has any such adequacy....

Verne,

A deductive argument is one in which if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true.  The argument for the Trinity I posted is a deductive argument.

Now, as to your example, and your request for an explanation as why it would not be true:

Your "conclusion" does not logically follow from the premises.  In fact, it has nothing to do with the premises.  This merely qualifies as a comment.

What I am saying is that there is nothing in your premises that leads you to your conclusion.

Verne, I am currently reading "On The Incarnation" by Athanasius.
Athanasius is the church father that stood so courageously against the Arians, (which sometimes included the Roman emperor) in the early 4th century.  He led the fight to define the doctrine of the Trinity.   He used logic.

When you say that the doctrine of the Trinity rests on "faith", (I'm not sure what that means), I would ask you a question; How, without logic, can one establish this doctrine?

You say that you believe this doctrine because "God said it".  Can you show me where the scriptures actually say that three persons subsist in one being, or an equivalent statement?

As to your comment that the Word says there is nothing logical about the preaching of the cross:

1. Who said logic was fully adequate to expound the truth?

2. Logic, however, is necessary in order to expound the truth.
Logic is necessary to even think!  And that means about anything.

The verse you are thinking of says, "for the preaching of the cross is foolishness to them that perish".

Is preaching painting?  No.  Why?  Because of the rules of logic.
All A=A.   That is known as the law of identity.  If it weren't true, preaching could be painting.

Why couldn't the preaching of the cross be foolishness and not be foolishness at the same time?  Because of the law of non-contradiction, All A is not non-A.  The statement relies on the rules of logic to make sense.

3. Regarding "the people who invented logic".  People didn't invent logic.  God invented logic Verne.   He created the human mind and Aristotle described how it works.   No one has ever shown that it works in any other way.

If you say, "I disagree", you must utilize two of the laws of logic to do so.





God bless,
Thomas Maddux

You are right that the syllogism is weak in this regard: I would correct it by pointing out that both statement one and statement two cannot be both logically true. There is no more precise system of logic that that of mathematics! Set statement one as true and two as false or vice versa (not as whether the Bible teaches them but true as statements of fact) . The correct conclusion then would be that since both are Biblical teaching regarding God, one of them must be wrong. The logical conlusion is the same Tom.
As to your argument about the Trinity being deductive Tom, a few points:

As to your conclusion, it is logically permissible to frame the syllogism thusly:
Premise 1: The Bible calls three persons; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, God.
Premise 2: The Bible says there is only one God.
Conclusion: The Biblical teaching about God is wrong/contradictory.

Nobody here contends that they are the same person with different names...or do they?  
That is the only way out of the dillema

Logically a person may argue if you posit that both premise one are two are correct, the above conclusion is warranted.
The conclusion you arrive at is based on the pre-supposition that everything the Bible says is true, and for which assumption you have no logical warrant so far as the above syllogism is concerned.

I can also argue that premise one are two are factually contradictory (as do some Christians!), even though that the Bible states them is indeed true, with the following results:

you can only arrive at the conclusion you do by a clear manipulation of language. Your second premise contradicts the first logically! This is what I tried to point out, not to successfully,  in the example I gave. Here again are premise one and two:

Premise 1: The Bible calls three persons; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, God.
Premise 2: The Bible says there is only one God.

If language means anything, premise one and two are  clearly logically and mathematically contradictory, unless three does not mean three and one does not mean one...

The verse you are thinking of says, "for the preaching of the cross is foolishness to them that perish

Not quite Tom. The verse you cite is 1 Corinthians 1:18 Here is the verse I had in mind:

3.  But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
1 Cor 1:23

You say that you believe this doctrine because "God said it".  Can you show me where the scriptures actually say that three persons subsist in one being, or an equivalent statement?

Aahhh! Now we are getting somewhere. I did not say that I believed your representation of what the Trinity is! I accept your syllogism as presented as it is clear that although premise one and two appear to be contradictory logically, the Bible does indeed state them both. Tom I could not logically explain to anyone even if I wanted to what it means that "three persons subsist in one", your definition not mine. That statememt clearly defies mathematical logic.  Rather than the flowery and liguistically elegant conclusion you arrived at, my conclusion is that the Biblical teaching of the Trinity while true, defies logic!!!!


Verne
p.s. I hope all understand I am playing logical devil's advocate here... I believe in the Trinity of course, by faith!  

Verne,

1. My views on the Trinity can easily be found stated clearly in the documents produced at Nicea and Chalcedon, as well as in the so-called Athanasian Creed.  They are not just "your definition not mine".  They are a statement of the historical Christian faith.

2. You might want to write these folks a letter explaning where they went wrong,  , since they clearly used the logical process I have described in their deliberations.

3. Mathematical arguments are a class of deductive arguments, and are therefore subject to the same rules.  I don't think it applies in this case, however.  One would need to describe the manner of God's existance in numbers.  I don't think that is actually possible.

4. Remember, a deductive arguments is one in which if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true.  That is why my syllogism is valid, and produces a conclusion that is true as well.


5. You have said that you believe in the Trinity by "faith".  It seems to me that a proposition must be stated before one can exercise "faith" as to its truthfulness.   How did you arrive at what you have placed your faith in?

6. The reason the Greeks believed the preaching of the crucifixion and resurrection were "foolishness" is that they were so deeply influenced by Platonic philosophy, which taught that matter was evil.

Therefore, the idea that God could enter humanity and have a body before or after death was repugnant to them.  This was because they used a false premise in their logic.

1. God is completely holy and pure      (ok so far)
2. Matter is evil and corrupt                 (there's the problem)
conclusion: God would never enter matter.

Their syllogism was valid.   It just wasn't true.

God bless,

Thomas Maddux

[M2]

Sorry I seem to be spinning my wheels on this one.

I agree that salvation is a gift.
I get stuck on the pre-destination and limited atonement stuff.
Those who are pre-destined to get saved will get saved.
Those who are not, will be judged before the judgement seat of God for not getting saved.

Marcia

[sfortescue]

A while back I found a catalog among the books for sale at a flea market.  The title on the binding says, "I am certain this has to be the Invitrogen product catalog for the year 1996."  The joke being that biochemical research is so full of uncertainties that the researchers can't be sure of anything.  The things they research are so complex that often something that seems definite later turns out not to be so.

If God's creation is so difficult to be sure about, perhaps the same sort of caution is advisable in interpreting God's word.


As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
                                  -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)