Posted on 02/10/2004 10:46:05 AM PST by ksen
If a guy can't write so his message can be clearly understood by someone of reasonable intelligence without having to carefully parse the words it isn't worth reading.
Thus, this Arminian notion of Liberty of the Will, consisting in the will's Self-determination, is repugnant to itself, and shuts itself wholly out of the world.
I love these kinds of conclusions. Kind of reminds me of a college philosophy instructor who said "Whenever an argument concludes the the phrase 'So, obviously..., you can be assured of one thing; there is nothing obvious about the conclusion."
I wouldn't say just because you can't understand Shakespeare you shouldn't read it. This obviously is from a different era. Many of the early church fathers works are in very difficult prose but is worth figuring out. Heck, sometimes my pastor sounds like this. :O)
You have my deepest sympathy. ;-)
there is an excellent book on preaching titled A Handful of Stars by Maurice Berquist and Gerald Marvel. Gerald is a retired pastor and a good friend of mine. Best preaching speaker I have ever heard. You could always give it to your pastor as a gift.
Pastor's, and their flocks would be better served by emulating the preaching of Christ rather than giving theology lectures.
Gerald Marvel would rarely preach for more than 30 minutes. He believed that if you can't get the point across in 30 minutes, you definitely can't do it in an hour. Prior to his retirement five years ago, he asked the congregation to submit requests of sermons people would like to hear again. Of the 12 or so he preached the last three months of his ministry, I distinctly remembered at least ten of them, some of them preached at least 5-19 years earlier. He also never preached from notes, but even if you were to listen to him preach in successive services, there ere only rare, and slight deviations in the words used.
BTW, he barely graduated from college, but he was a man of God. Far from being perfect, and he easily acknowledged it as well.
Is he really saying that if there is a choice made that all future choices can't be choices because of the first choice? That makes no sense.
It might be a valid thought if Arminians said there were no consequences for choices made. But we don't say that.
Edwards argued that all actions are caused, since it is irrational to claim that things arise without a cause. But for him a self-caused action is impossible, since a cause is prior to an effect, and one cannot be prior to himself. Therefore, all actions are ultimately caused by a First Cause (God). "Free choice" for Edwards is doing what one desires--but God gives the desire to do good. Hence, all good human actions are determined by God. Evil actions are determined by the strongest desires of an evil nature left to itself. ...Jonathan Edwards saw a dilemma for all those who reject his view: Either there is an infinite regress of causes or else there is no motive to act....As we shall see, Edwards has posed a false dilemma, since the actions can be caused by the Self and not by another. True, every action is caused. But from this it does not follow that every actor is caused to act by another actor. This is not true of God's free actions; they are self-caused (i.e., caused by His Self). Likewise, creatures made in God's image have the God-given power to cause their own moral actions. This alternative is not only logically possible, but it is the only one that can explain how [Satan] and Adam were able to sin. On Edwards' view that God could not have given them the desire to sin, nor did they have a sinful nature to determine their actions, then they must have been the first cause of their own evil actions. But this is the very view of freedom that Edwards rejects.Opponents to Edwards' determinism respond as follows. First, defining free choice as "doing what one desires" is contrary to experience. For people do not always do what they desire, nor do they always desire to do what they do (cf. Rom. 7:15-16).
Second, Edwards also misunderstands self-determinism as free acts caused by other free acts. Rather, it means simply that a self can cause something else to happen. That is, a free agent can cause a free action without that free action needing another cause ad infinitum.
Third, Edwards has a faulty, mechanistic view of human personhood. He likens human free choice to balancing scales in need of more pressure in order to tip the scales one way or the other. But humans are not machines; they are persons made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27).
Fourth, Edwards wrongly assumes that self-determinism is contrary to God's sovereignty. But God pre-determined things in accordance with free choice, rather than in contradiction to it. Even the Calvinistic Westminster Confession of Faith declares that "although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly, yet by the same providence he ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently" (V, ii).
As far as my own response, I would choose my terms more carefully. "Free will" is not a philosophical term, for literally, it means "free want," or the freedom to want. Thus, though Edwards is right, technically, he is right only because he is using the term 'free will' in a different sense (the proper sense) than what most Arminians do. When an Arminian says "free will," he really means "free agency," for that is the proper term for the ability to choose without internal or external coersion or necessitating influence between two or more choices. See also the threads here and here.
"The age of short sermons is the age of shallow piety." --Bishop Warren Akin Candler, UMC, Giants Against The Sky. My personal opinion of sermonettes. ;)
Say what? None of this makes sense. (Incidentally, is English your first language?)
I've yet to figure out exactly what 'expository preaching' is, despite the fact that I've been told that the C&MA church I went to for a while, and the UMC church I go to presently have expository preachers. Is there some leeway with the term, or is it reading a passage and then offering comments on it, then repeating the process?
Having taken notice of those things which may be necessary to be observed, concerning the meaning of the principal terms and phrases made use of in controversies concerning human liberty, and particularly observed what Liberty is according to the common language and general apprehension of mankind, and what it is as understood and maintained by Arminians; I proceed to consider the Arminian notion of the Freedom of the Will, and the supposed necessity of it in order to moral agency, or in order to any one's being capable of virtue or vice, and properly the subject of command or counsel, praise or blame, promises or threatenings, rewards or punishments; or whether that which has been described, as the thing meant by Liberty in common speech, be not sufficient, and the only Liberty, which make, or can make any one a moral agent, and so properly the subject of these things.
Any takers out there?
His sermons are entirely readable. This is an abberation. Some of his sermons make perfect sense, like this one:
O thou poor distressed soul! whoever thou art, consider that Christ mentions thy very case when he calls to them who labor and are heavy laden! How he repeatedly promises you rest if you come to him! In the 28th verse he says, "I will give you rest." And in the 29th verse, "Ye shall find rest to your souls." This is what you want. This is the thing you have been so long in vain seeking after. O how sweet would rest be to you, if you could but obtain it! Come to Christ, and you shall obtain it. And hear how Christ, to encourage you, represents himself as a lamb! He tells you, that he is meek and lowly in heart, and are you afraid to come to such a one! And again, Rev. 3:20. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and I will sup with him and he with me." Christ condescends not only to call you to him, but he comes to you; he comes to your door, and there knocks. He might send an officer and seize you as a rebel and vile malefactor, but instead of that, he comes and knocks at your door, and seeks that you would receive him into your house, as your Friend and Savior. And he not only knocks at your door, but he stands there waiting, while you are backward and unwilling. And not only so, but he makes promises what he will do for you, if you will admit him, what privileges he will admit you to; he will sup with you, and you with him.
See what clarity of thought went into that snippet? And then, when he attacks Arminianism, its like he's writing in tounges.
1Co 14:27 If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret.
1Co 14:28 But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God.
Can I get an interpretation? Or shall we just insist on his silence?
By your choosing Christ for your friend and portion, you will obtain these two infinite benefits.
1) Christ will give himself to you, with all those various excellencies that meet in him, to your full and everlasting enjoyment. He will ever after treat you as his dear friend; and you shall ere long be where he is, and shall behold his glory, and dwell with him, in most free and intimate communion and enjoyment....
Notice the clairity of thought that Mr. Edwards displays when he is preaching LIKE an Arminian as opposed to when he is preaching AGAINST Arminianism.
Coinicidence? I don't think so.
Perhaps it is the kind of logic needed in an attack on Arminianism?
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