Posted on 07/22/2007 7:40:38 PM PDT by xzins
***Please tell me you are not saying that God failed and had to go to plan B.***
The entire OT and the early part of the New were to the Jews. Paul was recruited after the bulk of the Jews rejected Christ. The Jews, the Chosen People, rejected Christ. Do you understand what this means?
***Paul was recruited...***
Again a Plan “B” idea.
It was all God’s plan IN THE BEGINNING. There was no “shucks, look what they did now! Ok, time for plan “B”.”
Do you understand what THAT means? GOD is in control!
If everything was micromanaged down to the nanosecond, then why in the world would God spend the entire OT and much of the New attempting to get the Jews accept Christ and having it fail?
I would say that this is evidence that God does not micromanage. He lets His people do as they will, with certain guidance from His Church (AD) and let the chips fall where they may.
I think that it goes back to the understanding of the Catholics that God allows people the dignity (and the consequences) of free will versus the understanding of the Calvinists that the Holy Spirit picks the names of the elite out of the cosmic bingo ball and frogmarches them into heaven and sends the rest of humanity to everlasting fire in hell.
Maybe your God failed, but the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Danial, David, Noah, Moses, Adam, Seth, etc. did not fail, does not fail, will not fail. Frogmarch yourself to your church and blindly obey everything they tell you. You have the free will to do it.
ZS: Obviously not. Although there are some confused people who might say that, that's generally not what people mean when they say that Scripture is "inerrant".
Of course bats really WERE birds because the Bible says so. This type of argument [e.g. whale/fish] may be the single one I have with Apostolics that mystifies me the most. Calling anything by a name, or saying it is a bird or a fish or a mammal is simply a man-made classification system. It has no relationship to what is "true" since we can choose to classify things in any way we want and it will make no difference whatsoever (as long as it is internally consistent). Some classifications systems have proved more detailed over time so we say they are "better" or more "useful". That is fine, but it does not make the earlier systems "wrong".
The earlier system presumably called all winged animals "birds". That was not WRONG, as it seemed to serve their purposes just fine. It was only later that someone decided to make up a new classification system. That's fine too, but it has nothing to do with the truth of the earlier system. It is simply a DIFFERENT system.
According to this article, How Linnaeus named life on Earth, apparently some guy named Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish naturalist, came up with something very close to the current system just under 300 years ago. So, do we say that he PROVED the Bible wrong? Of course not. He just decided to call things by different names, and lots of people signed on. No problem, but it has nothing to do with the Bible. I could make up a new classification system myself that might put men and dolphins in the same group, but not sheep, based on intelligence. This would be correct, but it would NOT prove Linnaeus or the Bible wrong because we "disagreed".
Not at all. If Gnostics believed they were a special class of people, to whom only special knowledge would flow, then according to Reformers we are no more Gnostic than you are, since we have no more special access to the knowledge of God than you do, as Christians.
The confessions certainly do distinguish between Christians and non-Christians in terms of ABILITY to know because the former has been given grace, which is required to know as the Bible tells us. However, I am unaware of where the confessions say that Reformers can know something that other Christians cannot (if they were willing to give up then current beliefs).
A few Latins here have made kind offers to me to, in effect, come to the true faith of the Apostolic Church. I assume those offers would not have been made if the person thought there was some impediment beyond my control that would prevent me from making the switch. (Otherwise, it would have just been mean, and I have never gotten that impression. :) It is the same with us. As a Christian there would be nothing preventing you from becoming a Reformer. (I was once a non-Reformed Christian.) There are no Reformed "secrets" that are "beyond" your understanding, just as there were none that stopped me. Further, it is not required at all to be a Reformer to get into Heaven. One just need be a saved Christian. I am hoping that all of these points would draw a strong distinction in your mind between Gnosticism and Reformed theology.
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