(2) Actually the question I was raising was (a)How much and in what way do right understanding and/or belief about God 'n Jesus 'n stuff affect one's salvation? (b)See (2a) above but with special reference to right understanding about the faith/works mess.
(3)I am generally concerned that SOME kind of "praxis", some deed or other seems to be involved, however hard we try to get away from it. Sometimes it's amazing and distressing to me that we have so much contention, because I guess that everyone of us in the history of his relationship with Jesus has experienced a moment in which he said, "Yes!" And of that moment, again I GUESS, the best description is, "I did it, yet God did it in me, both to will and to do."
(4)(As an attempt to illuminate a way to think about freedom) I asked someone a trick question the other day: Is God able to lie?
The "trick" is that I'd suggest lying is not an "ability," but a defect or perversion of an ability. The proposed analysis is: The "end" or "object" of communication is to convey what I mean (and to mean the truth.)
The conversations here, even those of the best possible will, show how we are rarely capable even of that. I have wife, child, friends, mentors, students. I strain to tell them what I mean, and I fail again and again. Part is failure of knowledge, part is failure of understanding the person to whom I am communicating (or understanding myself), part is failure in the arts of communication, and part is fear, shame, "need" to control, blah blah.
Even to WANT to convey the truth is a freedom I do not perfectly manifest or experience, at least not often. And when I want to, I still mess up.
So the POWER or ability of God is that He CAN tell the truth, and wants to. For Him to want to lie would be a loss of ability, and since He has neither parts nor passions but is utterly "simple" it would be a loss of "what it is HE is."
Mutatis mutandis and all that other fancy stuff, NOT that we Calflicks are WRONG, mind you, but we have some pretty fancy thinking and talking to do if we are going to maintain that "Free Will" means the "free" act of rejecting Jesus. To act like a corrupt fool MAY be something appropriate to politicians, wait, I mean, MAY sometimes LOOK like freedom (Have sex with, oh, the young Veronica Lake or re-read that tricky passage in Romans, what to do, what to do ...) But it's NOT freedom, it's weakness and failure.
Somehow that seems relevant. Help me out here. At least, if you can, run the same question over the Calvinist matrix, please.
I think that can be answered in different ways depending on the perspective. I would start with God and say that God sovereignly elects and chooses the yes/no of everyone's salvation. For the "No's" their understanding and/or belief about God, etc. is irrelevant. (Aren't I nice? :) For the "Yes's" God will provide sufficient and necessary understanding and belief about God to ensure salvation, the gift of true faith. This gift includes the requisite applications also, e.g., repentance, perseverance, etc. All of it comes from God.
(b)See (2a) above but with special reference to right understanding about the faith/works mess.
I think from God's perspective He provides all the faith and does all the works, so there is no mess. :) From man's perspective I still don't think there is a mess. True faith produces general good works every single time. Therefore, whether or not a person understands or agrees with that is irrelevant. (Of course to say that I must hold that it is impossible to have true faith and not do works.) In any event, I think there are zillions of people just like you and me, who have true faith, do good works, completely disagree on how faith and works relate to each other, and yet we are probably both fine.
Sometimes it's amazing and distressing to me that we have so much contention, because I guess that everyone of us in the history of his relationship with Jesus has experienced a moment in which he said, "Yes!" And of that moment, again I GUESS, the best description is, "I did it, yet God did it in me, both to will and to do."
Yes, I suppose I separate it by considering the two different perspectives of intellect and experience. Both are good and part of human nature.
(4)(As an attempt to illuminate a way to think about freedom) I asked someone a trick question the other day: Is God able to lie?
I would say "No", God is not able to lie because that would violate His unchanging nature (God is truth) as described in the Bible. If He lied He would cease to be God. Instead, He would be something else, not the God the Bible describes. The same would apply to God ceasing to exist or making a rock He couldn't lift. However, this in no way is a curtailing of God's freedom, which is absolute. When I think of freedom I think of freedom from "what". The only "what" for God would be His own nature, which is defining, so I don't think the issue of freedom would really apply to that.
The "trick" is that I'd suggest lying is not an "ability," but a defect or perversion of an ability. The proposed analysis is: The "end" or "object" of communication is to convey what I mean (and to mean the truth.)
I would say it depends on how "truth" is handled. For example, God asking Adam where he is. The appearance is that the truth is that God doesn't know where Adam is. However, we know the real truth is that He did know where Adam was and the purpose of His communication was to convey to Adam that He required Adam's presence. I would not call this a lie, and God successfully conveyed what He meant and it was the real truth, although it was not necessarily obvious.
Even to WANT to convey the truth is a freedom I do not perfectly manifest or experience, at least not often. And when I want to, I still mess up.
Yes, the remnant of sin is there and we occasionally do not convey the real truth.
So the POWER or ability of God is that He CAN tell the truth, and wants to. For Him to want to lie would be a loss of ability, and since He has neither parts nor passions but is utterly "simple" it would be a loss of "what it is HE is."
I'm not sure I'd put it in those terms, but I think we end in basically the same place. I suppose I wouldn't say that God CAN tell the truth and wants to, but rather that God DOES tell the truth because He IS truth. It is His nature so there is no issue of wanting. We don't think of wanting to breathe air, we just do it because our nature requires it. But as I think you say, if God lost what it is that He is, then He wouldn't be God any more.
To act like a corrupt fool MAY be something appropriate to politicians, wait, I mean, MAY sometimes LOOK like freedom (Have sex with, oh, the young Veronica Lake or re-read that tricky passage in Romans, what to do, what to do ...) But it's NOT freedom, it's weakness and failure.
Yes, and I would add total bondage to sin. Before I became a Christian I sure felt free as a bird in pulling all the crap I did, but little did I know how much in chains I really was. Praise God for rescuing the sorry likes of me. :)