Colossians
September 8th 2005, 11:50 PM
THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION THE ARMINIAN CAN’T ANSWER.
Preamble:
We have seen the Arminians come up with their usual a-priori reasoning, and more commonly, question begging.
They have also introduced a notion of libertarianism with over-extended utility:
Libertarianism describes freedom from external compulsion, not freedom from internal compulsion. They have erroneously used it in the latter sense.
They call this thing “agent causation”, which de-high-falutinised, simply means “I cause myself to do what I do”. In line with their over-extension of libertarianism, they obtain erroneous utility from such notion: they feel they can cause themselves, without being affected by themselves in the causing: an effect divorced from its cause after the fact.
Their ideas are not properly defined, nor concluded upon by themselves. They will suggest fuzzy concepts, but never go to the point of clearly defining these things, esp. with regard to pragmatics.
Not surprisingly then, they provide no empirical evidence.
Their position therefore is only ostensibly a logical one: it is actually a faith - more particularly, an esoteric hollow man. When you highlight the implications of their ideas (that they have essentially personified the will as an entity in itself, a ‘will-person’), they will come back with “I didn’t say that”, or “I didn’t mean this”, with the glaringly obvious omission of what they actually did say and mean, and omission of the necessary companion pragmatics and processes necessary to validate what they supposedly meant by what they said.
Their ‘methodology’ is sloppy, and their product a convoluted hybrid of concepts and ‘possibilities’ never clearly segregated either at the theoretical or pragmatic level.
So let’s get to some real, definable, undeniable, substance, and derive the true answer to the question the Arminan can’t answer.
The question and its universe of discourse:
First of all, the question centres not on choice, but on difference of choice between two choosers, and more importantly, comparative quality of choice as regards eternity.
Although the Arminian likes to wander off and consider one man’s choice in isolation, this is not the essence of the question: the question concerns differing choices between 2 individuals.
And although the Arminian likes to wander off to the Philistine philosophers contrary to warning in Colossians 2:8, preferring to forget God’s economy in the scheme of things and instead submit their logic to relativism, we shall stick to the Godly universe of discourse, benefit: it is better to go to heaven than to hell.
So then, we have a God who creates 2 fellows, Fred, and Bill.
Both are equally endowed with free will (according to the Arminian): they can both make decisions autonomously from God. Fred uses his free will to choose for God; Bill uses his free will to choose against God. Why?
The question that needs to be asked first of all is: “what determines the will?” Can I have a will to do something without a reason for it? And of course I can’t: such would constitute an oxymoron: any will (intent) is inextricably fused with the reason for it.
This then brings up the first vital ingredient: perceived benefit.
Perceived benefit:
The will is the servant of perceived benefit. Whether I am suicidal, anorexic, a tennis player, banker, theologian, hooker, internet-debater, gambler, or philanthropist giving all my money to the poor, all my decisions will follow perceived benefit.
Not surprisingly then, God offers the gospel message in terms of benefit: salvation is salvation from a terrible alternative, and in line with this, “gospel” means “good news”: as far as we know, “good” is always better than “not good”, and even better than “bad”.
So then, Fred perceives that the benefit is in choosing for God, and Bill perceives the benefit is in choosing against God.
Perception:
At this point it is necessary to defined how we are using the term “perceived”: is it absolute (“he knows absolutely what the truth is”) in which case he has perceived from God’s perspective via the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, or is it relativistic (“he thinks he perceives the truth”) in which case his perception may be wrong.
We shall be using it both senses simultaneously, and shall achieve such by drilling down to the indivisible-unit level and conjugating the absolute with the relative.
Thus we shall talk about “truth-truth” and “lie-truth” where have separated out absolute truth and absolute lie as the first item in each conjugation, and relativistic truth as the second item.
Fred’s perception is truth-truth, and Bill’s perception is lie-truth: Fred goes to heaven and Bill goes to a destination considerably less comfortable.
Now our universe of discourse being benefit, we therefore derive that both Fred and Bill were equally benefited from their decisions relativistically (both have “truth” as their second item in the conjugation), but that from an absolute viewpoint, Fred was benefited with the actual truth, but Bill merely ‘benefited’ with a lie.
This stacks up empirically: non-believers will commonly declare to believers: “you have your truth, and I have mine”. And of course such aligns with Jesus’ words: “If the light in you is darkness ….”, and yet with other scripture: “there is a way that seemeth right unto man, but ….”
Perception’s author:
The next thing now to consider is: “can I author my perception?” And the answer is a resounding “no”.
The Arminian here will be tempted to jump on the world’s band-wagon of self-help psychology and claim “yes I can! I can, for instance, decide to look at things positively rather than negatively, and so alter the course of my perceptions in the future”. Like all Arminian thinking however, this is just another example of superficial analysis not positioned at the root level.
The perception we are talking about here is not the second-tier perception above, but perception after the fact of the event perceived: the perception which, for example, you have just experienced in reading this sentence.
Applying this to the proposed Arminian knee-jerk example above, we are talking about the initial perception that I should even begin to look at things positively at all: the ‘first-base’ perception.
Such ‘first bases’ exist at an infinite number of levels and junctions in my mind’s thoughts, as well as at the very level of my being: the issue is a recursive one: any perception I have, is preceded by another at a more fundamental level.
Inductively then, we derive that at the absolute level, perception is the irresistible result of who one is: Fred’s perceiving of truth-truth and Bill’s perceiving of lie-truth are the result of who they are.
This brings us to the answer.
The answer:
Our universe of discourse being benefit (and specifically as it relates to God’s economy), all decisions serving the purpose of perceived benefit, and all perception being the irresistible result of who we are as individuals, we therefore derive irrefutably that the reason for the differing eternal decisions of Fred and Bill is none other than the difference of their persons.
Because we understand that God alone made each of Fred and Bill, and that neither had input to their own composition, neither of them having existed before themselves, we now answer the question:
Fred and Bill chose differently for eternity because they were made that way.
Preamble:
We have seen the Arminians come up with their usual a-priori reasoning, and more commonly, question begging.
They have also introduced a notion of libertarianism with over-extended utility:
Libertarianism describes freedom from external compulsion, not freedom from internal compulsion. They have erroneously used it in the latter sense.
They call this thing “agent causation”, which de-high-falutinised, simply means “I cause myself to do what I do”. In line with their over-extension of libertarianism, they obtain erroneous utility from such notion: they feel they can cause themselves, without being affected by themselves in the causing: an effect divorced from its cause after the fact.
Their ideas are not properly defined, nor concluded upon by themselves. They will suggest fuzzy concepts, but never go to the point of clearly defining these things, esp. with regard to pragmatics.
Not surprisingly then, they provide no empirical evidence.
Their position therefore is only ostensibly a logical one: it is actually a faith - more particularly, an esoteric hollow man. When you highlight the implications of their ideas (that they have essentially personified the will as an entity in itself, a ‘will-person’), they will come back with “I didn’t say that”, or “I didn’t mean this”, with the glaringly obvious omission of what they actually did say and mean, and omission of the necessary companion pragmatics and processes necessary to validate what they supposedly meant by what they said.
Their ‘methodology’ is sloppy, and their product a convoluted hybrid of concepts and ‘possibilities’ never clearly segregated either at the theoretical or pragmatic level.
So let’s get to some real, definable, undeniable, substance, and derive the true answer to the question the Arminan can’t answer.
The question and its universe of discourse:
First of all, the question centres not on choice, but on difference of choice between two choosers, and more importantly, comparative quality of choice as regards eternity.
Although the Arminian likes to wander off and consider one man’s choice in isolation, this is not the essence of the question: the question concerns differing choices between 2 individuals.
And although the Arminian likes to wander off to the Philistine philosophers contrary to warning in Colossians 2:8, preferring to forget God’s economy in the scheme of things and instead submit their logic to relativism, we shall stick to the Godly universe of discourse, benefit: it is better to go to heaven than to hell.
So then, we have a God who creates 2 fellows, Fred, and Bill.
Both are equally endowed with free will (according to the Arminian): they can both make decisions autonomously from God. Fred uses his free will to choose for God; Bill uses his free will to choose against God. Why?
The question that needs to be asked first of all is: “what determines the will?” Can I have a will to do something without a reason for it? And of course I can’t: such would constitute an oxymoron: any will (intent) is inextricably fused with the reason for it.
This then brings up the first vital ingredient: perceived benefit.
Perceived benefit:
The will is the servant of perceived benefit. Whether I am suicidal, anorexic, a tennis player, banker, theologian, hooker, internet-debater, gambler, or philanthropist giving all my money to the poor, all my decisions will follow perceived benefit.
Not surprisingly then, God offers the gospel message in terms of benefit: salvation is salvation from a terrible alternative, and in line with this, “gospel” means “good news”: as far as we know, “good” is always better than “not good”, and even better than “bad”.
So then, Fred perceives that the benefit is in choosing for God, and Bill perceives the benefit is in choosing against God.
Perception:
At this point it is necessary to defined how we are using the term “perceived”: is it absolute (“he knows absolutely what the truth is”) in which case he has perceived from God’s perspective via the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, or is it relativistic (“he thinks he perceives the truth”) in which case his perception may be wrong.
We shall be using it both senses simultaneously, and shall achieve such by drilling down to the indivisible-unit level and conjugating the absolute with the relative.
Thus we shall talk about “truth-truth” and “lie-truth” where have separated out absolute truth and absolute lie as the first item in each conjugation, and relativistic truth as the second item.
Fred’s perception is truth-truth, and Bill’s perception is lie-truth: Fred goes to heaven and Bill goes to a destination considerably less comfortable.
Now our universe of discourse being benefit, we therefore derive that both Fred and Bill were equally benefited from their decisions relativistically (both have “truth” as their second item in the conjugation), but that from an absolute viewpoint, Fred was benefited with the actual truth, but Bill merely ‘benefited’ with a lie.
This stacks up empirically: non-believers will commonly declare to believers: “you have your truth, and I have mine”. And of course such aligns with Jesus’ words: “If the light in you is darkness ….”, and yet with other scripture: “there is a way that seemeth right unto man, but ….”
Perception’s author:
The next thing now to consider is: “can I author my perception?” And the answer is a resounding “no”.
The Arminian here will be tempted to jump on the world’s band-wagon of self-help psychology and claim “yes I can! I can, for instance, decide to look at things positively rather than negatively, and so alter the course of my perceptions in the future”. Like all Arminian thinking however, this is just another example of superficial analysis not positioned at the root level.
The perception we are talking about here is not the second-tier perception above, but perception after the fact of the event perceived: the perception which, for example, you have just experienced in reading this sentence.
Applying this to the proposed Arminian knee-jerk example above, we are talking about the initial perception that I should even begin to look at things positively at all: the ‘first-base’ perception.
Such ‘first bases’ exist at an infinite number of levels and junctions in my mind’s thoughts, as well as at the very level of my being: the issue is a recursive one: any perception I have, is preceded by another at a more fundamental level.
Inductively then, we derive that at the absolute level, perception is the irresistible result of who one is: Fred’s perceiving of truth-truth and Bill’s perceiving of lie-truth are the result of who they are.
This brings us to the answer.
The answer:
Our universe of discourse being benefit (and specifically as it relates to God’s economy), all decisions serving the purpose of perceived benefit, and all perception being the irresistible result of who we are as individuals, we therefore derive irrefutably that the reason for the differing eternal decisions of Fred and Bill is none other than the difference of their persons.
Because we understand that God alone made each of Fred and Bill, and that neither had input to their own composition, neither of them having existed before themselves, we now answer the question:
Fred and Bill chose differently for eternity because they were made that way.