Both seem equally difficult, and not so different. I would assume that in preposition one, you could phrase it as "At the time of creation God foreknew 100% what would happen, yet man is 100% responsible for the choices he makes and punishable for them." It seems logically impossible to understand how God can foreknow something that he didn't intend to happen. It seems logically consistent to suggest that if God foreknew, then he intended. If he intended, then he willed. If he willed, then he predestined. If God as creator foreknew the very hairs of the heads of those who would be lost in hell, then he intended for that fate to come to pass, it is a part of his act in creation. Otherwise you have you have to argue that what God foreknew, he did not intend. How can you say that the initial creation was very good if sin and rebellion were baked into the cake from the very beginning? If an engineer knows that his plans for building a bridge are faulty, and he goes ahead with construction, and the bridge collapses, who is to blame?Seeker wrote:Question for you Si: Which of the following two scenarios do you believe is more difficult to accept logically:
1) "At the time of creation, God foreknew what would happen, yet is not responsible for all that happens." (non-Calvinist position)
2) "God controls 100% of the choices a man makes, yet man is 100% responsible for the choices he makes and punishable for them". (Calvinist position)
If we are to maintain that the initial creation was good, then sin and rebellion could not have manifested in actuality, and not in deterministic certainty. To make man accountable for his actions, I don't see any other logical scenario but to say that God truly created free agents, and gave them an opportunity to choose the path to life, or the path to destruction. I don't see how a free choice is possible under classic Arminianism for the reasons above. It seems to me that the logical consequence of meticulous foreknowledge is determinism, and indistinguishable from Calvinism.
This could very well be. I am not opposed to this idea, but it makes interaction in this kind of discussion difficult. When what I see as a logical contradiction is called a mystery, or unfathomable, then my position is not really debunked because it hasn't been interacted with. If you or anyone else who disagrees with me sees something illogical in my posts I would love to talk about that. Yet, I have not seen that happen, only that what we are discussing is in fact above and beyond logic.Seeker wrote:At a glance both seem very difficult to accept, but...
With regard to #1 my opinion is that the creation events are so singularly unfathomable to us (we being part of that creation) that we may never know all nuances and effects that follow from them. Therefore the difficulty we may have fathoming how God could foreknow without controlling everything I simply can chalk up to our own limited understanding of the creation events.
If you are not convinced that God has meticulous foreknowledge, then you are to some degree an open theist.Seeker wrote:Throw in the fact that I'm not completely convinced that God has meticulous foreknowledge of the future, and I simply don't have the same trouble reconciling the concept that a Calvinist seems to want to have.
Both one and two seem utterly contradictory. Meticulous providence and meticulous foreknowledge seem to me to be two different flavors of determinism. To accept them and also accept man's responsibility, I could not appeal to logic, but suspend it and appeal to mystery, or appeal to the notion that this is utterly incomprehensible to me as a mere creature. Like I said I am not opposed to this idea, but it is an idea that cannot be defended logically.Seeker wrote:But with regard to #2, there seem to be no possible "outs" so to speak. If a man can do nothing other than what God has ordained that he do, then it is logically impossible that he has free will. Nor could God possibly hold him responsible for his actions, get frustrated over his actions, and ultimately send the man to hell for doing that which he could not possibly have done differently.
As you urged in previous post, the above leaves out scriptural references and focuses on logic. So I'd ask out of curiosity, on a scale of 1-10, how difficult is it logically to accept the claim of #1 vs. the claim of #2. To me, #1 is about a 6/10, whereas #2 is 10/10. That would make the claim of #2 utterly invalid. But anything less than a 10 at least leaves the door open to validity. If you think the claim of #2 is easier to accept than the claim of #1, I'd be very interested your thoughts on that.