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El'endia Starman

10:03 PM

@fredsbend Ahhh, okay, that makes more sense, and I agree.

Dan O'Day

@Caleb interesting. He's definitely approaching it as a philosopher and not as an exegete

fredsbend

@El'endiaStarman I really don't want to make faith sound like less than it is, mind you. These three remain: Faith, hope, and Love. 1 Cor 13:13. These are fundamental to being Christian, I say. Paul apparently built his entire theology on that.

Dan O'Day

@Caleb you can see my comments below the video ;)

El'endia Starman

@fredsbend Aye.

Caleb

@DanO'Day Ya. Philosopher inside and talk show host outside. The latter bothers me a lot. In any event I think (min 24-27) I get his main argument. And I would be what he calls a "consistent calvinst". And the only "problem" I see with Calvinism is that there is, as he notes, not actually very many of these lately.

fredsbend

10:15 PM

Well that's ^^ cuz it just seems heartless to a lot of people. To Americans they even see it as an attack on freedom. The freedom of self, choice, person, etc. Freedom is nearly a holy word in the USA.

As Christians we must accept God's sovereignty but as Americans really have a hard time saying He literally has total control over our lives.

Caleb

@DanO'Day In all his discussions of freedom, he completely glosses over the issue of nature. He talks as if freedom was an all or nothing affair: either totally free and sovereign or a robot. So far he hasn't even given a nod to the existence of different kinds of nature and that the sphere of freedom for any being is restricted to the overall nature of that being.

fredsbend

@Caleb huh? This is rekindling my desire to study the old Calvinism Arminian debate. You are saying that freedom is not an all or nothing affair. I guess I have thought of this but probably not to the extent you are referring.

Maybe I should just watch the video.

Caleb

@fredsbend Watch it if you like, but not to learn about Calvinism.

fredsbend

@Caleb Well yeah I guessed that much.

Caleb

@fredsbend Sin nature vs regenerated nature, slave to/dead in sin vs. alive in Christ. What does it mean to be a slave to sin? To a Calvinist it means you can choose between all sorts of things but that not sinning isn't one of your options. This philosophical argument pretty much skips engaging with those (Biblical ideas) ... which are what fundamentally sets a Calvinistic idea of free will apart from the version he's straw-maned here.

fredsbend

10:31 PM

@Caleb So then alive in Christ is that you have only one choice. Obedience to Christ. Correct?

Caleb

@fredsbend Ya pretty much.

fredsbend

@Caleb Well I don't see how this disagrees with Paul's epistles at all. I watched a few minutes of that vid and he made a comment about Paul in the beginning.

And I guess because you are alive in Christ you will only ever make the choice to obey Christ. Correct?

Caleb

@fredsbend The transition is rough because the dead->alive part has happened but still happening. We still sin because we aren't completely transformed yet: but like Lazarus when he was called out, he didn't really have a choice of saying "naw not yet, I'm going to stay dead a while longer", he just found himself alive.

@fredsbend Yes. Again that doesn't happen all at once, but perseverance of the saints is just that idea: that if we've really been given a new nature, we aren't going to then turn around and willfully make ourselves something else.

fredsbend

@Caleb Wow. I never really thought about Lazarus hypothetically refusing to come to life. That really shows the logic of the Irresistible Grace part.

Alypius

@Caleb is this process of transformation in any way subject to or causally resultant from the free will of the person, or do they just sit back and hope for the best?

fredsbend

10:42 PM

@Caleb Well everyone likes that part. I was taught that a lot of denominations actually teach the TULIP acronym but they would approach it more like this: tuliP.

Caleb

@Alypius Calvinism rejects the existence of something called a continuously carnal Christian. Somebody who sits back and hopes for the best won't make it off the starting block, much less finish the race. If that free will doesn't start operating and showing fruit -- if desires are not transformed -- that would show its still got an old nature.

Alypius

So is it the person, through her will, that prompts the start of this transformation?

@fredsbend to go with your question: christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/14962

fredsbend

@Alypius Just noticed it right before you pinged me.

Caleb

@Alypius No. The start of the transformation is 100% God's initiative. The old will (acting under it's totally depraved nature) cannot and would not will anything of the sort.

Alypius

@Caleb Can the will only put the brakes on the transformation, then?

Caleb

10:52 PM

@Alypius The new will/nature won't do that. What we have presently (if saved) is two warring natures.

Stack Exchange

Eschewmenical - The Christianity Stack Exchange Blog: …5,6,7,8 Pope Francis starts with a clean slate

Peter Turner on March 14, 2013

Habemus Papam!

and welcome back to a fairly exciting day for Catholics, news junkies and chimney sweeps.

I, like hundreds of millions of Catholics and billions of other awesome people, had never heard of Jorge Mario Bergoglio; he didn’t appear to be one of the elite front runners the Vatican pundits had put forth. I remember calling it in 2005, telling my English professor that I “Hoped it would be Ratzinger”. Thought I was pretty smart stuff, so this time I told everyone that I “Hoped it would be Burke” just to see if luck would bring us a pontiff from the Sconnie Nation, no such luck… …

Alypius

@Caleb Is the use of "nature" here the same as the use when talking about the human and Divine natures of Christ?

fredsbend

@Alypius Good. We can get a well rounded understand of what certain groups think an idol is.

Caleb

@Alypius Vaguely. Same word, different shade of meaning. Frankly I'm not sure if that is a helpful analogy to draw as it isn't a parallel we see drawn in scripture.

Alypius

@Caleb Do humans have two wills, or one? If a person sins, to what is the sin attributed?

Caleb

11:03 PM

I'm sorry folks but it's after 1 am here and I have lots to do still. I've thrown out some ideas on key points, if you want to learn about them there is lots out there to read.

Alypius

@Caleb Have a good rest.

Dan O'Day

@Caleb at least you acknowledge this. That is also my beef with it

@Caleb although if you want a fuller response from an Orthodox perspective as opposed to an Arminian philosopher, check this out.

Alypius

11:43 PM

Q: What personal possessions did Pope John Paul II have at the time of death?

The pope recieves no salary, but from what I understand, popes do have personal possessions. I'm thinking of things like toothbrushes, at the very least. Pope Benedict XVI, I believe, had a substantial library of books that he brought with him into the Papal Apartments. Enumerating everything a c...

pope

Would posting a similar question for "Pope Benedict XVI, at retirement" be problematic?

Jon Ericson

@Alypius Is the answer going to be any different?

Actually, I'm thinking the first question is too localized. The second one would be too. But a general question about the inheritance of popes might be interesting.