The Banned said:

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Txducker said:

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The Banned said:

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Txducker said:

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The Banned said:

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Donut Holestein said:

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I agree, all we can do is to confess what has been given through the Word. Thought this video summarizes much of the responses given in this thread. What some have alluded to as a weakness for Luther, I see as a strength. He and other confessional Lutherans are unwilling to go beyond what is stated in Scripture. We cannot bind God by our own logic and reason.

Similarly, I cannot explain how Jesus' true body and blood is present in Communion, but I believe it in faith because I believe that is what the Bible proclaims.

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This is mind blowing. We have a theologian saying that God has created a logical fallacy. He has created a square circle. He can create a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it. This is not saying the ways of God are unknowable. This is saying that He intentionally created something that does not make sense and cannot make sense.

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He did not say that it is illogical to God. He stated it illogical to us Humans (big difference). It is completely logical to God because He designed it.

1:20 - three conditions are true 1. universal grace 2. grace alone 3. hell for some.
2:54 Wolfmueller "We (human logic) can not fit the three together." Just because human knowledge does not understand God's mind, does not make it a logical fallacy for God to understand since he created it.
03:25 "Our (human) reason cannot be content with that" (referring to time 2:54). This is always a temptation and trap for man to make up things. Adam and Eve were not content with their lack of knowledge in the garden either and choose to eat the fruit of knowledge.
04:36 "There is no way to sort them out and make them make sense"

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A logical fallacy is a very specific problem. For example: we say God is all powerful. So can God make a square circle? Or can He make a rock so heavy that even He can't move it?

I'm not saying it's illogical to God or illogical to us. I'm saying it breaks to rules of logic that emanate from God to say that these three things can't possibly go together but they go together anyway. It's like running into a brick wall and just saying the brick wall doesn't exist. It does exist, and it's a really good reason to reconsider the presuppositions.

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He is not saying explicitly that they do not go together. He states that the human mind cannot reason the three things together because of our lack of understanding. The fact that he says the three things are true 1:22, means he believes they exist. The point he makes is that we/humans don't understand how they exist together. We/humans don't understand how the fully relate and interact together.

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No. He states clearly that they contradict. He circles 3 sets of two but zero sets of three precisely because the three cannot coexist. he clearly states the 3 don't fit together but somehow they are true because: "well… we believe them!" He even says there is no way to make them make sense. That's at 4:30.

It's one thing to say it makes sense to God and not us. I'm ok with that. But to say that it is logically incongruent and God makes sense of it anyway makes God the creator of the illogical.

If you're willing, please interact with the "logical fallacies" commonly given by atheists that I listed. If you can work through those, i think you and I will be much closer some sort of agreement.

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The Banned said:

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No. He states clearly that they contradict. He circles 3 sets of two but zero sets of three precisely because the three cannot coexist. he clearly states the 3 don't fit together but somehow they are true because: "well… we believe them!" He even says there is no way to make them make sense. That's at 4:30.

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I agree with you that he states they contradict. His context is critical to understanding his point. He is stating there is no way for "Humans" to make sense. The things he talking about are spiritual matters that are foreign to me an earthly being. I have not been in the spiritual realm with God. How am I to have a full understanding of these spiritual concepts? The miracles of Jesus do not make sense to the worldly atheist. Just because they do not understand that God can defy physics does not make the miracles untrue for the atheist even though they say it is untrue. I don't understand the science behind Jesus rising from the dead. Should I say it is false because my human brain does not understand it? Of course not.

The Banned said:

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If you're willing, please interact with the "logical fallacies" commonly given by atheists that I listed. If you can work through those, i think you and I will be much closer some sort of agreement.

A logical fallacy is a very specific problem. For example: we say God is all powerful. So can God make a square circle? Or can He make a rock so heavy that even He can't move it?

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I have never seen this logical fallacy before and am a rookie to apologetic thinking/reasoning (but I find it interesting). The square circle problem. They problem lacks clarity with the definition of what is a square circle? I would say it the responsibility of the person asking the question to define what they mean, or what is a square circle. After it is defined, I have an understanding of what the questioner thinks it is, and then I can better answer how it would be created. It is similar to me asking you to make this "kdjfldkfjdlkfopfdfkl". You should then ask me, what is "kdjfldkfjdlkfopfdfkl"? How can I make this without knowing what it is. Or pretend "kdjfldkfjdlkfopfdfkl" has never existed, I could create something new and call it "kdjfldkfjdlkfopfdfkl". If the questioner can't define "kdjfldkfjdlkfopfdfkl", who are they say my creation of "kdjfldkfjdlkfopfdfkl" is wrong.

I think another fallacy is expecting physical models and logical arguments to fully and accurately represent spiritual concepts. Until you see the thing that is represented by the model, you don't know if your model is correct. The same is true of a logical argument of an mysterious spiritual concept, until you or someone finds the evidence or witnesses, you do not have any proof or certainty that your argument might be valid. Also, Nothing in life is 100% certain, and most things we accept without 100% certainty or proof. We live by FAITH, but that will never satisfy the atheist argument. I believe people come to faith through supernatural interactions with God that I do not fully understand the workings of.

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Sounds like you are agreeing that Jesus had a problem with the young man's lack of faith in Jesus despite all the boasting of his good works in keeping the Torah.
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I picked the Romans passage to show that keeping the Torah through good works was not enough to save you. I did not explicitly explain this clearly enough. You did a better job explaining that.

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Ok - I think I see the issue. I think you are still conflating "good works" with "keeping the Torah". They are not the same thing. The Pharisees kept the Torah and were hypocrites and whitewashed tombs. Keeping the Torah is what St Paul calls works of the Torah or simply works. Those do not save you from death and do not in and of themselves make you pleasing to God. You can keep the Torah and not do good works, and be faithless.

It is not whether good works vs faithfulness saves. St Paul never contrasts these or gets into this issue. He over and over again addresses whether works of the Torah are salvific without faithfulness to the Messiah. Again that is why he says - "we who are Jews by birth know that by no works of the Torah is a person made righteous but by faithfulness to Jesus the Messiah". This is not a Christian argument. This is a Torah argument. If the Torah says it makes you righteous, then St Paul is wrong.

You can do good works apart from the Torah and be faithful. It is impossible to be faithful and not do good works - the person who does not love his brother does not know God. Therefore faithfulness and good works are both necessary for salvation, because a man without good works does not have faith.

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This is the only example from the Torah that I know of that talks of an everlasting relationship with God. Gen 17:7 7And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

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Yes. And the theme of Genesis is - "and he died". All of them died. It doesn't say much about everlasting life. But, there are hints there which is why the Pharisees taught the Resurrection - the prophecy to the Woman about the serpent, for example, implies that death will be defeated. Or the promises to Abraham are that his offspring will be like the stars, and like grains of sand. This is not the same promise two ways. One is quantity (sand) and one is quality (stars). Stars were gods, angels... the offspring should be like the angels. This is reiterated in Daniel 12 and Mark 12:25.

But if you go through the blessings and curses in Deuteronomy 11, 28 and 30, there is nothing explicit. Which is why the Sadducees could follow the Torah but not believe in the Resurrection.

I'm going to try to condense several of your posts into one response, so I hope this is coherent, and I apologize for the length:

Logic is a random passion of mine so I get a bit enthusiastic. Your gibberish example is a good one. I cannot make a *gibberish* because its essence is unknown. Once the essence of a *gibberish* is known, then we can decide if it can indeed exist. The term "automobile" used to be gibberish. Then it wasn't. It's not a logical fallacy, but a lack of definition.

So on to the logical fallacy of a square circle: a square has four sides. It cannot have 0. A circle has 0 sides. It cannot have 4. The terms are not lacking definition. Instead the terms are clearly defined and do not fit together. Therefore, a square circle cannot exist.

An atheist can take this and say "if God is all powerful, why can't He make it exist?" It would seem that God is trapped by the laws of logic/truth here. The Christian is supposed to be trapped into thinking God is not all powerful if He can be stopped by something this simple. The common Christian response is to say that either God can make the contradiction (which is nonsensical) or concede that God is limited in some way.

These are both wrong. God is not bound by logic/truth, He IS logic/truth. He calls Himself I AM because he IS. All logic and truth comes from Him. So to ask Him to make a square circle is to ask Him to change reality, which requires a change of Himself. And we know the uncreated Creator does not change Himself. So it is not that we have a problem that can't be answered. What we have is a logical fallacy that doesn't need an answer because an answer does not exist. It doesn't exist for us, and neither does it exist for God

This is what I'm driving at with the idea the we somehow can't accept what we can reject. This violates reality. It's violates our reality and it violates God's reality. If He is giving us the faith without our acceptance, then the idea that we can also reject it necessarily goes away. Donut gave the example of how we cannot choose to be born. This is true. It is from God. But we also can't choose to not be born. We are passive in both respects. After birth we can choose to live out the days that God has given us or we can choose to kill ourselves. We are active in both respects. Then we look at natural death. We cannot choose our natural end date and neither can we choose to live forever. We are back to double passive.

If He wants all to be saved and all are not saved and He is the only one doing any contribution of any kind, then the answer to why people go to hell is solvable and simple. We don't have to ask how God solves the Lutheran three part equation, because the three part equation is unsolvable due to the error of the equation itself. This is why Calvin got to double predestination while Luther was still alive and writing. Luther tries to rebut him and failed. It's defies logic, and God is logic, so we need to reject Luther's form of monergism. If we want monergism, then we have to go with Calvin, which is why the reformed doctrine is on the rise in evangelicalism.

And it is Luther's form to say that we cannot accept. As Donut posted on page two: On the basis of these clear statements of the Holy Scriptures we reject every kind of synergism, that is, the doctrine that conversion is wrought not by the grace and power of God alone, but in part also by the co-operation of man himself, by man's right conduct, his right attitude, his right self-determination, his lesser guilt or less evil conduct as compared with others, his refraining from willful resistance, or anything else whereby man's conversion and salvation is taken out of the gracious hands of God and made to depend on what man does or leaves undone. For this refraining from willful resistance or from any kind of resistance is also solely a work of grace, which "changes unwilling into willing men," Ezek. 36:26; Phil. 2:13. We reject also the doctrine that man is able to decide for conversion through "powers imparted by grace," since this doctrine presupposes that before conversion man still possesses spiritual powers by which he can make the right use of such "powers imparted by grace."

So we can say that PASSIVE or ACTIVE doesn't matter, but it does. It mattered to Luther, it mattered to Calvin and it mattered to the historical church that was debating with them. Your prodigal son story matters because, while God put all of that love and hope on you until you repented, you still repented. If you did not choose the repenting, then all of those who choose not to repent, did not actually choose to not repent. It's either passive in both directions (Calvinism) or its active in both directions (synergism). To stay in the middle is to defy logic and God is logic. It's not appealing to mystery, it's appealing incoherency.

In synergism you accept that you did actively repent. It doesn't mean you saved yourself. God still did that. But God did it in such a way that He let you have your free will in saying yes. He was the father that waited for His son to come home. If the prodigal son was written with today's technology, the father would have been sending daily texts to the lost son saying he's welcome back any time. But he didn't go yank the son out of the pig sty. He loved the son until the son returned.

And it wasn't the son's brilliance that returned him home. It was the humble acknowledgement that his father had always been loving and will always be loving. The son's acceptance of that love returned him home. So your repentance doesn't make you better than the non-repenter. The humility required to submit to God is a recognition of how bad off you are. This is why when we pray for the lost, we don't pray for them to be as good as we are, nor do we pray for God to yank them out of the pig sty. We pray that they wake up to the fact that they are just as lost as we were and come join us in God's mercy. God is calling them and they need to choose to turn to Him. The only harm in choosing synergism is that it negates Lutheranism.

Now, why is this such a big deal anyway? In practice we all look the same right? We all are (should be) doing our daily prayers, loving God above all else, loving our neighbors as ourselves, etc. To the average Buddhist, we probably look very similar for all but the hour we spend in our respective services on Sunday. We all (or mostly) believe that good works will go with our faith. Is it really a big deal?

I still say yes because these types of issues are the exact reason we don't all church together. We go our separate ways on Sundays. We convert each other's members. We present a divided front for those that are currently lost. Members on the fringes slip away into theism of some form because "it's all so confusing" and "no one has all the answers". Jesus prayed for unity, and we are not currently accomplishing that mission.

It is my belief that if the foundation of the reformation (monergistic salvation) is wrong, then let's do away with the reformation. And that was the foundation of the reformation. Arminian synergism wasn't found for the first ~100 years of the movement and even then didn't last. There were definitely things going wrong in the church back then, and there are today, but the synergistic teaching is sound and true. The mass is the true mass. Sundays should be all of us as one. I wish we could bring that back.

I appreciate your desire to put this thread together and get input from others to strive towards unity. It is obviously idealistic at the end of the day, and I do wish we could all fellowship together in the here and now. The good news is that we will - when we are all at the Lamb's table together in Heaven!

The heart of the reformation was not monergistic salvation, but sola scriptura and justification by faith alone. As I have alluded to in other threads, one of my goals in 2025 is to have a better understanding of church history and tradition, because Protestantism almost completely dismisses it nowadays, in my personal experience anyway. Some of you on here have helped stir that desire up in me, so thank you!

In the meantime, I do think it is possible to continue to live out Hebrews 10:23-24...
"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works..."

Appreciate all of your help along the way. I will challenge you in your pursuits to find how monergism was not the foundation of the reformation. The pre-reformers held to it. The reformers held to it. Faith alone stems from it, not the other way around. If faith alone was the foundation, it does not exclude synergism. One can hold to faith alone and be a synergist. Enter Arminius. But none of the reforming fathers held this view because their foundation was monergism.

If the Bible alone was the foundation, it does not exclude synergism. It is only when one reads the Bible with lens of God's full sovereignty over salvation that one reaches faith alone. This is why Luther called the book of James "an epistle of straw". It's why Calvin says the Catholic Church had twisted the scripture of James. If it was scripture alone, the interpretation shouldn't matter. But they do. This is why original sola scriptura reformers did not deny the necessity of the church traditions to help interpret, and even used church fathers to debate one another's interpretations.

In my opinion, none of these things become an issue without the need to prove that God alone does the saving. People think Luther sit off over works and indulgences. He split off because of the conviction that there is nothing a man can possibly contribute to his salvation. That is monergism. The rest flows from that belief.

ETA: as evidence, I offer the fact that Luther said even us accepting the faith is a work of our own. He could have worked out a synergistic faith alone, but he didn't. Monergism undergirds faith alone, not the other way around.

10andBOUNCE said:

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I appreciate your desire to put this thread together and get input from others to strive towards unity. It is obviously idealistic at the end of the day, and I do wish we could all fellowship together in the here and now. The good news is that we will - when we are all at the Lamb's table together in Heaven!

The heart of the reformation was not monergistic salvation, but sola scriptura and justification by faith alone. As I have alluded to in other threads, one of my goals in 2025 is to have a better understanding of church history and tradition, because Protestantism almost completely dismisses it nowadays, in my personal experience anyway. Some of you on here have helped stir that desire up in me, so thank you!

In the meantime, I do think it is possible to continue to live out Hebrews 10:23-24...
"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works..."

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Nice post. I think Luther and Calvin would say that Sola Scriptura proves monergism and I do not believe it does.

And I think monergism is what inspired their version of sola scriptura to necessitate the church fathers for interpretive help.

You can't just read it and know its synergism. You can't just read it and know it's monergism. You need to help of the historical faith to parse it all out. And unfortunately they misused historical writings to prove their monergstic interpretation is true, almost entirely relying on Augustine alone. I now believe that their sola fide/sola scriptura beliefs flow from their belief in monergism, not the other way around. This awesome back and forth with everyone has helped this become clear to me, but maybe somewhere this is refuting evidence I have yet to find. I'm open to it.

The Banned said:

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And I think monergism is what inspired their version of sola scriptura to necessitate the church fathers for interpretive help.

You can't just read it and know its synergism. You can't just read it and know it's monergism. You need to help of the historical faith to parse it all out. And unfortunately they misused historical writings to prove their monergstic interpretation is true, almost entirely relying on Augustine alone. I now believe that their sola fide/sola scriptura beliefs flow from their belief in monergism, not the other way around. This awesome back and forth with everyone has helped this become clear to me, but maybe somewhere this is refuting evidence I have yet to find. I'm open to it.

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I have learned a lot also.Thanks to all.

Monergism also led to their different view of God's sovereignty, election, and predestination than had been held for centuries.

Curious your thoughts…

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Here is a prayer that would be consistent with the synergist's theology if he really believed that faith is a product of our unregenerated human nature and not the result of grace alone:

"God, I give you glory for everything else, but not my faith ... This is the one thing that is my very own that I produced of my fallen natural capacities. For this little bit the glory is mine. So I thank you Lord that I am not like other men who do not have faith. When you extended your grace to all men some did not make use of it, BUT I DID.While You deserve glory for all I have Lord, my faith was the one part that I contributed to the price of my redemption, apart from and independent of the effectual work of Your Holy Spirit."

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https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/prayer_synergist.html

10andBOUNCE said:

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Curious your thoughts…

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Here is a prayer that would be consistent with the synergist's theology if he really believed that faith is a product of our unregenerated human nature and not the result of grace alone:

"God, I give you glory for everything else, but not my faith ... This is the one thing that is my very own that I produced of my fallen natural capacities. For this little bit the glory is mine. So I thank you Lord that I am not like other men who do not have faith. When you extended your grace to all men some did not make use of it, BUT I DID.While You deserve glory for all I have Lord, my faith was the one part that I contributed to the price of my redemption, apart from and independent of the effectual work of Your Holy Spirit."

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https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/prayer_synergist.html

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I would say that is how synergism is viewed by many who even claim to hold to some type of synergism. Part of why I started this thread is to show that to be able to choose faith and still try to adhere to the "sola fide" doctrine is contradictory. At least inasmuch as the reformers used "sola fide".. It is why the Catholic Church said that you can hold to sola fide PROVIDED you agree that the faith that saves us is one that we must continue to cooperate with.

This is why I believe the way the Zobel has stated it as "faithfulness" is the best way for synergists to get their point across. The faith alone formula used by modern Protestants today stems from the monergistic salvation view. It doesn't work with synergism. If you believe "faith alone" as espoused by the reformers, Calvinism/reformed doctrine is what you should call home.

It also highlights the difference between the "original sin" and "total depravity". If you believe humans are utterly depraved, then the idea we can cooperate with God is impossible. One more reason why I believe Luther stopped short. He was uncomfortable with the double predestination, but it's necessary for monergism and total depravity.

I'm throwing this out on the fly, so I'd like to reserve the right to edit it later when I have more time, but my rephrasing of that false prayer would look like this:

God, I know you love me before I loved you. I know you gave me the grace to accept you and I thank you for it. Please keep me in your fold. I know that my will is weak and that I can fall to temptation. Please give me the strength to continue to accept you until the end of my days

1. God reaches out first.
2. We agree to follow His call
3. We must continue to agree to follow His call
4. We know we are weak and ask for His help in continuing.
5. At no point in time are we the instigator of the faithfulness. We are cooperators with God and stay faithful to Him, asking for His help all the while.

Where I will say Calvin stopped too short is failing to accept his views destroy free will. I get that he tried to massage it with "limited free will" but it again is logically nonsensical. We can "choose" bad but can't choose good? Again, if we can only choose one direction, it was never a choice. The only choice we have is what kind of bad we want to do. He should have just done away with free will altogether.

dermdoc said:

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10andBOUNCE said:

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I appreciate your desire to put this thread together and get input from others to strive towards unity. It is obviously idealistic at the end of the day, and I do wish we could all fellowship together in the here and now. The good news is that we will - when we are all at the Lamb's table together in Heaven!

The heart of the reformation was not monergistic salvation, but sola scriptura and justification by faith alone. As I have alluded to in other threads, one of my goals in 2025 is to have a better understanding of church history and tradition, because Protestantism almost completely dismisses it nowadays, in my personal experience anyway. Some of you on here have helped stir that desire up in me, so thank you!

In the meantime, I do think it is possible to continue to live out Hebrews 10:23-24...
"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works..."

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Nice post. I think Luther and Calvin would say that Sola Scriptura proves monergism and I do not believe it does.

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Not to quibble, but forgive me while I quibble. Luther and Calvin would say that Sola Scriptura AS UNDERSTOOD AND INTERPRETED BY THEM proves monergism.

So, in the immortal words of the big Lebowski, "that's just like their opinion man."

Can I not say that also about all of the church fathers?

no, because the church fathers were speaking from within the church, and their writings and teachings were ratified by the church through their continued use.

Zobel said:

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no, because the church fathers were speaking from within the church, and their writings and teachings were ratified by the church through their continued use.

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What he said.

Zobel said:

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no, because the church fathers were speaking from within the church, and their writings and teachings were ratified by the church through their continued use.

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So this makes it 100% inerrant fact?

10andBOUNCE said:

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Zobel said:

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no, because the church fathers were speaking from within the church, and their writings and teachings were ratified by the church through their continued use.

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So this makes it 100% inerrant fact?

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You can choose to listen to people who knew the apostles or you can choose to listen to others. Your call.

Zobel said:

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no, what it means is that those writings carry authority inside our tradition. of all the things that were written, the church said - these teachings are worth preserving and are good explanations of our faith.

its the same way the canon of scripture functions inside the church, for what its worth.

that does not put the writings of the fathers on the same level as scripture - because we don't treat them the same way within our tradition - it is just a similar mechanism of preservation and authority.

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Ditto Catholicism.

It's rather ironic don't you think that the camp that stands on scripture alone is standing on a canon that is itself the fruit of Tradition?

10andBOUNCE said:

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Can I not say that also about all of the church fathers?

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This is why the teaching that the Holy Spirit saves the church from teaching error in the matter of faith and morals. The confidence is not in the fathers, but the holy process that parses through what they said that is good or not.

Take monergism. Augustine is the closest we see to this as an early view in Christianity. The church uses many of his writings to guide our faith, but they don't use the writings that would lead one to believe monergism. Why? Because Augustine wasn't perfect and neither was anyone else. We need the spirit to help guide us through all of the questions if we are to stay one church.

We've seen this work in modern times. The Catholic Church alone kept the teaching on contraception despite external and internal pressures to change it. JP2 slammed the door a potential female priesthood despite external and internal pressures. Many denominational strands now allow it. We can see JP2 (the same who confirmed make priesthood for once and for all) go as far as he could to get rid of the death penalty, but what he could not do is teach that is forever wrong and can never be licit again.

That is how the church authority, guided by the Spirit, works.

Obviously church tradition is a good and very useful thing, I'm not going to say otherwise

10andBOUNCE said:

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Obviously church tradition is a good and very useful thing, I'm not going to say otherwise

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I wasn't trying to be a jerk. I truly think it's ironic.

I didn't take it that way. Scripture alone doesn't mean to hell with all tradition and church fathers.

10andBOUNCE said:

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I didn't take it that way. Scripture alone doesn't mean to hell with all tradition and church fathers.

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You might want to check with some of your go to guys on that.