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Post by Kerrigan on Dec 20, 2008 15:36:13 GMT -5
JUST A REMINDER. It starts in about 30 min! Just want to give everyone a head's up concerning the upcoming debate on Original Sin! It's going to be great! It will be a week from today, 12/20/2008 from 4pm-6pm Eastern Standard Time. The debate will be between Kerrigan Skelly and a Calvinist Pastor from New Jersey named Pat. More information on the Pastor right before the debate. Here's what the debate will look like: -Jesse Morrell (moderator) gives brief Bio Info on both Debaters -10 min. Opening Statement from Pat -10 min. Opening Statement from Kerrigan -7 min. Rebuttal from Pat -7 min. Rebuttal from Kerrigan -5 min. Pat cross examines Kerrigan -5 min. Kerrigan cross examines Pat -7 min. Rebuttal from Pat -7 min. Rebuttal from Kerrigan -5 min. Pat cross examines Kerrigan -5 min. Kerrigan cross examines Pat -10 min. of Closing Statements from Pat -10 min. of Closing Statements from Kerrigan The remainder of the show (about 30 min.) will be used to take questions from callers. Each caller will only be able to ask one question. The person that the question is directed at has 2 min. to answer the question and then the opponent has 1 min. to respond. We will take questions until the 2 hour mark or until people stop calling. If no one calls or calls stop before the 2 hour mark, then Pastor Pat will be free to go and Jesse, Kerrigan and John will discuss the debate. Rules: The opening statements are generally a positive case for what the debater DOES believe. The rebuttals are responses to opening statements and to cross examinations. Cross examination time is to be used to ask the other person questions, not to continue with a lecture style response. Closing statements are open for anything and everything except asking the other person questions. We will discuss the topic of Original Sin, not Unconditional Election, Open Theism, Conditional Security, Once Save Always Saved, the Atonement or anything else. This debate is to be focused on this topic alone. Join us for this debate on a controversial subject! At the least, it is sure to make you think and re-think what you believe concerning this issue. Just listen or take the time to ask a question at the end. It's going to be great! www.blogtalkradio.com/RefiningFireRadio/2008/12/20/Original-Sin-Debate
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Post by benjoseph on Dec 20, 2008 18:37:29 GMT -5
Great job!
I was going to call in and ask about Exo 32:33 but it popped into my mind so suddenly that I was laughing too much to call..
..Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.
Pat (? I didn't catch his last name) brought up the whole idea of salvation by works. Now, Kerrigan, I've heard you say (maybe in those excellent TULIP videos) something similar the "T", the Total Depravity/Original Sin being the foundation for the whole thing, (ie. If you remove the "T" then the whole system falls apart.) I agree, but what occurred to me when Pat mentioned salvation by works instead of faith alone (which I've heard a few times now) is that it is actually SIN that is the foundation of the whole thing and in the construction of the doctrines it should actually be read backwards. They present it as T, U, L, I, P, but it should be understood SIN, P, I, L, U, T. The "T" ends up being the the whitewash on the exterior because it supposedly glorifies God. My understanding of "P" was that it was the initial excusing of sin and that the rest of the doctrines, working in reverse, are attempts to justify "P" (sin).
If there's no "P" then you can't sin. If there's no "I" then "P" is a joke. If there's no "L" then "I" = universalism. If there's no "U" then "L" makes it like the JW's 144,000. If there's no "T" then "U" is unfair. And if "T" isn't ultimately part of God's plan then then you have to stop sinning.
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Post by Jesse Morrell on Dec 20, 2008 18:59:46 GMT -5
Pat seemed to present the same old Calvinist positions:
1. We are born under the wrath of God, before we even sin 2. We don't have a free will, we have to sin 3. God is glorified when we disobey Him 4. God wanted Adam and Eve to sin
Etc etc.
I don't think I will ever understand how a person could think like that or how a person could possibly get that from a genuine reading of the Bible.
Pat also came off, from the very beginning, very aggressively. His opening statement was almost like a threat, "if you don't believe in original sin, you go are going to hell" (paraphrase) He had a TON of straw-man arguments. He had so many straw-man arguments, that he barely dealt with Kerrigans position at all.
Kerrigan came off very calmly and reasonably. He brought up a TON of Scriptures. He was able to adequately provide Scriptures for his position and also to adequately explain the Scriptures Pat tried to use against Kerrigans position.
Kerrigans position was clear and simple:
1. We are born morally innocent 2. Sin is a choice 3. Men are sinners through an abuse of their free will 4. Men are responsible and accountable for their own personal sins only
This makes total sense to me and is easily proven through the Scripture.
Hopefully this debate will provoke a lot of discussion in Calvinist circles about the validity of original sin.
Hopefully we will have more debates on Refining Fire Radio as well.
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Post by Jesse Morrell on Dec 20, 2008 19:14:31 GMT -5
Pat did contradict himself with saying that Cain had a free will, but then also later claim that mankind is born with "inability", saying that we are born slaves of sin.... How could Cain have a free will if Cain was born a slave of sin, if Cain was born with the "inability" to obey God?
Besides, Paul said that you are the servant of whom you obey. In other words, sinners are servants of sin BECAUSE they choose to serve sin. But Saints are servants of God BECAUSE they choose to obey God. It is a voluntary servant hood, a servant hood by choice not birth.
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Post by Jesse Morrell on Dec 20, 2008 19:17:31 GMT -5
This is from "Truth and Reason" from blogtalkradio:
"Good debate guys. I think you were both very respectful of the other. However, I would have to say Kerrigan won it. Pat just contradicted himself too much."
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Post by benjoseph on Dec 20, 2008 19:24:32 GMT -5
I've even seen people say we're born with a free will but only "free" to sin. Like a laboratory mouse in a maze.
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Post by Kerrigan on Dec 20, 2008 19:41:31 GMT -5
Yes, there were LOTS of straw men arguments. I didn't want to waste all of my time responding to them, so I ignored most of them or just addressed them in passing. I wanted to respond to the slave part that Pat brought up by saying that Romans 6 says that Christians are "slaves to righteousness". If Pat is correct in saying that "slaves to sin" means no ability to do right or choose right, then "slaves to righteousness" must mean no ability to do wrong. But, we ALL know that is not true and most Calvinists say that Christians "sin everyday", so they definitely know that's not true...
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Post by tbxi on Dec 21, 2008 13:13:35 GMT -5
I listened until Kerrigan's cross-examination session. I thought that the other guy did a pretty good job up until then, especially his first rebuttal. His opening statement could have been filled with more substance, though.
And during Kerrigan's cross-exam is where he really shot himself in the foot by saying that Adam and Eve had free will. God was just as sovereign before the Fall as He was after it, and Adam and Eve did not have a libertarian free will - their sin was a logical precursor of God's already existing plan to send His son according to "the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23).
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Post by Steve Noel on Dec 21, 2008 15:41:50 GMT -5
I listened until Kerrigan's cross-examination session. I thought that the other guy did a pretty good job up until then, especially his first rebuttal. His opening statement could have been filled with more substance, though. And during Kerrigan's cross-exam is where he really shot himself in the foot by saying that Adam and Eve had free will. God was just as sovereign before the Fall as He was after it, and Adam and Eve did not have a libertarian free will - their sin was a logical precursor of God's already existing plan to send His son according to "the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). Tyler, I'm not sure but is what your saying here about free will before the fall a common Calvinist understanding? In Chosen by God R.C. Sproul writes, "Herein lies the problem. Before a person can commit an act of sin he must first have a desire to perform that act. The Bible tells us that evil actions flow from evil desires. But the presence of an evil desire is already sin. We sin because we are sinners. We were born with a sin nature. We are fallen creatures. But Adam and Eve were not created fallen. They had no sin nature. They were good creatures with a free will. Yet they chose to sin. Why? I don't know. Nor have I found anyone yet who does know." (p. 30-31) Sproul says clearly that Adam and Eve had a free will. Does this mean he doesn't think God is sovereign? He also writes, "The Reformed view follows the thinking of Augustine. Augustine spells out the state of Adam before the Fall and the state of mankind after the Fall. Before the fall Adam was endowed with two possibilities: He had the ability to sin and the ability not to sin. After the fall Adam had the ability to sin and the inability to not sin." (p. 65) It seems that Sproul is saying that the Reformed view is that Adam and Eve had free will before the fall. Steve
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Post by tbxi on Dec 21, 2008 22:15:52 GMT -5
Hi Steve. Thank you for your post. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I just enjoy your demeanor through this, especially seeing that you have apparently read Chosen by God. I have not. It is just encouraging to have a nice dialogue with someone on this forum who is not a Calvinist and still is not someone I would consider a heretic. I hope you do not take that the wrong way I do think that it is inconsistent to say (for any Christian who is not an open theist, but I am especially talking about Calvinists) that any creature has free will, whether we are talking about human beings (elect or reprobate), angels (elect or reprobate), animals, insects, anything. There are no "maverick molecules" anywhere (which I believe is actually a Sproul-coined phrase). Sproul, as far as I am aware, is a compatibilist, and I am not. Some might classify me as a "hard determinist". This is where I disagree with some Calvinists. I think we can get mixed up when we are talking about free will, because sometimes Calvinists are talking about different notions of what the will is free from, exactly. I think Sproul would say that no one is free relative to God, i.e. free from God. I think sometimes Calvinists get mixed up amongst themselves about exactly what they think the human will is free in relation to - God or self or some other influence? It is freedom relative to the sovereign power and control of God that I am pretty much always talking about, and I do not think any Calvinist can consistently say that anyone is free relative to God in any sense. This includes Adam and Eve. Being innocent, one could say they had a 'free will' relative to themselves, that is, that they could choose good or evil, since they were not of a fallen, totally depraved nature yet. I believe this is what Calvinists often mean. I think this is probably what the pastor who debated Kerrigan meant. But relative to the eternal decrees of God, NO ONE is free, and that is what I mean almost all the time. And that should be any Christian's reply, but especially that of a Calvinist. I think THAT notion of free will, being most relevant, is what the real issue is - I think it is what Kerrigan meant when he brought it up - and I wish that more clarification took place on the part of Calvinists who say that Adam and Eve "lost their free will". Freedom with respect to what? Their own ability to choose the good or evil, being no longer innocent but fallen - the lack of any sinful "bondage of the will"? Sure. But their ability to resist the sovereign power of God? Never, no matter what condition they are in - which goes for all creatures, all molecules, all things and beings but God, who is the only being in existence with a truly free will. Hallelujah. This is with all due respect to R. C. Sproul, of course, whose radio programs and writings I've read have been enjoyable. I don't agree with everything he says about this or about reprobation, for instance, but I have warm feelings toward him and others that I disagree with and yet still am convinced that they are believers. I do not want to sound arrogant in saying this, since I am a young believer myself
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Post by Steve Noel on Dec 21, 2008 23:41:30 GMT -5
Thanks for the kind words Tyler. You're right in saying that Sproul is a compatibilist. He understands free will to mean the ability to make choices according to our desires. He says that every choice is free and every choice is determined. It seems he wants to say Adam had libertarian free will, but, as you said, this doesn't seem compatible with the Calvinist understanding of sovereignty.
Let me ask you another question Tyler. Do you align yourself with infralapsarianism or supralapsarianism?
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Post by tbxi on Dec 22, 2008 0:45:21 GMT -5
Free, if free means free with relation to oneself. But that is kind of a pointless thing to say, I think. I tend to hear analogies about a train that is free to move along its own train tracks. A compatibilist at my church likes to say that you are free to do whatever your nature influences you to do, but this is kind of irrelevant in my view, and obfuscates the real issue.
I don't think Sproul would say Adam and Eve had libertarian free will. Although I don't know. That, in my mind, is the "free from God" stance that most everyone here takes.
From what little I have read of the topic, I align myself more with supralapsarianism, but I'd need to read it more. I tend to think you can't really separate God's decrees even logically, let alone chronologically. I believe that all propositions are as one intuition before Him. He does not "work things through" in His mind. He just knows everything, instantly and always, without a thought process like we have. So... the decree to elect and reprobate, create, cause the Fall (I don't really like "allow" being used here, as if God decreed it passively), etc... I don't see how you can have any of them without the others.
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Post by Steve Noel on Dec 22, 2008 9:09:13 GMT -5
Tyler, Let me give you a little more from Chosen by God. Tell me what you think of this: "It is also vital to see predestination in light of the Fall. All Christians agree that God's decree of predestination was made before the Fall. Some argue that God first predestined some people to salvation and other to d**nation and then decreed the Fall to make sure that some folks would perish. Sometimes this dreadful view is even attributed to Calvinism. Such an idea was repugnant to Calvin and is equally repugnant to all orthodox Calvinists. The notion is sometimes called "hyper-Calvinism." But even that is an insult. This view has nothing to do with Calvinism, it is anti-Calvinism." (p.96) Here Sproul calls the Supralapsarian position "dreadful" and "repugnant" and says it "has nothing to do with Calvinism". I know you said you haven't studied it to deeply but I thought you would find that interesting. He also says this, "To be sure, God knew before the Fall that there would most certainly be a Fall and he took action to redeem some. He ordained the Fall in the sense that he chose to allow it, but not in the sense that he chose to coerce it. His predestinating grace is gracious precisely because he choose to save some people whom he knows in advance will be spiritually dead." (p. 97) As you said above it's really inconsistent to speak of God "allowing" things from a Reformed perspective. This is the language of libertarian free will.
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Post by tbxi on Dec 22, 2008 10:08:26 GMT -5
First - supralapsarianism is not in and of itself a hyper-Calvinist position. I believe Phil Johnson, who does not share my view on some things, said something along the lines of "All hyper-Calvinists are supralapsarians , but not all supralapsarians are hyper-Calvinists". There has been significant discussion on a particular aspect of what some people consider hyper-Calvinism in the blogosphere lately, that is, what common grace means (if it exists at all) and whether God has a true desire for the salvation of the reprobate, those He has already determined to damn and not to save, or any true love for them. I would like to look into some blog articles on this that have been written lately. It has largely been between James White and the Pyromaniac blog, and there has been some good commentary at Triablogue as well. "to make sure that some folks would perish" "this dreadful view" "repugnant" "insult" As if the damnation of the reprobates was not completely guaranteed in infralapsarian Calvinism as well. This is one area where I have to disagree strongly with Sproul. To this you can really apply many of the same arguments I have made against non-Calvinists on this forum. I have read an article by Sproul on double predestination, so I have seen his arguments on this before. "Coerce", "force", etc - this sort of language being used to describe God's actions in hardening the reprobates is not accurate. As if God needs to force anybody to do anything against their will - the only reason their will is going in a particular direction is because God moves it wherever He chooses. Proverbs 16:1, 4, 9, and especially 21:1. I know it is a bit long but a resource that you can freely and easily look at that has influenced me much is www.vincentcheung.com/books/authorsin.pdf (and other things written by this man). The chapters are listed in the beginning of this book and you can read the ones which seem relevant to you.
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Post by Jesse Morrell on Dec 23, 2008 18:13:15 GMT -5
I noticed that Pat contradicted himself in the debate. When Kerrigan argued that God forms us in the womb, and therefore if we are born sinners it is God's fault, Pat denied that it was God's fault and said it was Adam's fault.
But then later Pat said that everything happens because of God's eternal decrees (including the fall of Adam). If everything is God's Sovereign plan, then it is God's fault that we are born sinners!
Pat also said that it is GOD who imputes to us Adam's sin. This also makes it God's fault. If it is God who imputes it to us, it is not our fault but God's fault. God is the reason we have Adam's sin, because God is the one who imputes it. (Besides, if Adam's sin needs to be "imputed" it means that we are naturally innocent before the imputation).
Pat accused Kerrigan of taking Scriptures out of context and then he himself took Jer 13:23 out of context. Pat used this Scripture, which compares reprobate Israel changing it's ways to a leopard changing his spots of an Ethiopian his skin, and tried to apply it to all men saying that we are born sinners with the inability to obey God! But Jer 13:23 is not talking about everyone, it is talking about Israel during a certain time period. And it is not talking about the way people are born, it is talking the way Israel had become through it's persistent rebellion. It is not talking about their natural condition at birth, but about their evil condition through habit. They were so "accustomed" to doing evil, that a moral change in them is comparable to a leopard changing his spots or an Ethiopian changing his skin. Their hearts were so hard, through habitual disobedience, that their reformation was basically impossible, they made themselves reprobates. They resisted for so long.
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Post by Kerrigan on Dec 24, 2008 12:47:00 GMT -5
This is what a Calvinist posted about the debate on another message board:
I'm sorry, but wasn't it the Roman Catholic Church that "fought" and "won" this debate in the 6th century? It's this kind of fear tactics, assumptions and fallacious reasoning (saying that some council decides what is truth) that lead to people being stuck in this false teaching.
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Post by tbxi on Dec 24, 2008 13:23:49 GMT -5
I would note that the Catholic Church in the 6th century was not the same as the monstrosity it has become today. I don't think most of their crazy dogmas had even been thought up yet by that point.
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Post by Jesse Morrell on Dec 24, 2008 14:58:03 GMT -5
Actually, a lot of the wacky beliefs of the Catholic Church came from Augustine in the early 5th Century. It was primarily Augustine's influence that corrupted the Church away from it's early teachings. Augustine gave the Reformed Church its theology, and He also gave the Catholic Church its practices.
For example:
- Baptismal Regeneration - Persecuting Heretics - Praying to Mary (I know Augustine did this, not sure if he invented it) - The view that all sex involves sin - etc
And of course, he also taught total depravity, unconditional election, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints.
The point is that the Catholic Church was extremely corrupted by the 6th Century, and their "counsels" and "synods" are not the authoritative rule on truth. Appealing to these counsels and synods is not abiding by the standard of "sola scriptura" that Calvinism claims so often, but doesn't always practice.
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Post by tbxi on Dec 24, 2008 15:33:36 GMT -5
preaching to the choir, Jesse. I don't make councils or synods of any kind authoritative and I am aware that Augustine had doctrinal issues.
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Post by Kerrigan on Dec 24, 2008 21:16:59 GMT -5
Tyler, Jesse isn't "preaching to the choir" as you say. He's simply refuting the point that you made to me...that's all. And he did it in the same way that I would have. The fact is that by the 6th century, the Roman Catholic Church already was messed up. Maybe not AS MUCH as it is today, but this Calvinist who used these synods as the authority for proving Original Sin to be "orthodox" and "essential" would have had nothing to do with them. He would have considered them heretics!
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Post by tbxi on Dec 25, 2008 2:18:37 GMT -5
Tyler, Jesse isn't "preaching to the choir" as you say. He's simply refuting the point that you made to me...that's all. And he did it in the same way that I would have. The fact is that by the 6th century, the Roman Catholic Church already was messed up. Maybe not AS MUCH as it is today, but this Calvinist who used these synods as the authority for proving Original Sin to be "orthodox" and "essential" would have had nothing to do with them. He would have considered them heretics! I wasn't trying to prove any points, honestly. Just noting that the Catholic Church of old != the Catholic Church of today. If, IF this other Calvinist fellow indeed did what you say he did then he was wrong.
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Post by pete777 on Dec 25, 2008 10:36:13 GMT -5
The early Roman Catholic Church,
Please note that every last doctrine of the Papacy is from ancient pagan belief. Most of the names of thier "blasphemous" teachings are changed to conform to a supposedly Christian exterior but the root of every teaching is from Babylon around 600 BC. Alexander Hislop wrote a book called the "Two Babylons" he was a linguist and archeologist, and he compared the ancient Babylonian records with the modern Catholic Church and they are the exact same, every single festival, but with different names. This is Satan's master piece deception. Sunday worship comes from pagan worship and is not Biblical. It is error, it is tradition! It is a violation of the law of love! If we love Jesus Christ then we will lovingly keep the SEVENTH DAY SABBATH! Sunday worship is a revival of ancient Babylon, and is the Catholic MARK OF AUTHORITY in religious matters. Whom do ye yield yourselves to obey???
Matthew
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Post by pete777 on Dec 25, 2008 10:38:20 GMT -5
Solo scriptura! No pagan Catholic worship for me!!
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Post by Kerrigan on Dec 25, 2008 12:51:22 GMT -5
Tyler, what I posted was an exact quote...
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