UR Consistent With Libertarian Free Will

Man, Sin, & Salvation
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mattrose
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Re: UR Consistent With Libertarian Free Will

Post by mattrose » Tue Dec 25, 2012 12:04 am

Paidion wrote:Matt, you seem to be saying that evil can grow increasingly worse throughout eternity. Wouldn't that make evil infinite? And thus as a power in the universe on a par with God?
No, I believe in eventual extinction... so the issue you raise isn't an issue with me.
I understand from the scriptures that God is going to destroy all evil. In order to do that, He will have to either destroy evil by winning all evil doers to Himself, or else annihilate those persons who would otherwise hold out forever (However, I think holding out forever is not practically possible).
I think it could be a both/and instead of an 'or' situation. Some, hopefully many, may repent. Who knows? But if they are continually going in the wrong direction (more and more disconnected from the source of life), they will cease to exist. God is the source of life.

steve7150
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Re: UR Consistent With Libertarian Free Will

Post by steve7150 » Tue Dec 25, 2012 8:33 am

But Steve, what about the apostle John's quote of Isaiah?

He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they should see with their eyes and perceive with their heart, and turn for me to heal them. (John 12:40)

And what about:

as it is written,
“God gave them a spirit of stupor,
eyes that would not see
and ears that would not hear,
down to this very day.” (Romans 11:8)





Also around Mark 4.11 it says the jews were blinded referring back to Isaiah, but blinding some jews which IMHO actually may have been so the gentiles would accept him as their Messiah otherwise they may have seen Jesus as only a jewish Messiah.

God blinding unbelievers in general is quite a different plan considering that Jesus, God given mission was to bring the kingdom of God to unbelievers. It's true that Satan is under God's control either way, but God allows Satan to actively oppose him.

If you believe unbelievers can be saved in the lake of fire one of the key changes will be that Satan has been eliminated and unbelievers would no longer be blinded.

One last thing is that if you believe God blinds the minds of unbelievers isn't this akin to Calvinism?

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Paidion
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Re: UR Consistent With Libertarian Free Will

Post by Paidion » Tue Dec 25, 2012 9:34 pm

If you believe unbelievers can be saved in the lake of fire one of the key changes will be that Satan has been eliminated and unbelievers would no longer be blinded. One last thing is that if you believe God blinds the minds of unbelievers isn't this akin to Calvinism?
I don't know about "eliminated", but Satan will be rendered ineffective. Nevertheless, God may be blinding the eyes of unbelievers in order that they might become more established in their unrighteousness, and therefore may have no excuse not to receive God's severe mercy in the next life. The following passage indicates that there were at the time people whom God gave them up to their wrongdoing. I don't think this action on God's part has any relation to the Cavinist view that God chooses and loves some, while rejecting the majority and consigning them to an eternal hell.


For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. (Romans 1:21-27)

O
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

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steve7150
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Re: UR Consistent With Libertarian Free Will

Post by steve7150 » Fri Dec 28, 2012 11:44 am

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions.










Do you think "gave them up" is equivalent to "blinding the minds". I don't know the greek as you do, but one sounds like a withdrawal of perhaps a hedge or some type of assistance verses a more active constraint (blinding)?

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Paidion
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Re: UR Consistent With Libertarian Free Will

Post by Paidion » Fri Dec 28, 2012 1:37 pm

I did think of God giving them up as tantamount to His blinding their eyes. Notwithstanding, I acknowledge your point. The former seems merely permissive, while the latter seems to be deliberate acts on God's part. Yet, similar results seem to arise from either.
Paidion

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Timm001
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Re: UR Consistent With Libertarian Free Will

Post by Timm001 » Sun May 19, 2013 11:34 am

Paidion,
 
I am afraid that your math problem may contain some mistakes. You start with n = 0.999…
Therefore, by the third line of the equation n should still equal 0.999… However, in the third line you have 9n = 9.000… I am afraid that if we substitute .999... and multiple it by 9, then we get 8.999…therefore the equation is false.
 
However, I am not clear on how the mathematics work when multiplying an integer by a non-terminating decimal.

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Re: UR Consistent With Libertarian Free Will

Post by steve7150 » Sun May 19, 2013 12:40 pm

I think Libertarian Free Will is inconsistent with dogmatic UR (everyone will be saved)





What if the CU sounding verses are actually prophetic , like a vision of the final scenario where all things are gathered together in Christ.

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Paidion
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Re: UR Consistent With Libertarian Free Will

Post by Paidion » Sun May 19, 2013 4:58 pm

Timm wrote:Paidion,

I am afraid that your math problem may contain some mistakes. You start with n = 0.999…
Therefore, by the third line of the equation n should still equal 0.999… However, in the third line you have 9n = 9.000… I am afraid that if we substitute .999... and multiple it by 9, then we get 8.999…therefore the equation is false.

However, I am not clear on how the mathematics work when multiplying an integer by a non-terminating decimal.
I don't think you have pointed out any mistake. I will explain the proof more completely showing how mathematical principles of algebra apply.

1. Let n = 0.999... (In an algebraic proof, it is legitimate to set a variable equal to ANY quantity)
2. Then 10n = 9.999... (Each side has been multiplied by 10. A number can be mulitplied by 10 by moving the decimal point one place to the right. This was done with 0.999... in line 2.

Now if you subtract the same quantity from each side of an equation the results are equal. For example, if you subtract 4 from each side of 3n + 9 = 2n + 16, the result would be 3n +5 = 2n +12
So the next step is to subtract n or its equivalent (0.999...) from each side of the equation in step 2.

On the left side of the equation we subtract n from 10n (10 times n), and we are left with 9n.
On the right side, we subtract 0.999... (the equivalent of n) as follows.

9.999999...
0.999999...
9.000000...

In doing this subtraction we cannot start at the right-hand end since there is no right-hand end in an infinite decimal. So we start at the left. That works well since there is no "borrowing" involved.

Thus the left side of the equation becomes 9n and the right side becomes 9.Therefore

3. 9n = 9.000000...

If 9 times n equals 9, then n must equal 1.

We conclude therefore that 0.999999... is exactly equal to 1. Where is the flaw if any?
Paidion

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Re: UR Consistent With Libertarian Free Will

Post by Timm001 » Tue May 21, 2013 1:14 am

Paidion,

Thank you for expanding upon your explanation. I think that my concerns may have been stated in a way that was less than fully articulate. I see now that what I am thinking is that there might be one of two problems going on with your proof: 1) Either it does not in fact prove that 0.999… = 1 because it is simply a demonstration of how we use mathematical conventions, or 2) It contains a false statement, in which case it is simply invalid.

Let's start with the second of these concerns because it is easier to show and leads naturally to the first. As such, we can begin by looking at the third line of your proof:

9n = 9.000…

My point here is simply that this is a false statement. I will readily admit, however, that my training in mathematics is limited. I finished calculus in high school and I hadn't studied it again until I took the GRE. What I do think that I know, however, is that something is wrong with your equation if it generates a false statement. I think that this line is a false statement. My reasoning is as such:

1. n = 0.999… (stipulation)
2. 9n = 9.000… (third line of your proof)
3. 8.999… = 9.000… (consequence of 1 and 2)

Now perhaps it is the case that, per my second concern, certain non-terminating decimals are taken to be equivalent to certain appropriate integers (rounding up) via the conventions of mathematics which we have all been taught in grade school. So 1.999… is equivalent to 2, and 2.999…is equivalent to 3, and so on. However, if this is much is true, then I think that what you have offered is less of a "proof" than a demonstration of mathematical convention. I, for my own part, tend to believe that numbers exist and are real, abstract objects, therefore the number 8.999… is not equivalent to 9.000…, even if our mathematical conventions treat them as one and the same because any such distinctions hold no particular relevance to our typical mathematical interests. I am not sure how this principle applies, however, when dealing with negative numbers such as -0.999…, in which case we cannot "round up" to -1.0...

So it is possible that what you have shown is that mathematicians have agreed to do math in a way where they treat .999…as equivalent to the integer 1. I am not sure of what precisely count as a "proof" in mathematics, but, from what I can tell, your "proof" does not work unless you assume that 1.999..is equal to 2, and that 2.999 is equal to 3, and so on. Therefore, if you must assume it, then it is not a proof. Further, it will not work as proof to convince me that the number 8.999…, as an abstract object, is equal to 9.000... However, it is possible that simply demonstrating appropriately how the axioms of a mathematical system work is sufficient to count as a proof, in which case I cannot fault your conclusions.

However, perhaps we can find common ground in the thought that these kinds of agreements ought not to be taken as the best guide to the nature of reality. Such arrangements may work for the time being but turn out to be fallacious when someone presents a counter-proof, or they simply might not apply to reality at all. The fact that you had to employ a non-standard method of subtraction in order to subtract .999… from 9.000… seems slightly ad hoc, though I cannot object that it is an unacceptable mathematical practice.

But for the purposes of making a claims about individual salvation, I would suggest that we do not read too much into mathematical conventions when drawing conclusions about the nature of free will and repentance. We may agree that .999…is equal to 1 and get on with our math, but this does not mean that it is true nor that it has corollaries to reality.

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Paidion
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Re: UR Consistent With Libertarian Free Will

Post by Paidion » Tue May 21, 2013 1:02 pm

No, Timm. We are not talking about rounding here. We are speaking of EXACTNESS.
0.999... carried to a billion, a trillion, or a quadrillion places, or as many places as you wish, will always be less than 1. But we're talking here of an INFINITE number of places.

The following is not a proof, but it may help illlustrate the fact that 1 is EXACTLY equal to 0.999... (to an INFINITE number of decimal places.

⅓ = 0.333...
⅔ = 0.666...

Add the left sides and the right sides

⅓ = 0.333...
⅔ = 0.666...
1 = 0.999...
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

Avatar shows me at 75 years old. I am now 83.

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