9417	Forums / Theology Forum / Freedom Of The Will Jonathan Edwards	on: March 12, 2006, 04:32:59 PM
Please try to understand what I say a little harder, because I bleive we can learn from each other. I always have. For example I have said that God transcends \"Absolute\". That means he is beyond, greater than anything we conceive the word \"absolute\" to mean. You turn around and say I am calling God a limited being. So either you don't know what the word \"transcends\" means or you are actually (and possibly deliberately) interpreting what I am saying to mean it's opposite! Which is kind of my point. It is hugely naiive to think we don't do this with scripture. It is one thing to trust the Bible absolutely but quite another to have interpreted it correctly. Surely you agree with that. Without the correct interpretation what good ultimately is ones trust in the words? It is like carrying gold in your pocket and thinking it's silver or vice versa. So trust the Bible but don't trust people who tell you they know exactly what it all means. We probably disagree on this, because you trust Calvin implicitly. I don't. And if you don't know exactly what it all means (and you don't) where is your safety net? In Christ! He covers that for us and so much more! Yes this is taught in scripture butr it can be taught orally as well. And was for many many years. So if you are saying that scriptural knowledge (and in particular Calvinist hermaneutics) is a prerequisite for salvation we disagree big time. Thanks for the kind response ML.  I agree that we need to have a correct interpretation of scripture. I think that this interpretation world is kinda different than what you are contesting here. I believe in this biblical interpretation world there is mans side and Gods side. I mean must the bible be decoded before we can have an understanding of the text. I do not believe that this is the exact method of looking at interpretation. God has given us His Spirit, and He decodes the text little by little. We can know greek , hebrew, hermanitics, and have a thorough knowledge of history and still have blindness as to how we view ourselves and how we view God. The Spirit is the main teacher in any bible study, then what we believe will not be an imagination of our own making as to the truth of who is who. Granted we can misapply many biblical concepts so we need teachers and we need a knowledge of history so we can know who we are and who God is. This is all so complicated in today's world with all of the different teachings. There is so much to know and it can never be exhausted. Even the power of the scripture has a renewal power that cannot be exhausted. The words of scripture are spiritual light, that infuses power in meditation. The text is full of wisdom, and brings out a truth that can be look on in a prism, it has so many angles and these multi gleanings transcend the wisdom of the world. The wisdom of the world is singular truth. It has no understanding of the nature of spiritual truth. It seeks to even deny metaphysics and the study of the spiritual side of man. The worlds wisdom is shallow , and fleeting. It does not satisfy, it is depressing. The wisdom of God gives life the wisdom of the world gives death. Now this other interpretation world that i want to describe is a worldview of contradicting concepts. We have been given language by God and it seems that when we try to transcend language we limit our ability to view God through these language concepts consistently. Is all , all? Is eternal, eternal?, is sovereign, sovereign? Is absolute ,absolute? It seems to me that if we try to go beyond these concepts that we nullify these concepts, and contradict the concepts. If we say transcends does any thing transcend, transcend? I like talking about theology, and that God is X. But if the word says that God is X then the concept though not experiential understood yet by faith is what God is and no more. That is how God communicates to us that He is really in reality that very X. There is no other reality beyond that reality. I think thats my frustration ML.