Post by Dr.Weismann on Sept 2, 2014 18:38:36 GMT 3
Jesus defined love as laying down one's life for his friends. Since there will be no death in heaven, I guess Jesus was wrong about defining love. Utter silliness.
Jeff Swayzee, in a Calvinist Debate forum, writes this about love,
Jesus defined love as laying down one's life for his friends. Since there will be no death in heaven, I guess Jesus was wrong about defining love. Utter silliness.
Furthermore, Sway-Z's argument makes the love that Christ shared with the Father before the world began (John 17:24) contingent external ..If love is based upon exhaustive determinism, then the Father controlled every thought and action of the Son and Christ never had any otherness in His personality and hence no distinction among the persons of the Trinity (by eliminating their otherness, you could not truly even define them as persons).
Love is the freedom to make the best and greater choices within the options available at that moment. *IF* there is a choice available that is harmful then making that choice would not be loving. Love performs the greatest choice whether the alternative is imperfect which exists in this lifetime, or whether the alternative simply yields a greater pleasure in eternity where there will be no alternative imperfections available, but making a DIFFERENT choice is not making a SINFUL choice. Example, in eternity a person may get water from a fountain (Rev 21:6), or water from a stream (Rev 22:1). Making one choice over the other does not make the non choice of the alternative a sinful choice. In Jeff's world, it does.
The fallacy in Jeff's definition of love is the requirement that all choices to be valid choices must necessarily include *evil choices* that lead to sin. Jeff fails to take account for the standards that make an action sinful (Rom 7) which will have been completely eradicated at the final resurrection. Jeff's reasoning would be that this is no different than God forcing what we call love now because you must have the ability to sin, but that is a straw man that is not necessary to the equation. Love is the ability to choose and to choose the greater option. In this life, love is demonstrated by choosing to not sin, because choosing to sin is choosing something that is offensive to God and humanity (now don't confuse this with Bentham's "greater good" argument because that was by humanity, for humanity, judged by humanity's selfish standards of evolution and preservation).
The very existence of the three persons that are within the Trinity, uncontrolled by the other, which Christ calls love in John 17 proves that love can and does exist in eternity without exhaustive determinism and without evil being a necessary contingency to demonstrate that the love is bona fide. Jeff is screaming "that's my point, you say we must be able to choose between evil and good or it's not love, but now you say the presence of evil isn't necessary", and as usual, every good point made will only get half of Jeff's attention, and home runs go right over his head.
Jeff Swayzee, in a Calvinist Debate forum, writes this about love,
Why is it that the Arminians defend free will by saying "There is no such thing as love unless it is freely given, so we must have free will to choose to either love God or sin for love to be real". But yet in heaven we will not have the ability to sin therefore no free will (because after all free will must include the ability to sin or it's not free will). The conclusion therefore is in heaven our love for God will not be REAL.
Jesus defined love as laying down one's life for his friends. Since there will be no death in heaven, I guess Jesus was wrong about defining love. Utter silliness.
Furthermore, Sway-Z's argument makes the love that Christ shared with the Father before the world began (John 17:24) contingent external ..If love is based upon exhaustive determinism, then the Father controlled every thought and action of the Son and Christ never had any otherness in His personality and hence no distinction among the persons of the Trinity (by eliminating their otherness, you could not truly even define them as persons).
Love is the freedom to make the best and greater choices within the options available at that moment. *IF* there is a choice available that is harmful then making that choice would not be loving. Love performs the greatest choice whether the alternative is imperfect which exists in this lifetime, or whether the alternative simply yields a greater pleasure in eternity where there will be no alternative imperfections available, but making a DIFFERENT choice is not making a SINFUL choice. Example, in eternity a person may get water from a fountain (Rev 21:6), or water from a stream (Rev 22:1). Making one choice over the other does not make the non choice of the alternative a sinful choice. In Jeff's world, it does.
The fallacy in Jeff's definition of love is the requirement that all choices to be valid choices must necessarily include *evil choices* that lead to sin. Jeff fails to take account for the standards that make an action sinful (Rom 7) which will have been completely eradicated at the final resurrection. Jeff's reasoning would be that this is no different than God forcing what we call love now because you must have the ability to sin, but that is a straw man that is not necessary to the equation. Love is the ability to choose and to choose the greater option. In this life, love is demonstrated by choosing to not sin, because choosing to sin is choosing something that is offensive to God and humanity (now don't confuse this with Bentham's "greater good" argument because that was by humanity, for humanity, judged by humanity's selfish standards of evolution and preservation).
The very existence of the three persons that are within the Trinity, uncontrolled by the other, which Christ calls love in John 17 proves that love can and does exist in eternity without exhaustive determinism and without evil being a necessary contingency to demonstrate that the love is bona fide. Jeff is screaming "that's my point, you say we must be able to choose between evil and good or it's not love, but now you say the presence of evil isn't necessary", and as usual, every good point made will only get half of Jeff's attention, and home runs go right over his head.