I have wanted to see this for a long time as well

They already had a dialogue on divine simplicity

Wisdom recognizes that only GOD knows. And GOD teaches he who is wise, but cannot teach he who is otherwise. "The Book of GOD" at A Course in Truth can be read in less than five minutes online. And yet, you will have read 8 Chapters that give you an understanding like never before. This tiny book has come through GOD's prophet, the prophesied return of the prophet Elijah. I don't receive KZfaq comment notifications, but seekers will easily find my contact info.

Yes! i don't like they protestants who have a hate and dogmatic position agains catholics, that dosen't help cristianity. God Bless You Brother!

@End Times 2020 yes, and?

As a Catholic your f@#%ed.

Care to elaborate? - RF Admin

@@ReasonableFaithOrg yes, but not here. Maybe on me channel? It’s small.

Welcome to modern day book burning and ebook burning and censorship and welcome to the new world oder order.

They’re on Amazon

There are various theories about that, and several might in fact be true at the same time. But the most common translation by scholars is: "I am that I am" or "I am who I am" The first time God says I AM (“I AM WHO I AM”), the Hebrew says, “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh”, which translates as “I will be what I will be." or "I am what I will become". God is the eternal timeless being. Another way of reading the hebrew is that YHWH means: "he who causes everything to be". There are also other senses depending on how you put in the wovels between the consonants.

I don’t think God actually has a name. I think God uses such concepts to communicate with us and help us understand God. Hebrew is just one language among many human languages and it is not the first language and it is not even the first language to encounter God. So God doesn’t have a Hebrew name just like God doesn’t have a physical being (apart from the person of Jesus), skin color or physical eyes.

Here are a couple of good resources: www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/is-there-a-good-analogy-for-the-trinity kzfaq.info/sun/PLIpO3BUiq2IHqopJhNQrGAFJn1VrcP0VW - RF Admin

@@ReasonableFaithOrg ayee i saw you on discussion with Paul Williams. Can you next talk to Jake Brancatella the muslim metaphysician about trinity?

All analogies break down at some point. The purpose of any particular analogy is to draw out a specific similarity. Here, the point of the social club analogy is that clubs are single things consisting of multiple persons. God is a single thing consisting of multiple persons. The analogy breaks down at the level of substance, but that's not the focus of the analogy, so it would be irrelevant to object to that difference. Dr. Craig has elsewhere addressed and affirmed the single ousia (substance) of the tripersonal God. Here, for example: www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/christian-doctrines/a-formulation-and-defense-of-the-doctrine-of-the-trinity. - RF Admin

@@ReasonableFaithOrg if no analogy can explain the Trinity concept satisfactory, then the Trinity is simply unintelligible

How is that funny?

I did too. Who do you think won the White/Craig debate?

@@BiblicalStudiesandReviews I felt like both made points that the other didnt answer satisfactorily, craig using a non-convincing argument against the grounding objection, and James White seperating God's deterministic control over evil actions. Craig in the biblical side couldn't really argue against God hardening hearts actively to make individuals bring about his goals (which Leighton Flowers does a little better than Craig against this argument) I feel that he can keep his molinistic model while allowing God to reinforce the evil desires of said certain indivoduals to bring about his ideal or best possible ends since I dont see how a few instances of God influencing the behavioral predispositions of certain individuals is diametrically opposed to the molinistic model since ultimately all individuals decide in the end whether ot not they make any choices and God wouldn't be the responsible one for said choice like a sting operation that feds or undercovers do to bring about events to aid them. As for James White, he doesn't realize that strong deterministic views about God are mostly seen having emerged from gnostic kabbalistic theologians or neoplatonists and their influences on some church fathers like Augustine. As for Thomism or Palamism being deterministic based on aristotelian or hellenic influences (or the logos theology from some like Philo of Alexandria) I'm not sure since I haven't read up on that years ago, so I would have to brush up on that again, but perhaps Ryan has already covered that? The best biblical case against a Calvinist or Strong Deterministic view which guys like James White never engage with, based on scripture that I've seen is from Dr. Michael Heiser who specializes in the Old Testament Ancient Near Eastern Second Temple Jewish framework that is foundational beliefs in the New Testament (like the Divine Council, The Two Powers, Mountain Cosmology, and other important early theological frameworks), which contexualizes the Gospel, the New Heavens and the New Earth, the nature of the Parousia, Escatology, etc which he explains in further detail here (I'll quote his biblical response against Calvinism since Calvinists don't usually deal with contemporary second temple near eastern biblical scholarship, or perhaps very few exceptions do, but I haven't heard of any)

@@BiblicalStudiesandReviews here's Dr. Michael Heiser's argument against Calvinism, which I hope James White has an oppertunity to engage with, Well, I never figured that we’d be getting into this topic so early, but we did. I’m not going to post any more comments to the post that started all this; time to move on. However, I thought it would be advisable to post a summary of my thoughts on the subject for those who discover the blog later and don’t want to follow all the comments. The exchange with readers was stimulating for me; it will be of help in the future as I rework my material and try to make sure I’m clear and covering ground that needs to be covered. Thanks! For those just jumping in, please take care to FIRST read the items available for download here. I offered Chapter 4 of my book in progress to readers, but I think it might be even better to also offer my chapter on imaging (Chapter 3, on the image of God and Gen 1:26). Granted, will still leave readers here without the first two chapters of the book, but I don’t think that’s a big problem for processing the issue at hand. Read them in order: Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. Here are my summary statements: 1. God does indeed foreknow all things real and possible. He foreknew all things that happen, and he foreknows all possible events that don’t happen. 2. God predestinates events, but he does not predestinate all events. He certainly does not predestinate events that never happen (else they would have been predestinated). He also does NOT predestinate all events that DO happen. Chapter 4 is devoted to an explanation of this view. 3. The idea that God does not predestinate all events that do happen (especially the fall, sin, and evil-doing) is based upon the biblical fact that foreknowledge does NOT necessitate predestination. Put another way, just because God can foreknow an event, that is no guarantee he predestinated the event. How? Because as 1 Samuel 23:1-14 shows us very clearly, foreknowledge does not result in or necessitate predestination. In that passage, God foreknows things that never happen because human decisions change the circumstances. Very simply, God foreknew things that never happened. This tells us that foreknowing things does not necessitate their predestination. Here’s the idea in a syllogism: God foreknows ALL events God foreknows events that never happen Therefore, the fact that God foreknows and event doesn’t require that it will come to pass. Therefore, there is no cause and effect relationship between foreknowledge and predestination. Here’s a related syllogism: God foreknows all events Some of those events actually happen Therefore, God foreknows events that do actually happen We know from 1 Sam 23 that the fact that God’s foreknowledge of an event DID NOT mean the event had to happen Therefore, if God foreknows an event that does happen, we cannot conclude that event was predestinated to happen just because God foreknew it. 4. God may have predestinated events that actually happen-but he also may not have. There is no necessary link between foreknowledge and predestination. We don’t know if an event that happens was predestinated on the basis of God’s foreknowing it. God would have to tell us he predestinated an event for us to be sure he did that. Scripture does tell us God predestinates some events. 5. The entrance of sin into the world were foreknown by God. That doesn’t mean that he predestinated sin’s occurrence. 6. Sin’s entrance into the world and all acts of evil exist because humans and divine beings have free will. Free will (freedom; freedom to make choices between alternatives, including alternatives that God would not be pleased with) is an attribute humans share with God. Since we are God’s imagers-his representatives on earth to be steward-kings over the earth-we must have this ability. If there is no free will, there is no imaging of God. To remove free will from us would be to undo our status as imagers-it would be taking away the imaging status given to us (all humans) by God himself. Freedom and imaging are inseparably linked; it is foundational to our being like God. 7. Since Adam and Eve were created beings and not God, they were lesser beings. They lacked omnipotence and omniscience and wisdom to the degree God has them. Since they were not God, it was possible for them to use their freedom-to make a choice-that was not what God would make. When tempted, they did so and fell in Eden. 8. God deemed granting free will to humans preferable to not giving them free will and making them automatons or robots (i.e., making them incapable of making a choice that God would not have been pleased with). Alienation from God would be the conduit for humankind learning things about God that would be unknowable without the entrance of sin (forgiveness, redemption, displeasure, judgment, etc.). 9. God was under no obligation to inform humans about all his attributes, and so we cannot draw the conclusion that God HAD TO allow sin for humans to learn who he was. They knew who he was before the fall. We see this in hindsight.

@@BiblicalStudiesandReviews Continued... 10. Since God is God and perfectly holy, and since he is perfectly free, he himself could not have made any choice that he would be displeased by. He himself is the standard for what is right and holy, and so such a possibility is nonsensical. WE image God; the fact that He is also capable of making choices should not be understood as though HE images US and is capable of error. He isn’t. 11. The fact that God is working to restore Eden means that his human children will be like the original human couple in the eschaton. We will be like the unfallen Adam and Eve. We will also be glorified, having been given new bodies. We will still be God’s imagers, only this time fulfilling his original intention. There will be no external temptation to sin, there will be no presence of evil, we will not feel the unredeemed urges of our old, fallen body. But we are not God. We are still inferior as created beings. All we are is contingent on Him. This means that, in the eschaton, while we are still capable of making choices that displease God, we won’t, since there will be no evil to choose, no temptation, and no urge in that direction. We will be Adamic minus any choice for evil. 12. All acts of evil extend from the combination of our fallen, imperfect condition plus the will to choose to sin. God does not predestinate these decisions, though he foreknows them. God never prompts us to sin; he never predestinates that we sin. We sin because we are corrupt and fallen. The fault is ours, not God’s. Thus in biblical theodicy (why is there evil), there is evil because God gave us free will and we abused it. Free will in itself is not evil, since God has free will. How that free will is used is the issue. God bears no responsibility for the fall and our sin, since free will is not evil in and of itself as an attribute of God.

@@BiblicalStudiesandReviews Continued.... 13. After the fall, God is at work to redeem humankind. He does this through the use of his Spirit, his Word, human beings, and divine beings (e.g., angels). His work is one of influencing human beings to make the right choices based on the revelation he gives; to respond correctly to the light he has given. 14. God has the ability to turn any act of evil toward the end of all things as he has desired: the salvation of the elect, the reclamation of the nations, the destruction and banishment of evil,

To be fair, the title did say "discussion".

For the record, proponents of DDS do not deny that God is Lord or Creator. We just deny that this entails God must take on a new intrinsic property in order to become the creator and Lord.

@@JohnDeRosa1990 Oh, well thanks for sharing. I didn't know.

@@terminat1 , yes, the key is that Aquinas believes (and I affirm) that God can be the Lord and Creator without introducing accidental modifications/properties into the Godhead. He becomes creator and Lord by bringing about effects such as creation and men who are subject to him. So, while the Scripture is clear God is Lord and Creator, it is not clear on the particular metaphysics of how/why God is Lord and Creator. We go into this a bit more on a recent episode of the Classical Theism Podcast if you're interested.

You will never understand the Bible without GOD explaining it to you, DIRECTLY. "The Book of GOD" at A Course in Truth can be read in less than five minutes online. And yet, you will have read 8 Chapters that give you an understanding like never before. This tiny book has come through GOD's prophet, the prophesied return of the prophet Elijah. I don't receive KZfaq comment notifications, but seekers will easily find my contact info.