Everything the serpent has said proved true. Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened (Gen 3:7). They did become like God—seemingly independent. Thing is, everything he said also had a twist: they could see their nakedness and hid. They knew good and evil and were culpable. The serpent also said they wouldn’t die—and they didn’t die! Precedence would have us look at what exactly death means in the text and did it happen to Adam.
Phil (from PhilThreeTen) brought up a point regarding election that bore some
investigation. I did this in the past, but since I don’t have access to my
computer I had to do the research over again. Basically I started going through
and finding references to “choiceâ€, “electâ€, “chosenâ€, “chosen one†(and
variations thereof) to see if election is used for an individual and if so—in
what sense. With very little commentary and with the disclaimer that this list
is in no way exhaustive (since I don’t have time to recreate days of research
in a few hours), here’s the list.
Something else I was just thinking, this time about election and predestination. A common charge against Arminianism that I?ve heard is that basing God?s election on Man?s decision in time makes salvation dependant on Man. Now, I actually agree with that, but I was just thinking how the same charge can be leveled at (some) in the Calvinist camp.
I?m not being nasty or short or anything like that. I would have posted this over at Theologica but for some reason it keeps saying that I’m a spanner. Basically, I’m nitpicking. Rebecca’s criticisms against other systems consisted of perceptions from outside the camp (ie: Armyraldism being untidy). That’s fine since it’s what she perceives about those systems. Perceptions from outside this particular camp (Infralapsarianism-ists) have raised an objection.
I was listening to a preacher talk about why he is a Calvinist and one of his proofs was dealing with the questions of Romans chapter nine and how his answers gel with what Paul writes. I’m not sure if that makes sense right now and I’ll have to go into further detail on how he (and others) do this, but up front I think this argument is flawed.