The will of God isn't mentioned in this verse.
God's will... is it really not in the verse?
God's will - what does that mean?
Philippians 2:13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
This discussion is becoming silly.
1. Here God is doing a work in us for no other reason than his OWN GOOD PLEASURE (his will).
2. Here God is doing a work PROACTIVELY, DIRECTLY, and with his own PERSONAL VOLITION (his will).
Now, if we want to play semantic games, then we have to deal with real semantics, and real language, and real logic... not just whatever subjective presuppositions happen to be in our heads.
To say
"God's personal good pleasure", and
"God's personal acts of volition" are both, in some weird parallel universe, somehow divorced from the concept of "will".... is to be either irrational or illiterate.
If you're writing forums posts, and you aren't illiterate... that leaves us with irrational.
This argument is irrational.
It doesn't even begin to work semantically.
It is a non-argument.
Both of those ideas, which are stated in the text, SHOW A PERSON'S WILL.
Clearly.
A. It is not possible to do a thing (ACT OF THE WILL) "for your own good pleasure" (DESIRE OF THE WILL) while that action remains, somehow, simultaneously, AGAINST your will.
B. It is just never possible, ever, to directly and intentional CAUSE A THING (act of the will) without it being an ACT OF THE WILL.
C. Summation: you cannot engage in an ACT OF THE WILL without it being an ACT OF THE WILL.
We're talking about logical contradictions here.
These are logical absurdities.
Univocal Meaning - Do we hate dictionaries?
If I say there is "snow" in my yard, and you say the yard is filled with "cold, frozen, crystallized bits of water, stacked a foot high in a big pile of powder, which all fell from the sky on a cold day"... we're obviously talking about the same thing.
It is a clear rule of language that we needn't use identical words to have univocal meaning.
We all know this.
We all use this principle daily.
We quite frequently use different words to mean the same thing.
That is how dictionaries work.
How Dictionaries Work: we take one word, then we explain it's meaning BY USING OTHER WORDS TO SAY THE SAME THING. Here, in English dictionaries, we have nearly 200,000 cases of this... cases of ONE WORD sharing UNIVOCAL MEANING as a completely separate grouping of words.
To say a "group of words" cannot convey the same conceptual meaning as some "particular word", is to deny the use and existence of dictionaries.
Do we hate dictionaries?
Becoming irrational when stumped in an argument:
Whenever someone is stumped in an argument around here, they jump up and say, "TODAY.... LANGUAGE DOESN'T MEAN WHAT IT MEANS!"
This happens all the time, and it just gets old.
It's tiresome and irrational.
Whenever someone is stumped in an argument, they will say, "some specific word is NOT stated specifically in the text."
That is usually just an irrational plea to get out of some hole they are in.
That usually has nothing to do with the actual, clear meaning of the text.
It isn't necessary to use some specific word in order to have a clear and specific MEANING... it's a non-argument.
We all prove this, in our own words, on a daily basis.
On a daily basis we all use various collections of words to mean identical or similar things.
We use synonyms, we use metaphors, and sometimes we just state the same things in different ways.
JohnRH, I'm quite certain you do it too.
I am quite certain I could go back through your own posts and find cases of YOU saying the same things in different ways.
As soon as I find just ONE EXAMPLE of you saying similar things in different ways... you immediately lose this entire argument through your own words.
I don't think you want to die on this hill.
It's just not a sound argument.
As Christians, we should really strive to avoid bad arguments, and try to make good arguments.
And if we do make a bad argument, we should simply drop that bad one, and work on a better one.
That's all.
Let's argue our cases... but let's strive for sound arguments.
Conclusion:
1. I apologize if any of this sounded harsh.
2. I really don't mind when people disagree over theological issues.
3. I really don't. I really, really don't.
4. But for me, it's like hearing nails on a chalkboard... that's how I feel when people make a statement that contradicts what they themselves both EXPERIENCE and DO on a daily basis.
5. If we're going to debate, we need to slow down, take a deep breath, and think about what we're saying.
6. None of us are right all the time, but we should at least slow down, breathe deeply, and try to make good, rational arguments.
JohnRC,
The world is full of perfectly intelligent people, with perfectly good intentions, who occasionally, now and then, make a quick statement that isn't logically defensible... because they didn't really think it through. This happens all the time, and it happens to everyone. But a debate forum isn't normal everyday life, it's a place where every word will be parsed and analyzed. Good luck with all your debates.
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