Itachi writes:
1) I don't have to persuaded for anything to which tangible evidence is available. No divine being has to go through the trouble of convincing me that water is real for example.
Tangible evidence of water would be warm liquid running from a tap over your hand. But on opening your eyes you could find out that it is in fact warm oil ands not warm water. Surgically put, you cease to need to persuaded of something only when the level of evidence (tangible or otherwise) passes a certain threshold. Until then, you occupy a position whereby you are in need of further evidence - in order that you be persuaded.
You can refuse to open your eyes to the truth of oil and persist in the notion that that warm liquid is water. You would be doing what the Bible says those who will perish do: they refuse to love (or to put it another way; suppress arrival at) the truth.
The Bible says that you are blind and cannot see that you are a sinner - even though there is tangible evidence that you are a sinner: you do all of the things that sinners do. Of course, that case isn't compelling to you, just as a persons with eyes clamped shut eyes isn't compelled to admit it's water and not oil
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I don't find in me the ability to refuse to be persuaded over things that are real. As much as I hate it, I can't deny the existence of oatmeal.
Thoughts are real, are they not? They are not tangible in the sense that oatmeal is though. So much for empiricism as a full and final means to arrive at what's true.
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Before this can be taken any further, I need to know if you believe in predestination in the same sense that Paul puts it the book of Ephesians(if im not mistaken) when he says that we were chosen before the foundation of the world.
Different folk have different takes on Paul means. He speaks elsewhere (in Romans 8) about predestining being something God does to people that he foreknows. If God foreknows you then he predestines you. If he predestines you he calls you. If called, you'll be justfied and glorified. Foreknowing is first in the queue - with all else happening automatically once that first domino is tipped over.
"Before the creation of the world" there was no time (let's suppose). In which case God chose me in the eternal realm. But the eternal realm also exists
after the world, and time, has been wrapped up. We might thus consider this world and this time as a realm contained within a 'bubble' around which exists the greater timeless eternal realm.
All of which means he chose me in the same realm that exist after the world will come to an end. Meaning he can chose me on the basis of my response to him in this world. And thus predestine me to be transferred to his kingdom before the world began
To sum up: my own view is that everyone gets to chose (in effect) their eternal destination. God knows their choices eternally, that is: before they've made it - because he is simultaneously present
after they've made it. And he predestines those who (effectively) choose for him to be subjected to the process of salvation that transfers them from the kingdom of darkeness into the kingdom of light. Foreknown (because they are known afterwards), predestined to be called, called as a result, justified (made righteous in Gods eyes), glorified.
Q.E.D.
Edited by iano, : a bit of a re-write