It seems that Brad is asking a hypothetical question, which may be a good way to illuminate whether your position is coherent.
If you don't wish to go along with it, perhaps you fear your position isn't coherent?
Oh, so Brad cannot state what his position is, cannot adequately represent what he wants to say, unless I first answer a hypothetical question?? And, as long as I don't answer the question, I can be certain he can't present his real position?? My response actually indicated the irrelevance of his question. However, you would like to try to fabricate the notion that my response is a fear over the inadequacy of my position. You cannot demonstrate factually its incoherence, but by imposing a psychoanalysis on the possibility of my motives in my manner of responding, you believe a way is established to indicate that it must be. But you do not establish any fear on my part--you merely fabricate it on my behalf, having no other way to create an appearance of prevailing in your position.
Again, you are going off on a tangent.
The last time you told me I was going off on a tangent, you did not demonstrate how. Again, you make a general statement on my going off on a tangent without setting out any basis for support--it's a way of fabricating an answer when you really don't have one.
"If then we deny that logic applies to God, we undermine our ability to know anything about God. Take for example, Paul's promise "That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Rom. 10:9) Now it appears that as Van Til would have it, the law of non-contradiction does not apply to God. If so, then in light of God's promise in Romans 10:9, two contradictory states of affairs could obtain such that we could be saved and not saved, or God though morally perfect could in this case be lying. So if we accept that no truth, including the law of non-contradiction, can apply univocally to God and creatures, then any theological assertion we care to make - God is three persons, Jesus is God - could be simultaneously true and false. If this is Van Til's position Hoeksema is indeed correct that it would "destroy the very foundations of theology." Under the rubric of divine sovereignty and transcendence, we would undermine our ability to say anything whatsoever about God. Along similar lines, to identify a contradiction with God would undermine theology, and by extension creation, apparently leaving us in a morass of trivialism."
The premise of this quote is a straw man argument. I never denied logic applies to God. I said that representing the laws of the supernatural world as being different than the natural world is not illogical. You are imposing the premise that the principles of the supernatural world have to be the same as the natural world, as a basis for saying the supernatual is illogical. No--there is no logical contradiction for saying different realms have different properties. What your statement says is, that if we accept that God is illogical, then like all views based on a lack of logic, it is illogical. A straw man argument is not a real answer: but its use is only the appearance of an answer.
Citing this web cite doesn't answer anything. How does it establish that if there is a supernatural world, it cannot have properties of existence different than the natural world?? This is just creating an appearance of an answer when you do not have one.
"God was God and yet NOT God"
It looks fairly meaningless to me, but you seem to think different. Good! you can explain what meaning the statement has!
It looks fairly meaningless to me, but you seem to think different. Good! you can explain what meaning the statement has!
Now, you are quoting me out of context, to create an appearance of an answer, when you do not have one. What you quoted of my post is what I said the Bible does not say. Now you want me to explain the meaning of what the Bible does not say.
You are aware that theologians (generally) limit God's omnipotence to what is logically possible?
Do you mean some theologians you like best?? How about theologians who believe the Bible is inspiried and inerrant?? That is, what about the theologians who begin interpretation on the basis of testing first the validity of the Bible according to the possibility of the truth of its representations?? This response by you is so vague and so general, that it actually is only the appearance of making an answer. Is that because you really don't have one??
Lets assume that the Bible is consisent throughout in portraying God as a "tri-unity".
That the Bible is consistent in this, doesn't show that the doctrine itself is consistent.
I could consistently say that sheep have wings. Nevertheless, wings are not consistent with sheep!
Again, you want to apply the laws from one realm to another realm, but you have no logical way for establishing that necessity.
If I say sheep have wings in the natural world, and then say that according to the natural world sheep do not have wings, I am inconsistent. If I say sheep have wings in heaven and then say they do not, I am inconsistent. However, if I say sheep have wings in heaven even though they do not in the natural world, I am not being inconsistent. The question is not--can sheep have wings in the supernatural world, inasmuch as they do not have them in the natural world?? That is a very confused way to apply logic!!! The only question is--do sheep in the supernatural world have wings?? If there is no evidence to evaluate the possibility, we don't know. If Scripture is the Word of God, and it says they have wings, then they do. But, there is no logical basis to say that because sheep have no wings in the natural world, by necessity it must be held they cannot have wings in the supernatural world.
If I say sheep have wings in the supernatural realm, and then say they do not, that is inconsistent and a violation of logic. However, if I say the supernatural world is not entirely consistent with the natural world, that is no violation of logic. You cannot hold that a supernatural world cannot exist that is different than the natural world by any basis other than faith, other than a mere desire on your part on how it should be.
I agree that looks like a contradiction. Perhaps it wouldn't be a contradiciton in the supernatural world?
First of all, my statement was suppositional--the Bible only says all things are possible for God. However, not all the conditions on how the supernatural world operates are revealed to us, and we don't even know that much about the natural world, the universe is so large and complex. Scripture only reveals as much about the supernatural as is necessary for a relationship with God, and for an understanding of how it affects our life in the natural world. However, Scripture assures us of it representations through the reliability of its world view and its capacity on predictive prophecy.
Regards,
Paul
