Aleksandr Emelianov

Sola Scriptura | Sola Gratia | Sola Fide | Solus Christus | Soli Deo Gloria

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

I am an a-atheist.
It is just a state of mind when someone does not believe in existence of atheists due to insufficient available evidence.

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

In the Bignon/D'Souza debate, Dinesh was constantly referring to the person's mind as "brain state," even going into smth like "God was controlling the brain of Ap. John." It is rather sad that he uses brain-language rather than mind-and-soul language, to the point where Christian anthropology is lost.

[David Morrill @coconservative7]

You cannot stand on the West's commitment to objective truth while also arguing for an anthropology that makes the autonomous subject the final court of appeal at the very point where objective Truth Himself confronts him.

The epistemological inheritance of Calvinism begins by dethroning the autonomous knower. Man does not stand above reality deciding what he will accept as true, even at the point of his own salvation. He is a finite and fallen creature situated within an objective order established and interpreted by God. His reason is real but derivative, useful but corrupted, responsible but never sovereign. Even his recognition of the gospel as true is ultimately a gift of divine grace rather than an achievement of autonomous judgment.

Decisionism introduces a fracture into that epistemology. At the most consequential epistemic moment a human being can face (the recognition of God's truth in the gospel) it requires the fallen subject to retain the decisive role. Grace may provide the truth, illuminate it, and make a response possible, but the final distinction between the believer and unbeliever cannot be God's discriminating action; it must reside in the subjects themselves. One apprehends and responds rightly where another does not.
That makes for an odd foundation from which to defend Western civilization against the sovereign self. The Calvinist inheritance says that truth precedes me, judges me, and even my right apprehension of it depends upon grace. Modernity increasingly says that the individual is the final arbiter of what he will recognize and receive. Decisionism is not equal to modern subjectivism, but epistemologically it has already conceded something major that Calvinism refuses to concede - that there must remain within fallen man a decisive faculty whose judgment God enables but does not sovereignly determine.

[Megan Basham @megbasham]

Women are increasingly going to excuse child murder because 25% of American women (at least) have blood guilt on their hands that they have never reckoned with. A quarter of American women have already murdered their own children. So it should hardly surprise us that they identify with the killer and not the victims.

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

Humans aren’t basically good!

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

Will not surprise me if she writes her memoirs and names the book "How I killed my kids and got away with it."

[Nick Sortor @nicksortor]

🚨 BREAKING: The judge in the Lindsay Clancy case is ADMONISHING jurors who are REFUSING to follow his instructions

It sounds like there is a DISPUTE among jurors. He is NOT declaring a mistrial.

"First off, I want to remind you that you are REQUIRED to follow my instructions on the law as I gave them to you."

The judge is reminding them what REASONABLE DOUBT actually means. It's clear there are certain jurors simply REFUSING to take their role as impartial jurors seriously.

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

Nothing has to be added, because the passage is a sentencing rather than a census. A decree settled before creation is executed in time, and a judgment is that execution. Christ names what the fire was made for and, in the same breath, consigns men to it – "Depart from me… into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt 25:41) – and they go there for their own sin, which is what our confession actually says (1689 3.7). Acts 4:28 has the same shape: Herod and Pilate did "whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place," and they did it in time, and were guilty of doing it. Certainty before the act doesn't dissolve the act.

Your rule also reads a "prepared for" clause as a complete roll of occupants. Seven lines earlier, the same verb does the same work: the kingdom "prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Matt 25:34). On your reading, that kingdom was prepared for the people standing there and for no believer since.

That's five replies now. The cross from my last one went by without a word, and Matt 25:34 has gone by five times. I'll leave the thread here and let whoever's reading weigh it – Rom 8:30 and John 6:37-39 are where I'd start if you ever want to take it up word by word.

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

The passage doesn't say the opposite – you're supplying that, and calling it equivocation isn't a rebuttal. Run your own rule on the cross: Christ was "foreknown before the foundation of the world," yet manifested "for you" who came to faith centuries later (1 Pet 1:20). If preparation before creation fixes the beneficiaries to whoever was named at the time, the cross was never for you either. And your own view has the same certainty in it: not all are saved, so who ends up where was settled to God before He made anything, with or without Calvinism.

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

Then it's not knowledge you're denying – it's the verdict. This is the throne scene of judgment itself: "When the Son of Man comes in his glory... he will sit on his glorious throne, and all the nations will be gathered before him" (v. 31–32). Sitting in judgment and saying "Depart from me... into the fire" in the same breath isn't foreseeing an outcome – it's rendering one. Which word in that reads as bystanding rather than intent?

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

"Prepared for the devil" doesn't say "and not for humans" – that idea is yours. When Scripture wants it, it says it: "I was sent only to the lost sheep" (Matt 15:24). Here Christ sends humans into that fire in the same sentence, so there's no falsehood in it to explain.

And when God made hell, did He know humans would be sent there? Yes turns your rule against your own view. No makes you an open theist.

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

@EricinSC76 @DineshDSouza Please read through and you will see that it perfectly summarizes what I have already told you – "…meaning God chooses some people for heaven and passes over others for hell"; can't make this up)))

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

No confession holds that humans are predestined for hell as election's mirror image. 1689 ch. 3: the non-elect are passed by, then condemned for their own sin. That's a different claim from the one you're refuting.

The rule from verse 34 is still open – three replies now without a yes or no on it. I'll leave it there for anyone reading and close this thread.

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

@EricinSC76 @DineshDSouza Already answered, twice – devil and his angels. Repeating the question doesn't unanswer it.

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

Nobody in my replies calls Christ a liar – that's not a charge I made. What's unanswered is v. 34: same speech, same verb, same construction, "prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Your own rule reads that as predestination too.

Does your rule still hold once it's applied to v. 34 – yes or no?

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

@ImKingGinger @DineshDSouza @realJennaEllis thanks @syetenb for the wonderfully simple website! I don't really know how old it is, but it still rocks.

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

Then apply your rule to verse 34: the kingdom is "prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Same verb, seven lines earlier. On your reading of "prepared for," Jesus has just taught predestination to your face.

And God created this world rather than another with the outcome fully certain to Him. If that counts as "made for them," your view says it too; if it doesn't, your objection says nothing at all.

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

Devil and his angels. The same sentence sends humans into it, so the verse gives you the fire's design, not its roster.

The asymmetry you're reaching for is in my confession already. Verse 34 (before Mt 25:41 you were referencing) says the kingdom was "prepared for you from the foundation of the world"; verse 41 says nothing of the kind about the accursed. 1689 ch. 3 keeps exactly that shape – the elect are chosen unto salvation, the rest are passed by and condemned for their own sin. No one is saved by his works and no one is damned apart from his.

Rom 9:6 and Rom 8:30 are still where you left them. Which one first?

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

Your example is Paul's own premise, and he draws the opposite conclusion from it. Romans 9:6 – "not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel" – is precisely the distinction between a nation chosen to covenant privilege (Deut 7:6–8; Rom 9:4–5) and those God "chose as the firstfruits to be saved" (2 Thess 2:13), "in him before the foundation of the world" (Eph 1:4–5). No Reformed confession says every Israelite was elect unto salvation; 1689 LBCF ch. 3 says the opposite.

So we agree on the point you raised. What remains is the second group, and Scripture tracks it without loss: "those whom he predestined he also called... justified... glorified" (Rom 8:30); "all that the Father gives me will come to me... I will lose nothing of all that he has given me" (John 6:37–39).

If holding that is anti-Christian, the charge lands on those verses before it lands on Geneva. Which of them are you reading differently?

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

Thank you for the thoughtful discussion, Miguel. I'll leave you with three observations/questions:

First, your answer, in your words: the creature's choice, including the creature's actually settling which action it performs, is included in the "all things," and you've never carved choices out of the "all." The qualification you attach stands with it – putting the settling inside the scope of what God works doesn't by itself say how He works it. Scope and mode are two questions, and mine reached only the first.

Second, on your "much less disagreement than I thought." That's nearly right. By "settled" I don't mean that God's decree is the psychological machinery by which I come to prefer A over B; the confession doesn't teach that and I'm not defending it. I mean that the decree is antecedent, free, and covers whatsoever comes to pass. So "certainly future given God's knowledge and His decision to create" is not a smaller substitute for my thesis; joined to the freedom of that decision, it is my thesis. That leaves one question between us: in decreeing to create this world rather than some other, did God thereby decree the choices this world contains? If He did, their certainty follows from the decree. If He didn't, they are things He knew and did not decree, and the "all" has an exception in it.

Third, one text. You granted Philippians 2:13 and limited it to believers, which is fair. The difficulty is with the object of God's working there: what He is said to work is the willing itself – God works in you both to will and to work – not the circumstances of the willing, and not the range within which it happens. If God works the willing, and the willing is the settling, what is that working doing that stops short of the content?

God bless!

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

Miguel, the question "what requires the conclusion that every human choice is infallibly settled such that no alternative is genuinely possible?" has an embedded premise that defines a real choice as one where the agent could have done otherwise under identical conditions. You're asking for exegesis while begging the question in the asking: where does Scripture define human freedom that way? Because where Scripture does describe the will, it describes it by bondage and inability, like "everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin" (John 8:34), "slaves of the one whom you obey" (Rom 6:16), the mind set on the flesh "does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so" (Rom 8:7), the natural man "is not able to know" the things of the Spirit (1 Cor 2:14). See, none of these place freedom in an open alternative, which means your criterion is imported, not derived, which in turn makes this a non-neutral request for exegesis. Basically, you're asking Scripture to answer to a definition of freedom it never gives.

Now, brief exegesis:
Acts 4:27-28. Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles and Israel gathered together to do "whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur." Not permitted, not foreseen, but predestined to occur. And what occurred were willing, culpable, murderous choices, the most culpable in history.

Gen 50:20. One event, two intentions: "you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good." God is not reacting to the brothers' choice; He intends the same act they intend.

Eph 1:11. He "works all things according to the counsel of His will," where "all things" is not a subset.

Prov 16:9, 16:33, 21:1. Man plans his way, but Yahweh establishes his steps. The lot is cast, but its every decision is from Yahweh. The king's heart is a channel of water in Yahweh's hand; He turns it wherever He wishes.

It follows: if the crucifixion was predestined to occur, and the men who carried it out acted willingly and stood guilty for it, then Scripture itself holds together what your clause treats as mutually exclusive. Infallible decree and real responsibility are not competitors in the text, only within your definition of freedom.

Now, please tell me what is excluded from "all things", what alternative meaning "predestined to occur" carries here, and where Scripture defines the freedom your question assumes; it will not suffice to claim another possible reading, as possibility isn't exegesis. Show it from the text.

As a side note, I'd be glad to discuss the principle of alternative possibilities itself. I think it destroys the very freedom it's meant to protect.

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

Miguel – you say you don't need a fifth source because "the agent is actually an agent." But the agent was already on the list. Either the settling follows from what the creature is – nature, motives, circumstances – and that's (B), which you've granted is worked according to the counsel; or it doesn't, and that's (D), the bare self, with more than one act performable at that moment, which is the alternative possibilities you set aside on the 23rd. "The agent is an agent" doesn't choose between them; it leaves the which unexplained, which is the mystery you said you didn't need.

So here is the question, and it admits only two answers: Is the creature's settling of the which itself among the "all things" God works according to the counsel of His will?

If yes, then the counsel settles the which, which is my position. If no, then there is something not worked according to the counsel, which is the remainder, and you have excluded something from the "all" you said you exclude nothing from. I don't see a third option. And this isn't the mode/scope distinction: the settling is itself a thing, either inside the "all" or outside it.

On the goal line. You defined the disputed proposition yourself: every choice "infallibly settled by God's antecedent decree such that, given that decree, no alternative can occur." That is a modal claim, and it is what the foreknowledge argument gives you: God freely created this world knowing infallibly every choice in it, so given that decision, no alternative can occur. You answer that this yields certainty rather than "the causal claim that God determines the content of every choice." But the causal claim isn't the proposition you set out, and it isn't what our confessions say either: they say God decreed all things, whatsoever comes to pass, and in the same sentence that this offers no violence to the will of the creature and takes away neither the liberty nor the contingency of second causes, but rather establishes them. If the modal claim doesn't count, then the standard has changed from the one you set.

You also offer that entailment as a reductio. I don't take it as one; I take it as the conclusion. So which premise do you deny – exhaustive foreknowledge, or the freedom of creation?

Permit, restrain, hand over, set boundaries: that list is the same one from the 23rd. I answered it item by item then – each is a way God settles an outcome rather than an outcome left unsettled – and I didn't see the answer engaged. And I never said permitting removes God's sovereign choice to permit; I said determinate permission entails the act's infallible occurrence.

One last thing. Every text in this thread so far is one I brought, and you've granted each while denying that it generalizes. While you were only withholding assent, that was a reasonable place to stand – you weren't claiming anything that needed support. But this reply does claim something: that the creature "actually settles which permitted action it performs." That is a claim about the human will and about how far the decree extends, and it carries the same burden you've been putting on me – the necessary, not the possible. What's the textual case?

[Aleksandr Emelianov @jemelyah]

"Elect" is doing two jobs in your argument: individual, when you say we equate election with salvation, and national, when you say only Israel was elect. Pick one.

National: you're charging us with "born an Israelite = saved." Nobody holds that; Rom 9:6 denies it.

Individual: "Gentile, therefore not elect" is what you'd have to prove – and Job, Melchizedek, Rahab, Ruth, Nineveh say otherwise.

Either way, no Naaman problem. Just a word doing double duty.

You said dishonesty is part of our creed. We have one, in writing, in public, and the chapter on election runs seven paragraphs (1689, ch. 3). You've announced you won't read it. Telling a man what he believes while refusing to hear him say it is Proverbs 18:13.