10 Questions – Logically Answered – Jason Bradfield

There has been a video floating around entitled:

10 questions that every intelligent Christian must answer.

see here.

Well, I did.  Two parter.  Because they have 10 minute limit and it ended up being 12.

Part 1

Part 2

You can also click on the first link, watch Stubbie’s vid and then see my beautiful pic underneath and click from there.

Here’s the jist:

These are rhetorical questions, which are in turn propositions being used as premises to support the conclusion that God doesn’t exist. Once read in that light, it is plain to any with even a drop of knowledge in formal logic that these arguments are invalid and stupid. The only reason a Christian answer to these questions seems silly is because the atheists have REDEFINED logic. They have redefined what constitutes a VALID ARGUMENT.

Jason Bradfield
Reign of Christ Ministries, a non-profit incorporation dedicated to the academic disciplines of philosophy and theology.  www.TheReignOfChrist.com

Logic: Free Will and Predestination

Excerpt from Jason Bradfield’s work at www.thereignofchrist.com

Acts 4:26-28 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed’- 27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

Notice what this Scripture teaches:

1. People gathered together against Jesus. These are, no doubt, “choices”. Herod “chose” to do this. The kings of the earth “chose” to reject Christ.

2. This “choice” of opposing Christ was sinful.

3. God “predestined” them “to do” this.

In other words, people made a choice (a sinful one at that) that God predetermined they make.

Now, is there anything contradictory or “mysterious” going on here? Is there anything problematic being said here about the relationship between the choices of men and the choice of God? Well, it will all boil down to how you define “choice”…or in this case, “to do”. And now we are back full circle to the start of my post.

If “choice” means that you can initiate and determine to act “free” from God’s determination, THEN we have a problem! Then we have a contradiction. Because on the one hand we would have God determining people to do things (oppose Christ) with those same people doing things (opposing Christ) “free” from God’s determination. This would make no sense whatsoever.

However, is the definition of “choice” really that we “can initiate and determine to act “free” from God’s determination”? NO. Absolutely not! That is not what “choice” means. “Free-choice” and “choice” are not the same thing. And once we get it into our thick skulls that “free-will” is not synonymous with “choice” but is actually a philosophical add-on to the word choice by those who reject the Biblical teaching that God predetermines things, then the problem vanishes. Then we would have:

God determined people to do things (oppose Christ) and these people did those very things (opposed Christ). And there is absolutely nothing contradictory about that statement.

A. People make choices.

Does not contradict

B. God determines the choices people make.

A contradiction exists when something is attributed to a subject and not attributed to a subject at the same time and in the same sense.

An example of a contradiction would be:

A. My car is black

B. My car is not black.

That is a contradiction because my car cannot be both black and not-black at the same time and in the same sense. This is a contradiction because black is being attributed and NOT being attributed at the same time.

So, in the first (A) (B) example, what is being attributed to “people” and not attributed to “people” at the same time and in the same sense? There is nothing. Thus, there is no contradiction. It only becomes a contradiction when you redefine “choice” to mean “to determine a further action apart from God’s determination” because then the statement would read “God determines the apart-from-God-determined choices people make”. In other words, “God determined” is being attributed to “choices” at the same time that “God determined” is NOT attributed.

Our choices are either predetermined by God or they are not – can’t be both at the same time. Not if we insist on being reasonable people. Now, I know you take issue with logic but if you want to live in la-la land then go ahead.

Romans 9: 19One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” 20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ “21Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? 22What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—

For Whom Did Christ Die? John Owen

The Father imposed His wrath due unto, and the Son underwent punishment for, either:

1. All the sins of all men.
2. All the sins of some men, or
3. Some of the sins of all men.

In which case it may be said:

1. That if the last be true, all men have some sins to answer for, and so, none are saved.
2. That if the second be true, then Christ, in their stead suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the whole world, and this is the truth.
3. But if the first be the case, why are not all men free from the punishment due unto their sins?

You answer, “Because of unbelief.”

I ask, Is this unbelief a sin, or is it not? If it be, then Christ suffered the punishment due unto it, or He did not. If He did, why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which He died? If He did not, He did not die for all their sins!”