Matthew Johnson wrote:

> In article <153.21.08.05.919325000@srcbs.org>, Bob Felts says...
> >
>
> [snip]
>
> >But you have God giving free will to someone who He knows will misuse it
> >to cause misery, destruction, and death.
> >
> >So how do you justify this?
>
> Why are you asking him to _justify_ it, when _neither_ of you really believe
> that man can justify God?

Because one of the frequent complaints of Calvinism is that its "god" is
really demonic because of the notion that He creates vessels of wrath
devoted to destruction.

He needs to see that the "free-will granting god" likewise has a PR
problem.

Therefore, the "no free will" position cannot be rejected simply because
it offends one's sensibilities -- because the "free will" position is no
better.

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Been think'n about this. A couple of issues which I think are
applicable to the discussion.

I've already mentioned "empiricism." Empiricism is the philosophical
theory which maintains that sense perception is the only test of
knowledge. In the Dictionary of Theological Terms, [DTT] this
knowledges is "knowledge gained by experience and the empirical method
is the way of observation and experiment. Empiricism was largely a
reation to rationalism which insisted on reason as the source of
knowledge." [p. 145] I would point you to various philosophical text
books which could help you better under all that is involved in this
definition. Hume is probably one of the best known empiricists.

But perhaps, better explainable is the debate over univocality. In
recent history, this was hotly debated between Gordon Clark and
Cornelius VanTil, the former arguing for univocalism while the later
holding to an alternative (not opposite) understanding, that being that
the knowledge of man and the knowledge of God as being analogical. Not
surprising to those who are aquainted with my posts, I hold to
VanTilian epistemology, .i.e., the study of knowing/knowedge. Again
the DTT has an excellent survey of the controversy.

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=93723&netp_id=274404&event=ESRCN&item_code=WW

Read the three "excepts".

I'm going to quote one of the paragraphs within this 5 page definition.

"In VanTil's view, the mind of the finite creature is incapable of
having a knowledge of anything that is identical with God's knowledge
of that thing. Man suffers from another disability in addition to his
finiteness and creaturehood. He is a sinner, which means that his mind
is not in a normal