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[Lamentation]

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[WhiteWings]

Luke 12:57 So why don't you judge for yourselves what is right?
1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test all things. Hold on to what is good.
Corinthians 10:15 I speak as to wise men; you judge what I say.
Matthew 17:25 Jesus spoke to him first, saying, "What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take tax? From their sons or from others?"


Isaiah 29:13 .... and their fear of me is a commandment taught by mendomination?
Matthew 15:6  you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

[WhiteWings]

Mistunderstood you then.
Not a clue. S.O.S . :laughing7:

[Paul Hazelwood]

What I'm satirically searching for here WW, is the specific pre-space-age term(s) comparable to "robots", used by preachers, evangelists et al. Perhaps "puppets" "marionettes" "trained monkeys"...? Can't help but wonder, seeing as how seem I hear the analogy of "robots" universally applied  to free will.

Regards,
Brian

Good question!!  I really do not know, and it will be interesting to research.

[martincisneros]

It's liable to be quite the search because in previous centuries Calvinism was stronger in the Church, so the potter's analogy was abused to say that God COULD smash you at His discretion and it would be 100% just even if you were 100% innocent of the depths of depravity that society is filled to overflowing with.  You'd be looking to try to find older Arminian authors, but I suspect that if such an argument was made in generations prior to the 20th century then the puppet analogy might have been used.  But I'm not sure if Arminians and Calvinists of previous centuries would have found any aspect of God's control in the Scriptures as distasteful as the robot argument implies.  I could be wrong, but some of these arguments do seem like they're relatively recent inventions.  Another place to try is google books to see if some of the older books against UR from previous centuries have made it into their collection of scanned in books.  There used to be a couple of books online in their entirety in HTML format that I guess the ETers were thinking were so profound!  I think I saved one of them in notepad, but it's getting towards my bed time and I don't want to look for it right now.  (I have to interview a company in the morning that might be useful to employ.)  Once when I was looking for books by Elhanan Winchester at one of the online bookstores I happened upon some books that were written in the late 1700s and early 1800s that were alleged refutations of his Dialogues on the Universal Restoration.  I've intended to buy some of those when I didn't have other priorities for my money right then, but I'd be surprised if any of them included very many Arminian arguments.  Not having read them yet, though, I could be wrong about that.  Arminianism did exist back then.  Elhanan Winchester considered it the first heresy he'd wandered into that needed to be renounced in favor of Calvinism, but he teetered on double election Calvinism prior to the Universal Restoration revealing Himself to Elhanan.

[WhiteWings]

Martin,

What's the exact title (ISBN) of that book by Elhanan Winchester you speak so often about?

[martincisneros]

Here's a copy of it at google books:

The Universal Restoration

[WhiteWings]

Ha! That one. Found it long ago. I was just assuming it was something like the books found on TentMaker.

[whyiloveitaly.com]

Hi Brian--nice name!  j/k!!
I don't know what people used to say. I believe the concept of free will has only been around for a few hundred years. (Interesting how much NON-Christians adhere to it, however!...)

The "robot comment" is really kind of a contradiction, because Christians say they want to be like Jesus, but the verses where He says that "He does nothing of Himself" (John 5:19; 5:30; 8:28) just don't sink in. If Jesus wasn't "programmed" by God, then where did He get His identity??

Just a couple of thoughts,,,
(another) Brian

[WhiteWings]

That would mean the perfect son for the Father is a robot....

[martincisneros]

Ha! That one. Found it long ago. I was just assuming it was something like the books found on TentMaker.

I'm deeply surprised that it's not on Tentmaker because it's the best book on UR that I've ever read, and I've read most of the ones that have been written since the Reformation.  I've pretty much chased it down to about a dozen of them that I haven't read yet.  Haven't read "Hope Beyond Hell" or Gregory MacDonald's book, haven't read Hosea Ballou's "A Treatise On The Atonement" and there's a book by Paul Dean that I'm still trying to track down.  I haven't read Paul Siegvolk's "The Everlasting Gospel" and a couple other recent ones that have come out.  I haven't read Eric Stetson's book yet.  As soon as I get that 10 or 12 read that I haven't read yet, then there will probably be three dozen new ones that'll come out.  What's really surprised me with how scholarly some of these folks are that are online is that I'm about the only one that's read a big two book set called "The Larger Hope" which is a 200 year history on the Christian Universalist denomination that used to be in this country. 

I'm finding that most UR scholars limit their expertise to the Hebrew and Greek and some early Church history and scholar quotes that are mostly word study related.  Most people don't know that in the early 1800s in the United States that there was a UR conference that over 10,000 attended.  The assumption is that since we've been hard to organize into anything significant that'll make a difference in this generation that UR folks have always been that way, when nothing could be further from the truth.  People paid a whole lot more attention to UR authors in the 1800s than they do these days.  George MacDonald was voraciously read by Mark Twain as well as by Charles Spurgeon.  If anyone wants to talk about robots, the main indictment of robot behaviour could be laid at the feet of UR authors these days that aren't more interesting than they are.

[WhiteWings]

Martin,

I found Google books because you often mentioned that author.
With 'like tentmaker' I was meaning that it's a bit of an odd book. I had expected something like "The four works of Hanson" as found on TentMaker.

Maybe you can make a good selection of Google books. Write a short summary and ask Gary to put that summary and links to the book on the main site.
The books are out of copyright so I don't expect legal problems.

[firstborn888]

I was listening to a radio evangelist say "God doesn't want a bunch of robots", which I've herd a bazillion times in my lifetime. I stopped to ponder, what was the popular analogy before anyone had ever heard of robots?

Regards,
Brian

Maybe, 'mindless zombies' ????

[HappyBoy!]

We had a discussion in my ET believing church a few weeks ago where this came up.  "God doesn't want a bunch of puppets" is what one person said.  The idea was God wants those who freely choose to love Him.

Our church also believes children (aborted too) go to heaven. 

I mentioned that there's a big hole (or 50+ million small ones) in that puppet theory.  Did the infants and the unborn choose to love Him?  No?  Aren't they then still puppets?  What does God do with these puppets he doesn't want?

No answer.

[whyiloveitaly.com]

Hi all,
Looking at this thread now, it appears so silly how many Christians believe that God is "wanting others to love Him." Is this the position God is in these days??
Personally, I have an easier time believing that a true Son of God is one who IS a "puppet" and "robot." We either do our will or HIS will!!

Just a thought.
Love to all,
Brian