02-29-2008, 10:52 AM
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 | Puritanboard Postgraduate | | Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Chapel Hill, NC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff_Bartel  Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff_Bartel
If you trust someone, you believe what they say is the truth, no?
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Not necessarily. Do you trust your parents? What if they told you Santa Clause was real, and that he has a summer house in Miami, Florida? | Well, as I see it, then you would trust your parents in some circumstances, but not in others. Trusting someone wholly would be believing EVERYTHING they say. |  Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil Anyway, you can't fallaciously argue from affirming the consequent, so you'd have: "Christian trusts someone for their salvation." This is a rejection of the Clarkian position taken in this thread. 
Lastly, my brother is intelligent, and one of the nicest people any of you would meet (unlike me!). He believes that the Bible is God's word. He believes that he is a sinner. He believes that Jesus is God incarnate. He believes that God is a trinity. He believes that God's law represents the best way for him to live. He still rejects Christianity. He refuses to bow the knee. He loves his sin too much. And, he even admits that he's being irrational about it all!
He thus believes the truth, yet isn't saved.
I take it that's case closed... | Quote:
I agree that if one does not accept Christ as both Prophet Priest AND King, then he is not saved. However, my point is that I doubt that your brother truly believes what he says he does.
The point I was trying to get at in the post above is that in my understanding, trust is not so different from assent. They are in my mind two ways of looking at the same thing. Belief, trust, assent, reliance, faith...all different ways of saying the same thing. I have no problem with including trust as a part of saving faith, but I don't believe that Clark does either. I think that he was essentially saying the above.
| It is for this reason that I brought up the passage from Paul's epistle to the Corinthians in which he states that the Word of the cross is foolishness to unbelievers. Does this mean that unbelievers can't assent to God's truth or that they can assent to it yet still not "believe"? I don't see how a person who thinks that God's Word is foolish can assent to it.
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Davidius
Husband of Emilia
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Currently in the process of transferring membership to an as-yet-undecided church in Chapel Hill
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics
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