You Can’t Know God’s Will: Decision Making and God’s Will

let me be clear, I am NOT an advocate of looking for words in clouds, putting out fleeces, counting cars driving by, randomly picking Bible verses, etc. That is silly.

I am not an advocate of not acting until you know in advance what God wants you to do.

[Mark_Smith]

Have you read DeYoung’s book, or are you merely responding based upon Friesen?

OK. Have a nice day.

@Mark Smith: “My concern is that people, being people, will take this method and interpret it as “do what you want” rather than do the hard work of staying in God’s revealed will. Get my point?”

But you acknowledge that DeYoung explicitly said the contrary, and if you’ve read Friesen you know it’s not possible to attribute that danger to his view or his presentation of it — he repeatedly makes the point that his approach requires more familiarity with God’s revealed will (the Bible), not less.

This sounds like the kind of objection Paul anticipated to his teaching about grace — shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Of course people, being people, can take the truth and interpret it as “do what you want.” That’s always been the case. That’s a flaw in people, not the truth. In fact, as some theologians have pointed out, if our teaching about grace doesn’t prompt the objection that we’re risking encouraging sin, we’re not teaching it right.

First, I find it interesting that you and others keep commenting about my responses to a book you’ve never read using as a basis another book (Friessen) that I am not commenting on in particular.

Second, while I said DeYoung paid lip service to some things, I found his examples to imply other things.

Frankly, without you reading the book, I feel there is no point in continuing. Some of the basic questions I have asked no one has answered. All people have done is focus on me inferring what DeYoung implied. So, I’m moving on.

For the record, I have learned a lot by reading DeYoung’s book, though I think his examples and logic at times are flawed. I learned more from MacArthur’s book, though that is not drawing attention. I wonder why?

Mark Smith: You’re confusing me with someone else. I have read DeYoung’s book. (I also subscribe to his blog. I considered making the point earlier that if you’d read anything else of DeYoung’s, you’d know that it is silly to accuse him of minimizing God’s role in our lives or our responsibility (and blessing) to maximize His role, but I did not because I decided that wouldn’t be fair; it would be beyond the scope of this discussion.) I appreciated DeYoung’s book enough that I gave it to my two oldest sons on the occasion of the oldest’s college graduation a year ago. I would love it if they would read Friesen’s book too, because I valued the detail, the scripture saturation, and the vigor of his presentation. But they are busy (and still younger than I was when I read it); I knew they wouldn’t or couldn’t read Friesen’s book as their first full book on the subject; and, because I have never taught them the traditional view, I thought DeYoung’s more conversational (and brief) approach would suffice for the time being — they didn’t need to be convinced of the opposite of what they’d been taught their entire lives like I did.

Now that we’ve disposed of the erroneous presupposition of your flippant response, can we get a substantive response? Contrary to your third point above, I think I’ve responded to every basic question you’ve asked. What questions do you think have gone unanswered?

As to your final point, there’s no reason that your having learned more from MacArthur’s book would draw attention; I’m not disagreeing with you about MacArthur’s book, I’m disagreeing with you about DeYoung’s book (and also trying to answer your “basic questions”). What would you like someone to say to you about your reactioin to MacArthur’s book? How about, what does having “learned more” from MacArthur’s book mean? That you were persuaded? Or that you were not persuaded but you haven’t formed any questions or counter-arguments regarding his approach? Or how about, if you understand that MacArthur and DeYoung are saying essentially the same thing, why are you making such a big deal about DeYoung’s grandfather, particularly when many here have tried to illuminate for you what DeYoung was doing with that example?

You still moving on?

I’m done.

I guess I did get you mixed up with others, but no matter. I’m moving on.