PrintableBe persuasive, but not divisive and allow time for thought!
I was concerned I had demonstrated what we sovreign grace people get accused of, to be well acquainted with the theory and no nothing of the practice!!! Thus...
Just a further thought, courtesy of my dad (always founts of wisdom), obviously more important than all this detail that we are seeking to work out, is our common belief in the gospel fundamentals. Jesus Christ is Lord, substitutional atonement etc.
And so we don't want to make this subject so *heated* that people feel they have to split churches over it, or be divisive rather than seek to work things thru, frankly, but amicably with respect to one anothers godliness and desire to have integrity before God in the scriptures. etc.!
So my dad's comment was just: 'You want to avoid making it so stark that people are pre-empted into a decision on one side or the other without having had time to think about it,' blah blah, but I think you get what he means. While I aggressively pursue the underlying theology, I know there are many minds considering this subject that will need much more time to cogitate these things, and view all the facts. So I guess it is important for readers to feel they do not immediately have to come down on oneside or other or face the harsh and brutal judgement of people like myself!
For while I do think there are serious issues at stake here, I think for the average person who has not studied it in depth or had to defend either position in depth, the issues of sola Scriptura et al have simply not occurred to them, nor have they had to compromise them. Thus they maintain a Christian position with integrity, in as much as the free-willist does, who has not seriously and at length considered the biblical weight of the Calvinistic arguments. And we do not wish, by making it so stark, to force them to just shut their ears and now and forever choose one side or the other or be damned as it were by the 'opponents', so I am concerned that I may have, by being too stark in the core issues, not been gentle enough in the handling of them for those who have never heard such arguments raised before and really do need considerable time to check out both sides properly...
Of course, having said all that, if I chatted to my elders and after time of research, they chose to modify sola Scriptura over any subject, I would have problems depending on just how brazen that modification was. The Briefing methodology with its 75%+ science would deeply concern me if held in the face of all reason, and they didn't have biblical counter arguments to replace the scientific ones.
