[Milton-L] Knowledge, free will, etc.

[Carrol Cox]

Michael Bryson wrote:
> 
> 
> Calvin makes much the same point about rendering man inexcusable in
> the Institutes (3.2.11):
> 
> "I know that to attribute faith to the reprobate seems hard to some,
> when Paul declares it the result of election [cf 1 Thessalonians
> 1:4-5]. Yet this difficulty is easily solved. For though only those
> predestined to salvation receive the light of faith and truly feel the
> power of the gospel, yet experience shows that the reprobate are
> sometimes affected by almost the same feeling as the elect, so that
> even in their own judgment they do not in any way differ from the
> elect [cf. Acts 13:48]. Therefore it is not at all absurd that the
> apostle should attribute to them a taste of the heavenly gifts
> [Hebrews 6:4-6] and Christ, faith for a time [Luke 8:13]; not because
> they firmly grasp the force of spiritual grace and the sure light of
> faith, but because the Lord, to render them more convicted and
> inexcusable, steals into their minds to the extent that his goodness
> may be tasted without the Spirit of adoption."
> 
> In that moment from Book 5, the Father seems rather like Calvin's
> conception of deity...

I am reminded of Keynes's comment on Hayek:

"[O]ne of the most frightful muddles I have ever read, with scarcely
sound proposition in it beginning with page 45, and yet it remains a
book of some interest, which is likely to leave its mark on the mind of
the reader. It is an extraordinary example of how, starting with a
mistake, a remorseless logician can end up in Bedlam."

Carrol