GRGR (2) "great bright hand"

[MalignD at aol.com]

mwaia:

<<Isn't P's crochet the concept of Preterition?  That the Elect and the 
Damned are not statistically determined but fore-ordained on an individual 
basis?  It seems that a good Calvinist would say that there is "very little 
room for hope", indeed, for anyone who is not a Calvinist Christian.  It 
seems to humble heretical me that this runs counter to the whole concept of a 
Final Judgement. It would seem one's love of Christ is not so much to be 
weighed and rewarded, but that one's label (tattooed on your forearm at the 
Inception of time) is to be read out at the last....>>

One can clearly push the wobbly statistical analogy too far (says he who 
raised it).  For the Calvinist, the Elect and Damned are not statistically 
determined; that's true.  The nub issue in Calvinist thought is that one may 
not imagine a limit to the knowledge of God.  It can't be the case that God 
live in a state of unknowing re the fate of humanity or of individual humans. 
 Thus, HE knows who's going to fuck up, and how, right out of the chute.  The 
problem for the theologian who finds this persuasive is squaring it with 
notions of free will.  For the would-be believer, hopelessness and pessimism 
are lurking bugbears.