j*****7
发帖数: 10575 | 1 http://www.ccel.org/ccel/luther/bondage.viii.ii.html
Sect. VIII. — ANOTHER part of the sum of Christianity is, to know, whether
God foreknows any thing by contingency, or whether we do all things from
necessity. This part also you make to be irreligious, curious, and vain, as
all the wicked do: the devils , and the damned also, make it detestable and
execrable. And you shew your wisdom in keeping yourself clear from such
questions, wherever you can do it. But however, you are but a very poor
rhetorician and theologian, if you pretend to speak of “Free-will” without
these essential parts of it. I will therefore act as a whetstone, and
though no rhetorician myself, will tell a famed rhetorician what he ought to
do — If, then, Quintilian, purposing to write on Oratory, should say, “In
my judgment, all that superfluous nonsense about invention, arrangement,
elocution, memory, pronunciation, need not be mentioned; it is enough to
know, that Oratory, is the art of speaking well” — would you not laugh at
such a writer? But you act exactly like this: for pretending to write on “
Free-will,” you first throw aside, and cast away, the grand substance and
all the parts of the subject on which you undertake to write. Whereas, it is
impossible that you should know what “Free-will” is, unless you know what
the human will does, and what God does or foreknows.
Do not your rhetoricians teach, that he who undertakes to speak upon any
subject, ought first to show, whether the thing exist; and then, what it is,
what its parts are, what is contrary to it, connected with it, and like
unto it, &c.? But you rob that miserable subject in itself, “Free will,”
of all these things: and define no one question concerning it, except this
first, viz., whether it exist: and even this with such arguments as we shall
presently see: and so worthless a book on “Free-will” I never saw,
excepting the elegance of the language. The Sophists, in reality, at least
argue upon this point better than you, though those of them who have
attempted the subject of “Free-will,” are no rhetoricians; for they define
all the questions connected with it: whether it exists, what it does, and
how it stands with reference to, &c.: although they do not effect what they
attempt. In this book, therefore, I will push you, and the Sophists together
, until you shall define to me the power of “Free-will,” and what it can
do: and I hope I shall so push you, (Christ willing) as to make you heartily
repent that you ever published your Diatribe. | j*****7
发帖数: 10575 | | R*o
发帖数: 3781 | 3 when you call yourself lutheran
【在 j*****7 的大作中提到】
: 反基们倒是好好反驳一下马丁先
| j*****7
发帖数: 10575 | | j*****7
发帖数: 10575 | |
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