(November 4, 2015 at 2:45 pm)Drich Wrote:(November 4, 2015 at 2:17 pm)Irrational Wrote: The unrighteousness is in their unbelief.
God's existence is made clear through what can be seen (his creation) so it's not a special revelation to only a subset of unbelievers, dear Drich. It's a revelation available to all through perception. This is the point you keep ignoring. So even the Athenians in Acts 17 were supposed to have been aware of God (according to Romans 1). If you disagree, then you disagree with Romans 1:20, ok?
They suppress the truth through not following God and going for other gods instead. Again, this is made clear in Romans 1. And this is exactly what the Athenians in Acts 17 did.
Your problem is that you WANT there not to be a contradiction between Acts 17 and Romans 1, so you come up with some sneaky maneuvers to get the passages to reconcile but by doing so you pretty much have to disregard the context of Romans 1. That is not honest, Drich. Quite the contrary.
Who does Paul in Romans 1 say "They" are?
The Honest Answer is "They" does not refer to ALL Men. "They" only refers to Evil Men. How do we know this? Because in Chapter 2 "Sinful" believers are warned Not to Judge the Evil Men the "they" of Chapter 1.
This means that the men in chapter 1 Knew "They" should have acted righteously but did not. so THEY have no excuse. How ever the men of chapter 2 like the men of Acts 17 while still sinful are doing their best to act in accordance to the laws written on their hearts (The same laws the men of chapter 1 have ignored and have no excuse for ignoring,) because of the men in chapter 2 and acts 17 prove that it is possible to know God's will without having the law according to Paul in Romans 2
Before you respond I need you to sum up my position, i want to make sure you understand what and why I keep saying the same thing over and over. If you can't or won't do this then you forfeit the right to move forward. I not saying you have to be right i just want you to tell me what it is I am trying to tell you. I need to know if you are even reading anything. people who circle around to defeated points either are lost in the conversation, or simply run out of things to argue but need the last word so they start over.
I need to know where you are at here.
For Allah's sake, it's simple logic.
Just because it says "they" does not preclude others than "they" in Romans 1:20.
Are you familiar with Modus Ponens logic? Doubt it, but this is very basic logic, which goes as follows:
1. If A then B
2. A
3. Therefore, B (from 1 & 2)
In other words:
1. If God's existence is made clear through creation to a person who does not worship God, then that person is aware of God's existence and is deliberately rejecting God.
2. God's existence is made clear through creation to every Athenian spoken to by Paul in Acts 17, and each of them did not worship God before Paul came to them.
3. Therefore, every one of those Athenians was aware of God's existence and was deliberately rejecting God.
That's logic.
The problem is that in Acts 17, Paul blames their unbelief on their ignorance, which contradicts the logic implied in Romans 1:20. But just because there is a contradiction does not mean you should force a reconciliation between them. As I said earlier, that would not be honest thing to do.
Reread Romans 1:21-22:
For even though they knew God, they did not [n]honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and [o]crawling creatures.
The Athenians did not honor God but worshiped idols instead, remember? So they were also committing an evil there.
