A recent post quoted a post from a month earlier, so I will just provide the one sentence that I am commenting on:
Quote:
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I will say I suspect this may be a Calvinism/Armenian type thing where there are at least two valid aspects of the same thing . . .
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As we have discussed in previous threads, the idea of two contradictory yet valid aspects of the same thing is a violation of the law of contradiction. If something is true yet its contradiction is true, then it is also false. And that is impossible. If it is true it is not also false. Therefore Lee's "two sides of truth" which he used to tie together all kinds of contradictions together as truth cannot actually represent the truth.
If it appears that there are two things that are contradictory yet true, then either:
1. one is actually not true and we have not yet figured that out,
OR
2. we have not yet figured out how the two are not actually talking about the same thing.
I did not try to back-track to find the thing that is compared to the Calvinism/Arminian issue, but my study on that issue is that Calvinism is taught as a kind of over-arching lens that colors other things. Some of the passages that they use to claim that it so does not so easily read as they want unless you start with the assumption that it is true (classic begging the question or circular reasoning). Yet there are clearly some aspects to which a kind of predestination is applied. The Calvinists take their predestination, and application of grace so far as to make the very act of desiring God completely given. In fact, for someone to suggest that they had to believe to be saved is, to a Calvinist, wrong because you cannot believe unless it is also part of what is given to you. (And in my book a bit beyond what any of the scriptures actually say.)
But Arminianism is dismissive of the aspects of predestination that are clearly stated.
So what do we do? Decide which group we like and despise the other as heretical? Or accept that we do not understand how the application of one applies to one thing and the other applies to something else and we have just conflated them together as a single item?
I can accept that we do not understand it all. The doctrine of the Trinity is fairly well-conceived. Yet it does not tell it all. We like to give analogies, but like that "Lutheran Satire" video on YouTube, each analogy also runs afoul of the overall tenets of the doctrine. The rather verbose restatement of the doctrine in the Athenasian creed does a better job because it makes statements, then warns to not try to take any aspect of it too far. In effect, we think we have the outer boundaries, but do not have a cohesive map of the interior. That is acceptable.
Same for the Calvinism–Arminianism divide. Each describes an aspect that does apply to something, but not to the same thing. Yet they do bump up against each other in some way. It is as simple as conflating different aspects of the same word or concept? Like when we note that "salvation" clearly is used for the simple fact of belief and conversion, and also for something that requires working out with fear and trembling. Same word, different meaning. Semantics. Or equivocating when we try to make the two different aspects into a single thing.
And since Lee seemed to like to keep everyone off-balance and willing to accept anything, even if it seemed contradictory, having a "two sides of truth" teaching to get people to stop trying to analyze what was wrong came in real handy.