You two guys - have had a tough ‘row to hoe’ over the years on this forum (as I’ve been learning) and are to be commended, in my opinion, for staying true to your convictions.
But I have to go a step further - you have gored many a sacred cow, a few of which were mine - for which I have to thank you ! Turns out, they needed goring.
I believe that a source of confusion for many - certainly for me - is that we have not had (or not taken) the time to follow your reasoning step-by-step from “in the beginning” (2012, on this forum ) and thus, when you do speak to a question, though you may in fact be answering from a position of insight and sound exegesis, the answer only makes sense against the background of the great amount of study and thought you’ve done; and does not make sense with those whose background is often the untried presuppositions of a given form of religion.
I’m coming to see that Pantelism, in the main, keeps the Scriptures totally intact, though at the cost of deconstructing some traditional methods of interpretation that now look a bit ad hoc . This is hard on me, fellers - I’ve made a few ‘sea changes’ in the past 20 years - going into and out of Calvinism; going from unthoughtful trinitarianism to a more thoughtful current position; from ECT to Universalism; from God’s timelessness to a more ‘open’ stance on that issue - and others, all good changes, but none of them easy. Each change has been a liberation, and I think justifiable and honoring to God (I fervently hope), but not easy.
Does this mean I’m totally ‘on board’? Too early to tell. My past few days’ efforts have been spent going through the forum since davo joined, and following his posts, his reasoning, the responses he has gotten, and putting them all in one place. I will say this: when I read through the assembled information, in one document - there is GREAT strength in the pantelist position. (UP to this point in my study):
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- the scriptures stay intact, and many interpretive problems just clear up.
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- In one sense, nothing of substance changes from what many of us believe is fundamental to Christianity. More of that later perhaps.
- -The gospel stays just as glorious, the future bright, Christian fellowship as rich, - things just seem to be made ‘clearer’.
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- I will stay with GMAC, Wm.Ellery Channing and a few select others as it comes to Christian growth, understanding God’s ways with his children, and other essentials that may/may not fit perfectly into Pantelism; but also with #3 above.
I don’t do long posts, so that’s it for now. The take-away for me is that the pantelist position deserves study and thought. Let the truth come out - I’m sure the position has its flaws, and the way it is expressed may sound weird to the uninitiated - but it’s the truth that matters, eh?