[The entire hypothetical analogy series can be found here.]
#3220From: magnalia_dei
To: prce@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, June 26,2006, 11:27 PM
Subject: PRC List : Providence interpreted
Providence interpreted
For anyone to interpret providence so as to conclude (as a basis of their faith acting), and thereupon pronounce to the public, that a given calamity in providence is a specific judgment on a specific person for their actual sin supposed, is a presumption on interpreting providence that, apart from special revelation, is tantamount to a claim of a providential hermeneutic that is inerrant. Such kind of ignorant presumption, and the putrid and malicious application to the victims arising therefrom, is everywhere taught against in the scriptures (even explicitly by the Lord Christ); and, it exceeds, by orders of magnitude, the degrees of the sins of the merciless "friends" of Job. But those engaging in such behavior, of course, conveniently omit themselves from the same public self-condemnation that ought, by the same principle, to necessarily follow from the calamities of providence relative to their own persons or families, which they conveniently overlook or more charitably judge.
#3220From: magnalia_dei
To: prce@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, June 26,2006, 11:27 PM
Subject: PRC List : Providence interpreted
Providence interpreted
For anyone to interpret providence so as to conclude (as a basis of their faith acting), and thereupon pronounce to the public, that a given calamity in providence is a specific judgment on a specific person for their actual sin supposed, is a presumption on interpreting providence that, apart from special revelation, is tantamount to a claim of a providential hermeneutic that is inerrant. Such kind of ignorant presumption, and the putrid and malicious application to the victims arising therefrom, is everywhere taught against in the scriptures (even explicitly by the Lord Christ); and, it exceeds, by orders of magnitude, the degrees of the sins of the merciless "friends" of Job. But those engaging in such behavior, of course, conveniently omit themselves from the same public self-condemnation that ought, by the same principle, to necessarily follow from the calamities of providence relative to their own persons or families, which they conveniently overlook or more charitably judge.