you seem to maintain that Christ actually paid (atoned) for all, i.e., His death was actually sufficient for all.
Subtle lure in your observation, but we conclude the same things. Are you equating "actual sufficiency" with atonement? I don't think so, I think you're asserting that's what I'm doing. Bro, I never suggested )I don't think) that he atoned for the sins of the non-elect, but did say he paid a price sufficient to do so, which is standard Calvinist fare so I hope we're close to done on this one. In fact, where I did use atonement as being effectual I spoke only his elect, of atonement as being limited.

Or maybe before I can answer you properly, I'll need to know what difference you feel there is between sufficient and actually sufficient. There is none, unless you're used to people referring to Christ's sufficient sacrifice being only theoretically sufficient? For clarity, we needn't fear that the sufficiency of the price is an actual sufficiency and not a theoretical one....it never touches efficacy. I think we're agreed and you've still popped no holes in my word usage. Try again? ;-) Or have I been actually sufficiently clear?


2Pet 2:1 has been disputed by myriad people, that seems to indicate that its meaning is unclear.

I'd advise great care with that notion; we are the only ones in the history of written revelation who seem to see "trinity" in Scripture, but I wouldn't surrender the doctrine to the "unclear" file....the myriads are simply wrong.

Agorazo here isn't (yet) unclear to me, for reasons I've given. But, sure, it may be unclear to others. That does no damage to my thesis.

Those passages must take precedence over 2Pet 2:1 and not vice versa
I think you have a good appreciation of that hermeneutical rule, except where that rule will result in Scripture contradicting Scripture. Then the rule does not apply and more work needs to be done on the interpretation and it is the latter we're into here. It is not adequate hermeneutics to rely on a principle that leaves you with open contradiction as I think you have. If you're rigid in the application of that rule here, they you are in deep, deep theological trouble indeed, or your answer is that the entire verse is still not clear to you.

The hermeneutical rule here can not impose a meaning that does not exist in the text, which we know from other Scripture providing limitations. Alternatively, dividing out the notions of sufficiency and atonement, and payment and possession, are common among all people of all races at all times and of legitimate use in 2 Peter even if the Greeks used the same word in different contexts.

If you are going to stick with that rule, you now have the opinion that to be bought with the price always includes possession. Since we call anyone bought with the price, owned, and fully possessed by Christ a Christian, and since all Christians do not lose their salvation, you are in a bind explaining how the "bought" of 2 Peter here are false teachers doomed to destruction for teaching damnable heresies, which is not exactly a common Scriptural description of 'Christian" You're other out is to say that they lost their salvation.

I'm fine with sparring, don't get me wrong, but if you have a theory then I'd like to hear it very much.

2. Theological:
The very nature of the economic Trinity is compromised by any view that purports that Christ died for all. Why? Because it was not the intention nor design of the Father to save all. The covenant made between the Father and the Son, aka: "Covenant of Redemption" or "Covenant of Peace" was that the Father decreed to save a specific number of sinners to which the Son covenanted to atone for them and by the Spirit to enable them to secure that redemption and to preserve that same number to the end to the glory of God.

Agreed.

"If Christ actually paid the price for all then all MUST BE saved."

Agreed, where "actually paid" = atonement. Again, atonement for sin is not the same in theology as the sufficiency to atone for sin. As you said yourself, "the blood of Christ was sufficient to atone for all, but " the design of the atonement did not include all."

If I may here try to redeem my story's analogy, where my landlord actually paid a sufficient price, an actual and not a theoretical price, it was not efficacious in my actually procuring the possession.

I think you are relying too much on a notion that Christs price for the non-elect was only theoretical and not actual, for fear that the word "actual" connotes just too much efficacy. His price, we are assured is very real and it was actually paid. But wherever we want to semantically equate "actually paid" to "effectively applied through to salvation" then I agree we must digress from that usage. But I do not make that strict equivocation as you tend to....to me, there has simply always been a huge gulf between they very real value of what Christ tendered and how it was applied. Other Calvinist theology accounts for this. So I have less fear of the word usage than you do it seems, and I'm here describing the differentiations which, obviously, to me are legitimate.


"If one understands 2Pet 2:1 in a non-redemptive context, then no such semantics is necessary. The common usage of agorazo is retained; purchase --> ownership. I do not find your distinction in Scripture... sorry. "

Yes you do, Pilgrim. You find that distinction in 2 Peter 2:1. Or, as I've already requested, I'm curious to hear your explanation.


[God has the absolute right to create some to honor and some to dishonor

Absolutely agreed. Except to say that verse and the preceeding ones in Romans are talking about the exact opposite of God making NO distinctions between people, it is defending God's place to make drastic separation between people. The claimant wants God to account for why he was made "thus", ie, a dishonourable pot. God's response is that it is his absolute right.

But the question under consideration has little to do with that. The question people ask is, what is it about me that he opted, in his divine right, to make me a vessel of honour and another to dishonour? You see, you still have not addressed the question, only shifted again. And you will never be able to provide the kind of response that the questioner wants, which was my answer; there is no such answer. But you said something interesting, that seems to indicate a revelation that in fact God saw NOTHING in me that he would save me. My idea has been that we are not told that is is something, anything, or nothing. We're not informed at all about the foundation, but you make clear that it is NOTHING about them. I would like to know where you got that from? Or if there is no revelation, then I would hesitate to make a conclusion that lack of revelation to us = NOTHING. I'm not saying for certain that it isn't nothing, I'm saying I never got that info.

Sproul says:

"Why did God save me?

I know of no more difficult a theological question to deal with than this one. I've been studying theology for many years, and I still can't come up with any exhaustive reason to explain why God would save me, or anyone else for that matter."

Neither Sproul nor anyone I've yet read says conclusively that, despite the exhaustive efforts of theologians, they can concretely conclude it was NOTHING about us.

(On my wordiness, I'm not trying to win anything by being too wordy or exhaustive, I'm just still into the subtleties of the discussion here and the importance of the clarifications...you've still got me thinking, so kudos from me...this is part of the reason I still like this site. Continue if you want, but I wouldn't charge you with surrendering anything if you didn't ;-)