Capability does not imply metaphysical status, the positional change is accountable by the act of drawing itself and not a change in the object of that drawing. If I say "It is only possible to get to Catalina Island by boat" I am not implying that something changes about Catalina Island when I get in a boat. You are once again imposing your framework on the text.
You are still repeating the same categorical mistake without engaging the objection I already offered. Let me state it again clearly.
You are treating δύναμαι as if it were an impersonal environmental condition ("a possibility exists out there"). Your Catalina island illustration proves the point. It collapses
ability into an external circumstance rather than a capacity predicated of a person. But that is clearly not what John does here. δύναμαι is predicated of the
subject; it describes something the person
can or
cannot do. That is a personal capacity, not an environmental concern.
When you say, "it is possible to get to Catalina by boat," you are describing travel conditions. John 6:44 is not describing environmental conditions. It is describing what the
person can or cannot do: οὐδεὶς δύναται ἐλθεῖν. Unless you can give an argument from the grammar that redefines δύναμαι as an atmospheric condition rather than a predicate of personal capacity, your analogy is simply irrelevant.
My response was to you presenting the semantics as an argument.
I never presented the semantics as a theological argument. The only reason I mentioned semantics at all was to answer fhansen's attempt to use lexical data as a refutation of Calvinism. My point was that line of attack doesn't touch the Calvinist reading, because the argument for seeing irresistible grace in John 6:44 rests on the grammar, not the semantics.
I have been trying -- repeatedly -- to move this discussion toward the syntactical issues that actually matter for evaluating that argument. Yet neither of you has shown any willingness to engage the syntax itself, which is the only place the debate is decisively located.
Nope, they are quite different because one conditions the possibility on the success of the drawing, and the other simply deas in the possibility of success. Though perhaps you meant the latter with the former, they are not the same question.
Yes, the first denies that the drawing happens if it isn't succcessful by conditioning the possibility on success, the latter simply delineates possibility(though not how that possibility comes about) They're different questions.
This distinction you're trying to make is proof you're not focusing on the text. It evaporates the moment you honor John's own conditional structure:
ἑλκύσῃ --> δύναται
Drawing --> ability
There is only
one stated effect of drawing in the syntax: it produces ability. There is no additional category in the sentence called "creating an abstract possibility in the environment." That is your invention, not John's. If drawing occurs but the ability does
not arise in the person, then the conditional statement John wrote is false. You still have not addressed this syntactical point.
Your distinction between my two questions only works by reframing drawing as an act that produces an external possibility while leaving the subject unchanged. But that is precisely the claim at issue, and it is what you have not argued for from the text.
If δύναμαι refers to an actual personal capacity (which it does, being predicated of the
subject), then drawing must generate that capacity in the person. There is no third option. If it doesn't, John's statement fails. If it does, then drawing is effectual (and hence ἑλκύσῃ denotes decisive movement)
in the limited sense John actually mentions: it infallibly produces the ability he predicates.
"Ability" is a rather vague term, and speaking to the creation of a possibility is not the same as conditioning possibility on success.
Again, "ability" is a vague term that you seem to be loading with theological import that it need not have.
δύναμαι is not vague. You are attempting to blur the verb. Greek does not allow you to treat δύναμαι as a hazy atmospheric category. It is a verb of concrete capacity, applied to a subject. That is grammar, not theology. It is explicitly predicated of
persons in John 6:44.
δύναμαι is a
personal verb of ability. It is overwhelmingly used with personal subjects to denote their actual capacity or incapacity to perform an action. This is simply how the verb functions across the NT, LXX, as well as extra-biblical and classical usage. It is not used to express abstract or environmental possibility. Greek has other ways of expressing those things (e.g., ἔξεστιν).
You're simply trying to backload your theological presuppositions into the verse. The questions aren't the same, though given what you've elaborated I can see how you would consider them close enough.
No, I am not backloading presuppositions. That's a pretty arbitrary accusation to bring against an argument focused on the syntax of the text -- syntax you have consistently avoided. What I am doing is refusing to let you redefine δύναται, αὐτόν, and ἑλκύσῃ into categories the Greek grammar does not permit. You keep accusing me of "asserting," yet what I consistently pointed to is the syntax. What you have consistently avoided is the syntax.
If you want to contest my argument, contest the Greek. If you want to contest the Greek, produce grammar.
At the moment you're contesting neither... just my refusal to play along with a category error.
