Posted on 08/17/2002 9:39:51 PM PDT by RnMomof7
That's the part that I always considered to be the caveat. I read it saying, (1) calvinism doesn't claim God to be the author of sin, (2) calvinism doesn't claim that anyone's will is taken away, (3) the 2nd cause thing is hazy for me, but I'm taking it to mean that God created everything, but that doesn't mean that other things that flow from that original creation can't be laid at God's doorstep.
Do I have this right?
correction: but that doesn't mean that other things that flow from that original creation CAN be laid at God's doorstep.
As to your questions: Did not God ordain their days even before they were born? Does He not already know the date, time, and manner of our deaths? Could He not choose to grant us long life, or that our lives be snatched away at an early age? Is He not in control over His universe?
My only hope is in the fact that He is the Sovereign Lord over His universe, and that His purposes are never frustrated.
Thanks Jerry .
All ll I know..that God DOES cause ALL things to work together for the good for those called according to HIS purposes
My favorited verse form Job is Job 13:15 Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.
As Joseph said You meant it for evil BUT God meant it for Good...
There is NO comfort or reassurance in a God that is indifferent or unknowing..only when we see that nothing happens without His consent can we know how much he cares for us
My favorite verse from Job is Job 13:15 Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.
IMO if you think that God "caused" this to happen, then the answer is no. The evil perpetrators caused this to happen. God allowed it to happen because in the end, it will work together for good. We don't know why, we have to trust God on that one.
I am confused. God "foreordained" these two 10 year old girls to be murdered but did not "cause" it. Maybe I'm not understanding the difference between the words "foreordained" and "caused".
If God, in setting up His plan for the world from the beginning of time, engineer the exact situation where the murderer(s) of these two girls and the girls themselves would meet, and from that meeting, God knew the outcome of that meeting that He Himself engineered, then didn't God "cause" these two schoolgirls to be murdered?
God allowed it to occur. He did not interfer with the action of that mans "free will".
Or, here is another take on this.
Ok, let's start from the assumption that Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman had, from the creation of the world, only been allotted by God ten years to live. Fair enough. They were foreordained to die on that specfic moment, at that specific place.
Now, we have a person (a couple has been held, man and woman so they are releasing few details about exactly who the murderer was, or how they took place). For our argument, we will reduce it to one person who murdered both girls. From the creation of the world, God not only foreknew, but foreordained this exact person to be at this exact location in order to carry out HIS will; i.e. that Holly and Jessica needed to die that day.
So, the question becomes, how could this person be culpable in any way for his actions, since it was God who engineered the exact situation He needed for Holly and Jessica to die that day in order to fulfill His will?
I would imagine that God could prevent all of the evil in the world, but I think the only way he could do that would be to entirely wipe the planet clean of all living things. Evil is an outgrowth of God's permissive will in allowing man to do as he pleases. Out of that evil God can work everything to his Glory and work everything to good. Thus both good and evil are foreordained. Indeed, if God does not foreordain an event, it cannot occur. God has declared the end from the beginning. Thus "He Knows What Evil Lurks" and he will work that evil for good. We have his assurance on that one.
Do you believe that God did not foreordain these girls fate? Do you believe that events like that can possibly happen if God really, really, really doesn't want them to? Do you believe that God was powerless to prevent these acts? Or do you believe that God allowed them to occur, knowing that ultimately it will work to his glory?
First the word foreknow means "to be aware of the factuality of something ahead of time."
Yes, he knew they would be murdered. Yes, he knew the time and place.
2) Did God foreordain these murders to happen? Did God, in setting up His plan for the world from the beginning of time, engineer the exact situation where the murderer(s) of these two girls and the girls themselves would meet, and from that meeting, did God know the outcome of that meeting that He Himself engineered?
Second, foreordain means "to appoint or settle something ahead of time; to predestine."
No, God did not appoint (plan) them to happen. They were, therefore, not part of His plan, nor was the meeting of murderer(s) and girls part of His plan. God DID know the outcome of the meeting, although He did not APPOINT the meeting. (Make it an unavoidable appointment by HIS OWN design.)
3) Or did God foreknow these girls would be murdered, but somehow did not foreordain them to be murdered? And, if so, please tell me how exactly this might work.
Yes, God was aware ahead of time that these girls would be murdered, yet He did not appoint (plan) them to be murdered.
How would this work?
1. First, God gave free choice to the murderer and to the 2 girls. They, being free moral agents, were able to make independent choices for themselves.
2. Second, at the time that God foresaw all of history, he saw this event unfold. Perhaps that would make us want to start over with a different plot happening, but God was committed to giving free choice to his creation. If he didn't give them free choice, they would be robots. But since he wanted real beings capable of real love and real faith, He went ahead and started time. He also saw the great group of those who would turn to him in faith and love; he foreknew them, and decided that they were so precious that they should come into existence.
3. Looking at all the tragedy of all time, God decided that the loving end result of creation was more valuable than the sometimes tragic cost of those who would choose evil.
Let's say I take my mothers favorite crystal decanter to the top of a building and through it off the roof. Are you saying that I could go home and tell my mother that I actually didn't cause the decanter to break, the concrete sidewalk it fell on caused it to break?
I engineered the taking of the decanter, I set in motion it's flight by throwing it off the roof, yet somehow I can get away with saying I did not "cause" the decanter to break? God engineered this situation of the meeting of these girls and their murderer(s), God set in motion the limited number of the girls lives, yet somehow God can get away with not "causing" these murderers?
Do you believe that God did not foreordain these girls fate?
Are you asking me if I believe that God knew these girls would be murdered or do I believe that God engineered the exact events that would lead up to and involve their murder?
Do you believe that events like that can possibly happen if God really, really, really doesn't want them to?
No.
Do you believe that God was powerless to prevent these acts?
No.
Or do you believe that God allowed them to occur, knowing that ultimately it will work to his glory?
What exactly does the phrase “God allowed them to occur” really mean anyway? God turns a blind eye? Like a policeman at a reggae concert who see people smoking dope but doesn't arrest them? Either God engineers every single event or He doesn’t, right?
This is why Charles Spurgeon, the London pastor from 100 years ago said,
I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes – that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit, as well as the sun in the heavens – that the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as the stars in their courses. The creeping of an aphid over the rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence – the fall of . . . leaves from a poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche.
So then, did or did not God engineer the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman? And, if He did, and in the end it does indeed serve to glorify Him, God would not only have "allowed" evil to happen and "somehow" been glorified because of it, God in fact would have designed, built and carried out evil for the precise purpose of glorifing Him.
No. Some other free moral agent engineered the murders. If God can bring beauty from these ashes, then that certainly does bring glory to Him. And he will. So He is glorified.
God, however, did not design evil.
Your crystal decanter illustration doesn't work. You have to give the decanter a mind, freedom, a will, and wings so it can prevent hitting the ground if it so chooses. At that point, you just begin to get a proximate parallel to the problem before us.
The murderer has a mind, freedom, a will, and a God-given conscience that influences even him, a non-regenerated person. With such, he is a free moral agent. His decisions are His fault.
And if God allowed it to happen, then he will work the event to his glory somehow, wont't he?
It seems to me that you are either saying yourself that God designed that those girls ought to be killed and that God in essense killed them. No, God allowed the evil that happened to exist. God knew it would happen. He did not interfere with the evil.
If I know that a train is going to arrive at 10:30 tommorrow, am I responsible for the train's on-time arrival? No.
Now if I am drving the train, then I am responsible. The blame for the deaths of those girls is at the feet of the perpetrators. Don't blame God. And Don't blame God for letting it happen either. The fact that it happened means only that God will work the event, eventually, to his glory.
Pony nothing happens on this earth that God is not aware of or that he could prevent or stop.
Did God love Joseph ? He allowed him sold into slavery, He allowed him to be falsly accused of a crime..to be cast into prison
Did God love the apostles that were martyred?
God is sovereign..NOTHING happens without His approval. Before the foundation of the earth God knew. God has the divine ability to alter future events , to save some and not others. God is not helpless nor unengaged in the affairs of man..he knows every hair on my head..
We have had family tragedy , a moment when we could have asked God why..instead we trust Him and His divine purpose..
While on vacation recently, I spent time with my wife's brother who is the advanced stages of Lou Gherigs disease. He cannot lift his hands and can only move his fingers ever so slightly, but still retains movement of his neck and is able to communicate. He needs to have assistance in every thing he must do. His 9 year old daughter must assist him in urination as he sits in his wheel chair. Soon enough, he will lose all ability to communicate and then he will die. He has lived with this understanding for the past 4 years.
3 days after our arrival, his 3rd child (he has 5 ranging in age from 22 years to 9 years) was severely burned from a gasoline explosion in a mishap while working on an automobile. Kevin, age 17, currently is in Intensive Care with burns on 30-40% of his body. He had skin grafts over the 3rd degree burns over his abdomen and both arms. He has not been allowed to move his arms or torso for over a week now. He also faces long and difficult physical therapy.
I could go on with the difficulties in my my wife's brother's life, but what I have just explained is enough to rock any man to the core.
The fact remains that my brother-in-law has yet to ask 'Why'!
He with Job will testify from his heart, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." (Job 13:15).
And finally, he looks to that glorious day when his body will be made whole, or as 1 Corinthians 15:52 declares, "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."
Why is this his hope? It is his hope because we serve a Living Savior who has come out of the grave: "For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead." (1 Corinthians 15:16-21).
Just why do we have this hope? Because of Christ's accomplishment on the cross: "When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit" (John 19:30 -literally: 'It is accomplished').
In this, our final praise and thanks giving goes to God who ordained this very sacrifice in this very manner before the foundation of the world: "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:" (Acts 2:23)
God didn't just 'permit' Christ's sacrifice on the cross, he ordained it to be so. Yet the same verse also testifies that it was evil done 'by wicked hands' who crucified the Savior. Now if God ordained this to be so, how is it said that these men -who ultimately were doing the will of God- are said by Scripture to be 'wicked' for their very act? The fact that I cannot explain this reality does not negate its truthfullness as clearly testified in Scripture!
It all comes around full circle. My brother-in-law holds as his only comfort that he is not his own but belongs body and soul -in life ~and~ in death- to his faithful Savior Jesus Christ. Christ has fully paid for all our sins with his precious blood, and has set us free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over us in such a way that not a hair can fall from our heads without the will of our Father in Heaven: in fact, all things must work together for our salvation. Because we belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures us of eternal life and makes us whole-heartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. My brother-in-law trusts that God has brought about these events for a specific reason. He is comforted because the Scriptures tell him that these events are for the good of all those who believe in him: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28).
He may not know the reason and God does not ~owe~ him an explanation. Nonetheless, God has assured him that it is for his good!
"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing." (Revelation 5:12)
Jean
Then who did? Is it something that is sort of a yin-yang thing. Is evil some sort of system which simply co-exists along side of God?
This brings me back to my age old question, "Is there anything which co-exists eternally with God, or is He all that is eternal?"
Jean
Jean
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