Posted on 06/14/2002 7:52:48 AM PDT by Matchett-PI
Either man decides his ultimate destiny, or God decides. If God decides for some, such as infants and the mentally disabled, then He must decide for all.
And if God decides, it has already been written because the mind of God holds all history in a single instant -- past, present and future.
Why are you so afraid to give God his due?
Of course God was the creator of sin and evil. God created all things to His purpose. But sin and evil are nothing to God except that they cause consternation for His creation.
"Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above," says Katherine Hepburn to Humphrey Bogart in THE AFRICAN QUEEN.
Where do you think sin and evil came from?
If man makes his own choice of salvation, how do infants and the mentally handicapped choose salvation? Does God step in and make the decision for them?
I'm sorry, I was called away on a much more important mission - entertaining grandchildren.
Actually I did answer the question, but I see a little more is required. I think the original post actually answered your point, so, if you forgive me, I am going to repeat the part that answers it:
I originally wrote: I believe God is sovereign over both. I believe God determines both who will be saved and who will be lost, and He decideds how He will accomplish this, not Calvin, and He has chosen to make some of his created beings rational/volitional agents (for example, humans and angels) and as such, they are judged according to their choices within the limits of whatever ability the sovereign God has chosen to give them, and He uses that choice to determine who will be saved and who will be lost, and only those who limit God deny Him that power.
I think you may have missed the fact God holds people responsible to the exact degree that He has enable them. It is God that teaches us the meaning of Justice. It is God that teaches us, it as accepted of a man according to what has, not according to what he doesn't have. It is according to the knowledge one has that God judges, not the knowledge they do not have.
2 Cor. 8:12 For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.
John 15:22-24 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.
James 4:17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
Now there is one expression you use that is really not quite right. It is these words, "makes his own choice of salvation," which I not seen used by anyone else. I think you are referring to those who believe God saves those who "obey the Gospel"
You many not like that Biblical expression (Rom. 10:16, 2 Thess. 1:8, I Pet. 4:17, and compare Rom 6:17) but God likes it, and does not consider obedience to His Gospel to be making one's, "own choice of salvation."
Repentance and faith cannot be construed as "work," because they only mean to "cease work," and trust in the finished work of Christ. Repentance and faith are nothing more than "giving up any attempt to make one's own salvation, and surrendering to God's commandment to trust only in Him." Now I ask with Paul, what have you that you have not received from God. What ability or what knowledge does anyone have they have not received from God. (I cor. 4"7, Jas. 1:17) There are two expressions Christians often use, for very opposite things, both of which blaspheme the goodness of God. One is, "the ... (non-elect, unsaved, whatever) cannot trust God in their own stregth." The other is, "I failed because I was trying to do it in my own strength."
Now, my good friends, there is no such things as "one's own strength," and whatever any person fails to do that he ought to do is never because God hasn't given him the strength or the knowledge required to do it, but because they just plain refuse to use what God has given them.
The question, "why does a man choose to disobey God," contains a contradiction. A choice by definition does not have any cause, else it is not a choice. The question, "why is such'n'such choice made," assumes an answer, but any answer would be the "cause" of the behavior, and "caused" behavior is not chosen behavior. To ascribe any explanation or cause to any behavior of man excludes that behavior from the field of chosen behavior. Except for whatever reasoning an individual, himself, chooses as the basis for a choice, there cannot be a "reason" for chosen behavior.
Since God only holds men responsible for their choices, not for things that happen to them involuntarily, to say that predestination is the reason (or cause) some men choose to obey the Gospel, and others do not, is a contradiction. Predestiniation cannot be the cause of any choice, because choices to not have causes. No limitation on God's sovereignty is implied in this, because to assert otherwise would be to assert and absurdity about God.
God is absolutely sovereign, and predestines all things according to the good pleasure of His will, inlcuding the eternal destiny of all men. With this all Christians may agree. What they disagree on, is not that He does it, but how he accomplishes it. It cannot be means of a method described in terms without meaning, such as "predestined choice". Just because you cannot understand how God can predestine all things without causing choices implies no limitation of God's power and authority, only your own ability to understand.
Hank
I wonder if all your co-religionists here agree with you, ma'am? I would be delighted to hear a chorus of the 'enlightened' on your point.
Your response in 26: BTW, your robot language is really clever. ... Think it will impress lurkers?
It might. It has the advantage of being true.
Give it another try.
WC: I wonder if all your co-religionists here agree with you, ma'am? I would be delighted to hear a chorus of the 'enlightened' on your point.
DE: When backed into a corner, those lacking a response reply with sarcasm.
Oh, Ma'am, no sarcasm, merely an inquiry. But your co-religionists seem to be friends of yours only on sunny days. I doubt many will join you on your lonely limb.
Theologians have wrestled for millenia to explain why a good God is NOT the source of evil. So, now, you proudly relate that your construct god is the author and finisher of every rape, torture and murder in the history of man, of Stalin, of Pol Pot, of the 100 million killed by communism in the last century? Of the little children suffering with painful diseases? Of the millions in the history of the world who have been unjustly tortured, killed and multilated? And, why? To teach the innocent "a lesson?" To show his calvinist "glory"? If that's giving your Calvinist god 'his due,' I'm very glad I don't know him.
One is so staggered by the enormity of your presumption, it is hard to know where to start. What is the greatest story (apart from Christ Himself) of unjust evil in the Bible? Job?
So, what is Job? Another example of God just 'funnin' us? Where Scripture has to be turned upside down and re-written into a deception so your construct can be 'right'? I suppose it really wasn't Satan doing all those things (Job 1:12, passim), it was your tinhorn calvinist god getting his sado-masochistic jollies and just saying it was Satan? Kind of "evil under a nom de'plum?"
Now, I presume you think Jesus the Son of God. Does it trouble you not at all that, in giving us the fullest and most accurate picture of the Nature of God ever known to mankind, He did not ever 'show His other side' -- you know, the good ol' sin and evil, construct god side? You know, torture and kill a million or two to demonstrate His glory? Maybe that part got ripped out of my Bible.
Frankly, I've never looked for it, because I would normally care less, but since you value Calvin above the Scripture: Does even good ol' construct Johnny ever claim that God is the source of all sin and evil? My impression is that he tried like the Devil (pun intended) to avoid the implications of his cruel 'doctrines'. But you have removed the deception. You revel in the sin and evil your calvinist god created, is that it?
And you were so blotted as to think my challenge to your co-religionists was "sarcasm". And your 'doctorate,' my dear, is in what? New age crystals?
"Choice" is not "work," which any schoolchild could correctly tell you, but no Calvinist can figure it out.
Hank
See, that is what you Calvinist are always doing sneaking in your own unbiblical definitions.
First, Rom.9 has nothing to do with individual salvation, but the fate of two peoples (nations) Israel and Edom
And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels, and the one people shall be stronger than the other people and the elder shall serve the younger(Gen.25).
Again, the scriptures refer to Esau,
And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness(Mal.1:3)
However, nowhere in Scripture is a choice considered a work.
Quite the contrary,
But to whom that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness (Rom.4:5)It is that faith that is a choice and it is not a work.
It isn't? You are funny.
The very definition of the word "choice" means "the act of choosing".
Definitions of the word "act" mean to make the effort to produce an effect: "work". To "engage in the process of doing something". To "take action".
Effort: "Work"
To engage in the act of choosing, then, is to engage in a work.
You are one confused dude.
Now, in spite of what you said which prompted my response in #39, you have reversed yourself.
You are now back to disagreeing with what God says in Romans 9, and instead are saying:
"It DOES, therefore depend on man's desire or effort (the act of choosing), not on God's mercy."
God (the potter) does NOT have the perogative to take his lump of clay and to elect (make) some of it for a noble purpose and some of it for common use.
Pretty crowded womb there dec...
There were two individuals that would indeed BECOME (predestined) nations..but first they were individuials..one of which God loved and the other he hated..
Rom 9:10 And not only [this]; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, [even] by our father Isaac;
Rom 9:11 (For [the children] being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)
No, it is not referring to the individuals but the nations, as the verse in Gen.25 makes very clear.
Moreover, just because it states in Rom 9 'before they did neither good or evil' doesn't mean that God did not foresee what each one would do with the inheritance,(Gen.25:34) thus, Esau was rejected and Israel accepted.
Just as the Davidic line was called while Sauls line rejected because God foresaw that Saul would reject Him. (1Sam15)
Rom 9:10 And not only [this]; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, [even] by our father Isaac; Rom 9:11 (For [the children] being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) PREDESTINATED You hate that don't you dec?
I hate how Calvinists missuse the term.
Nowhere does predestination ever refer to individual salvation.
It refers to inheritance,(Eph.1:11) adoption,(Eph.1:5) and being comformed to Christ's image (Rom.8:29)
Not one of those verses is referring to salvation, everyone is referring to a post-salvation result.
You have a cultic mentality.
You quote John 3:3 and take see to mean desire, totally bizarre!
'See' in the English language can mean to come to know, to understand, to be aware of, to discover hence, no one can see (i.e. understand, discover, understand) the Kingdom of God until they are born again.
Nowhere is see used for desire.
But, hey this is Calvinism we are talkng about so it doesn't have to make sense, just find a passage to squeeze into whatever shape you need.
So, just keep quoting your meaningless prove texts and keep telling yourself that Allah, I mean God is great!
Mal 1:2 I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? [Was] not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob,
Mal 1:3 And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness
The Jesuits love ya dec..you fight the reformation for them.
.Eph 1:5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
By the way, ftD --- Does God have the perogative as the self-proclaimed, "master potter", to make out of the same lump of clay (all of mankind) some pottery for noble purposes, and some for common use as he says in Romans 9:21?
Or do you think he doesn't claim that perogative over all peoples?
The fact is that Scripture points to a God that wants to share His love and happiness with men, not send them to a eternal, burning lake of fire (1Tim2:4)
Yes, if God were Satan He could think like a Calvinist, but since He isn't, He doesn't!
Getting back to the subject:
Does God have the perogative as the self-proclaimed, "master potter", to make out of the same lump of clay (all of mankind) some individuals for noble purposes, and some for common use as he says in Romans 9:21? Or do you think he doesn't claim that perogative over all peoples?
Wow: an actual admission that Biblical doctrines were, over time, gradually lost.
Score one for Joseph Smith and the Restored Gospel.
The health of the church today requires re-thinking on the issue of God's sovereignty. With semi-Pelagianism and Arminianism the norm rather than the exception in the modern church, the tough issues must once again be grappled with. There must be another reformation.
A reformation can never restore that which has been lost. What is truly needed is a restoration. And only God can bring about a restoration.
Perhaps this should start with a "rediscovery" of the doctrines of times long past.
More confirmation that important doctrines have been lost. Such blatant honesty is truly surprising. I guess he wasn't expecting any LDS readers.
Perhaps there must be a revival of reading ancient documents and treatises to discover the secrets long obscured.
That's a curious request, given how the author ends this essay: how does a revival of the reading of ancient documents and treatises square with the "sola scriptura" viewpoint? The author would appear to be appealing to extra-Biblical documents here.
The church must see its place in history through the light of the past. The author, however, does not speak now of that ancient light of St. Augustine, now dimmed and wearied with age. God continues to raise up new lights for the continual reformation of His church. The light now shining is not Augustine, but Martin Luther himself.
Is the author now claiming that the Christian world would be better off if Augustine hadn't muddied the waters?
Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Sola Scriptura, Soli Deo Gloria
But don't forget about searching those ancient manuscripts: it could be a real help.
Your wrenching diatribe can only be answered with a simple question. Whom or what do you think created sin and evil? Remember...
"We are by nature the children of wrath, dead in trespasses and sins." Ephesians 2:1-3
You diminish God by limiting Him. He's either God, or He's not.
God doesn't claim the 'perogative' to send most of His creation to the Lake of Fire because He is able to do so!
It was God's perogative to send His Son to die for His Creation (John 3:16)
If you Calvinists want to see what God thinks of His own rights read Phil.2:7-8,
but on second thought, why bother after all, what does the Bible have to do with Calvinism!
Mind if I use this from time to time with FR's Little Johnny Cochrane?
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