Posted on 06/29/2013 2:31:49 AM PDT by Greetings_Puny_Humans
PING
If Calvinist (double) predestination is true how can they choose to brook any differently?
Absent the regenerating work of The Lord on the dead depraved hearts of the elect, no one would brook God’s way of salvation. Men don’t understand grace and they don’t like grace.
Men dead in trespasses and sin instinctively believe they can fix themselves. If they could only understood the absolute holiness of God they would begin to see the utter futility of their works-based system, the folly of their self-salvation project. If they understood that the best they can possibly do, according to the prophet Isaiah, is nothing but “filthy rags” they might begin to understand their soul’s peril. Christ came to seek and save the lost. Most men don’t really believe they are lost. They don’t consider themselves sinners. They might admit they make mistakes, but they don’t see themselves as all that bad. They aren’t afflicted over their sin, they don’t perceive their deep need. In other words, they aren’t “poor in spirit.”
And God need not predestinate any sinner to hell. Death is the just wage of sin.
I edited what I was saying and failed to proofread. I should have deleted the word “could.” That one sentence should start...”If they only understood...” Pardon any typos, tense confusion or other errors. I struggle with this iPad.
If I’m understanding you, the answer to my question is he cannot.
If that’s true what is the purpose of the sermon?
“If that’s true what is the purpose of the sermon?”
Probably because the same God who ordained some to eternal life, and some to reprobation, also ordained that the elect would be gathered through the preaching of the Word.
Why so many different sermons? Does the message matter in this purpose?
“Why so many different sermons? Does the message matter in this purpose?”
Just because those who are “ordained to eternal life, believe” (Acts 13:48) doesn’t mean that they all come to saving faith in the same exact way. The illustrious Matthew Henry, in his commentary on John, tells the story of a young man who was wonderfully changed upon merely reading the words “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” despite a lifetime of sin. Paul was converted on the road to Damascus. Those Gentiles in Acts 13:48 heard the Gospel through the particular preaching of the Apostles. How exactly we are brought, and how we are brought, and under what circumstances, are all in the hands of the God who “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will (Eph 1:11).
Wouldn’t the elect be the elect no matter what the sermon?
“Wouldn’t the elect be the elect no matter what the sermon?”
Certainly!
The sermon doesn’t matter then.
“The sermon doesn’t matter then.”
Certainly not, except in how God uses it.
If you don’t post it, wouldn’t God use something else if needed?
The elect are still elect even if you don’t post it, yes?
“The elect are still elect even if you don’t post it, yes?”
Certainly, but I must correct you in the usage of this word. Election is merely God’s plan from eternity to save a person (which occurs in time), so in that sense they are always elect. This plan also isn’t simply limited to salvation, but also to “show the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory” (Rom 9:23).
The plan of God is to show His love for us, His hatred of sin, and to declare His glory throughout all the Earth. I think what you’re trying to say is that election implies that Gospel preaching isn’t necessary, but Election merely implies God’s immutable and irresistible plan from eternity to reveal His Son to a person, and accomplish all His other goals, in time.
I’m interested in how one holds the concept of making choices with the concept that all choices are predetermined at the same time. It seems to be a life of cognitive dissonance as well as lacking in meaning.
“I’m interested in how one holds the concept of making choices with the concept that all choices are predetermined at the same time. It seems to be a life of cognitive dissonance as well as lacking in meaning.”
This assumes that your idea of “free-will” actually exists. None of the Reformers ever denied that mankind has a “will,” and the scripture does not say we have no will either. But, it certainly isn’t a “free” will, as it is either described as being under bondage to sin, taken in “the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will” (2 Tim 2:26) or held captive in the will of God who “works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Php 2:13). So to even utter the phrase “free will” is ridiculous. It is a mere figment of the imagination, an illusion projected by a corrupt nature that does not know itself. So you say that your life can have no meaning unless you have a free-will that simply doesn’t exist. In that case, you should, perhaps, find a new meaning for your life instead of fables!
The Reformists who fought against the Papal empire did not teach that we are brought to God by compulsion, kicking and screaming, or that we reject God by compulsion, but rather by mere necessity. And by this we mean, as Luther explains it, “for Will, whether divine or human, does what it does, be it good or evil, not by any compulsion but by mere willingness or desire, as it were” (Luther, On the Bondage of the Will, Sec. 10). It is God who has “given us an heart to know Him,” and with this heart we desire to “return unto God with our whole heart” (Jer 24:7). So we are not, by compulsion, made to act, but we act willingly, though this will is given to us by a new nature, which wars with our old one. And while the providence of God is absolute, so that our every step is ordained, yet we make these steps willingly, which in the case of sin is by permission for to teach us, and limited in its results by the will of God, or in the case of good works, worked within us, so that we by necessity should do them.
Thought experiment:
Assume, for the purpose of argument, it is possible to demonstrate that you have free will. If it were demonstrated to you that you had free will, would you accept it?
“If it were demonstrated to you that you had free will, would you accept it?”
If you wish to do this, to keep it from being merely arguing by assertion, you must first define “what it is, what its parts are, what is contrary to it, connected with it, and like unto it,” as Luther asked of Erasmus. So that we, at least, know what it is you are actually arguing for, and whether what you argue for can exist even in your own universe. I’ll warn you now, not even Erasmus could give a definition that made any sense.
But as to “would you accept it?” That’s like saying, “would you accept that the moon is made of cheese if it could be proved so?” Well, I won’t say I won’t engage with you, but I can’t say I’ll ever be able to believe something I know is wrong.
Whether or not it is demonstrable is not the point. It is whether you would accept it or not if it were demonstrated to you.
Assuming it is possible, if it were demonstrated to you that you had free will, would you accept it?
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