There is at issue something you ignore. It happens at the very begining of the bible. That issue is simply "God made man in his image" And later exlaimed "it is good". Now man makes a bad decision and corrupts his nature and the nature of the world. Question does this change the fact that God made man in his image and that God's image is good? No. It does give man the conquisipence towards sin and makes nature degrade. Now look at nature is it all bad? Or is it totally Depraved? No. In fact there are good and bad elements both in nature. And so it is with man. Man observably holds both good and evil characteristics. That he prefers to choose evil over good is a result of his nature. The occassion that he chooses good over evil evidence his initial creation of being made in God's image. Thus total depravity is not observable in nature nor is it observable in human behavior. "Even the wicked give good gifts to their children". Thus is the human condition. Now if God presents himself to me I can have one of two reactions acceptance or rejection. Therefore God doesn't force us to choose him as in your hypercalvinistic view. We are not robots and neither does God expect us to behave in this manner. Thus we cannot judge against God for the non elect because they put themselves in Hell. Otherwise its God who has elected them to that destiny.
GE:
What is very good about this post of yours, is that it is a pithy and nearly full statement of belief as concerns ‘free will’ religion.
Therefore,
Re:
“There is at issue something you ignore. It happens at the very beginning of the bible. That issue is simply "God made man in his image" And later exclaimed "it is good". Now man makes a bad decision and corrupts his nature and the nature of the world.”
GE:
Man not only “makes a bad decision and corrupts his nature and the nature of the world.” Man makes a FATAL decision, brings DEATH upon himself and the whole world— eternal damnation of GOD’s Decree!
Re:
“Question does this change the fact that God made man in his image and that God's image is good? No.”
GE:
‘Fact’ is, the ‘corruption’ wherewith man in his then recent created innocent state by FREE ‘decision’ had corrupted himself, was TOTAL as to the sinless perfection required to UNDO his, by own fatal decision, corruption. Man FORFEITED COMPLETELY the ‘good image’ of God in which God had created him. ‘TOTAL depravity’!
Spiritually / character-wise / in and by nature, man CHANGED (himself) from “very good” and sinless, to TOTALLY vitiated / perverted and worse: to “depraved” and robbed and stripped of ALL (remaining) ‘good’ or life. Man’s was a “corruptibility” TO NO ‘CONTACT-POINT’ LEFT, irreversible and eternal. In a word, man’s ‘nature’, was ‘corrupted’ and ‘depraved’ unto DEATH! …unto death of ALL the posterity of Adam, were it not for the ‘particular’ interest in the redemption of his elect which GOD IN HIS OWN and ETERNAL COUNCIL HAD HAD PURPOSED, AND HAD HAD READY in and through Jesus Christ. (No ‘crisis management’ with God!)
Re:
“In fact there are good and bad elements both in nature. And so it is with man. Man observably holds both good and evil characteristics.”
GE:
Yes; "Even the wicked give good gifts to their children". Economics and industry flourished despite the fall. “They made themselves aprons” for comfort and appearance. The sciences and arts boomed. “The woman saw that the fruit was good for food and pleasant to the eye.” His innovative disposition yielded man “observable good”.
But ‘good characteristics’ ‘held’ and all, nothing could lift man from the pit of hell he has already thrown himself into.
Re:
“That he [man] prefers to choose evil over good is a result of his nature.”
GE:
Correct! Absolutely right you are “That [man] prefers to choose evil over good…” “… PREFERS to choose”! Preference and choice are the perimeters and limits of natural man’s freedom; and his ‘freedom’ is the perimeter and limitation of natural man’s preferences and choices. As “a result of his nature”— FALLEN ‘nature’, man shall ALWAYS “prefer to choose evil over good”.
Re:
“The occasion that he chooses good over evil evidence(s) (man’s) initial creation of being made in God's image.
GE:
Calvinism says the opposite. Calvinism holds that unregenerate man ALWAYS and NECESSARILY “prefers to choose evil over good”, and that his ‘preference’ is the “result of his” fallen, corrupted and totally depraved “nature”.
Calvinism further says the opposite, and maintains that “The occasion that (man) chooses good over evil”, “evidences” man’s REGENERATION and his being recreated and made new through the Holy Spirit in God's image in Christ— it does NOT “evidence (man’s) initial creation of being made in God's image” in the beginning, because that ‘initial image’ which man at his creation received of God, he has through his FALL for ever, totally and irretrievably LOST. LOST… unless regained FOR him IN CHRIST his Substitute.
Re:
“Thus total depravity is not observable in nature nor is it observable in human behavior.”
GE:
Which to assert simply is the contradiction and denial of the Scriptural and observable truth that total depravity is obvious in the mortality and sinful behaviour of every and all men. “Thus is the human condition” of mankind without exception.
Re:
“Now if God presents himself to me I can have one of two reactions acceptance or rejection.”
GE:
That is what you think; or thought; until you learned otherwise by everyday experience. Until you learned no man is Hercules at the crossroads; and that the strongest and most clever cannot by his shoelaces lift himself.
Re:
“Therefore God doesn't force us to choose him as in your hypercalvinistic view.”
GE:
“…as in your [my] hypercalvinistic view”?
You do not know nor understand the real Calvinistic “view”!
Re:
“God doesn't force us … We are not robots and neither does God expect us to behave in this manner.”
GE:
Yes! Had we free will though, God would have had no option than to “force us”. “We ARE not robots” that do things ‘automatically’ without preference or inclination or own will or feeling or emotion or love like even unregenerate, ‘natural’, man, has, towards evil. So God would have to force us because of our wicked and rebellious spirit.
Yes, God does not work like that with us, his children. He rather takes from the same lump of rebels and haters of God, clay, and forms it into his liking, and breathes life into it, and loves the works of his hands and takes pleasure in it.
Re:
“Thus we cannot judge against God for the non elect because they put themselves in Hell. Otherwise its God who has elected them to that destiny.”
GE:
Again, yes, “… we cannot judge against God”. Non the less “the non elect” did NOT “put themselves in Hell.” Adam and Eve fell for the devil’s LIE that they would not die. They thought they opted for life; but they were deceived. They thought they put themselves ‘in heaven’, but were surprised they were NAKED. And God was proved the One who spoke the truth, because God COMMANDED: “The day you eat therefore you SHALL / MUST, die!” It is God who puts the unrepentant, unregenerate wicked, according to His Law, in hell …hell which God had had prepared and had had ready for the devil and his wicked ones.
No crisis government with God!
