Featured Ezekiel 3 Debunks "Election"

By election, of course, I am referring to the Reformed/Calvinist view of election, that God has elected all who will be saved, the list is made up and determined, those elected can not resist, and man has no free will and no choice in the matter.

Ezekiel 3 disagrees.

18 When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.

19 Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.

20 Again, When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling-block before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand.

21 Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul.

This passage makes it clear that the watchman would be blamed if a sinner died in their sin because of the watchman's failure to warn him. This shows that a sinner has a choice and can respond to warnings given to choose life or choose death.

If God had predetermined the sinners salvation, it would be IMPOSSIBLE for Ezekiel to have written this. If the sinner's salvation is already predetermined, then there could be no possibility that his salvation could be jeopardized because of a watchman failing to give him a warning, he would be saved whether the watchman warns him or not.

Calvinism holds that God controls the salvation as well as the means (i.e., the witnesses presentation of the gospel, and the sinners response) but yet if God controls the MEANS than how could there be a failure on the part of the witness to warn the sinner? so much that God requires the sinners blood at the witnesses hand? This clearly indicates that the sinner COULD HAVE been saved had it not been for the witnesses lack of diligence. Yet there are no "could have beens" in Calvinism: you are either elect or you are not.

This one passage (among many) completely annihilates the Calvinist view of predestination and election.

 

Before I get to the rest of your post, I want to address this first because I've noticed a pattern in several posts now. I don't know what makes you think that every thread I start or every post I make is about some position that YOU hold. I don't know if you noticed, but there really are other Calvinists in the world. If YOU don't hold to this view of election, then YOU are not really a Calvinist and it is not YOUR view that is being addressed.

Perhaps you believe that you have created some hybrid form of middle ground minder determinism, and that your view is unique to the rest of Calvinism, but rest assured I don't dig through your posts to find out exactly and specifically what I think YOU believe in order to address views held generally by all Calvinists/Reformers etc... Thus it is pretty erroneous to begin a response with "This is a perversion of MY position".

And if you are going to cut and paste that same response over and over, correct the "coecion" because it's a dead give-away.

 

Non Sequitur since this is not about OSAS and OSAS is something that I rigorously defend.

This is a terrible rebuttal that ignores the plain reading of the text. How could God "providentially" bring a witness to the sinner, and then be accused at the same time of failing to warn him? It can't be BOTH at the same time. It salvation AND means are all part of salvation, then not only would God have to determine the salvation of the sinner but the very presentation of the gospel would have to be determined as well and there's no way that the witness could resist presenting the gospel.

God's reaction to the witness who fails to warn shows clearly that the means of delivery by that particular witness where said means and salvation or even a preordained rejection thereof were determined by God. And again, being held accountable for failing to warn them clearly shows that the sinner COULD HAVE been saved.

Once again, you are reading something into the OP that was not said. The issue was not about justice, it is about election and predestination. Now I COULD argue from the justice perspective on this, but that's not the issue.

Claiming that God will simply "use someone else" defies common sense. God held a SPECIFIC person accountable for their failure to warn meaning that that particular witnesses was appointed to deliver the good news and did not. That totally debunks the determinist view that God determines the means by a divinely appointed witness because as you have erroneously interpreted Isaiah 55:11 "my word will not return to me void", that witness SHOULD HAVE been successful in at least ATTEMPTING to warn the sinner since his mission was "divinely appointed". If the means are divinely elected, then the witness can not resist his mission anymore than the sinner can resist salvation.

Now you are adding to the word of God. There is nothing in this text that excuses the witness on the grounds of "RESPONSIBLE" use of means. Therefore OF COURSE any argument as such would be omitted because it's a self-made caricature that you have added to the equation.

You are creating an erroneous unfounded excuse for the failure of the witness to follow through on what SHOULD HAVE been a divinely appointed presentation of the gospel. Yet here's the major problem with your argument here:

IT CAN ONLY BE AN EXCUSE IF THE WITNESS ACTUALLY ATTEMPTED TO PRESENT THE GOSPEL.

Your argument against the RESPONSIBLE USE of means implies that the witness actually attempted to USE something which shifts the argument to the HOW of presentation instead of the witness failure to present the gospel AT ALL. Ezekiel's text here is not about HOW the issue was presented, for even a person who preaches Christ "of contention" can still be successful (Phil 1:14-18) yet that is not what this passage is about-it is about the witness failing to utilize ANY MEANS and warn the sinner AT ALL.

First sentence is redundant and has already been addressed above.
But, there is a difference in "predestinating responsible use" and the command to simply do so. Matthew 5:16 says "let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven". It is not just means but our own attitudes that can cause others to turn from the gospel, and that is not even possible if the person is elected. But, as I have just shown, this passage is not about being accountable for responsible means because the contention that God has is that the person used NO MEANS at all, THAT is why their blood is required at their hands, because they failed to use ANY means, not that they failed to use them RESPONSIBLY.

Now you change the argument from "a perversion of MY position" to one of "Here you pervert OUR position on the will". This makes a nice convenient rebuttal when you want to attempt a refutation of areas that you disagree with Calvinists in general on while attempting to continue arguing against the whole. You take tidbits of rebuttals that you consider unique to YOUR position, and then attempt to bootstrap YOUR view as an attack against my posts against Calvinism in general. That is a very deceitful tactic, but unfortunately for you I caught on to it.

This is a failure to understand paradox. It is only a paradox when the apparent contradiction has an adequate explanation. Here, yours does not because your entire response is based on a caricature that has nothing to do with the initial argument. Your caricature is based upon accountability for means where Ezekiel 3 shows that NO MEANS WERE USED ANYWHERE which is PRECISELY what the witness is being judged for. You attempted to shift the facts of the argument into something that the text does not raise, and then attacked your own caricature and then claimed you have refuted the premise, and have failed to address the actual argument raised in the OP which clearly CONTRADICTS the Calvinist view of predestination and election.

 

First of all, I am not an Arminian AT ALL, and never claimed to be such. But, I actually know what Arminius really believed because I have studied him and actually read his writings which I can certainly say that many Calvinists have not. You have not even addressed all the different positions of Arminianism (there are actually THREE primary views of thought among Arminians, and then their subfolders, and you have not even given an accurate description of the 2 you listed). If you were to admit that I am not an Arminian "AT ALL" you would have FINALLY gotten the point of something I have said over and over on this forum-I am not an Arminian.:BangHead: DUH!!

And once again, you are presuming quite selfishly I might add that I should be addressing YOUR position as if you represent the whole of Calvinist thought. I would actually contend that you don't quite have an accurate grasp on all of Calvinist thought because you only occasionally get something right when attempting to defend a charge against Calvinism.

I did not write this thread with the title, "Ezekiel 3 Refutes Biblicist" so you really need to get over yourself.

 

I disagree with all 5 points of TULIP. Eternal Security (which I believe) is not the same as Perseverance of the Saints which is why I reject it. I would say there are some Calvinist camps that believe in eternal security AND perseverance of the saints, but the 2 are not the same. The traditional Calvinist view of perseverance of the saints is commonly MISUNDERSTOOD as PRESERVATION. The traditional view of perseverance is that God causes the believer to persevere in belief until the end and that is NOT eternal security. Eternal Security is that God justifies the believer solely on the work of Christ alone and that when ones faith is placed in Christ he is declared judicially righteous before God and the evidence and assurance of his salvation does not depend on any external evidence of performance but on the written promise of God that "ye may KNOW that ye have eternal life". Perseverance of the saints, on the other hand, is based on performance which is why the Calvinist explanation for backsliding is the excuse that "they were probably never saved in the first place".

The perseverance of the saints in TULIP ultimately leads to Arminianism because assurance of salvation is dependent upon works which is why I therefore disagree with all 5 points of TULIP.

Calvinists use the common ground of T and P to cause others to reject "Arminianism" by default. However, most Calvinists only explain T far enough to get the person to agree with only HALF of depravity without explaining inability. Both depravity and inability go hand in hand in T in TULIP. This is why most Non Calvinist are considered at least 1 or 2 point TULIPERS because they don't understand what the Calvinist actually means by Total Depravity and Perseverance of the Saints.

 

I would like to see how many Calvinist/Reformers etc.. disagree with the following:

"In this state of free will of man towards the True Good is not only maimed, wounded, bent, weakened, infirm; but it is also imprisoned, destroyed, and lost: And its powers are not only debilitated and useless unless they be assisted by grace, but it has no powers whatever except such as are excited by Divine grace".