Does God Love Every Individual Person in the Same Manner?

Hmmm... If God requires Israel to do what is right in His eyes in Exodus:

There the LORD made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, [26] saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer.” (Exodus 15:25b–26 ESV)
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And if the sinfulness of Israel is expressed in Judges as everyone did what was right in His own eyes:

[6] In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. (Judges 17:6 ESV)
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Then it is demonstrated that you are simply wrong.

Man-centered reasoning is at the heart of all man's sinfulness. Romans 1 also makes this clear.

The Archangel

 

You are referring to the noetic effects of sin....
That is the status of (among other things) willful ignorance. It is the atheist in self-delusion for instance. No one denies the reality of that.
The problem is, the Calvinist often uses that non-phrase as a foil to simply dismiss and argument out of hand when their logic is exposed or when someone demonstrates their argument to be fallacious etc....
But "human-centered-reasoning" just simply means nothing in a vacuum.

It is used often to simply dismiss reasonable arguments in an attempt to suggest their deeper piety of the Determinist view.
It's nonsense.

 

In essence, why not?

Exactly....he only "hates" them inasmuch as they DO EVIL. What you are doing is denying the possibility of repentance. If an evil-doer repents, they are by definition no longer an evil-doer...they can only repent inasmuch as Christ died for his enemies. While we were still enemies, while evil-doers were still his enemies, Christ died for them.....
Because he loves THEM.
A man is not synonymous with what he does.

Translation: I simply willfully deny obvious truth of Scripture....("Man-centered-reasoning" no doubt)....
because we are not as wonderfully pious as the Calvinist with their "God-centered reasoning".. blah blah blah...
That's a fresh argument

But not because he decided from eternity pass to simply hate them.
They do what he hates, and his wrath then, his hate directs itself towards the person.[/QUOTE]

 

And, what your view is doing is implying God only essentially loves his own children.....just like the EVIL do.

But God is better than evil men. God is love.
God sent his only begotten Son so that we who were not his children could be adopted as sons and daughters and BECOME co-heirs with Christ.

 

So then, by your own admission above, the phrase isn't non-sense. There are times, though, it may not apply.

Even so, why do you limit the effects of sin to the intellectual or mental realm when the Bible clearly describes the effects of sin to be total? For instance, the pain women feel in childbirth isn't theoretical. The ground having to be worked by the sweat of the brow of man isn't merely a feeling. The idea expressed by Paul "In Adam all die" referring to his sin isn't some type of ideological fiction. The entirety of man, not just his mental faculties bears the affects of sin. If not, why are there diseases that people can and do get even though they've done nothing to bring on those diseases (ex. A non-smoker who gets lung cancer)? If the effects of sin are only noetic, why does all creation groan under the curse of God?

You mean like how people on your side retreat to nonsense labels like "Determinist" when you can't deal with a reasoned argument from scripture and, therefore, dismiss it? Yeah, thought so.

The Archangel

 

Because then your definition of love is woefully inadequate. If you define the love of God in the same way you've defined "hate," then it is only related to a person's circumstances, not the person himself. If that is your view, as you've expressed it above, then it is you who have a woefully inadequate view of the love of God. We argue that God loves us personally, as individuals, and corporately, as the church, not in some superficial way where he give mere "prosperity" or good circumstances.

The problem here is that we are not counted as evil because of what we do; rather we demonstrate the evil inside us when we sin. Jesus Himself said

[17] Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? [18] But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. [19] For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. [20] These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.” (Matthew 15:17–20 ESV)​

Clearly, Jesus says the heart contains evil. Evil is what we are, not what we do.

In what way have I ever denied the possibility (or the reality) of repentance?

I'm not the one who claimed God hated actions, not people. I merely pointed out the text of Psalm 5, which clearly states that God hates "those...," and are people. They may be people who do evil, surely, but He does hate people. And, getting back to the Matthew 15 passage above, the heart is the repository of evil, so how can it be said that man is not "evil?"

You're denying the very grammar of scripture because it contradicts you.

Why would you assume I'm arguing that God decided from eternity past to hate anyone?

The Archangel

 

Who or what are the other Elohim?

 

This entire discussion to me seems to involve with someone trying to show that it is just not fair to grant God the means to love just His own elect in a different way than he does all of his creations, as somehow we allow ourselves the right to love and hate, and yet we cannot "permit" God to do the same?
Does the creation really have the right to subject the Lord to run things the way that we would see as being the "better way?"

 

This entire discussion to me seems to involve with someone trying to show that it is just not fair to grant God the means to love just His own elect in a different way than he does all of his creations, as somehow we allow ourselves the right to love and hate, and yet we cannot "permit" God to do the same?
Does the creation really have the right to subject the Lord to run things the way that we would see as being the "better way?"

 

[/QUOTE]
God loves His own elected/Covenant people in the same fashion Jesus stated that we must hate our parents and love Him... A Degree of love is implied here, as God can love all persons, and yet reserve the highest form of that just for His own chosen people!

 

When I put my children in bed at night I told them that, "Jesus loves them". So sad to think the Calvinist can not do the same. At least not honestly since their belief seems to be God only loves the specially pre-selected elect and they don't know the status of their children.

 

Are you suggesting a Calvinist suddenly becomes openly transparent with adults when delivering the gospel about the "fact" that God may not love them being the vast majority of people in His creation have not been specially pre-selected for His election affection? IOWs exactly when (at what age) does a Calvinist come clean with the "now, rest of the story"?

 

Because Paul gives specific instructions that we ought or examine ourselves before receiving communion.

 

You don't need to use qualifers -i.e "pre-selected"--they are redundancies. Just use the word elect.

 

Your statement merely fallaciously begs the question, while demonstrating Determinist delusion, that pre-selection and election are synonymous.

 

Now, aside from the attempt at a red herring, perhaps you'd like to answer the question about the transparency/or lack there of within the Calvinist gospel and God's love? For children or adults if you can follow and stick to the subject back that far...

"When I put my children in bed at night I told them that, "Jesus loves them". So sad to think the Calvinist can not do the same. At least not honestly since their belief seems to be God only loves the specially pre-selected elect and they don't know the status of their children."

"Are you suggesting a Calvinist suddenly becomes openly transparent with adults when delivering the gospel about the "fact" that God may not love them being the vast majority of people in His creation have not been specially pre-selected for His election affection?"

 

Actually you had said specially pre-selected elect. I don't know why you have to repeat the obvious. That one word --elect conveys in itself all your extras.

Of course the elect were especially selected. That's why they are called the elect. But pre-selected is an interesting word choice. They were selected. But "pre-selected" ? They were indeed selected before the creation of the world. Do you think that is unjust of the Lord?! Would you rather have him do the electing after the world was founded? Sorry, you can't make rules for the way God does things.