Featured Double Predestination

How on EARTH can God be active in salvation and passive in damnation? To save IS to free from damnation.

God passively lets sinners sin without interference from Himself? Blech!!

Cain and Abel were both sinners. Abel is a member of the roll call of the faithful in Hebrews 11 - ergo, we would call him "saved" or righteous however you understand that to work for Old Testament people. In other words, Abel will be in heaven.

Somewhere, somehow God was "active" in Abel's life - drawing him to Himself. Abel understood that and somewhere, somehow that we are not told of followed God.

God also drew Cain to Himself. He actively told Cain how to be "accepted". Not my words, the Bible's words.

• God warned Cain of sin in general and its threat.
• God warned Cain of his specific sins.
• God gave Cain the way of escape - "Do what is right; you must be the master over sin."

That doesn't sound passive to me.

 

The problem lies in the different understanding of the Sovereignty of God. I have tried several times to explain it as simply as I can but for some reason those who have an irrational hatred of what they (wrongly) call "Calvinism" don't seem willing or capable of understanding.

God is Sovereign. Period. If He is not Sovereign, He is not God. So, being Sovereign, everything that happens happens in His will. But His will is not unilaterally simplistic. His decretal will is absolute. What He decrees will come to pass without exception. But there is also His permissive will. He permits the sin and consequences for sin in mankind. It is not His will that man sin, and suffer the consequences, in the causative sense, but He allows it as a lesson for mankind regarding the consequences of sin.

And that is what Dr. Reymond is saying in the above quote, and it is what John Calvin is saying in the OP quote. All that happens falls under the Sovereignty of God, but we must have a deeper understanding of His will in order to understand that His will is two fold, that which He decrees to come to pass and that which He allows to come to pass.

When we come to understand the difference between His decretal will and His permissive will, the confusion goes away.

 

No. It is not what he said.

 

I think you may have misunderstood what is meant by "passive."

Was God incapable of saving Cain? Or was Cain's will stronger than God's?

Could God have saved Cain if He wanted to (active)? Or did He allow (passive) Cain to reject His direction?

 

Yes, it is. Your charge is without supporting evidence. Just you saying so is not evidence. Support your charge by pointing out what about his post causes you to believe it is a straw man argument.