Featured Cruel and unjust God?

Nice that the grace abounded towards the many, and not to the all!

 

I've read it many times, and I understand the passage just fine. It does no such thing. I am aware of why you think it does; after all, I used to hold to a Theology very much like yours. I even used to think that Adam's sin caused the weird change in man's constitution such that sin-guilt exists in male seed etc etc....even used to assume (as many do) that that was why the virgin birth was necessary. It was the strangest of ancient animistic perverse superstitions but, we are all humans after all and given to such things sometimes. But, although this passage is consistent with your Theology, it hardly proves it, and it does mine no damage, but is perfectly consistent with my view.

However, we seem to be side-tracking from your Original O.P.

It is neither cruel nor unjust for God to have saved absolutely no one.
I think few would disagree with that.

It would be unjust for God to condemn someone for the sins of another, however, which is why he does absolutely no such thing.
That is simple sanity.

 

That's a nice invention, but doesn't fit with

Gospel: "Whom He will, He hardeneth."

Carnal mind: "Then how can He find fault, His will was done?"

 

Right. And he told us, over and over, whom it is that he hardens: Israel.
And he told us, over and over, the cause: rejection of the Son of God.
And he told us, over and over, whey they reject him: because they follow the law of works, rather than faith in the Son.
Paul literally concludes Romans 9 with that - not with a mysterious apparently random eternal decree:

Rom 9:30 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith.
Rom 9:31 But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness.
Rom 9:32 Wherefore?
- Oh I know! I know! Because of God's eternal decree!
- No.
Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;
Rom 9:33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

P.S.

I told you that's how people on street often react when we preach to them. That's not invention. I wonder why it sounded like an "invention" to you.

 

Precisely where we differ.
I see nothing in Scripture which even implies that Adam passed on some inherently corrupted anything. I see no passage which teaches that humans were constitutionally altered in any way post the fall.
I used to believe that, and I understand why many/most still do believe that. I hardly begrudge them for thinking so.

But, referencing the thrust of your O.P. God would be cruel and unjust if:
1.) We inherit a nature which renders it impossible to avoid sinning i.e. non-posse non-peccarre
2.) God has no intention of providing a means of either mercy or salvation to all those inflicted with this genetic disease they never asked for, were unaware at birth they suffered from and can do nothing whatsoever about.....especially if that means being incapable of even responding to an appeal to grace if not preselected to be enabled.
3.) Under such circumstances, such a person should bewail that God ever created them inasmuch as his only purpose was to punish them for his own choice of creating them to be born in a state of utter helplessness they cannot escape from.

That is cruel and unjust.

It would be akin to punishing someone for being born with a genetic disorder. It is almost exactly the same. One is fundamentally moral, of course, but they are both purely genetic defects which the sufferer is not responsible for.

 

Antonios is clearly correct.
It is the thrust of the entire passage.
It is the cry of Jews who have rejected the gospel FIRST to God's graciously expanding the gospel to the gentiles. Frankly, Romans chapter 9 has little to nothing to do with Cal vs. Arm soteriology.
Taking that one verse and placing the verbiage of non-believing Jews into the mouths on gentile non-Calvinists is simply ridiculous. Paul was obviously talking about no such subject at all. Your sentence-fragment arguments ignore the context of Paul's intentions.
The entire argument chain Paul is engaged in covers from about chapters 5-11. Taking any one dependent clause out of one verse and creating an argument from it is irresponsible exegesis.

 

God has indeed made salvation available to all.

Firstly, He revealed Himself in creation so that all know He exists.

Second, based on that reality, all you have to do is respond to God’s revelation by loving Him with all your heart, mind, spirit and strength.

However, people desired evil instead of His love and all rejected God.

That God intervenes in the lives of those He has chosen and brought them into a saving relationship with Himself, demonstrates His mercy.

To twist this demonstration of mercy from God into an act of cruelty or His being unjust in the salvation of His creation is a horrid attack of God’s sovereignty and demonstrates a mind clouded with a human understanding and reason.

peace to you

 

Little sleight of hand there, most likely unintentional.

In Calvinism, that inability of even acknowledging one's sin, let alone calling on God for salvation, is the direct action of God. I.e. God so constituted the human race in Adam as to be unable to even acknowledge its state, let alone believe the gospel.
An illustration (and as all human illustrations, it won't be perfect, but it does the job) would be, due to the sin of an older brother, God injecting a younger brother with a drug which renders him unable to even understand his fallen condition, and unable to respond to God's call; then God calls that younger brother to see his condition and respond in faith to his call - and holds him responsible for not responding!

That doctrine is cruel and a slander of God of the worst kind. We don't deny that we inherited a fallen image prone to sin - but to say that the fall, nay, God himself, drugged us into inability to even believe, then holds us responsible for not believing - is Satanic.

So yeah, please represent the Calvinist position more accurately because "people desired evil instead of His love and all rejected God", as it stands, unqualified, sounds more like non-Calvinist free will, when in reality, the Calvinist position holds that God made men desire evil and only evil.

So this:

Is in fact this:

"However, God himself made people desire evil and God himself made people to reject him".

Now that, is indeed a twisted demonstration of mercy, as aptly described of Charles Wesley:
"O HORRIBLE DECREE
Worthy of whence it came!
Forgive their hellish blasphemy
Who charge it on the Lamb"

for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right - Job 42:7

 

You have not accurately stated the Calvinists position. God did not “make people desire evil and only evil”. I know of no one who holds that view.

If you cannot accurately state what someone else believes, meaningful discussion is impossible and not worth waisting time on.

peace to you

 

And yet in the denial, the actual mechanism which led us to an inability to believe was not explained. How convenient.

And yet in the denial, the actual mechanism which led us to an inability to believe was not explained. How convenient.

 

I literally said it was an illustration, and possibly an imperfect one at that:

If you want to discredit another's point, at least do it justly.

 

If I told you why people are unable to seek God would you be able to accurately repeat it? I’m not asking you to accept it or believe it, but just to accurately repeat what I believe?

I suspect, but don’t really know for sure, that you already know but just can’t bring yourself to accurately state the position. Wonder why?

peace to you

 

...still no explanation. I've love to hear, from a Calvinist, the explanation that cancels out the sovereignty of God over our inability to even recognize our sinful condition and simply believe good news.

 

I don’t consider myself a “Calvinist” because I don’t know a whole lot about the man.

I do agree with the doctrines of grace, one of which is the inability of a person to come to a saving relationship with God without God intervening in that person’s life.

That inability is caused by the corruption of human nature by the presence of sin, first in Adam and passed on to the entire human race: Not caused by God, but by Adam’s rebellion.

We can start there.

peace to you

 

Who set the parameters of the effect of that corruption? Not God?

 

The very nature of God’s holiness requires His separation from sin.

God acts according to His nature, holy and pure, just like people act according to their natures, corrupt and evil.

peace to you