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Does God Ordain Everything That Takes Place?

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DaveXR650

DaveXR650

Well-Known Member
Silverhair said:
God is sovereign and if in His sovereignty He wants to give man the free will to sin or to choose to trust in Christ Jesus for his salvation then who are you oh man to disagree with Him
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This is a good point too and I didn't mean to ignore it. Generally it is thought that Adam had a free will in a different way than we do now. Your reasoning there is a popular way of looking at it but it is an incorrect leap to say if Adam was created with a free will then we now have the same exact free will. It works if you have a belief system that minimizes or denies the Fall as being an event that directly effects us as people.
 
timtofly

timtofly

Well-Known Member
SavedByGrace said:
In another thread, I asked if the present crisis in Ukraine, was "ordained" by God, as He is said to ALL things according to Reformed theololgy.

This is what @Iconoclast said:

"Yes it does. Think about the attributes of God. Can an all knowing God, not know?
Nothing can happen or move randomly outside of God decreeing it to do so.
God does not make Putin do evil.
Putin's self will acts according to his own fallen, unregenerate, nature.
SBG....we believe God is Holy,just,and good.
His perfect means He cannot increase or diminish...or He would not be Perfect.
Does that help.
God restrained Abimelech, by way of a dream...but let Hitler bring horrendous violence...like the Assaryians in Isa.10

To "ordain" means that God would "cause" what happens in our world. Both terms go together.

God is ALL KNOWING (Omniscience), but this does not mean that He is the actual "cause", of everything in our world.

For reasons that are not disclosed to our finite minds in the Infinite Word of God, God does "allow", but not "cause", even evil in this world. And does indeed many times use it to bring good.

In the present situation in Ukraine, where this Sovereign country has been INVADED by the Russian leader, Putin, who is murdering many people, and forcing them to subject themselves to his rule. How far do we say that God has "ordained", or "caused" this atrocious behavior, by this wicked man?

How can The Holy God of the Bible, be directly responsible for "causing" these acts?
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Ordain does not mean cause to happen. Ordain means to make a decree. You are thinking of pre-ordain. That means it will happen and nothing a human could do, could stop it.

The birth of Jesus, and the day of the Cross was pre-ordained. No human and not even Satan could stop those events from happening. Wars are not pre-ordained nor ordained by God in general.

When God declares a hook is placed in the mouth of a leader, I think that God is referring to how Satan overthinks a situation, and Satan brings about God's Will the same as if God decreed it. We still have Job as our example. God did not pre-ordain nor exactly ordain the nature of Job's troubles. God let Satan choose, and God was still ordaining Satan's choices.

Satan has always been the hook to get humans in trouble. Humans have always been free to handle Satan's hook on their own terms. God allows Satan to act. A slight difference than decreeing Satan to rebel, or decreeing humankind to live wicked sinful lives.

God allows wars, but has also decreed them. When Israel marched around Jericho, and captured that city. When God told Israel to drive out the inhabitants of the promised land. Even much later God decreed the enemies of Israel to wipe out Israel because of Israel's own wickedness. All the way from Assyria to Rome. All done simply because Israel refused to repent and turn to God.


A God ordained war would be to bring an end to sin of His people, or to end sin via His people. His people being Israel herself.
 
SavedByGrace

SavedByGrace

Well-Known Member
timtofly said:
Ordain does not mean cause to happen. Ordain means to make a decree. You are thinking of pre-ordain. That means it will happen and nothing a human could do, could stop it.

The birth of Jesus, and the day of the Cross was pre-ordained. No human and not even Satan could stop those events from happening. Wars are not pre-ordained nor ordained by God in general.

When God declares a hook is placed in the mouth of a leader, I think that God is referring to how Satan overthinks a situation, and Satan brings about God's Will the same as if God decreed it. We still have Job as our example. God did not pre-ordain nor exactly ordain the nature of Job's troubles. God let Satan choose, and God was still ordaining Satan's choices.

Satan has always been the hook to get humans in trouble. Humans have always been free to handle Satan's hook on their own terms. God allows Satan to act. A slight difference than decreeing Satan to rebel, or decreeing humankind to live wicked sinful lives.

God allows wars, but has also decreed them. When Israel marched around Jericho, and captured that city. When God told Israel to drive out the inhabitants of the promised land. Even much later God decreed the enemies of Israel to wipe out Israel because of Israel's own wickedness. All the way from Assyria to Rome. All done simply because Israel refused to repent and turn to God.


A God ordained war would be to bring an end to sin of His people, or to end sin via His people. His people being Israel herself.
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See #113
 
timtofly

timtofly

Well-Known Member
AustinC said:
When God spoke to Moses he proclaimed these words.

Exodus 4:11

Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?

I get so very tired of the christian who, in his questioning, makes God in his own image purely because he cannot fathom a God who allows evil to be the means by which God's plan is enacted.
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This is like asking which came first: God's plan of Salvation, the Atonement, or God creating Satan?

The Atonement came first, then Satan. The Atonement was not a knee jerk reaction from God's foreknowledge of what happened after Satan was created.

But did God purposely create Satan a certain way as a knee jerk reaction to the Atonement that was already planned? No! God created angels with the ability to think and reason, but not the ability to act on that reasoning. God also knew He would also allow Satan certain leeway at certain times.
 
SavedByGrace

SavedByGrace

Well-Known Member
timtofly said:
This is like asking which came first: God's plan of Salvation, the Atonement, or God creating Satan?

The Atonement came first, then Satan. The Atonement was not a knee jerk reaction from God's foreknowledge of what happened after Satan was created.

But did God purposely create Satan a certain way as a knee jerk reaction to the Atonement that was already planned? No! God created angels with the ability to think and reason, but not the ability to act on that reasoning. God also knew He would also allow Satan certain leeway at certain times.
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We are here addressing whether the Bible teaches that God ordains everything that ever happens

The so called Reformed confessions say yes. This is not taught ANYWHERE in the Bible

These confessions actually say that God was PLEASED with the fall of Adam and Eve
 
I

Iconoclast

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
DaveXR650 said:
This is a good point too and I didn't mean to ignore it. Generally it is thought that Adam had a free will in a different way than we do now. Your reasoning there is a popular way of looking at it but it is an incorrect leap to say if Adam was created with a free will then we now have the same exact free will. It works if you have a belief system that minimizes or denies the Fall as being an event that directly effects us as people.
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This statement is clearer.
 
SavedByGrace

SavedByGrace

Well-Known Member
Mikey said:
Inconoclast was obviously talking about churches like Hillsong and Elevation. Where the church service is a concert with flashing lights, smoke machines etc. Not what happens Alistair Begg's church. So stop being facetious.:Rolleyes
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All Pentecostal churches are not heretical. I attend one here in the UK and it is both Bible and Christ centered
 
timtofly

timtofly

Well-Known Member
KenH said:
God can ordain sin without being the Author of sin. We are depraved through and through. Even the Law was given to make sin exceed what it already was - Romans 7:13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
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Except being an "Author of" is the same as "decreeing". A decree is the letter of authorship. Sin is not really a created "thing". Sin as "entering the world" or "outside the door" is metaphorical of the result of disobedience or rebellion against God's decree ie laws inherent in creation. Even disobedience and rebellion are not created. They are the results of going against God’s creation. Humans are not creating in opposition to God. Nor is opposition to God created by God either. In God's allowance and Sovereign nature God Himself allows disobedience and rebellion, but not as a creation of His creation. "The outcome" is based on knowing something is evil that does go against God’s decreed or ordained creation. So the outcome is not what is decreed. The outcome is God allowing freedom to work in His creation even if that freedom allows for disobedience or evil. Is freedom itself created?

Or did God already have a free will that would never go against God’s own nature, but in creation certainly would. God still created mankind with the freedom to go against God’s very nature. Otherwise there would be no freedom allowed to begin with. While creation was certainly sustained by God, creation itself was not God.

By that fact alone creation would be free to rebel and disobey resulting in choices against God’s very nature.
 
P

percho

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Iconoclast said:
No...He could not have.
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I agree and here is why I do so. I believe the rebellion (sin) of the devil preceded the creation of man in the image of his Creator.

Seeing, then, the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself also in like manner did take part of the same, that through (the) death he might destroy him having the power of (the) death -- that is, the devil -- Heb 2:14

Before the foundation of the world that was going to be the means by which God was going to destroy the devil and his works. That would also save (Redeem) the man created in the image of his Creator.

Also if the first man does not bring sin and the death to man, then, that man, would not need to be redeemed, and the devil could not be destroyed through the death, because the first man brought forth his righteousness through the work of the law; Thou shall not eat of it. However that law was weak because Adam had been created of flesh with the soul of the flesh in the blood. <Rom 8:3 Lev 17:11)

1 John 3:8 he who is doing the sin, of the devil he is, because from the beginning the devil doth sin; for this was the Son of God manifested, (As the children of Adam, flesh and blood) that he may break up (Through, the death) the works of the devil;

We had best let God be God and do the saving according to his will. IMHO


What say ye? Is the above according to the Word or not? Adam did exactly as God created him because of the sin of the devil who needed to be destroyed? ???
 
Mikey

Mikey

Active Member
SavedByGrace said:
NEVER determined. It is against His Holy Nature
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God foresaw that sin, chose not to prevent it from happening, therefore he determined (not caused) that sin would happen. That there was no possibility of that sin not from happening.

Explain why you disagree, SPECIFICALLY!! Don't just reply with general termsand rhetoric
 
I

Iconoclast

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
SavedByGrace said:
So God is not Almighty?

This is a good example of the utter RUBBISH that you Reformed spout :rolleyes:
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No....unlike you ,the God I worship always makes the most wise choice.
There is not could have, should have, might have....No, He does exactly what He intends to.
 
SavedByGrace

SavedByGrace

Well-Known Member
Mikey said:
God foresaw that sin, chose not to prevent it from happening, therefore he determined (not caused) that sin would happen. That there was no possibility of that sin not from happening.

Explain why you disagree, SPECIFICALLY!! Don't just reply with general termsand rhetoric
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wanting to do something very much and not allowing anyone or any difficulties to stop you

God wanted that man sinned, that He made sure that no one, and nothing stopped Him!

This makes God the AUTHOR.

Argue all you like, but it is clear that the "Reformed" on BB don't really understand the English language!
 
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