Featured Not Closed Theology

I've seen arrogance on here but you may beat everything. Where do you get off thinking I need or want your help? The fact is, a three year old in a sandbox may be sovereign over his playmates and yet it is indeed completely different than the sovereignty exercised at a higher level - not to mention the ruling of the universe. The situation does indeed determine the real meaning of the word. I had a dirt bike that was FAST. But in the realm of road racers it was not fast at all. You are full of baloney.

All meanings change with God because of His unique position. Imagine the difference between ruling over billions of men who must die verses my responsibility over one situation I come across. It's completely different and the way to act justly is completely different. You have made if clear you are against Calvinism, but Calvinism covers a wide range of belief and you are against the normal view of God that a huge swath of Christianity adheres to, not just "Calvinists".

I think you are just a cynical, vile person yourself and you don't seem to be able to actually discuss an issue with anyone without this coming through as shown above.

Thank you for coming on here and condescending to help us one step at a time but really, I'm doing OK. It's just a shame the Reformers and Augustine aren't around to benefit from your wisdom.

 

Notice the implied definition of "God".

Instead of conforming his doctrine to God, Piper makes God in the image of his doctrine.As his post here demonstrates, the doctrine comes first and everything else is forced into that mold. It doesn't matter what the bible actually says because it's all just interpreted in whatever way is necessary to preserve the doctrine.

The god of Aristotle and Plato was immutable. Certain ideas were developed by these men based on that premise, including ideas like fate (predestination) which Augustine believed and refused to become a Christian because of (specifically because the bible depicts God changing His mind) until Bishop Ambrose of Milan showed him how to interpret the bible in the light of Aristotelian "truth". Augustine ran with that idea and inspired a whole sect of Catholicism with his writings.

1300 years or so later Luther started the process of removing the influence of Rome from Christian doctrine but, being an Augustinian monk, didn't lay a finger on the Greek influence introduced by his favorite theologian. Calvin came along and more or less canonized a reformed version of Augustinian doctrine and that's why we call it Calvinism today.

The point being, of course, that these doctrines do not find their origin in scripture! Indeed, if Augustine had trusted the scripture over Aristotle, none of you people who believe any of this! There is no Jewish or Christian tradition of belief in anything that resembles fate until Augustine's writings in the 4th century when he, by his own admission, imported the notion from the Classics.

 

That is within Calvinism. Although you are correct in that some Calvinists do believe that God directly causes everything and won't allow that God may "allow" something to happen that he did not cause directly.

 

Van I did address what you said, you just do not like the answers.

 

"That God foreordains whatever comes to pass is a necessary result of his sovereignty. In itself it does not plead for Calvinism. It only declares that God is absolutely sovereign over his creation. God can foreordain things in different ways. But everything that happens must at least happen by his permission. If he permits something then he must decide to allow it. If he decides to allow something then in a sense he is foreordaining it. " From "Chosen By God" R.C. Sproul page 26 third paragraph.

Sproul goes on to explain this in more detail but basically he is saying that if God knows what someone is going to do, and God could stop them but instead allows them to carry out their plan, then in that sense God is allowing and even ordaining it to happen. Even though it may be against God's stated will in that it may be a sin or act of disobedience, if God allows it, it may be part of God's larger, preordained plan unfolding and therefore part of his sovereignty. Yet, for @Silverhair 's benefit, I would say that the person involved did indeed act according to their own free will. Had they chosen to obey God's revealed word, they would not have sinned and God would have had as it turns out a different plan to have his sovereign will accomplished. What we do matters, and what we do is according to what we want to do. We are not puppets.

So what gets confusing is that if God knows infallibly about this then could not one say that from the time he knows it, it therefore must be, and so indeed we are just puppet actors who could do no differently. I say that in no way infringes on your free will if you are at no point not doing what you want to do. But I admit it is a difficult concept, and honestly, I don't know if it has much value beyond friendly discussion, it that were indeed possible.

 

@DaveXR650 when I read R C's comment it just seems as if he wants to walk both sides of the street. In reality if God causes or only allows a specific situation to happen in a specific way then is He not actually the cause of that situation? Where is the free will?

It seems that R C thinks God can only be sovereign if He controls all things. Just because God decides to allow something, choice of A or not A, and even knows the outcome of the choice that does not require God to foreordain the outcome as R C seems to think.. That is a good thing since God knows all the good and bad things that will happen so if we went by R C's position then God would have foreordained all the evil sins of man. An ordained choice is not a free will choice. God can ordain that a person will choose option B over option A but under man's God given free will he may have things that influence his choice to choose B but he can choose to ignore those influences and choose A. That is free will in action.

Dave you seem to be trying to equate God ordaining something to happen and man exercising his free will and choosing to do something. If God ordains something that means He causes, orders or commands, it to happen. Free will requires the ability to choose otherwise.

For the calvinist God has to determine/control everything down to the smallest particle or He is not sovereign. Whereas I see God as able to accomplish His plan of salvation even taking into consideration the free will choices of man. God is sovereign even when man does things that He never even though of. Jeremiah 32:35

 

That is the question. Isn't it. And it is very well put. In my opinion, you could indeed say that in a sense God is at least the indirect cause and that is why as I've said before, some degree of determinism is in operation here. I think that all this can happen and yet all the while, the people involved are truly acting according to their own free will. For instance, we know God wanted Joseph to be running the affairs of Egypt at a certain time in order to effect the saving of his people during the famine. The brothers wanted to get rid of Joseph and intended him only evil. God used what they did to work His overall will - yet the brothers acted without any coercion of their free wills. Had they refrained from doing evil to Joseph it would not have thwarted God's plan to have Joseph in Egypt at that point in history but it would mean that God would have accomplished His will in a different way.

I think the only difference is that a Calvinist will say that God's knowledge is so pervasive that his overall plan is infallible and because all contingencies and all acts of free will have already been taken into account already and considered correctly based on true foreknowledge and total ability to intervene from the beginning - therefore you can consider what happens to be fore ordained or even predestined and yet still have all the creatures acting freely.

If you have a lesser view of God's all pervasive ability then you might say he has the power and position to always prevail but he isn't quite sure what a free agent will do so he has to be ready with an alternate plan to fulfill his will ultimately. I'm not making fun of that view but I would ask this. Do you believe it was possible that Joseph's brothers could have exercised their free will and simply murdered Joseph on the spot? Leaving God to come up with an another plan for the salvation of the Jews? I don't think scripture indicates that that is the way things work. Notice I say scripture, not Augustine or Aristotle. Once again, the difference is that the Calvinist (and frankly most Christians) would say that all the variables involving human free will have already been taken into account by God and therefore a pronouncement by God of a result is truly predestined in the sense that it will happen that way, it is going to be according to God's ultimate will, and it will allow for the free will behavior of the people involved.

I know that you are only trying to preserve an autonomous free will in order to make our decisions to follow God or not have some true meaning. I applaud that and side with you against anyone, Calvinist or not, who says they don't. But I just don't think you have to make that choice. I don't think God's sovereignty and the predestination of something is in contradiction with our free will.

 

And to add to the last post, I'm not saying that God does not have the right to change hearts or coerce behavior as he sees fit in order that his will be done. And I'm not saying that a person who chooses to be evil may not indeed be used by God for all sorts of purposes. We are all at the disposal of God to do with what he will. I'm not conceding any of that but just making a specific argument above that we are usually operating with plenty of freedom to do what we most want to do. The choice is not that we are either total puppets or totally autonomous beings.

 

We do see some determinism in what has occurred in history and in what will occur in the future. But where the wheels come of the cart is when people say that God has to control/determine all things. Dave as you rightly pointed out with Joseph and his brothers they acted in their free will and God used their actions to bring Joseph to Egypt. If the brothers had killed Joseph rather than sell him then God would have brought about another plan to save the nation. The Jews going to Egypt was all part of Gods plan that would in time bring about the death of Christ and salvation being available to all through faith in the risen Christ.

God has a plan for the salvation of mankind as we have seen in the cross. The plan is that all those that will freely trust in the risen Son will be saved but to extend that to the point where He has chosen who those persons will be is, in my opinion, a step to far. At that point free will is taken out of the equation and it then becomes determinism which then calls into question the whole biblical narrative.

What you have referred to as a lesser view of God’s plan is actually a higher view as God has to deal with the actual free will of His creation to bring about His salvation plan. The bible is replete with examples of God having to deal with man when he has failed to follow the commands of God, where man has chosen the other option.

I agree with you that we are not puppets and we do not have total free will. We have a God given free will but we operate within the plan of God.

The bible tells us that God is a God of LOVE. But a God of love only makes sense if he has given us the ability to freely choose or reject him. Love is only truly love when freely given and freely received.

 

Incorrect. my ideas, as Augustine's and Luther's, are based on Scripture and the most totally consistent view of the world through the eyes of Scripture. Your gobblydegook , long philosophical talks are useless. Sorry, pal.

 

I think you make a valid point here. I may not be a good Calvinist but I would point people to writings by Owen and Edwards that point out that the greatest sin a person can do and the greatest offense they can give to God is to reject Christ. A lot of this becomes philosophical musings because we are humans and creatures with no way to see things as God sees them. I believe for instance that God indeed had in mind those who would be saved at the time of the cross or even before. But I don't believe that at that time it became impossible for some to be saved because of the reason that Christ didn't include them in the atonement. Those who don't get saved don't hear the gospel, or refuse to believe, and usually are actively against Christ.

It's interesting that if you look at the book by R.C. Sproul I quoted earlier he himself has a chart on page 66 that points out that man before the fall had the ability to choose to sin or not to sin. So it appears that the free will of Adam and Eve was important to God. That's why there is a disagreement among Calvinists about whether God ordained the plan of our redemption before the fall or in response to the fall. You see where this all goes! If he ordained it before the fall (or if he ordained all things) then can you say that the Fall was ultimately according to God's will? And in the same chart Sproul shows that now, as a Christian, we have the ability to sin or not sin and someday in our glorified state we will not have the ability to sin. I really don't know how all this works. I know some Calvinists go too far with this. But so do the free willers. Scripture is clear that there is more going on than God passively waiting for our sovereign decision regarding the propositions of the gospel.

 

Augustine imported many pagan views into his understanding of scripture as you should know. And by extension Luther who was an Augustinian monk would have held to some of the same errant views.

 

Silverhair, I can agree with many things you stated, however, the sticky wicket is in bold. Left to our own nature, we will always choose to reject God. There is not one time in the Bible or elsewhere where we see someone choosing God outside of God first choosing them.

 

Owens & Edwards were correct, the greatest sin a person can do and the greatest offense they can give to God is to reject Christ. And therein lays the divide, for the determinist those that reject God do so because God determined/caused them to do so, they had no option and thus have the best excuse going. God did not love me and rejected me before I was even born. Whereas for those that use their God given free will they can choose to trust in or reject Christ Jesus so they will have no excuse when they stand before God.

God because of His foreknowledge would know all that will trust in His son but as I have said before knowing is not causing. We have both seen the arguments on this board that Christ’s atonement was not for all of mankind but the only for those “elected before the foundation of the world”. But that view has been debunked many times.

I am always saddened by those that trumpet that God is “absolutely totally sovereign” and then do not let God be sovereign. As you said free will is important to God. Think of the things that God wants from us. To believe in Him to trust that He can save us, to love Him, to worship Him in truth. All of these can only come from a free will they can not be forced. Sure someone can fake them but even God can not force someone to freely do these things.

God is not just sitting back passively waiting for our sovereign decision, He is actively reaching out to us through His creation, the conviction of the Holy Spirit, the gospel message etc. The information is there but man must choose how he will respond to it.

Man really has no excuse but we know that man will continue to search for one.

PS Dave you should be looking for a letter from the Calvinist review board. They may want to pull your Calvinist membership card.