Featured Question about Calvinism

Calvinists like Jonathan Edwards would say that yes it has. Complete, autonomous freedom of action would mean that there is simply no way to know the future, even for God, unless he is determining it.

Others answer by saying God knows all the possible choices and has a contingent plan for every free choice which will still result in any desired overall result God desires, and yet allows true and autonomous freedom for individuals to whom God has chosen to give such freedom.

Both of the above answers would be more complete than just simply saying that God has a way of somehow truly looking ahead and seeing what will happen for sure because it really is what will happen. But that's not to say that this view is untrue. I think C.S. Lewis had a view somewhat like this. For God, time is different and the future would be more like a sheet laid out before you with all future events on it as they will happen. God can see that from his high view whereas we are at ground level, only able to see the present. Or something like that.

 

God, being omniscient, knows all that will happen. But knowing what will happen does not mean He has to cause it to happen. If Gods' knowledge depends upon Him being the cause of what happens then He logically has to be the cause of all the evil and sin we see.

“God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, ‘What are you doing?’ Man’s will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.” The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God A. W. Tozer

The alternative to man having a free will is God determining all that happens, God being responsible for all that happens.

“To say that God hates sin while secretly willing it, to say that God warns us not to fall away even though it is impossible, to say that God loves the world while excluding most people from an opportunity for salvation, to say that God warmly invites sinners to come knowing all the while that they cannot possibly do so—such things do not deserve to be called mysteries when that is just a euphemism for nonsense.” C.S Lewis

 

Exactly. That is why if you are serious about this then study Edwards. He was probably right. Just understand when you do this that some Calvinists flat out openly say that God causes everything. Others have men with a free will who may do evil but that evil, though against God's will as to his law and commands for morality, is suffered to happen, sometimes for the purpose of the fulfillment of some plan of God. Like you mentioned, Christ's going to the cross.

 

What you are doing there is developing on your own the Calvinistic idea of meticulous predestination. As you noticed, even if you want to include random events you still must have a sovereign God. People fall off horses, get sick or injured or become victims of random violence all the time. The idea that God wants a specific thing to happen in a certain way starts an ever expanding control of details that leads logically to - Calvinistic determinism. Those who insist that God is simply looking ahead with foreknowledge tend to forget that the foreknowledge, though real, has a purpose. And that purpose is to ensure that what God has planned will indeed happen in the way he wants it to happen - because he not only is looking into the future but making it so.

 

IMO, Satan 'fell' in the garden also. Satan was there first and first in charge. THEN God inserted Adam into the arrangement, no doubt foreknowing that it would provoke Satan to jealousy......and, history proceeds from there.

(Jealousy from the first/elder towards the second/younger is a consistent/recurring theme throughout the scriptures)

 

There were many 'sons of disobedience' that crucified Christ, but only one spirit that was working within those 'sons of disobedience'.
John 8:37-47; Ephesians 6:12

 

Much of 'Calvinism' holds to the 'predestination of all things', even down to the mosquito that bit you at your outside BBQ last night. The fact is that the word translated 'predestination' is used only four times in scripture and is always in reference to God choosing a people for His own possession. In lieu of 'predestination of all things', 'overuling providence' fits better to the scriptural account, as in:

28 And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose. Ro 8

 

Foreknowing...:

19 Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach thou it the children of Israel: put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel.
20 For when I shall have brought them into the land which I sware unto their fathers, flowing with milk and honey, and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxed fat; then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and despise me, and break my covenant.
21 And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are come upon them, that this song shall testify before them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed: for I know their imagination which they frame this day, before I have brought them into the land which I sware. Dt 31

...is not foreordaining:

31 And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded not, neither came it into my mind. Jer 7

5 and have built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons in the fire for burnt-offerings unto Baal; which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind: Jer 19

35 And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin. Jer 32

 

The fact that God knew that Adam would sin and also that Lucifer/Satan and 1/3 of the angels would sin doers not mean that He cause/ordained it. As soon as you say God has to ordain X or Y then you are putting God in the position of being the author of sin which as we know can not be true.

God desires that all will come to Him and He could "ordain" that it happen but then you can not say that they did it out of love for Him or that they worship Him in love.

"If a thing is free to be good it's also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having." C. S. Lewis

Free will* is arguably the most well taught doctrine in the entire Bible

* people have a choice in what they do and that their actions have not been decided in advance by God or by any other power. Believed (John 1:11-12; Romans 10:9-10; Isaiah 55:6-7; John 7:38; Proverbs 3:5-7) did not believe (Mark 14:10; John 5:46-47) here we see both in one verse (John 3:18)

In all of these you either see mans' free will or you have God determining their response.

 

@AFJ here I have to strongly disagree with @DaveXR650. If you are serious about knowing the truth you should study the bible not what some man tells you about the bible. I could recommend Tozer or Clarke or Wiersbe etc but they are still just men who come to the bible with a particular view. The bible is it's own best commentary trust the Holy Spirit to guide you.

Approach the bible without any preconceived views and study verses in the context in which they are found. The bible is not a book of one liners where you can like this one and discard this other one. As you study the bible you will see Gods' unfolding plan to bring about mans' salvation through trusting in Him.

 

By your last comment "because he not only is looking into the future but making it so" you are stating Calvinistic determinism and thus making God responsible for all the good or evil that occurs.

 

Things like that we are not told. The glimpses we are given of God's sovereignty whether it be in events or in being elect are I think for our comfort if we wish for God's will to be done and who wish to do his will on our part.