Featured God unchanging and unchangeable

That example of Hezekiah doesn't prove God changes. It just means he can turn from a plan he set out to do. When the bible says he changes not, that means his very nature cannot change because he IS all of those things, and there's no changing that because he is God.

 

I’m guessing you don’t realize that you are fallaciously “Begging the Question” while trying to defend the Calvinist logic that Free Will is compatible with Determinism, thereby making my point regarding Calvinist logic??

Anyway, besides Free Will/Human Volition being logically mutually exclusive to Determinism I’m afraid you’re reasoning that God must have determined all things because He knows all things is merely self-serving to your Deterministic views. You have simply put God’s knowledge in a systematic theological box therein unwittingly limiting His Omnipotent ability to create volitional human creatures that can genuinely respond to His "influences" ...which He brought into all the world and for which He lovingly purposed the sacrifice of His Son to achieve. John 1:9, 1John 1:5.

So your conclusion is that it is within God’s nature to predetermine the evil of a murderous cannibalistic pedophile based on your belief (logic) that God must be meticulously deterministic and capable of great evil because He knew about and allowed for a deliberate plan of the crucifixion of Jesus. Hmm…

Sorry, but God’s intervention to achieve His plan for the good (The crucifixion) does not support your theory of meticulous determinism and especially does not support that He is ever responsible for determining man’s evil intentions.

 

I'm sorry but your conclusion is unscriptural. There exist no biblical evidence of God merely intervening in the affairs of men. However, there exists scriptural evidence of God determining man's evil actions from the Joseph's brothers selling him into captivity, Pharaoh's stubbornness in refusing to end the Egyptian enslavement of the Hebrews, all the way to the Crucifixion.

 

(James 1:13) Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:

From my notes:

“God predestined (pre-determined) that the crucifixion would occur. All God had to do to bring this about was to give Jesus over to the power of those who already wanted to kill Him at the proper time. God did not have to control their wills to hate Christ or want Him dead in order to do that. God simply had to give these people the power and opportunity to carry out their intentions, intentions that God in no way caused or decreed. Calvinists have to read quite a bit into this passage to get what they want out of it.”

“In the crucifixion, God foreknew what the evil people would do, allowed them to do it, and decreed the outcome that Jesus would be crucified by these evil men. In the case of Jesus being crucified, was that event an ‘evil’ event? Yes. Did God allow it? Yes. Did God foreknow it would occur? Yes. Did God ‘decree’ it or ‘predestine’ it to occur? Yes, because sometimes God uses foreknown and evil choices to accomplish some good (the best example being the crucifixion, but the Story of Joseph is a good example of this as well, as is God’s using the evil Assyrians to discipline his own people Israel).”

So sorry: "...but God’s intervention to achieve His plan for the good (The crucifixion) does not support your theory of meticulous determinism and especially does not support that He is ever responsible for determining man’s evil intentions."

 

And what is the purpose of God predestining something based on foreknowledge of it happening?? Why does God have to predestine something that He already knows will happen?? Sounds redundant.

Arminian logic:
- God knows person A will choose choice A
- God predestines person A choosing choice A

Arminianism makes God out to merely be an audience while man is the orchestrator when in fact it's the opposite.

You have no scriptural support for God ever 'intervening' in anything. You have no scriptural support for God ordaining something based on foreknowledge of choices. I will be a full-fledge Arminian if you can show me just one verse supporting either one.

 

The brother you are speaking to doesn't seem to understand that the Greek definition for the word for Predestinate used in the New Testament "proorizó" actually means to predetermine something per Strong's Greek Concordance/Dictionary. I can foreknow something, but not predetermine it, however everything I predetermine must be consequentially foreknown by me as a result of me predetermining it. God foreknows the future because He predetermined it. One cannot foreknow something, then predetermine it. I would however agree with the poster that God does not have to work wickedness into a persons heart to predetermine something. This is seen in the case of the crucifixion. Their evil intent to crucify Jesus was already in their heart being inherited from Adam. However, ultimately it must be admitted God's will is the first cause of all causes (including sin), "according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will (Ephesians 1:11), though he used Satan and the fall of Adam as secondary causes for sin to come into creation, therefore it can't be said he directly caused sin. Sin is a thing, and scripture tells us God created all things.

 

Exactly my brother.

 

Any recommendations?

Rob

 

I can actually send you some... PM me.

 

You guys might want to know that nowadays I actually find it comical to hear the washed up and overused argument that I (and/or others who oppose the Determinist view) “don’t understand” your position especially in my case because I can typically find I’ve gone into greater depth into it and believe I could even argue “for” your position, including incorporating your own proof-texts into it, better than the vast majority out there espousing the Determinist’ view.

Some here don’t seem to understand or recognize a logical need to distinguish between Providential Divine Sovereignty and Deterministic Divine Sovereignty to maintain the logically necessary truth of human volition/free will to maintain an orthodox view of theology.

Scriptures are often read through Calvinist glasses to mean strict determinism and thereby are supposed to be scripturally based yet any rational theologian worth his salt will recognize the important issues behind maintaining a TRUE level of human volition in order to avoid theological fatalism.

When it becomes extremely apparent of the logical necessity to attempt to claim free will the Determinist will certainly proclaim it, yet soon resort to double talk and fall back on the incompatible views of meticulous determinism to suit their systematic theology regarding “total inability”. This then brings a host of problems by inescapably taking the hard core view of Determinism into the gutter of theological fatalism while unavoidably logically attributing sin to God. It’s hard to believe that Calvinists miss this issue of the mutually exclusiveness of free will and Determinism while they go about trying to reason human volition as both true and false whenever convenient to maintain their systematic theology.

Calvinists often don’t seem to be too concerned with limiting God’s ability to create volitional creatures or unavoidably logically pinning the truth of responsibility for sin to God!

The Calvinists need to learn to recognize that there must be an element of “you” freely making a choice in order for free will to have true meaning! That is why “free will” should defined as “volition” to sustain the meaning that a creature has the ability to consciously choose. Although, I understand that not being able to rely on sematic ambiguity regarding “free will” – in order to avoid being pinned to theological fatalism is troublesome for their arguments - which causes them by logical necessity to constantly revert directly back to Hard Determinism as to hold on to even a shred of validity in their systematic theological arguments.


I have a lot to do this weekend and really don't have time for the fun and games here, but before I go will quickly address the rest of your reasoning for Determinism given above which refers back to Ephesians 1:

Ever heard of corporate election “IN Christ”??? Do you realize that Paul mentions the phrases “In Him,” “In Christ,” “In the Beloved,” 11 times in the first 13 verses of Ephesians 1 denoting this predestination of election you speak of as being a corporate election “IN Christ”?

Which takes us to the Biblical Order of Salvation for "individuals" ("YOU" being at the scriptural forefront of necessarily having to make a volitional decision) :

Hear the Gospel —> Believe the Gospel —> Be Sealed with the Spirit.

Eph 1:13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,


To ignore or to change the inspired, divine order is false doctrine!


It is scripturally clear time and again throughout the Bible that human volition is a necessary condition upon which God always renders His judgment of grace, or not, in truth, for each individual.

(Deu 32:4) He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.


...and it also is scripturally clear that God is without sin (inequity) of any kind!


I can't believe I should have to defend the Divine attribute of Holiness against those on this board who would merely dodge the arguments against their suggestions of God being responsible for determining the evil of murderous cannibalistic pedophile nature of a human after unwittingly making that suggestion to support their views of strict Determinism - even though proclaiming that their theology does hold man has free will through the other side of their mouth when it is necessary to deter damning conclusions to their doctrines!

The truth is that God did design us creatures with human volition and that we must respond in love of the truth to His influences is a condition that best not be ignored or thought of and/or espoused as an impossibility!

(Rom 10:9) If you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Note: You is used 4 times in this verse. You'll be surprised by how much "you" there is in a book that supposedly says that we do nothing.

 

Sigh...

Yeah I doubt that lol

Where does Scripture voice the necessity of libertarian free will?? Oh yeah it doesn't.

So you're an expert on what a rational theologian worth his salt is huh? Another good ole "no true scotsman" logical fallacy I see.

I see you're not familiar with the terms "moral inability", "natural ability", or even "philosophical necessity". Honestly, read Jonathan Edwards' "Freedom of the Will". I would love to read and discuss what refutations you could possibly come up with.

Arminians often don't seem to be too concerned with limiting God's sovereignty or unavoidably logically pinning a deficiency in God's omniscience.

Says who? There's no scriptural support of libertarian free will being necessary for moral responsibility. On the contrary, there are instances where scripture condemns those whose acts were not free in the libertarian sense.

Corporate election (while true) is insufficient for it ignores the means of election into that empty set.

Once again where in Scripture??

Two things:
1. Arminianism is flawed in believing that human volition necessitates a libertarian sense of freedom. Free will is merely choosing what one wants. Yet, man lacks the ability to determine what they want. Arminianism claims the will is self-determining (that doesn't even philosophically make sense).
2. Where is the scriptural support that God designed creatures with "your idea" of human volition? I'll wait for you to look and see.

 

I would love to discuss this topic with someone who has actually taken the time to read through Martin Luther's "Bondage of the Will" and Jonathan Edwards' "Freedom of the Will"...someone who at least knows what they are trying to refute.

 

Typically when one blathers on and on and on after telling of his vast knowledge of a subject you know the outcome is going to end in error. The above is such a case.

 

To rely upon a view, such as Benjamin ascribes, one must also assume the unbiblical "prevenient" or "preceding" grace.

There is not a single account of the grace of God being applicable to such a "doctrine" and there is no successful rendering of Scriptures to support it.

 

That's one subject I've not looked into brother, this prevenient grace issue. I've heard of it but couldn't tell anyone what it means.

 

Basically, it is the view that God in some manner extends a measure of grace to the person to allow that person of their "own free will" to place their own generated faith in Christ therefore claiming salvation.

"Prevenient grace" is has been re-termed as "proceeding grace."

 

Thanks for sharing that. The concept sounds Arminianism' to me. What do those who teach this say about God doing this? Does He do this for every single human who has ever lived? Of course I do not believe man to have innate faith so the teaching is erroneous as faith is His gift to the elect.

 

I have heard it from both major camps. However, it is essential to the Arm. group, and must be a part of their view.

 

I don’t buy into the “carnal” Biggrin Manichaeism derived corruption of the Augustinism views of total inability and denial of free will which “found its way” into the church so along withmany Arminians certainly don’t need to rely prevenient grace to refute the fallacious Calvinist’ doctrines of meticulous Determinism.