Featured Harmony or Hostility?

Neither I nor you.

What Scriptures are you addressing? That God ordains all things according to His good and perfect will is surely not in doubt, but that Adam was somehow forced or cajoled by God to fall into sin.I rather doubt that you can prove (James 1:13-14).

 

A) That's a classic example of a manipulative use of semantic ambivalence of both "approve" and "will". He is using the words in two different senses.
B) It's a logical fallacy to confound allowing something and approving something. God does allow what he does not approve (like sin).

What's your source for that quote please?

 

The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Chapter III, Concerning the Divine Decrees in General, And Election in Particular. Page 525 in Vol. 2
It's not a logical fallacy at all. We even do it at our level, even though things are much simpler for us as humans. I might say I want to eat that piece of pie because it's good but I don't want the extra sugar and fat. So I end up doing what I most "will", which is usually to eat the pie. I chose to over ride my other will. In my case my decision may be flawed. But think of God, who, if things are going to happen and be, with any freedom of the creatures, things may happen that are against what God would optimally want. And the thing here is - God not only created the creatures involved, but really COULD change what they are about to do. Not only that, but he has all the ramifications of all consequences of all those actions in all of history to consider. It's mind boggling and I maintain that if you put out the effort to really look into it, and you have a high view of God, you will come up with something that looks a lot like Calvinistic theology.

 

Questions coming.

John 1:1-3 KJV In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Gen 1:1 NKJV In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
1 John 3:8 NKJV He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
Gen 1:2 NKJV The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was[fn] on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
[fn] Words in italic type have been added for clarity. They are not found in the original Hebrew or Aramaic

(1) Is the devil, Satan and in the moment of G 1:2 is the devil, Satan on the earth?
(2) Is, the sin, present in the devil, Satan?
(3) Does the devil, Satan. have the power of, the death?
(4) If the answer to the above is yes to which I believe, is the following one or should I say two going to do anything about the devil, Satan, the sin and the death? Hear O Israel!
Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος

(5) Could the following be relative to what, θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος, does about the devil, Satan, the sin and the death.

John 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under [the] sin.
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
2 Cor 5:21 YLT for him who did not know sin, in our behalf He did make sin, that we may become the righteousness of God in him.

(6) When did the darkness of this age of Eph 6:12 and or the god of this age of 2 Cor 4, become, this age of what?

 

There is a lot to parse out here (and I'll do that later Lord willing), but the more I read you the less it seems you understand Calvinism (Determinism). I don't mean that disparagingly, but what you're describing is more akin to non-determinism than to determinism. There is no "optimal" choice of God or any "freedom" of creatures in Calvinistic theology. Everything that occurs is normatively decreed.

 

George. In no way will you offend me if you refute or reject anything I post on the subject of determinism. To the extent I have looked into it I find it very complicated and very difficult. What I have already posted about it is about as far as I can go. I have gone far enough into it to know that there are differences among Calvinists but that is about it for me.

 

Hello @percho.
You ask some very profound questions, and some of them are not answered in God's word so Deuteronomy 29:29 applies. However, I'll have a shot at one or two.

Very important text. I will deal with it below.

I don't know.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Can you re-phrase, please?

I don't believe so. He has to get God's permission before he can afflict Job. However, by luring Adam and Eve into sin, he brought death into the world.

Yes. 1 John 3:8 is your verse. The Lord Jesus was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. What were the works of the devil? He lured the first humans into sin, thereby introducing death into the world as God's just penalty for sin. You may wonder what is the 'hold' that Satan has upon God. If it were a question of power, it would be no contest, but Satan is also called 'the accuser of the brethren' (Rev. 12:10), and Satan can appeal to God's justice and accuse mankind of sin. He is able to come right into God's presence and accuse both Job, and Joshua the High Priest (Zechariah 3). But now The Lord Jesus has satisfied God's justice by His propitiationary death upon the cross, and Satan can no longer accuse God's elect of sin because Christ has paid the penalty of it. That is why he has been cast down out of heaven, and is full of fury. He 'walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour,' but he may not devour God's people because their sins are paid for in full. 'Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies [i.e. 'declares us righteous']; who is he that condemns? (Romans 8:23-24).

Yep! This is the great thing. Although we are still a work in progress and still sin, our sins have been forgiven, because Christ became sin, the very epitome of sin, to break the hold that the devil had on us.

We are still in the darkness of this age, but 'the night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light' (Romans 13:12). When the Lord Jesis returns the darkness will flee forever (Revelation 21:23).

I hope that's even a little bit helpful.

 

You…. are proving my prior statement.

You…. being an amateur student of Biblical Greek, looked in a Greek lexicon and noticed a possible meaning for a word that differs from the traditional understanding.

You,: being an amateur student of Biblical Greek and thus not having a clue WHY true Biblical Greek scholars: who have devoted decades of their lives to understanding the way in which Biblical Greek is used in context and have agreed the word means “world” and not “humanity” in that context:

You….. decided to offer an alternative meaning to the passage based on nothing more than an anti-Calvinism obsession.

You…. embarrass yourself every time you start a thread pretending to offer something new by way of understanding Biblical Greek.

You… can have your thread and I will leave you to it.

peace to you

 

George, it really isn't up to you to define Calvinism, and you are not doing it. I suppose that your chum Ken Wilson has pulled some texts out of Gill or Brine and then decided that's what Calvinism is. Well it isn't. If you want to know what Calvinism is you should go to the Westminster Confession or the 1689 Baptist Confession. I posted a link to the latter, but I suppose you didn't bother to read it, or you decided that it didn't fit your fantasy version of Calvinism and ignored it.
Here it is again:
Chapter IX. Of Free Will.
1. God hath endued the Will of Man with that natural liberty, and power of acting upon choice; that it is (a) neither forced, nor by any necessity of nature determined to do good or evil.
(a) Matthew 17:12; James 1:14; Deuteronomy 30:19.

If you really want to know what Calvinism is, read stuff by Baptists like John Bunyan, Benjamin Keach, Abraham Booth, and especially Andrew Fuller. You should also read Jonathan Edwards and D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

 

Another sleight of hand, as when you compared the formal definition of "ordain" with the dynamic definition of "anti-ordain".

You well know, I suppose, that paragraph 1 is a description of pre-fall human nature.

Paragraph 2 goes on:
Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom and power to will and to do that which was good and well-pleasing to God,2 but yet was unstable, so that he might fall from it.

Paragraph 3:
Man, by his fall into a state of sin, has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation;4 so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin,5 is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.6

My question to you was about post-fall human nature, not pre-fall human nature as thou very well knowest

So let us try again: is it not God who so constituted the nature of POST-fall man as to render it incapable of accepting Christ?
Or was the POST-fall human nature randomly constituted without God's determining thereof?

As to reading the likes of Edwards and Jones:



This is just a random sample. But please spare a former Calvinist the whole "you don't understand Calvinism" canard.

 

In the WCF, the section 9, Of Free Will, I'm pretty sure paragraph 1 is about the current human condition. 2 is about before the Fall, 3 is about the results of the Fall as far as ability to will our salvation. Paragraph 4 is explaining the necessity of grace for conversion and the effects on the will for a converted sinner living out his life on earth. Chapter 5 is self explanatory.

 

https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/gill/The_Cause_of_God_and_Truth_-_John_Gill.pdf

The Fourth Part was published in 1738, in which the sense of the ancient writers of the Christian Church, before the times of Austin, is given; the importance and consequence of which is shown, and that the Arminians have very little reason to triumph on that account.

INDEX to Part 4 begins on pg 7

A Vindication of the Doctrines of Grace on Account of Church History.

Introduction to Part 4 pg 563

Since those doctrines which are commonly called, Calvinistical are charged with novelty, and are represented as running directly contrary to the whole stream of antiquity, and the sentiments of the ancient fathers, and as entirely unknown to the Christian church before the time of Austin; when, on the other hand, the doctrines of the universal scheme are said to be confirmed by the concurrent suffrage of all antiquity, and the express and frequent declarations of the ancient fathers; 1 it is necessary that this affair should be inquired into and examined, whether it is matter of fact or no. And this will be the subject of this Fourth Part.

EXAMPLE: Predestination / Reprobation pg 569

Section 1— pg 571 Clemens Romanus. A.D. 69.

Clement of Rome, lived in the times of the apostles, and is, by Clement of Alexandria, 7 called an apostle. He is thought by some 8 to be the same Clement the apostle Paul speaks of, in Philippians 4:3, as one of his fellow-laborers.

He wrote an epistle in the name of the church at Rome to the church at Corinth, about 9 the year 69, which is the earliest piece of antiquity next to the writings of the apostles extant, being written when some of them were living, even before the apostle John wrote his Epistles, and the book of the Revelation, and while the temple at Jerusalem was yet standing.

In this epistle are several things relating to the doctrine of election, and which greatly serve to confirm it.

For, 1. Agreeable to the apostolic doctrine, that God worketh all things after the council of his own will (Eph. 1:11), that his purposes shall stand, and that whatsoever he has determined shall come to pass, Clement affirms, that 10 "when he wills, and as he wills, he does all things;" kai ouden mh tarelqh twn dedogmatwmenwn upV autou, and that "none of those things which are decreed by him, shall pass away," or be unaccomplished: which shows his sense of the dependency of all things upon the will of God, and of the immutability of his decrees in general.

2. He not only frequently makes mention of persons under the character of the elect of God, but also intimates, that there is a certain, special, and peculiar number of them fixed by him. Speaking of the schism and sedition in the church at Corinth, he represents it 11 as what was "very unbecoming, and should be far from toij eklektoij tou Qeou, the elect of God." And elsewhere 12 having cited Psalm 18:26, he says, "Let us therefore join ourselves to the innocent and righteous, for eisin outoi eklektoi tou Qeou, they are the elect of God;" that is, they appear to be so, these are characters descriptive of them. And in another place, 13 enlarging in commendation of the grace of love, he says, "Love knows no schism, is not seditious; love does all things in harmony; pantej oi eklektoi tou Qeou, all the elect of God are made perfect in love:" which agrees with what the apostle says of them, that they are chosen to be holy and without blame before him in love (Eph. 1:4). Moreover, Clement observes, 14 to the praise of the members of the church of Corinth, to whom he writes, that formerly their "contention was night and day for the whole brotherhood, that ton ariqmon twn eklektwn autou, the number of his elect might be saved, with mercy and a good conscience." And elsewhere 15 he says, that "God chose the Lord Jesus Christ, and us by him, eij laon periousion, for a peculiar people."

3. Whereas the apostle Paul, writing to the Ephesians, says; Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings, in heavenly places, in Christ; according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation oaf the world (Eph. 1:3, 4), we conclude from hence, that from all eternity there was a preparation of spiritual blessings made; and agreeably, Clement, our apostolical writer, has these words; "Let us therefore consider, 16 brethren, out of what matter we are made; who and what we were when we came into the world, as out of the grave and darkness itself; who, having made and formed us, brought us into his world proetoimasaj taj euergesiaj autou prin hmaj gennhqhnai, having first prepared his good things for us, before we were born."

4. This very ancient writer plainly intimates, that the special and spiritual blessings of grace are peculiar to the elect of God; and that it is the stable and unalterable will of God, that his chosen ones should partake of them: particularly repentance, and remission of sins: for having mentioned those words in Psalm 32:1, 2, Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered; Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile; he observes, 17 that this blessedness comes upon, or belongs unto, touj eklelegmenouj upo tou Qeou, those that are chosen of God by Jesus Christ our Lord." And in another place, 18 having taken notice of some general instances, declarations, and exhortations, encouraging men to repentance, suggests, that God’s design herein, was to bring to repentance such as were interested in his love; his words are these; "Therefore He (that is, God), being desirous that pantaj touj agaphtaj autou, all his beloved ones should partake of repentance, confirmed it by his almighty will." That is, God, not willing, as the apostle Peter says, that any of his beloved ones should perish, but that all of them should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9), fixed it by an unchangeable decree, that they should come to repentance; and therefore makes use of the above declarations and exhortations as means to bring them to it.

5. As the Scriptures always ascribe the act of election to God, and not men, and represent it as made in Christ, and by or through Him (Eph.1:4, 5); that he was first chosen as a head, and the elect as members in him; so Clement speaks 19 of God as he oeklexamenoj ton Kurion Iesoun Criston kai hmaj di auton, who hath chosen the Lord Jesus Christ, and us by him;" and of the elect as chosen upw tou Qeou dia Iesou Cristou tou Kuriou hmwn, of God through Jesus Christ our Lord; and exhorts men 20 to come to God in holiness of soul, lifting up pure and undefiled hands unto him, loving our mild and merciful Father, oj hmaj ekloghj meroj epoihsen eautw, "who hath made us a part of the election for himself."

 

This is so bad, I hardly know what to say. You do not define a word by what you perceive its opposite to be, That doesn't work in English half the time, let alone Greek. I will deal in detail with this later if you are going to insist on it.

It is nothing of the sort, as you woould know if your reading comprension skils were up to scratch.

'God hath endued the Will of Man with that natural liberty, and power of choice, that it is neither forced, nor by any necessity of nature determined to do good or eveil.'
'Hath' is in the Perfect Tense, meaning an act in the past with implications for the present. 'Is' the the Present Tense. Man's will is not forced to do anything eexcept by his own sinful nature. I take it that you believe in the Fall? Even Wesleyan Arminians believe that there must be a work of 'Prevenient Grace' before men can receive the Gospel.

This is man's state at the present time. He is 'altogether averse from ... god and dead in sin.' But Paragraph One still holds good. There is nothing in man's constitution that prevents him from coming to Christ; it is his own wicked and sinful nature that makes him unwilling. 'And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. If you offer me the choice of coffee rather than tea, do I have free will as to whether I take one or the other, or is my will overridden by the fact that I prefer coffee?
This was the teaching of Jonathan Edwards, as you will know if you have read his works, and it was taken up by Particular Baptists like Andrew Fuller. Man's inability is spiritual and moral, not forced.

And my answer was about post-fall human nature as thou wouldst know if thou wert as smart as thou likest to think thou art.

I am going into hospital in a short while for a minor medical proceedure (cataract) so I'm not sure how soon I shall be able to answer any reply you may make.