God and The Will Of Man

Thank you for posting these verses—there is much food for thought in some of them. Each one needs to be studied individually, in context, with special notice given to the author and the immediate situation involved.

 

Craig,
And we are sure you will tell us exactly what each means with your special commentary on each.

 

Amen rippon But, I dont believe God would go against his own nature.

 

Rippon, I feel much the same way about Calvinism. I feel it degrades God's character and His sovereignty to make both something that fits into the little boxes of men's minds.

The God of the Bible has loved all men and women. He died for all of us. He is not willing that one should perish. He has told us to seek Him and that if we seek with our whole hearts we will find Him. This is what the Bible tells us. The fact that a certain group of people cannot understand that His sovereignty is big enough to allow men and women to freely want certain things and choose between different offered options has nothing to do with the reality that that is the way it is.

It has been His choice and His option to allow us choices. He is big enough for that -- far bigger and far more powerful and far more unimaginable than the Calvinist doctrines will admit. Also far more truthful. He meant it when He caused to be written that He is not willing that one should perish. He meant it when He said that He loved the world enough to die for it. He meant it when He invites, "Come, let us reason together..."

He has offered us real choices, all within the province of His knowledge, His power, His sovereignty....and His love.

Calvinists specialize in declaring His sovereignty. Then they not only forget His character of love and mercy, but they confine the concept of sovereignty to something they can cope with in human terms, despite what the Bible says.

So yes, I'm just as tired as you of the misrepresentations of God's character. Only I'm tired of the way it is done by Calvinists. I'm tired of the contradictory nonsense that God can appear so capricious to men in the Reformed doctrines and yet somehow is supposed to also be so loving and merciful....of course that is only to a few....the rest can just go to hell, literally.

That is not the God I know. That is not the God of the Bible.

 

I'll go ahead and rant, too, then. We are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ if we are believers. It was predestined that those who would become believers would be born again by the power of the Spirit and be adopted as children of God.

But it was never predestined who would become believers.

Don't edit the Bible. He is not willing that one should perish, but that ALL should come to repentance. He has commanded all to seek Him. And He has not made that impossible.

 

Hi Helen,

See what you think about this.

Everything that God knew would happen when He created the world will happen. If He knew when He created the world that you would believe then you most certainly will believe, and nothing can change that, not even you. If He knew when He created the world that you would not believe then you most certainly will not believe, and nothing can change that, not even you.

Do you believe this?

 

You may not understand this, but He, being outside of time (having created it) gave me total freedom of choice regarding how to respond to Him. However since He knows the end from the beginning, He also knew what I would choose. Nevertheless, the choice was mine.

Not easy to wrap a human brain around that but, after all, He is God...

 

God gives choices to men, and that the entirety of the Bible confirms.

 

Rippon, if you had been created as the automaton you claim to be you would not even be posting here trying to convince anyone else of anything, for, according to you, the Lord has determined we won't believe you anyway...

 

That's right, Blue, God gave them choices AS A WITNESS AGAINST THEM.

Dty 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you , [that] I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

Josh 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD , choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that [were] on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

Why did it seem evil to serve the Lord? They were lost, that's why. Why did Joshua choose to serve the Lord? Because God had put it in him both to do and to will of His good pleasure.

Josh 24:22 And Joshua said unto the people, Ye [are] witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the LORD, to serve him. And they said, [We are] witnesses.

They made a PROFESSION of faith, that is, they said that they had CHOSEN the Lord. But what did they REALLY do?

Judges 2:12 and they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed other gods from [among] the gods of the people who [were] all around them, and they bowed down to them; and they provoked the LORD to anger.

Judges 5:8 They chose new gods ; then [was] war in the gates: was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?

Judges 10:14 Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen ; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation.

And now for some N.T.

2 Cor 2:15 15 For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: 16 To the one [we are] the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life.

1 Pet 4:6 For this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

The command of God, both in the law and the Gospel, stands as a witness against the lost, that they are indeed reprobate, and totally depraved; unable to save themselves. However, they that are dead are brought to life by the spirit of God by the generative work of God Himself, totally apart from natural faith or works.

But I guess none of this matters. After all, I did PASTE the bible verses from another site, so I'll try logic and philosophy next time.

 

It does appear as if they CHOSE, doesn't it?

Folks, if the fatalism of Calvinism is correct, here is what happens:

You are either saved or you aren't. There is no way out of either position. The poor suckers who have not been predestined to salvation are doomed to eternal torment no matter what they do or don't do; no matter what they want or don't want. Likewise, those predestined to eternal bliss can do or say anything and that won't change their destiny either.

But look -- no one can do or say anything, according to this doctrine, that is not predetermined by God. So the very word 'choice' has no meaning whatsoever. Laws themselves mean nothing as each man and woman and child has had his actions predetermined by God from all eternity. Therefore there should be no punishment for those who cannot help what they do!

But understand that I was predetermined to think logically this way and those who oppose me were predetermined to oppose it, regardless of logic.

In the same way, they go out and preach the Gospel to a world that is predestined NOT to accept it so that that world may have even more damnation in judgment.

That is not only illogical, it is the decree of a deity I do not know. It is not the God of the Bible; it is a twisted and horrid caracature invented by cruel and unloving men who are thinking they can force others to obey what, by their predestined natures, they cannot! That is what Calvin did in Geneva. He was the epitome of the cruelty and legality of the Calvinist ideas.

The God I know, the God I worship and have given my life to is the God who gave His Life for me and for all of us; who has loved all of us equally and given all of us a way out of hell into eternal communion with Him. We have the free choice to accept or refuse this gift -- this incredible, costly, eternal gift -- from Him. Having done nothing to deserve it, nothing to accomplish it, we are nevertheless in the incredible position of being offered His unconditional acceptance through Jesus Christ our Lord and God because of His love and mercy.

He has put into us a sense of justice and fairness that is even apparent in children so that we will know from the start that His judgments are right and just and fair, and that no man has an excuse because ALL men, each and every one, has had a real and possible choice between the truth and the lie in his life.

That is the God I worship. Reading some of the Calvinist posts I am becoming convinced we are worshiping different deities.

 

If God is really like this. . . If God is like a father who brings a child into the world and then raises that child influencing him towards evil so that when he is an adult the father can throw him into jail to demonstrate what a just man he is--if God is like a doctor who has more than enough syringes of antibiotic to treat a whole hospital of plague victims, yet walks down the aisle between the beds saying, "I'll save you, but you and you and you can die"--

Well, if God is like that, than God is evil.

 

Well yes they choose, and calvinism has never claim anything to the contrary. That is not a tenent of calvinism, it is an ACCUSATION by arminians against it. So here's a little calvinism 101:

1. Man is free to choose whatever he desires.

2. Fallen man does not desire God.

3. Regenerated man desires God.

Eph 2:3Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved 6 And hath raised [us] up together, and made [us] sit together in heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus:

Acts 16:14 And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard [us]: whose heart the Lord opened , that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.

Heb 8:10 For this [is] the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God , and they shall be to me a people:

 

Calvinisms 101 speaks out of both sides of it's mouth. If man is free to choose (definition of selecting between TWO or more things) whatever he desires...God is an option.

 

God does not love everyone...
Proverbs 6:16-19
16 There are six things which the LORD hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:
17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood,
18 A heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that run rapidly to evil,
19 A false witness {who} utters lies, And one who spreads strife among brothers.
Psalms 5: 5. The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity.