God is in control but not all events are predetermined.

God is glorified by/out of evil, Naw, got to be some other reason, keep looking.

 

Romans, chapter 8
"20": For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,

God made us subject to vanity or in other words we could sin but it was not His will. He also made us subjected in hope (Jesus Christ)or we could escape sin by Jesus Christ.

He did get Glory from this because if we chose not to sin then He receives Glory but if we choose sin then He does not receive Glory from us. So He don't receive Glory from our evil but receives Glory because He gave us a choice and if we choose Him then we are fullfilling the whole duty of man which is to fear God and keep His commandments and in doing so God receives Glory from us. What you think?

 

So God gets the glory when we humans are smart enough, wise enough, humble enough or good enough to have the good sense to choose Him? Sorry, I don't buy it.

 

God is glorified by/out of evil, Naw, got to be some other reason, keep looking. </font>[/QUOTE]Brother Bob, when man sins God still receives glory. How so?

Romans 3:4-5 4 May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, "That Thou mightest be justified in Thy words, And mightest prevail when Thou art judged." 5 But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.)

Our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God. This glorifies God. God is proven to be righteous and holy. Man is proven to be a liar and unrighteous. Now granted, this is a negative way for God to be glorified (through the unrighteousness of man), but God still receives the glory no matter what man does (or doesn't do).

 

We humans are not mutes. God did give us enough sense to come in out of the rain.

Choose ye this day whom ye shall serve!!!

 

wow.. sorry about the multiple posts everyone... wierd....

 

huh... funny how many people like walking in the rain...

 

God uses any and everything He so chooses for His glory. What's that verse about everything working to God's glory,serving God's purpose, even the wicked for the day of destruction, or something like that?

 

God is glorified by/out of evil, Naw, got to be some other reason, keep looking. </font>[/QUOTE]".... people who waver with uncertainty over the problem of God's sovereignty in the matter of evil usually do not have a God-entranced world view. For them, now God is sovereign, and now he is not. Now he is in control, and now he is not. Now he is good and reliable when things are going well, and when they go bad, well, maybe he's not. Now he's the supreme authority of the universe, and now he is in the dock with human prosecutors peppering him with demands that he give an account of himself." (John Piper)

fit so well, I was... well.. constrained to post it

blessings,
Ken

 

But what, He either is or He isn't.

 

Well, I’m not denying God’s foreknowledge if that’s what you’re insinuating; I’ve suggested He might have more absolute exhaustive foreknowledge than even you can understand; not liking that idea? You might be thinking higher of yourself that you ought. God’s ways are not your ways.</font>[/QUOTE]No, I am not saying that you are denying God's exhaustive foreknowledge, only that those who do are heretics.
I totally agree that God's ways are not our ways, and that God's complete and total knowledge of the future includes the choices manlind freely makes. It just so happens that the Bible speaks of this as including both moral and natural evil.

Okay let’s stay away from analogies of human fathers and consider God. Amazing how God can create a circumstance in advance knowing all along how it will come down and still allow His creatures free will isn’t it? Only heretical doctrines limit God’s absolute omnipotence.[/quote]

Well, I’m not denying God’s omnipotence if that’s what you’re insinuating; I’ve suggested He might have more absolute omnipotence than even you can understand; not liking that idea? You might be thinking higher of yourself that you ought. God’s ways are not your ways.

And He intervenes by “overriding” human will? You say He “can”… “whenever He sees fit” Guess He changed His mind then, huh? Here comes the doctrine of “changing His mind”, I thought you said only heretics like Socinians and Open Theists denied absolute exhaustive foreknowledge, didn’t He get it right in the first place?

Oh... so you DO deny God's absolute and exhaustive foreknowledge... which is it.. make up your mind... does God have all knowledge, including the free choices made by man or not?

You deny scripture that says, As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good , plainly God used it for the good and it was good unless you want to deny His foreknowledge again (that is His nature BTW…Good that is) and YOUR opinion that God uses evil for his own purposes also denies scripture…[/quote]

"The text says, "You meant evil against me." Evil is a feminine singular noun. Then it says, "God meant it for good." The word "it" is a feminine singular suffix that can only agree with the antecedent feminine singular noun, "evil." And the verb "meant" is the same past tense in both cases. You meant evil against me in the past, as you were doing it. And God meant that very evil, not as evil, but as good in the past as you were doing it. And to make this perfectly clear, Psalm 105:17 says about Joseph's coming to Egypt, "[God] sent a man before them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave." God sent him. God did not find him there owing to evil choices, and then try to make something good come of it. Therefore this text stands as a kind of paradigm for how to understand the evil will of man within the sovereign will of God."
http://www.desiringgod.org/library/topics/suffering/god_and_evil.html

That God ordains evil that good may come is perfectly in line with God's perfections.

lol... the Bible is clear that God uses evil... don't be silly... you have to overlook tons of Scripture to not see this... the entire story of Job is a testament to God using evil.... what does Satan do to Job that God doesn't allow? Is Satan more powerful than God? Of course not. Is man more powerful than God? Of course not. Therefore all that happens, everything that is caused by the free will of man and Satan is ultimately controlled by God.

God contols the evil of natural disasters which are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

Isaiah 45:7 says God is "The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these."

Amos 3:6 "If a calamity occurs in a city has not the LORD done it?"

Daniel 4:35), "[God] does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, 'What are you doing?'"

Ephesians 1:11, that God is the one "who works all things after the counsel of His will."

God is in comtrol over things we would call moral evils as well. God caused the death of David's son with Bathsheba; 2 Samuel 12:15 says, "Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah's widow bore to David, so that he was sick . . . . Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died."

When Job's 10 children were killed he said
"Naked I came from my mother's womb, And naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD. In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. (Job 1:21-22).

God is in complete control over everything.... everything.... to deny this is simply to deny the Bible's own testimony to the extensiveness and completeness of God's sovereignty. The only way to get around this is to pit one part of the Bible against another in contradiction, or to introduce man-made philosophies to sooth the itching ears of man, like the denial of exhaustive foreknowledge, eg the Socinians and Open Theists.

I have no problem with “directed” if it doesn’t mean “fixed and forced” and don’t attempt to limit by doctrine His desires…like some people we know![/quote]

The future is "fixed". There are no surprises to God, nothing that happens that makes God say "wow.. sorry about that... didn't see that coming!"

Here is what God said.... prior to Moses ever confronting Pharaoh with any miracles... any pleading to let God's people go...
Exo 4:21 esv And the Lord said to Moses, When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go...."

that is what the Bible says, though it makes people uncomfortable to imagine that God has that kind of sovereignty, its what the Bible says. If libertarian free will were true, then God would not have known what the Pharahoh might do, after all he may have conceded and let the Israelites go after the very first miracle. But this is not what happened. Ten times is it said that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, (Exodus 4:21; 7:3; 9:12; 10:1; 10:20; 10:27; 11:10; 14:4; 14:8; 14:17) but also that God twice declared to Moses, even before the series of confrontations between Moses and Pharaoh began, that he would harden Pharaoh’s heart “and multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt” (Exod. 4:21; 7:3). The first time then that it is said that Pharaoh’s heart was hard, the text expressly declares that it was so “just as the LORD had spoken” (Exod. 7:13), clearly indicating that Pharaoh’s hardness of heart had came about due to God’s previous promise to harden it. And the first time it is said that Pharaoh “made his heart hard,” again we are informed that it was so “just as the LORD had spoken” (8:15; see also 8:19; 9:12, 35). In Exodus, God, in fact, declared to Pharaoh that the reason behind his raising Pharaoh up and placing him or "preserving him" on the throne of Egypt was in order to show by him his power and in order to proclaim his own name throughout the earth. It is evident from Exodus that the Pharaoh and and all of Egypt were at the disposition of an absolute Sovereign. Like it or not, that is the way it is.

You are welcome, though it seems that you still didn't "get it".

By having a thoroughly biblical notion of what the phrase "free will" means. I do not let secualr sources define this term for me, I don't accept the notion of libertarian free will because it is not biblical.

blessings,
Ken

 

Genesis 6

"5": And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

"6": And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

"7": And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

Where is the Glory?

 

Revelation, chapter 2

"5": Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

"6": But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

Where is the Glory? Does He receive Glory from Satan?

 

That sounds possible, but it isn't. The moment God "sovereignly" decides that He will base his decision on what man decides, He elevates man's decision above His own. He abdicates His throne and makes man sovereign over that particular thing (in this case, man's eternal destiny).

It has nothing to do with man's doctrines (whatever they are). It's self-evident that when you pass the authority over something on to someone else, you've done just that -- you've abdicated your sovereignty over that particular issue.

What you end up with is that, "God sovereignly decided to abdicate his sovereignty over man's eternal destiny," which is nothing but double-talk. If God did that, he is no longer sovereign.

 

Never denied it.

Nope. Well, the only thing that is clear is that you are mistaken.

... here is the 411 on God overriding man's "free will" and His complete and total sovereignty over both man and nature:

Proverbs 16 acclaimed God’s sovereign rule over men when he declared: “To man belong the plans of the heart, but from the LORD comes the reply of the tongue” (Prov. 16:1); again, “The Lord has made everything for himself, even the wicked for the day of evil” (v. 4); yet again, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps” (v. 9); and finally, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD” (v. 33).

See also in the same vein the following statements:
Proverbs 19:21: “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” Proverbs 20:24: “A man’s steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand his own way?” Proverbs 21:30: “There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the
LORD.”

Isaiah declared God’s awesome sovereignty over Assyria when he wrote that under God’s sovereign governance Assyria would come against Israel because of the latter’s transgressions, even though Assyria “does not intend nor does it plan so in its heart” (Isa. 10:6–7).

The same prophet declared that all things happen in accordance with God’s eternal and irresistible decree:
Isaiah 14:24, 27: “Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand.… For the LORD Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him?”
Isaiah 46:10, 11: “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.… What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do.”
Through the same prophet God declared that it is he, the Lord, who forms and creates darkness: “I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things” (Is. 45:7).

Echoing the same theme, Amos rhetorically queried: “When disaster comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it?” (Amos 3:6).

Daniel informed Nebuchadnezzar on the basis of a heavenly vision (Dan. 4:17) that “the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind; and bestows it on whomever he wishes” (4:31–32). Then after his humbling experience, the chastened Babylonian king blessed the Most High with the following words: “His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation. And
all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and no one can ward off his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’ “ (vv. 34–35).

Perhaps no declaration sums up the attitude of the Old Testament witness to God’s awesome sovereignty over men and nations more majestically than Isaiah
40:15, 17, 22, 23:
Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
they are regarded as dust on the scales;
He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.… Before him all the nations are as nothing;
they are regarded by him as worthless and less than nothing.… He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers.… He brings princes to naught
and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.


So much for the vaunted "free will" of man....

Never denied it.

thats good, I am glad you are aware of your limitations... thankfully, God has spelled out for us the extent of His omniscience, it's pretty simple really, He knows everything.

Good, me neither.

Actually for you to accuse me of denying that man has free will is, itself, a lie.

Amazing how He can give us free will and yet not be surprised, ain’t it? Sorry you can’t figure out how He does it but it’s the truth, if you do let me know would you?[/quote]

I did let you know, it's just that you don't seem to like what the Bible has to say on the subject, and just like many of Jesus' disciples, after He told them that no one could come to Him unless it was granted by the Father, they walked away. Mankind is so interested in elevating their unbiblical notions of free will that they become blind to God's sovereignty.

Your thorough biblical notion was designed to fit your doctrine and denies the truth as God made it that His creatures were made in His image and likeness with a spirit of free will. This is exactly what you have done is used a secular source to define “free will” for you and it is clearly not biblical in the truth that God created us in. [/QB][/QUOTE]

I have thoroughly addressed this above, by providing extensive biblical proof (and could, if you ask, provide much much more) for the doctrine of absolute sovereignty. I noticed an extreme lack of biblical proof for your view. There is a reason for that, the common secular view of man's free will (that you seem to have) is not supported by the Bible.

blessings,
Ken