A question about Calvinisum

Let's look at this

What if one of the elect does not respond positively? Impossible, right? So wouldn't the same logic apply to prayer? If God ordained that I pray for a certain individual, it's going to happen, right? It is impossible for it not to happen.

 

False dichotomy. The two aren't mutually exclusive. God's eternal plan includes both people's obedience and people's disobedience. So if you don't pray, it's proof that your prayer isn't included in God's eternal plan, and at the same time, you would be being disobedient by not praying.

This is a false dichotomy as well. We can be obedient and also be doing what God ordained. Was Paul ordained to be a missionary to the gentiles? Yes. Was he obedient when he did it? Yes.

Actually, I believe God does respond in time to our prayers, and in that sense, you might say that he is moved by our prayers. But both my prayer and his response to my prayer is included in God's eternal plan, which doesn't change.

Question for you: Do you believe God has an eternal plan? Do you believe God's eternal plan changes?

 

Ahhhhh....... I see what you are asking. If God ordained that I pray for a non elect person... He does that so that I would be responsible and compassionate for the lost, that does not mean that He is going to elect that person. Can it not work both ways? Can God use my prayer and save a soul that He has chosen before the foundation of the world? Sure He can. Does God have to elect all the people I pray for? No He doesn't. God can ordain that I have compassion upon all lost people, He does not tell me who the elect are. I guess maybe I don't follow you after all. Can you explain it better? Or maybe can I explain it better? :laugh: I believe that God ordains all that we do, including sin. How God works it out is for His glory according to His will.

 

God has nothing to "gain" from anyone. He is sufficient in Himself. I suppose it glorifies God in that His will is accomplished. It is all about Him you know. Its not about us. :godisgood:

 

...double post...

 

I'm sure I am going to be a Calvinist someday. I am trying to learn what I'll believe. So please, help me out here.

 

So what am I to be held accountable for? And what am I to be rewarded for?

 

Hello Hanna,

This may look like it at 1st. But both mans choice and Gods will is at hand. The reason Calvinist seem to push a controling God more then anything, is because non-Calvinist deny it. We spend most of our time proclaiming God is in control, to reply to others that say He is not. But in fact we see both working. This is seen fully with Joseph and his brothers. Who sold Joseph as a slave? His brothers right? Did any one force them to do this? In the story we see them make a choice on their own. Yet who controled the choice that was made? It was God.

Notice this was not a good thing that came from a bad thing. God was in control all the time. We have choices, but God is the one that places the choices in from of us. We choose what we love the most. God knows what we love the most, therefore can control us with a choice. God knew Joseph brothers would sale him as a slave, so God sent a "slave buyer" to the brothers. Why? So Joseph would preserve life. Great God we have...no?


In Christ...James

 

Obedience and disobedience. Again, Blammo, I can not put my arms around God being sovereign and man being responsible. It is an antinomy.

How God causes all things to work out for the good, how He guides our choices and actions, yet makes us responsible for it, I don't know. The Bible teaches it, so we have to, if we want to preach and teach the full counsel of God. I have many questions for God, (with humility.) I suppose the greatest of these is; God, why didn't you save them all?
raying:

 

I'm saying that God commands us to pray for people--all kinds of people. If you don't pray for the salvation of someone who comes to mind and who needs to be saved, then you aren't obeying God's command.

And God is not the agent or direct cause of any disobedience. (Of course, he's the first cause of everything.) God's eternal plan (or ordination) is not the efficient cause of anything. The things in his plan are brought about by more immediate causes or agents, like, in this instance, your disobedient heart. In this case, God's role in this is one of inaction, rather than action. He permits you to disobey him.

What are you responsible for? The inaction of your disobedient heart.

Was it certain that Paul would obey? Yes. Was it necessary that Paul obey? No. Paul was given the choice; both options were real options; there was only one that Paul would actually choose.

Well yes and no. That's not a bad analogy, but like any analogy it falls short of the real deal. For one thing, actors in a play are just playing a script. People in the world are acting and reacting genuinely to the circumstances around them. They are truly experiencing everything. They don't know what the next moment of the play brings.

What I can say is that God has a plan, and the world runs according to his plan, and he interacts with his world--arranging circumstances, moving hearts, preventing things, permitting things--so that the plan comes about. He is never the immediate cause of a sinful action, but sinful actions come about by way of God's permission.

Okay. So what things are included in God's plan that never changes?

 

Well, seeing how someone who is very proficient in playing chess has a game plan, I suppose you could use that analogy. God does have a plan. The thing is Hanna, with God, His plan is already accomplished. He is present in eternity future, at the consumation of all time... and beyond. Its a done deal with God. We are just in this dimension of time, playing it out. The Good news is.......... God is in control! Praise God!

 

It isn't so much that it's impossible for them to reject Him that gives him glory, but that they were so entrenched in their obstinance to Him that they were, in reality, helpless in their sins. They needed to have faith in Him, but the hated Him, and their hatred made it impossible for them to trust Him. God's merciful work within them to change their hard hearts so that they could trust Him was their only hope, and that reveals the depth and glory of his grace and mercy in a way that nothing else could. God loves and saves his enemies. God loves and saves those who are hostile to Him.

That shows "the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." That God reaches down "even when we were dead in our trespasses", when we were "being energized by the ruler of the power of the air", and makes us "alive together with Christ", reveals the depth of his mercy and the greatness of his love.

 

Thank you, Russell, that is one of the best responses I have heard. I think I can agree with every word of it.

:laugh: You first!!!

In a sense, everything, seeing that God had foreknowledge of all things before creation. On the other hand: Is forknowledge the same as foreordination? As you stated above, "sinful actions come about by way of God's permission", in other words He did not "plan" them (though He did plan for them).

 

Blammo, just to help you out a bit... not the other way around...lol, God's foreknowledge is more of an intimate thing, not His looking into the future, as God is in the future already. I think what you meant to say is prescience. God is all knowing, and all that happens does not occur because He knew something that would happen, it occurs because He has ordained it. Hope this helps.......lol. Grace and peace, brother.

 

So Hanna........ what do you think so far? Which side has the best biblical argument? Just curious. I think the Bible will win out.

 

RB,

Where does it say in Scripture that God has ordained ALL things? I can find Scripture support for God ordaining certain things. But I can also find certain things in Scripture that were not ordained of God.

1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.