Arminians Make God into a Puppet

Gather yourselves and come; draw near together, escaped ones of the nations; the ones who set up the wood of their carved image, and the ones who pray to a god who cannot save; they know nothing. (Isaiah 45:20)

Arminians say that man would be a "robot" or a "puppet", if he did not have a free will to determine his eternity. God, according to the Arminian, does not write the Book of Life rather, the reason that man is "not a puppet on a string" is because he has the power to decide and the ability to control his eternal destination. Thus, the Arminian preacher: "God is not going to make any decisions for you. Man would be a puppet if he could not choose, decide, and determine his salvation. You're not a robot, because you have free will! After all, anyone who does not have the ability to decide the outcome of an event is merely a puppet manipulated by another!"



Arminians assert that anyone without free will is a puppet; and the reason the Arminian believes he has a free will is because that will is not controlled by God. Thus, in His dealings with a man, according to the Arminian, God does not have the freedom or liberty to determine, chose, or decide the outcome of whether that man will be saved or condemned. How does the Arminian define "free will", and what or who is the will free from? By definition, the will is free, because it is free from the control of God, so that God's will (his control) is not free, but with regard to men's salvation, God's will is restricted. In other words, God's will is not free to decide those who end up in heaven and to determine those who end up in hell. Whilst few Arminian would voice their belief explicitly, in effect, they are saying that man's will is free, God's is not; man's will is at liberty to decide his eternity, God's will is restricted in such matters; man is free, God is bound. The Arminian teaches that God does not have free will, and since Arminians also believe that anyone without a free will is a puppet, Arminians believe that God is a puppet. Arminians teach that man is free, and God is bound (a puppet on strings). Arminians pray to a God who cannot save (Isaiah 45:20), since he cannot infringe upon man's will; Arminians "save" themselves, by their own wills. However, so do Romanists, Mormons and Satanists. These lost sectarians worship puppet-gods, and are commanded to repent and believe in the Just God and Savior. "Declare and bring near; yea, let them consult together. Who has revealed this of old; who has told it from then? Is it not I, Jehovah? And there is no God other than Me; a just God and a Savior; there is none except Me." (Isaiah 45:21)



What does the Just God and Savior declare? He declares that the natural man loves and choses the way that leads to everlasting death, and he has neither understanding to know God, neither will to chose God, nor power to turn to God, but is "dead in deviations and sins". Man is naturally alive, he has an understanding to know the things of time and sense, to love them, to chose them, to turn to them, and to enjoy them but such vain boasters have no spiritual understanding. The unregenerate are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge (Isa4:22). Unbelievers are more ignorant of God, than animals are of their habitats. "The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's manger, but Israel does not know; My people have not understood."(Isa1:3) "Also the stork in the heavens knows her seasons, and the turtledove and the swallow and the thrush observe the time of their coming. But My people do not know the judgment of Jehovah." (Jer8:7). Unbelievers have no knowledge of God, so they cannot "chose" or love God. As man cannot love an unknown good, they do not know God. They reject knowledge, reject His Law, and reject His gospel. "My people are cut off for lack of knowledge" (Hos4:6) "for it is a people with NO understanding." (Isa27:11) Arminians boast of the freedom of their will, of their mighty power which enabled them to choose God, even whilst being dead in deviations and sins. Arminians have a will, indeed, to choose that which is evil.



Since much of the confusion regarding the will of man is linked with an ignorance of what role an elect person plays in his justification, let us briefly turn to the topic of faith. The word ‘believing,’ among men, plainly signifies, “our holding of a thing for truth which is told to us by another person, merely on account of that person’s credibility or authority.” If the authority of testimony on which we believe is only human, like when your friend declares a matter to you, the belief that consequently arises is merely a *human* belief, credit, persuasion, assurance, faith, or inward evidence, communicated to the mind by means of the outward testimony (all these expressions – belief, assurance, trust etc – are only different names for the same thing which is the belief or a truth of falsehood, according to the truth or falsehood of the testimony supporting it.)



When we believe on the testimony or authority of God, this is *divine* faith, assurance, certainty, in which there can be no falsehood; but only all pure truth, because God Himself is the Testifier, with whom it is "impossible to lie" or deceive. It is true, indeed, that though divine faith, considered in itself, resembles in all respects that which is human; yet it differs in these following peculiar and essential circumstances: for divine faith is not only distinguished from human, because it rests upon the testimony and authority of God alone, but also because God, the Author of the testimony, is equally and solely, in His own special manner, the Author of its manifestation as a truth in the conscience of the believer; and also, because it amounts to absolute certainty of assurance, without any mixture of doubt in the nature of it, being universally wherever it is, without any exception, distinguished from a mere probability, or matter of doubtful disputation, by having God Himself manifested in the conscience for its evidence. In proof of this point it is written,



“Flesh and blood have no revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” “We believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” “I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus.” “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.” “You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.” “I have no written to you because you know not the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth.” “He that believes has the witness in himself.” “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Here, then, we may rest upon it, that divine faith does not come by human research and reasoning.



Let every man look to the ground of his faith, and see if it be the very record of God, imprinted by the finger of God upon his heart, and see if his heart bears a pure impression of the Word of truth. For the truth of God, believed in the heart, bears the same relation and proportion to the truth declared in the Word of God, as the illustration of engraving upon the wax and impressing a seal. The one receiving His testimony has sealed that God is true. (John 3:3) The truth of the gospel – God’s promise to save His people based on the atoning blood and imputed righteousness by Jesus Christ alone – is sealed, impressed, or “copied-and-pasted” into the heart of the believer. True believers know that their Father fulfils His covenant, manifests Himself, and writes His laws of love in their hearts, and seals them by His Spirit to the day of redemption. God has spoken, and they have believed; and their faith does not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the demonstration of the Holy Spirit, and the power of God. Even the Apostle to the Gentiles has said, (and all believers have the same precious and equally honourable faith with the apostles), “I know who I have believed.” “The one receiving His testimony has sealed that God is true.” Has God set His seal to a blank, to a nothing? Do believers know they believe? They most certainly do, and thus, every believer of God have in themselves, (and not in another person, which is impossible), undoubted certainty, and that by means of the divine testimony, of that which he believes, the reality of which, while he believes it, he can no more hesitate about, than he can hesitate about the reality of His own existence. “For he that comes to God must believe,” or be assured on the testimony of God Himself, “that He,” this God whom He has believed, “is” what he has declared Himself in His Word to be.



What has God declared? All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. There is no difference. Therefore, the Law stops every mouth, and the whole world has become guilty before God; and there is not one exception with Gentile or Jew. By the deeds of the Law shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God, "for by the Law is the knowledge of sin" and of wrath, and every broken law means wrath. It was declared to the Galatians, who had believed through grace, "Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all the things having been written in the book of the Law, to do them."(Galatians 3:10). And elsewhere, "For whoever shall keep all the Law, but stumbles in one, he has become guilty of all." (James 2:10) Similarly, "that no one is justified by Law before God is clear because, "The just", that is, the man with Christ's righteousness, "shall live," not by what he does or suffers in obedience to the Law, but "by faith," (Galatians 3:11) meaning that he is justified by what he believes, justified by the righteousness of God, the righteousness of Christ which is the object of his faith. This righteousness is "toward all and upon all those believing; for there is no difference," (Romans 3:22) for "there is no difference both of Jew and of Greek" (Romans 10:12) "But the Law is not of faith, but, the man doing these things shall live in them."(Galatians 3:12). So that is only the just, or the righteous, not by his doing, but by his faith, that shall live. Christ alone is the end, fulfilment, and perfection of the Law, for righteousness, and this is for everyone who believes. This is the only gospel, believe it, and live. Behold he comes with clouds, and every eye shall see him. He that believes shall be saved, he that believes no shall be damned. He that believes is not condemned; but is justified, and has life; neither shall he come into condemnation, but is passed from death to life. But he that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. And he that believes not shall not see life (while he does not believe) but the wrath of God abides of him.



Andrew C. Bain
Sydney, Australia
www.Godnoliar.com