Calvinism and Open Theism are strange bedfellows?

problem is that you are trying to reason your way tot he answer, need to accept what God has already declared in His word!

Also, once you lose concept of there really be free will in the strictest sense for man, that will help you also to see the truth!

 

No, I am sticking with what God declared in His word. I think I see the truth just fine. God sets before us a choice of life or death, not a "choice of death only for some" and "life only for others" which is the Calvinist rewrite. Calvinism tried to reason its way rather than accepting what scripture says.

Everything is not predestined and God is not the author of sin. Pretty straight-forward.

God is sovereign, but sovereign is not code for everything is predestined. Pretty straight-forward.

 

Van, let's examine the issue behind God, Jonah, and Nineveh a bit more. Whom INITIATED the issue? GOD. Whom called out a prophet to go to a Gentile land with a warning? GOD. Who ran from that call? Jonah. Who insured that His effectual call was in fact made? GOD. Who used a reluctant prophet who wished with every fiber of his will that he did not have to do what God willed? GOD. Who had in mind to speak His will to Nineveh long before anything else? GOD.

So, it would indeed appear that God did in fact predestine Nineveh to repentance, in that He caused precisely that to happen. Now, we might toss in the choice that the people of Nineveh had in the matter, but even in that we might find that God had already preempted them.. Jonah's appearance was radically different from most men after his encounter in the belly of the great fish and after being under the sea for 3 days (the sign Christ later offered as a type that explained His time in the tomb -- BEFORE the fact of His actually being laid there), which suggests that even this was part of God's plan for Nineveh.

Oh, and I'm still waiting on an answer to my earlier post. :wavey:

 

VAN STATES "Everything is not predestined and God is not the author of sin. Pretty straight-forward."

"God is sovereign, but sovereign is not code for everything is predestined. Pretty straight-forward."

OK...?? Where did you get the idea that Salvation By Grace Theology people believe that God is the author of Sin & Everything is Predestined????

Do I have to tell you again that that isnt so or do you get some type of sick satisfaction in making these erroneous claims?

To use your own words to address this ...... HORSE FEATHERS :BangHead:


Oh, & I just found this in archives:

And if you study the scriptures very carefully you will begin to notice something that is consistent and that is that Predestination is always about people and not about events. Notice the words "we" "us" "whom" and "brethren." This is a huge point and please do not miss it. God did not predestine all things that transpire but He predestines all whom He foreknew. Some say that God predestined everything we do, even the sin that we commit. Now, that would make us mindless pawns and would make God the author of sin. So here is what I see in studying scripture telling us bottom line "Predestination is only concerned with the destiny of the elect."

 

BRAVO :applause::thumbs:

 

Reply to deflection

The issue is God told Jonah to say in forty days Nineveh will be overturned. If God knew He would not overturn it, why did He say He would? You have no answer to you change the subject. Shuck and jive folks, shuck and jive.

 

Reply to Skandelon;

Real teachers of God's word cite the scriptures they teach from. False teachers hide their doctrines in generalities.

I am not the one interpreting scripture, I cite specific verses, like God saying now I know. You are the one who time and time again says scripture does not mean what it says.

I have a finite mind, but you are in the same box. For you to claim you have secret knowledge from outside the box is silly.

Next we have the paradox of the trinity thrown out as supporting the validity of other paradoxes. Fiddlesticks.

Yes, when someone says God predestines everything but is not the author of sin, I say that is a logical impossibility. Or for another example say you claim to be spiritually in Christ and not spiritually in Christ at the same time. Fiddlesticks.

You have no ability to comprehend God beyond what your finite mind comprehends.

No, you do not stick with revelation, that is what I do. You say God's revelation does not mean what it says. God says now I know, and you say He did not mean what He said.

All Arminians are open theists to a limited degree, as are most Calvinists. Strange bedfellows.

 

Can prayer alter the future? God had said in forty days Nineveh will be overturned, yet Nineveh was not overturned. Either God said He was going to do something He knew He was not going to do, or He relented and did not bring calmity because the people of Nineveh repented and prayed.

I believe being an orthodox Baptist, that God sometimes alters the future in response to the prayers of His loved ones, just like He did in the book of Jonah.

 

Was God not the author, even of the statement to Jonah?

How you constantly mistake God as the subject of the sentence and yet claim that you "study" the Scriptures is beyond me.

 

When God called to Adam, did He know where Adam was?

Genesis 3:9 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?


God knows everything.

 

Hi Amy G, it does not matter how many times you say something, unless it is true, saying it does not make it true.

And why did you offer another verse to discuss, rather than the ones that I believe demonstrate my position? In your passage, God may have been asking rhetorical questions, where are you and who gave you the fruit? Scripture does not say whether God knew the answers to these questions.

However, when God told Jonah to say, In forty days Nineveh will be overturned, if He knew He would not overturn it, then that is inconsistent with God's character. Do you have an answer to my question?

When God said, now I know, that shows God did not know beforehand. So if scripture is true and cannot be broken, your view is unbiblical.

 

Yes, that is my point, God told Jonah what to say.

I made no mistake. Here is yet another effort to change the subject from the topic of the thread to my behavior. Shuck and jive, folks, shuck and jive.

Look at the number here who are using every trick in the book to avoid the truth of scripture. God is not the author of sin, therefore God does not predestine everything. Pretty simple, really. And if God does not predestine everything, then open theism to a limited degree is biblical. Pretty simple really.

 

open theism is a heresy.....24/7 pretty simple really

 

:thumbsup::thumbs::applause:...correct stand against heresy:thumbsup:

 

All Arminians and most Calvinists are open theists to a limited degree. Iconoclast disparages, but never states his position. He quotes ambiguity and then runs away from it. He calls scripture heresy and then calls for Amy G to stand against scripture.

If God predestines everything, God is the author of Sin. Therefore God does not predestine everything. Pretty simple really.

 

Listen Van... You are really quick to take the rest of us to task, yet you have utterly failed to deal with the question I posed to you above.

Why is that? Perhaps you cannot... I've posed similar questions to you before and all you do is rail on about how we are all just attacking you or your new current favorite phrase (which says absolutely nothing) "shuck and jive."

You CLAIM to have the entire soteriological picture worked out and it is VERY SIMPLE (so simple, I suppose a cave man could understand it, right?) and yet you FAIL to present this very simple way of reconciling the Scriptures.

Go ahead -- if you can. But at the end of the day, I am assured that you cannot. It is far easier to stand from afar and pick apart, in a negative sense, those with whom you disagree than to come near and lay out a coherent doctrine. But, here is your chance, Let fly!

 

Changing the Subject

Yet another Calvinist trying to derail the thread and change the subject to my supposedly bad behavior rather than the topic. That is all they have folks, shuck and jive.

And note their effort to attribute to me their behavior, which is to post disparagement devoid of any scriptural position on the topic of the thread. More shuck and more jive.

And finally note the repeated effort to claim I have not answered a question when they have not said whether God predestines all things. Or if He does, how then is not the author of our predestined sins. Shuck and jive folks, shuck and jive.

 

All Arminians and most Calvinists are open theists to a limited degree.

If God predestines everything, God is the author of Sin. Therefore God does not predestine everything. Pretty simple really.

Look at the number here who are using every trick in the book to avoid the truth of scripture. God is not the author of sin, therefore God does not predestine everything. Pretty simple, really. And if God does not predestine everything, then open theism to a limited degree is biblical. Pretty simple really.

 

False. Open theism is heresy.

No it's not simple at all. God is very complicated. Even what He has chosen to reveal to us is sometimes very hard to understand, and sometimes impossible to understand.

God is sovereign and as such MUST know everything. Just because you don't understand how God can predestine and at the same time allow certain choices to be made by man does not mean God is the author of sin.

We cannot understand all there is to know about God and His ways. To think you can figure out your creator is arrogant and a foolish waste of time.

Isaiah 55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.