Predestination in directly determining and causing?
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Calvinism : Questions
- Thread starter LaGrange
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I hold that God directly determined the destiny of His elect in Christ, but He chose to bypass the remainder of the lost and let them have their own ways and desires...
This is true I believe...and him choosing to bypass the remainder of the lost is in essence his act of reprobating them.
He is permitting the lost to have their desire to be apart from God, as they do not want Him over their lives as Lord!
Yes it was. It moved the target a bit. I do not hold the open theist definition of omniscience, but at the same time I do admire that at least they identified the issue and reacted in a logical way. Most just seem to affirm omniscience while denying that everything is predestined.
Those open theist rascals are interesting, anyway. Toss in "middle knowledge" and end up with a genuine mosh pit.
yes, end up with a God not found in the Bible!Yes it was. It moved the target a bit. I do not hold the open theist definition of omniscience, but at the same time I do admire that at least they identified the issue and reacted in a logical way. Most just seem to affirm omniscience while denying that everything is predestined.
Those open theist rascals are interesting, anyway. Toss in "middle knowledge" and end up with a genuine mosh pit.
Most do, to some extent anyway. We can only know of God through Creation, through the text of scripture (written, God "breathed" testimony), and God's Word (Christ). None of these means of knowing about God conflict with one another. BUT the fullest revelation of God is Jesus Christ (the exact representation of the Father).
So if we want to know God we look at Christ.
The problem is all of us, being human, suffer from a condition called "being human". Our vision is skewed and we see as through a mirror or glass dimly.
That is where the question comes in of relying on the text of scripture versus relying on our understanding of the text of scripture....and knowing the difference.
The larger problem is many do not realize that they are seeing as though through a glass, dimly, and insist that they have been gifted sight beyond what scripture attributes to God's children during this present age. Some believe that God has granted to them vision akin to reading with magic glasses through which otherwise plain tablets reveal what God really intended to communicate.
Joseph Smith, meet kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn!
Do you think John Calvin would endorse TULIP?
Only if one places limitations on Divine Foreknowledge by placing it into a theological finite box. #2 "everything" God is ONLY Good and can not predestine evil and then create it because it has no part of His aseity being and thus evil can not come from Him.
atpollard
Well-Known Member
Of course not. You know how argumentative those Reformers were.
For one thing, there should be a Letter stating that the Pope is the Antichrist!
I disagree.
Either God knows all that will occur in the future (from eternity past to eternity future) or He does not.
If God knows all that will occur in the future then everything is predestined. This has nothing to do with anyone causing evil. This really does not have anything to do with anyone predestining anything.
It speaks of the state of events to occur - they are predestined to occur as God knew they would occur.
Then you can go to "ordain". Everything is ordained by God to occur as they are predestined to occur by the act of Creation.
None of this makes God the author of evil. That does not mean that God does not predestine these things to occur (God predestined pagan nations to conquer His people, and God judged those nations for conquering His people).
atpollard
Well-Known Member
It always amuses me that people (including me) are always so worried about God appearing "to miss the mark". It is like we have our favorite plastic tape measure, with the end that once held a metal edge now frayed, and some numbers and marks worn away and unreadable from years of use, and parts of the tape that are all crinkled up so that we have to pull it tight to flatten it out, and some other parts being sort of stretched funny so it distorts the markings like a fun house mirror. So we are going to use our Tape Measure to verify that the "Official Metric Bar" is still exactly 1 meter long.
Sorry, but you will never convince me that God created/ordained/predestined evil in any way. Your logic that knowing = predestining does not compute and does not stand in regard to evil...
IF One holds to "free will", would not God have to create Evil to allow for you to freely choose between Him and satan?
History will come to pass As God sees it happening, as he determines it directly, and guides it thru others at times also!
atpollard
Well-Known Member
Many things that we think exist, in reality, do not. Here are two examples:
“Darkness” does not exist. There is no way to measure the amount of darkness in a room. Light exists, but darkness does not. Light is simply the relative lack of light compared to another place. You will never shine a “Flash-dark” at a room to create a patch of darkness in the otherwise lighted space.
“Cold” does not exist. Heat is the measure of molecular movement with no movement being a theoretical 0 degrees kelvin. So cold is just “less heat”.
God defines and is the source of GOOD. Evil can exist as a measurement of the absence of good. (Which makes Light and Darkness very good analogies). So God does create “Evil” simply by existing. The act of God having a nature, creates the very possibility of something being contrary to that nature. God defines LOVE and in doing so, allows the absence of love (HATE) to have meaning. Just as Light and Heat allow “dark” and “cold” to have meaning.
I am not trying to convince you.
God did not create evil. I never claimed otherwise.
But I cannot deny scripture that God does ordain these things to take place. Scripture gives us examples if why (like the Assyrians conquering and utterly destroying the Northern Kingdom of Israel, something for which they were judged but called to that task by God nontheless; and like the Jewish leaders handing Christ over to the Romans, and the Romans crucifying Christ).
But if Scripture is not sufficient, logic also dictates the same.
If God is omniscient then everything is predestined. There is no getting around that, even if we toss out scripture.
Determining directly and guiding thru are irrelevant for an omniscient Creator (it is inherent in "Creator").
I cannot deny scripture that no evil comes from God.
If you believe that there is an example of God exhibiting evil you should probably reinterpret that scripture in line with holding on to God's attributes and refigure.
Scripture is sufficient. I never claimed otherwise.
However, we humans reason the meaning of scripture with logic.
As for your omniscience must = predestination your logic fails to account for that evil happens.
1) Necessarily God has fore determined everything that will happen
2) God has determined X
3) Therefore it is necessary that X will happen
X = Evil
Again, I cannot deny scripture that no evil comes from God, therefore God did not determine it even though He is Omniscient. Thus, His knowledge must be greater than the finite theological box you attempt to put it in.
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