This I have added to my page on predestination. After seeing people debate on it often, I realized that Romans 9 needed more in depth addressing as to its true context:
Calvinists argue that the entire book of Romans is a "long argument on [individual] salvation, so why would he now be discussing groups?" Let's review the context by further examining the "why does He yet find fault; for who has resisted His will?" question. WHAT is really being asked here? "Still" find "fault" for what? "Why would God unconditionally choose someone else and not me/[others], and save them by 'enabling' them to repent, yet leave me/[others] in this helpless state, dead in sin, unable to repent, yet still hold me/[them] responsible [i.e. 'find fault'] for my sin, and send me/[them] to Hell whcn I/[they] couldn't even 'resist His will' to place me/[them] in this state in the first place?". This is what people are asking Calvinists today, and they simply project this into the text. But is it in the context what the hypothetical person was asking Paul? It looks like it at first glance, and Calvinists assume so, so everytime someone questions or challenges "God holding helpless, 'totally unable' sinners responsible for their sin they couldn't repent of", the Calvinists just throw up the next verse as the quick magical answer. But "ability to repent" is not being discussed here. Neither is any inescapable state or fate. Paul had just mentioned Jacob, Esau and Pharaoh, These may be individuals, but what were they being used to illustrate? Step back another few verses: "not the children of the flesh are children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for a seed." (v.8) Paul argues that simply being "Abraham's children" does not make one a child of promise, because for one thing, Abraham's had other children beside just the Jews. But God had declared that "In Isaac shall your Seed be called." (v.7) Being from Isaac also wasn't enough, because Esau also was his child. But God had still unconditionally chosen Jacob (v.12, 13), not because of any righteousness of his (Jews thought that their forefathers must have been chosen because of being more righteous), for they were not even yet born when God made this decision.(v.11) So the whole point here is that it must be more than physical lineage from Abraham. The next step is that even being of Jacob's physical lineage is not enough.
To further demonstrate God's choice of men for these purposes was not "unjust" (v.14) Paul goes into the whole story of Pharaoh. No Jew thought of what God did to Pharaoh as being "unjust" (after all, it was for their sake, and that's what mattered to them!) So then what Paul is getting to nobody also should think is unjust. The whole context is two groups "the Children of the flesh", and "the children of promise". It says nothing about the individuals in either group being unconditionally elected or preteritioned into those groups. It just assumes two groups, and emphasizes that what many thought was the class that mattered (Jew as opposed to Gentile) was actually not the right one. Before one jumps to the clay "vessels", let's for once look more at the second part of v.20 (the beginning of Paul's answer to this question): "Shall the thing formed say to Him who formed it , 'Why have you made me this way'?". Made them what way? Predestined to Hell? Helpless Adamites consigned into (imputed with) the "sin" of their "federal head" and left in that state? Passed over for "saving grace" and therefore doomed to suffer the eternal "judgement" their sins deserve? (would a reader even assume they were the "non-elect" being described here in the first place?) Most Calvinists I argued with deny with a passion that God "makes" anybody that way (since they, through their federal head, really did it to themselves); and if one of us even addresses that, they claim we are misrepresenting their position and don't know a thing about "Calvinism" or "the Reformed position". And even to those who do confess God "makes" the reprobates that way, still, once again, these concepts are not what was being discussed! The focus is on "children of promise" as opposed to "children of the flesh". According to Ephesians 2:3, we all started out as "children of wrath" (which would be synonymous with "vessels of wrath", "sons of disobedience"(Col.3:6), "seed of Satan" (Matt.13) and also "children of the flesh" for the Jews), so this, as an eternal state of condemnation, is not what God unconditionally "makes" anybody. This should prove once and for all that the question and Paul's answer have nothing to do with Calvinistic reprobation or preterition. God has declared that there are two groups: Physical Israel (which is in the same spiritual status as the rest of humanity) and spiritual Israel (Romans 2:28, 29).
The real question and answer:
"Why did God make us physical Israel only if that doesn't make us the true children of promise? As much as we try so hard to keep the Law He gave us, why is he still finding fault or not accepting us as we are? Didn't He create us as His people? Could we have resisted His will to create us this way, if this is not what He counts?" Here is where Paul says "who are you to reply back to God?" He as "the Potter" sovereignly laid out a plan, involving two categories of people; the first had a purpose, but this purpose is not the salvation of the individuals in the group, but to pave the way for the second. It's this second group one must be apart of, and who are we to question this plan? (This still says nothing about a person's inability to cross from one group to the other. The people were stubborn and refused to give up their notion of inheritance, which they would have to do to become apart of the children of promise. This also would be analogous to modern unbelievers saying "Why are you saying one has to be a born-again Christian to be saved?". "Why does God find fault with me as I am? I'm a good person! I am a 'child' of his since he created me! He made me this way (by his own will), so he should understand!" But to them too, it's not "children of the flesh" who are counted, and not by our own self-justification!). All of this is apart of the theme or "long argument" Paul is making throughout the whole book of Romans. So yes, God "does as He pleases", but let's not distort or misunderstand what it is He actually "pleases"!
[ February 05, 2003, 10:55 PM: Message edited by: Eric B ]
So enough about Augustine. He was only a side point (the oroginal point, at the top of this page, is "nobody thought about these things [i.e. reading inconditional election and reprobation into Romans 9] back then until Augustine". Then you said something like "Oh, so you're saying Augustine inserted Rom.9?", and I responded that he read an erroneous idea into it. Then we got off on this tangent. So once again, maybe he didn't exactly phrase it the way I did.