Your guess is as good as mine. He quotes men like Edwards who believe what you just described, but then he makes comments which seem to contradict that view.
This is a lie which is becoming a habit of yours.
I've yet to see Luke show any real distinction between what God actively decrees and what he only permissively allows.
This is also a lie.
I have explained it in the VERY WORDS of the leading Calvinists of the last several centuries in no uncertain terms- in fact I have explained it in the words of Augustine whose words have been clear on this matter for 1800 years.
Evil is nothing but the absence of good.
This is so just as darkness is nothing but the absence of light.
In order for evil to exist good must simply be absent.
God's permissive decree entails him making his moral goodness vacate a situation. Evil inevitably ensues just as darkness does when light vacates.
This is the oldest reputable Christian theodicy in history.
I do not know why you cannot get it. BILLIONS have.
MILLIONS get it right now. Why you cannot is beyond me.
You don't have to agree with it- but you ought to be able to GET IT.
Luke has been known to say that God doesn't "just permit" anything,
EXACTLY. Just as the Westminster Confession and the London Baptist Confession say.
God's decrees do not come to pass by BARE PERMISSION.
This is Calvinism.
Any REAL Calvinist who didn't just MAKE UP his beliefs confirms this.
but that he "brings it to pass," which clearly gives the impression he holds to an active view of God determination of even the "evil things."
He brings it to pass via the means that I enunciate above. God does not create moral evil but he brings it to pass passively by simply vacating his moral goodness knowing that evil will ensue.
He then permits what is going to happen in that vacated spot to happen.
He does this by not intervening.
This is Calvinism. It is the only theodicy that makes an OUNCE of logical sense.
Now, he wouldn't call the things God does evil, obviously, but explains it by saying that because God does the deed with a pure motive, it is not evil.
This is the first sentence in which you have properly represented me in WEEKS!
By that line of reasoning, I think Luke believes that God killed his Son (active/ not passive), but because He did it with a good motive, its not evil.
Yes, this puts me in good company- with Isaiah and Luke and Calvin and Edwards and the vast majority of Calvinists since John Calvin.
Isaiah 53:10- Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
Acts 4:27-28- For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, For
to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.
Westminster and Baptist Confessions:
WCF:
Of Providence
5: 5. The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in his providence, that it extends itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men; and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering, and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to his own holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceeds only from the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.
[Which is exactly what I have been saying- The EVIL proceeds directly from the creature- the performance of it from the providence of God.]
Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof:
6: 1. Our first parents, being seduced by the subtlety and temptation of Satan, sinned, in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin, God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory.
[He permitted it but he did not JUST permit it. It occurred by permission but not by BARE permission.]
LC 19:
Q19: What is God’s providence towards the angels?
A19: God by his providence permitted some of the angels, willfully and irrecoverably, to fall into sin and damnation, limiting and ordering that, and all their sins, to his own glory; and established the rest in holiness and happiness; employing them all, at his pleasure, in the administrations of his power, mercy, and justice.
I'm sure he'll accuse me of misrepresenting him and get really upset with me, but you can read through his posts for yourself and judge if what I've said seems accurate.
Which is exactly what I wish they would do so that they can see that you cannot accurately represent me and even when you QUOTE me you lie by adding brackets with words I did not say and that do not represent the CONTEXT of what I was saying in the quotes.
) is the world system now is ruled by Satan. Just turn on the news and this is clearly seen. But in the Millennium Kingdom, Jesus will return physically to earth and rule with a rod of iron (sin will not be tolerated at all). At this time Satan will be bound and cannot rule anything for 1000 years, or tempt anyone to sin.
