God: The Micromanager

[Earth Wind and Fire]

This conversation puts me in mind of a movie I once viewed called "The Devil's Advocate" .... here is a memorable quote:

Kevin Lomax (young Lawyer): "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven", is that it?

John Milton aka Satan: Why not? I'm here on the ground with my nose in it since the whole thing began. I've nurtured every sensation man's been inspired to have. I cared about what he wanted and I never judged him. Why? Because I never rejected him. In spite of all his imperfections, I'm a fan of man! I'm a humanist. Maybe the last humanist.

 

[Skandelon]

To say one is in complete control over the COMPLETE FREEDOM of another is absurd.

Who said anything about "complete freedom." You know how Calvinists always explain how Totally depraved doesn't mean men are as evil as they could be. Well we don't believe men are as "free" as they "could be." They do have limitations, obviously. And of course our morally free choices are under God's permissive sovereign control, so it is not as if my view is somehow negating that aspect of God's "control."

That is what Arminians often say about God's sovereignty. He is SO sovereign that he controls what he has no control over.

When has anyone ever said such a thing? Why not just deal with our ACTUAL words, there are plenty of them since I tend to be a little long winded, right?

Then you have God controlling outcomes but not events leading to those outcomes.

Once again your statements leave no distinction for God's active directives and his permissive decrees, but I've come to expect that.

I HAVE explained my theodicy a dozen times to you and you drop out of the conversation every time.

WHOA!!! Show me one! A thread might close (beyond either of our control) but I've never once, to my knowledge left a discussion. I do recall you not responding to a few, but you just may not have seen them.

What you have God doing is forfeiting decisions about eternal destinies and other MASSIVE things to man.

God cannot do this anymore than God can sin or be weak or die.

So, what I hear you saying is that God is not powerful enough to be able to create a world with free moral agents, even if he wanted to? And you call our view of God small? At lease I admit that God COULD have chosen the Calvinistic model if He wanted to, but you step beyond that saying that God COULD NOT have done it in the Arminian way even if He wanted to because it would be impossible for Him.


BTW, you have still yet to reply to the post regarding Ware's compatibilistic arguments and their dependance on uniquely divine events such as the crucifixion and scriptures inspiration.

 

[Skandelon]

This conversation puts me in mind of a movie I once viewed called "The Devil's Advocate" .... here is a memorable quote:

Kevin Lomax (young Lawyer): "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven", is that it?

John Milton aka Satan: Why not? I'm here on the ground with my nose in it since the whole thing began. I've nurtured every sensation man's been inspired to have. I cared about what he wanted and I never judged him. Why? Because I never rejected him. In spite of all his imperfections, I'm a fan of man! I'm a humanist. Maybe the last humanist.

Well, at least in that movie Satan was "in control" of his own evil desires and resulting ludicrous statements. Some here would have you believe that God causally determined Satan's nature, motives, desires and thus his statements so as to leave no real distinguishing factors between God's desires/actions and Satan's.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

Well, at least in that movie Satan was "in control" of his own evil desires and resulting ludicrous statements. Some here would have you believe that God causally determined Satan's nature, motives, desires and thus his statements so as to leave no real distinguishing factors between God's desires/actions and Satan's.

OK...since your the Theologian....explain the Satan character in Job? Is he totally independent of God?

 

[psalms109:31]

Reign in Hell? :tonofbricks:

This is the way I see hell. To be chained in darkness where the fires of hell will not quench the darkness. The devil has no kingdom. It is a lie of Satan that he has a kingdom that man will reign with him. He hates man with a burning rage, Satan loves himself only.

Satan only needs permission because of God's hedge of protection. God is all powerful and puts a leash on Satan if not we would of already have destroyed ourselves. We have the technology to do so, it is God who holds it back.

One day billions will come to Jesus an amount that cannot be counted and men will not hinder them by saying God will not save all men.

 

[preacher4truth]

Well, at least in that movie Satan was "in control" of his own evil desires and resulting ludicrous statements. Some here would have you believe that God causally determined Satan's nature, motives, desires and thus his statements so as to leave no real distinguishing factors between God's desires/actions and Satan's.

You assume that since God causally did determine all about Satan in every aspect, that it "leave no real distinguishing factors between God's desires/actions and Satans."

You would be incorrect in your assumption.

Your concluding remarks upon such who believe as you've described are prevaricatious conclusions that are unwarranted. Furthermore you show much misunderstanding coupled with deficient ability to recognize that Holy God can do, create, determine, allow, will, choose, lead, turn hearts to His purposes and ends, and still remain as He is, the immutable, Holy and Just God.

Just because you cannot distinguish and separate the two, doesn't mean the blame lies upon those who in fact do understand/accept this truth. All you've done is come to a misguided and faulty conclusion that no one believes accept those who can't yet grasp this truth concerning God. Misunderstanding it leads to the absurd conclusion you've given.

 

[Skandelon]

OK...since your the Theologian....explain the Satan character in Job? Is he totally independent of God?

No, clearly not. I've never claimed any of God's creatures have total independence. They are confined within the perimeters of freedom that God, in his sovereignty, has set forth. Satan, just as any other creature, can only do what God has permitted Him to do. But, those who don't distinguish between God's permissive will and his directives blur these lines leaving no measure of independence and thus distinction between God's desires and his creatures desires. This gives no basis for any rational understanding of accountability, reward, punishment, not to mention relationship and interaction. You ultimately have God rewarding himself and punishing himself and interacting with himself.

 

[JesusFan]

so lets bottom line this Aaron, you dont believe in Gods Permissive Will?

God has the means and power to "allow/permit' others to decide what they have mind set on doing, and regardless if He directly guides them ti decide what to do, or alows them to decide themselves, isn't it that in both cases God will be determining what happens as per His "master Plan?"

That God being able to BOTH determine directly and by using choices others make in order to have His Will done keeps him fully Soveirgn?

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

God has the means and power to "allow/permit' others to decide what they have mind set on doing, and regardless if He directly guides them ti decide what to do, or alows them to decide themselves, isn't it that in both cases God will be determining what happens as per His "master Plan?"

That God being able to BOTH determine directly and by using choices others make in order to have His Will done keeps him fully Sovereign?

With all due respect JF, this question was posed at Aaron....however thank you for your comments. Id like to here his understanding.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

No, clearly not. I've never claimed any of God's creatures have total independence. They are confined within the perimeters of freedom that God, in his sovereignty, has set forth. Satan, just as any other creature, can only do what God has permitted Him to do. But, those who don't distinguish between God's permissive will and his directives blur these lines leaving no measure of independence and thus distinction between God's desires and his creatures desires. This gives no basis for any rational understanding of accountability, reward, punishment, not to mention relationship and interaction. You ultimately have God rewarding himself and punishing himself and interacting with himself.

OK so bottom line you believe in Gods exercising a "Permissive Will" ....got it!

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

http://www.ligonier.org/blog/exposing-permissive-will-god/

From RC Sproul

 

[quantumfaith]

You assume that since God causally did determine all about Satan in every aspect, that it "leave no real distinguishing factors between God's desires/actions and Satans."

You would be incorrect in your assumption.

Your concluding remarks upon such who believe as you've described are prevaricatious conclusions that are unwarranted. Furthermore you show much misunderstanding coupled with deficient ability to recognize that Holy God can do, create, determine, allow, will, choose, lead, turn hearts to His purposes and ends, and still remain as He is, the immutable, Holy and Just God.

Just because you cannot distinguish and separate the two, doesn't mean the blame lies upon those who in fact do understand/accept this truth. All you've done is come to a misguided and faulty conclusion that no one believes accept those who can't yet grasp this truth concerning God. Misunderstanding it leads to the absurd conclusion you've given.

pre·var·i·cate   [pri-var-i-keyt] Show IPA
verb (used without object), -cat·ed, -cat·ing.
to speak falsely or misleadingly; deliberately misstate or create an incorrect impression; lie.

Sounds like you may be attempting to call another brother a liar. Is this so?

 

[Skandelon]

http://www.ligonier.org/blog/exposing-permissive-will-god/

From RC Sproul

He is not addressing my view. I know because he writes:

"What is usually meant by divine permission is that God simply lets it happen. That is, He does not directly intervene to prevent its happening. Here is where grave dangers lurk. Some theologies view this drama as if God were impotent to do anything about human sin."

Which is NOT what I believe. God is more than able to do anything He wants to do about human sin. His CHOICE to permit a free moral sin is not equal in any way shape or form to his being "impotent to do anything about it," as RC suggests.

I agree with the rest of what he says regarding that particular view.

This view makes man sovereign, not God. God is reduced to the role of spectator or cheerleader, by which God’s exercise in providence is that of a helpless Father who, having done all He can do, must now sit back and simply hope for the best. He permits what He cannot help but permit because He has no sovereign power over it. This ghastly view is not merely a defective view of theism; it is unvarnished atheism.

Amen! A view which believes God is impotent in the face of human sin certainly warrants this critique.

Now, can you find anything about our actual view of permissive will?

 

[preacher4truth]

He is not addressing my view. I know because he writes:

"What is usually meant by divine permission is that God simply lets it happen. That is, He does not directly intervene to prevent its happening. Here is where grave dangers lurk. Some theologies view this drama as if God were impotent to do anything about human sin."

Which is NOT what I believe. God is more than able to do anything He wants to do about human sin. His CHOICE to permit a free moral sin is not equal in any way shape or form to his being "impotent to do anything about it," as RC suggests.

I agree with the rest of what he says regarding that particular view.

This view makes man sovereign, not God. God is reduced to the role of spectator or cheerleader, by which God’s exercise in providence is that of a helpless Father who, having done all He can do, must now sit back and simply hope for the best. He permits what He cannot help but permit because He has no sovereign power over it. This ghastly view is not merely a defective view of theism; it is unvarnished atheism.

Amen! A view which believes God is impotent in the face of human sin certainly warrants this critique.

Now, can you find anything about our actual view of permissive will?

Sproul didn't suggest God being impotent whatsoever, he said others theologies suggest this as in opposition to his view.

 

[Luke2427]

Well, at least in that movie Satan was "in control" of his own evil desires and resulting ludicrous statements.

So then God was not in control of them. That settles it. You do not believe that God controls all things.

To us, that means that you do not believe what the Bible teaches about God.

To us your view of God is one who is simply not TRULY Sovereign.

In your view God's purposes are thwarted by the TRILLIONS every day.

In your view God is not God. He is a morally upright Zeus. He has the power to intervene whensoever he chooses but MOST of what happens has nothing to do with his eternal purposes.

Some here would have you believe that God causally determined Satan's nature, motives, desires and thus his statements so as to leave no real distinguishing factors between God's desires/actions and Satan's.

God did determine by his own design and plan EVERYTHING about Satan- that's GOD. God cannot be GOD and not be in control of everything at all times. But the second half of your remark is wrong and non sequitur.

Just because God purposed that Satan would be evil does not in any way mean that God's motives and Satans motives are even REMOTELY similar.

It does not follow.

 

[Skandelon]

So then God was not in control of them.

Depends on what you mean by "control" this time...here we go again...please stop the merry-go-round I want to get off.

Just because God purposed that Satan would be evil does not in any way mean that God's motives and Satans motives are even REMOTELY similar.

Yet your view suggests that Satan's motives are causally determined by the nature God determined thus leaving no basis for Satan's independent desire/motive/intent.

I went over this before when I wrote:

This is an important circularity in the claim by Calvinists that humans can be considered genuinely free so long as their actions are in accordance with their desires. Given your belief that all events and actions are decreed by God, then human desire (the very thing that compatibilists claim allows human choices to be considered free) must itself also be decreed. But if so, then there is nothing outside of or beyond God's decree on which human freedom might be based. Put differently, there is no such thing as what the human really wants to do in a given situation, considered somehow apart from God's desire in the matter (i.e., God's desire as to what the human agent will desire). In the compatibilist scheme, human desire is wholly derived from and wholly bound to the divine desire. God's decree encompasses everything, even the desires that underlie human choices.

This is a critical point, because it undercuts the plausibility of the compatibilist's argument that desire can be considered the basis for human freedom. When the compatibilist defines freedom in terms of desire (i.e., doing what one wants to do), this formulation initially appears plausible only because it tends to (subtly) evoke a sense of independence or ownership on the part of the human agent for his choices. That is, even though the compatibilist insists that God decisively conditions an agent's environment so as to guarantee the outcome of the agent's choices, we can nonetheless envision God's action in doing so as being compatible with human freedom so long as the human agent in question has the opportunity to interact with his conditioned environment as an independent agent, possessing his own desires and thus owning his choices in relation to that environment. But once we recognize (as we must within the larger deterministic framework encompassing compatibilism) that those very desires of the agent are equally part of the environment that God causally determines, then the line between environment and agent becomes blurred if not completely lost. The human agent no longer can be seen as owning his own choices, for the desires determining those choices are in no significant sense independent of God's decree. For this reason, human desire within the compatibilist framework forms an insufficient basis on which to establish the integrity of human freedom (and from this the legitimacy of human culpability for sin).

I don't remember you replying to this. Do you?

 

[Luke2427]

Who said anything about "complete freedom."

You. You believe in this philosophical madness called libertarian free will.

Everybody knows that doesn't mean that you believe that man can do everything he wants all of the time.

But what you DO believe is that there are MANY, MANY things that man does completely freely.

He is COMPLETELY free to decide whether or not to come to Christ.

He is often COMPLETELY free to decide whether or not to obey any number of God's commands.

You know how Calvinists always explain how Totally depraved doesn't mean men are as evil as they could be. Well we don't believe men are as "free" as they "could be." They do have limitations, obviously. And of course our morally free choices are under God's permissive sovereign control, so it is not as if my view is somehow negating that aspect of God's "control."

Then EVERY SINGLE DECISION EVERY MAN EVER MAKES is in DIRECT ACCORDANCE to EXACTLY THAT DECISION THAT GOD ALWAYS INTENDED FOR HIM TO MAKE- right?

Once again your statements leave no distinction for God's active directives and his permissive decrees, but I've come to expect that.

It is because you don't understand permissive decrees as opposed to active ones.

All good is from God- that is active.

All is evil is not from God- that is permissive.

But your error on permissive decrees enters as a result of a deficiency in your theodicy.

Permissive decrees and theodicy are directly related.

Until you understand that evil is nothing but a vacuum of good- you will not get this.

Does light DIRECTLY cause darkness? No. Darkness is the absence of light.

Does God DIRECTLY cause evil? No. Evil is the ABSENCE of God (the absence of his goodness)

Does God DIRECTLY cause a man to hate his brother? No. But God removing himself, His moral goodness, from the heart of a man is the REMOTE cause of that evil. God did not DIRECTLY cause it- God permitted it. But God planned it, and by his design ultimately brought it to pass.

So, what I hear you saying is that God is not powerful enough to be able to create a world with free moral agents, even if he wanted to?

No more than he is powerful enough to make a rock so big he cannot lift it.

God cannot do ANYTHING that you can imagine.

God is in himself consistent. God cannot be the God of inconsistency.

God cannot make moisture dry. Once it BECOMES dry it is no longer moist.

Dry, in fact, is NOTHING but the absence of moisture.

And God cannot both be in complete control and not be in complete control at the same.

There are TRILLIONS of things that God cannot do BECAUSE he is perfect and BECAUSE he is God.

Be in control and not in control at the same time is one of them.

Others include sin, lie, contradict his own nature, NOT be omnipotent, NOT be omnipresent, NOT be omniscient, NOT be holy, etc...

In order to create a world like the one you want to exist, God must cease being God- which is something else he CANNOT do.

And you call our view of God small? At lease I admit that God COULD have chosen the Calvinistic model if He wanted to, but you step beyond that saying that God COULD NOT have done it in the Arminian way even if He wanted to because it would be impossible for Him.

I expect more of you.

This argument, "SO YOU'RE SAYING GOD CANNOT DO SOMETHING????" is beneath what I think of your intelligence.

You ought to know enough to know that saying that God CANNOT do something doesn't make him small at all.

It is one of the very facts of God that PROVE how big he is.

He is so big that he CANNOT be dishonest.

He is SO big that he CANNOT be weak. Therefore he CANNOT be NOT in control of anything.

He cannot MAKE himself less than he is. And part of who he is is COMPLETELY SOVEREIGN.

BTW, you have still yet to reply to the post regarding Ware's compatibilistic arguments and their dependance on uniquely divine events such as the crucifixion and scriptures inspiration.

I haven't even seen that argument- but we have a full plate here.

 

[Skandelon]

Until you understand that evil is nothing but a vacuum of good- you will not get this.

You still haven't answered the question about how something (Satan's evil intent) came from nothing (the absence of good). When you do that, I'll proceed...

 

[Luke2427]

Depends on what you mean by "control" this time...here we go again...please stop the merry-go-round I want to get off.


Yet your view suggests that Satan's motives are causally determined by the nature God determined thus leaving no basis for Satan's independent desire/motive/intent.

I went over this before when I wrote:



I don't remember you replying to this. Do you?

Since you ignored most of my post and responded only to that which you feel you have a response for I will ignore the entirety of your response and say again what your fatal theological flaw is:

You believe that God's eternal purposes are thwarted TRILLIONS of times in this world every day.

TRILLIONS of things happen between each sunrise that God knew would happen but never INTENDED to happen- he allowed them but he he did not plan them- every soul that goes to hell goes to hell against the PURPOSES of God- God never intended for a soul to go to hell- God knew they would if he made the universe the way he would make it- but MYSTERIOUSLY he never intended it yet he went RIGHT ahead and made the universe that way ANYWAY.

God never INTENDED for sin to enter the world. He knew it would if he built the world like he would build it, but he never intended it- yet he went right ahead and built it that way anyway.

Can you not see the horrific inconsistency of your position?

 

[Dr. Bob]

This is degenerating quickly. Past limit.