Is there really a conflict between Freedom and Sovereignty, if rightly defined?

[Van]

Luke 2427, you did not refer to the answer to that question that I provided. Maybe you didn't read it, rather than evaded it. We do things, we make choices based on nature and nurture. Our nature, as children of wrath, would predispose us to pick what is self serving, but our nurture, beholding Christ, high and lifted up, would draw us toward love for God. Believing witnesses, filled with the Holy Spirit, cultivate, plant, and water such that some receive, accept, welcome, take and make their own, the gospel of Christ.

BTW, this question has been asked and answered many times. This answer has been denied but not refuted. It is consistent with doing at that moment, what we want to do, but inconsistent with the premise we will always want to go against the will of God.

Now answer this question: How can Calvinism teach God predestines everything, which includes sin because of His exhaustive foreknowledge and then claim God is not the author of sin? No Calvinist will answer that question, they will ask a different question, answer a different question, and otherwise evade the question.

 

[Skandelon]

How can Calvinism teach God predestines everything, which includes sin because of His exhaustive foreknowledge and then claim God is not the author of sin? No Calvinist will answer that question

They will conclude that God ordains, determines, or decrees sin but because of the language of their 'blessed' catechisms passed down from the forefather's of their faith, they avoid the word 'author.' Why? Because their confessions say that 'God isn't the author of sin' and that is like scripture to them. They don't want to be put in opposition with the Old Calvinists, so they avoid that word, but in reality I don't think any of them know why they couldn't call him the author.

Think about it...which is worse? Being the author of something or the determiner of it? I'd much rather just write about evil than actually be the one who determined for it to happen. I'm not sure why some Calvinists are ok with one word and not the other. Baffling...

 

[Luke2427]

Got to stop you there Luke. I never said that man should make decisions 'without cause.' That is not what we believe. We believe God is the cause of his decisions and has created men to be the cause of their decisions.

That's like saying, "We believe God is Eternal, without beginning, and has created men to be so.

It is nonsensical.

 

[DrJamesAch]

.

Why? because you SAY so?

No, not because I say so, but because I've actually watched a rock fall off of a cliff before, I never asked myself, "why did God push that rock off the cliff", and I'm pretty sure the rock wasn't suicidal. A hiker walked by and his movement put a rock into position that enacted one of God's predetermined laws called GRAVITY.

No. Its not that simple. First of all, gravity is the power of God pulling things where God wants them.

And where is that in the Bible that God pulls everything down? Because you say so! So in other words, God isn't powerful enough to make His own scientific rules that can operate without His involvement? He still has to jump in and help gravity out? Praytell then how do you define miracles? If God is merely performing something that He had control of the entire time, then it's not a miracle.

It is not some independent force God instituted and left to do it's thing.

I beg to differ:

"Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth." Psalm 104:9. The waters operate on their own course, and God has set a boundary that they can't cross. If God CONTROLS the waters, why would He have to set a boundary for them???

In God we live AND MOVE and have our being.

By Him all things consist.

That verse says nothing about God controlling our every movement. Again, think of the IMPLICATIONS of this determinist thinking. Does God make angry men flip Him the bird? The verse says in God we move and have our being because HE CREATED US. The verse is about God creating us, not God controlling us.

And by "all things consist" is a term that literally means "held together". It's the binding force of the atom that no scientist has ever been able to explain. That laws of physics that prevent all matter from imploding and exploding were made AT CREATION. God did so in SIX DAYS and then RESTED. He STOPPED CREATING and made the laws for man that procreate after their kind, for animals to create after their kind. God created everything that He wanted to create in six days, and gave His creation the ability to operate on its own. That is why when He CHOOSES to intervene, it's called a miracle.

Deism teaches that God made natural powers, set them in motion and left them to function by their own powers- not Christianity.

That is only partially true and still a gross caricature of Deism. Deism holds that God DOES NOT intervene in His creation and therefore denies that miracles are possible. This is why a Deist would not accept Jesus turning water to wine, splitting the Red Sea, Jesus being born of a virgin, etc..

Secondly, God has always known all there is to ever know about everything

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So if God did not intend for there to be a universe in which that rock would fall, then God would have made the universe differently.

Really? Did he know that Adam and Eve would fall? Then why didn't He make the universe differently based upon what He knew would be the cause of evil? Unless you believe God caused evil which if you boil down your theology to its logical conclusion is exactly what your theology leads to which is direct conflict with Hab 1:13 and scores of other passages.

Gravity is only ever doing to any object in the universe at any given time EXACTLY what God always knew it would do to that object before he built the universe.

God built the universe to do exactly what it does because he knew exactly what it would do before he built it and if he did not want it to do something he could have built it differently.

To deny this is to embrace a Christianized form of Deism

Once again, as with Jon, you are making knowledge an independent force and giving knowledge an attribute that defies what knowledge actually is. The Bible says that God did not CREATE the universe because He KNEW it would be created. Genesis 1 says He SPOKE the world into existence. The universe was not created because God KNEW there would be one. Genesis didn't say, "And God KNEW there would be light, and there was light". It says, "And God SAID 'let there be light' and there was light".

This issue of the Deist claim was addressed above. Your view virtually borders pantheism because it makes God a material part of everything that He "controls."

 

[Luke2427]

Replace the word "choice" with its given definition and there is no doubt in my mind that you deny that people have choices. Here allow me:

"People are able to 'select between two or more possibilities.'" You, as a determinists, deny that there even are two or more possibilities, much less that people are able to willingly select other than what God has predetermined for them to select. The only Choice being made is Gods, and even that is incoherent because according to that same logic God can't select between possibilities either.

Theoretical possibilities- not actual ones.

Take this saying- whatever will be will be.

That saying is necessarily true. It cannot be false.

If it WILL be then necessarily it WILL BE.

On the path to being, there are apparent other options- but they are not REAL options because they will not ACTUALLY be.

We call them possibilities because we humans do not KNOW what will be.

A better definition excludes the word "possibilities" like the MeriamWebster dictionary:

choose verb \ˈchüz\
transitive verb
1
a : to select freely and after consideration <choose a career>
b : to decide on especially by vote : elect <chose her as captain>


To choose freely means to choose what you want.

 

[Luke2427]

No, not because I say so, but because I've actually watched a rock fall off of a cliff before, I never asked myself, "why did God push that rock off the cliff", and I'm pretty sure the rock wasn't suicidal. A hiker walked by and his movement put a rock into position that enacted one of God's predetermined laws called GRAVITY.


And where is that in the Bible that God pulls everything down? Because you say so! So in other words, God isn't powerful enough to make His own scientific rules that can operate without His involvement? He still has to jump in and help gravity out? Praytell then how do you define miracles? If God is merely performing something that He had control of the entire time, then it's not a miracle.



I beg to differ:

"Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth." Psalm 104:9. The waters operate on their own course, and God has set a boundary that they can't cross. If God CONTROLS the waters, why would He have to set a boundary for them???



That verse says nothing about God controlling our every movement. Again, think of the IMPLICATIONS of this determinist thinking. Does God make angry men flip Him the bird? The verse says in God we move and have our being because HE CREATED US. The verse is about God creating us, not God controlling us.

And by "all things consist" is a term that literally means "held together". It's the binding force of the atom that no scientist has ever been able to explain. That laws of physics that prevent all matter from imploding and exploding were made AT CREATION. God did so in SIX DAYS and then RESTED. He STOPPED CREATING and made the laws for man that procreate after their kind, for animals to create after their kind. God created everything that He wanted to create in six days, and gave His creation the ability to operate on its own. That is why when He CHOOSES to intervene, it's called a miracle.


That is only partially true and still a gross caricature of Deism. Deism holds that God DOES NOT intervene in His creation and therefore denies that miracles are possible. This is why a Deist would not accept Jesus turning water to wine, splitting the Red Sea, Jesus being born of a virgin, etc..

.


Really? Did he know that Adam and Eve would fall? Then why didn't He make the universe differently based upon what He knew would be the cause of evil? Unless you believe God caused evil which if you boil down your theology to its logical conclusion is exactly what your theology leads to which is direct conflict with Hab 1:13 and scores of other passages.

Once again, as with Jon, you are making knowledge an independent force and giving knowledge an attribute that defies what knowledge actually is. The Bible says that God did not CREATE the universe because He KNEW it would be created. Genesis 1 says He SPOKE the world into existence. The universe was not created because God KNEW there would be one. Genesis didn't say, "And God KNEW there would be light, and there was light". It says, "And God SAID 'let there be light' and there was light".

This issue of the Deist claim was addressed above. Your view virtually borders pantheism because it makes God a material part of everything that He "controls."

In this post you begin by making your observations the final source of authority.

You continue by denying the Bible which clearly states that IN GOD WE MOVE and, worse, you deny that By God all things CONSIST.

You conclude by unabashedly stating that God does not know all things.

You are so far removed from orthodox Christianity that I do not think we can converse.

 

[Van]

What ever will be will be simply asserts the future, what ever will be, is fixed,i.e. will be. OTOH, scripture says God sets before us the choice of life and death. Calvinism rewrites this to mean God sets death only before some and life only before others because the outcome of their choice has been predetermined. However, when the tables are turned and it is asserted, then every sin we "choose" was a non-choice, the sin was predetermined to happen (the will be) making God the author of sin.

Shuck and jive folks, shuck and jive.

How can Calvinism teach God predestines everything, which includes sin because of His exhaustive foreknowledge and then claim God is not the author of sin? No Calvinist will answer that question.

 

[Luke2427]

What ever will be will be simply asserts the future, what ever will be, is fixed,i.e. will be. OTOH, scripture says God sets before us the choice of life and death. Calvinism rewrites this to mean God sets death only before some and life only before others because the outcome of their choice has been predetermined. However, when the tables are turned and it is asserted, then every sin we "choose" was a non-choice, the sin was predetermined to happen, the will be making God the author of sin.

Shuck and jive folks, shuck and jive.

How can Calvinism teach God predestines everything, which includes sin because of His exhaustive foreknowledge and then claim God is not the author of sin? No Calvinist will answer that question.

No. "Whatever will be will be" is a statement that is necessarily true.

If it will be then it of absolute necessity WILL BE.

There is no REAL possibility that anything otherwise COULD BE.

 

[DrJamesAch]

In this post you begin by making your observations the final source of authority.

You continue by denying the Bible which clearly states that IN GOD WE MOVE and, worse, you deny that By God all things CONSIST.

You conclude by unabashedly stating that God does not know all things.

You are so far removed from orthodox Christianity that I do not think we can converse.

Wow you just skipped over everything I said about Colossians which says exactly the OPPOSITE of what you accused me of. And where did I conclude that "God does not know all things"? I believe God DOES know all things, but knowing all things does not determine all things. Even though your Westminster Confession has an explicit contradiction, even they admit although without actually practicing it in their beliefs, that:

Westminster Confession 1646 sec III
"II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass, upon all supposed conditions; yet hath he not decreed any thing because he foresaw it as future, as that which would come to pass, upon such conditions."

This is precisely why Calvinists get so confused in trying to explain free will because they rely on these man made confessions which are replete with inconsistent statements and blatant contradictions. But in writing this statement someone was smart enough to know that God decreeing all things because He foreknew them is a major philosophical problem, so they put in another preemptive clause to give plausible deniability when the issue is brought up, and yet Calvinists always resort back to the "God makes all things happen because He knows them" argument when it suits them, and reject it when the logical conclusion is that God authored and determined evil, temptation, confusion and sin.

 

[DrJamesAch]

No. "Whatever will be will be" is a statement that is necessarily true.

If it will be then it of absolute necessity WILL BE.

There is no REAL possibility that anything otherwise COULD BE.

So you ascribe free will views to Deism (even though you improperly defined it) but then agree with a New Age Humanist like Shirley MacLaine who coined the phrase, "Whatever will be, we be"?

Que sera, sera buddy!

 

[jonathanD]

Folks, JonathanD answers a question with a question, then asserts his opponent is unable to answer the question. Shuck and jive, folks, that is all they have.

How can Calvinism teach God predestines everything, which includes sin because of His exhaustive foreknowledge and then claim God is not the author of sin? No Calvinist will answer that question, they will ask a different question, answer a different question, and otherwise evade the question.

No one on this forum seems willing to answer my question and so the subject is shifted to my views. Shuck and jive folks, shuck and jive.

My reading comprehension might be lacking, but I didn't see your answer in there. You can scream shuck and jive all you want, but you seem to recognize it so well because you employ it so often.

 

[Luke2427]

Wow you just skipped over everything I said about Colossians which says exactly the OPPOSITE of what you accused me of. And where did I conclude that "God does not know all things"? I believe God DOES know all things, but knowing all things does not determine all things. Even though your Westminster Confession has an explicit contradiction, even they admit although without actually practicing it in their beliefs, that:

Westminster Confession 1646 sec III
"II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass, upon all supposed conditions; yet hath he not decreed any thing because he foresaw it as future, as that which would come to pass, upon such conditions."

This is precisely why Calvinists get so confused in trying to explain free will because they rely on these man made confessions which are replete with inconsistent statements and blatant contradictions. But in writing this statement someone was smart enough to know that God decreeing all things because He foreknew them is a major philosophical problem, so they put in another preemptive clause to give plausible deniability when the issue is brought up, and yet Calvinists always resort back to the "God makes all things happen because He knows them" argument when it suits them, and reject it when the logical conclusion is that God authored and determined evil, temptation, confusion and sin.

You said, God knew Adam would sin? Really? How then is God not the author of sin."

Thereby you have unabashedly denied the omniscience of God.

And this thing you keep getting hung up on about "God knowing is not God determining," is arguing a strawman.

No one is asserting that- at least I am not. But, just for the record, I do BELIEVE that- it's just that that is not the point I am making.

I am saying that God knew every minute detail of every milisecond of the entire future before he built the universe. I am saying he knew precisely what every subatomic particle would EVER DO before he CREATED subatomic particles.

Therefore, this is the universe God INTENDED- because he knew PRECISELY what it would be BEFORE he built it- and if he wanted it otherwise, he could have built it otherwise.

That is not confusing knowledge and ordination- it is showing that they are inextricably linked.

Either this is the universe God intended to exist in June of 2013 or God did not know all things when he built the universe.

 

[Skandelon]

Wow you just skipped over everything I said about Colossians which says exactly the OPPOSITE of what you accused me of. And where did I conclude that "God does not know all things"? I believe God DOES know all things, but knowing all things does not determine all things. Even though your Westminster Confession has an explicit contradiction, even they admit although without actually practicing it in their beliefs, that:

Westminster Confession 1646 sec III
"II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass, upon all supposed conditions; yet hath he not decreed any thing because he foresaw it as future, as that which would come to pass, upon such conditions."

This is precisely why Calvinists get so confused in trying to explain free will because they rely on these man made confessions which are replete with inconsistent statements and blatant contradictions. But in writing this statement someone was smart enough to know that God decreeing all things because He foreknew them is a major philosophical problem, so they put in another preemptive clause to give plausible deniability when the issue is brought up, and yet Calvinists always resort back to the "God makes all things happen because He knows them" argument when it suits them, and reject it when the logical conclusion is that God authored and determined evil, temptation, confusion and sin.

:applause: I am now standing by my chair applauding. Literally. I'm not joking...my kids are looking at me funny.

 

[jonathanD]

Either this is the universe God intended to exist in June of 2013 or God did not know all things when he built the universe.

OR he is unable to create according to his will (inefficient).

 

[Van]

My reading comprehension might be lacking, but I didn't see your answer in there. You can scream shuck and jive all you want, but you seem to recognize it so well because you employ it so often.

As predicted, JonathanD did not address my question, but discussed my failure to answer his question. That is all they have folks, shuck and jive.

Calling all Calvinists, calling all Calvinists, can you answer this: How can Calvinism teach God predestines everything, which includes sin because of His exhaustive foreknowledge and then claim God is not the author of sin? No Calvinist will answer that question, they will ask a different question, answer a different question, and otherwise evade the question.

 

[Skandelon]

To choose freely means to choose what you want.

Don't you mean: "To choose freely means to choose what God determined that you would want?" Your statement above is meaningless in a deterministic world view because there is NO distinction between what the man wants and what God wants.

That is the problem with your view, on the one hand you call them men's desires, but on the other you believe that God determined man's desires. You leave nothing on which to separate what God's wants and what man wants as they all blur into the same thing, undermining the transcendence and holiness of God.

 

[DrJamesAch]

Theoretical possibilities- not actual ones.

Take this saying- whatever will be will be.

That saying is necessarily true. It cannot be false.

If it WILL be then necessarily it WILL BE.

On the path to being, there are apparent other options- but they are not REAL options because they will not ACTUALLY be.

We call them possibilities because we humans do not KNOW what will be.

A better definition excludes the word "possibilities" like the MeriamWebster dictionary:

choose verb \ˈchüz\
transitive verb
1
a : to select freely and after consideration <choose a career>
b : to decide on especially by vote : elect <chose her as captain>


To choose freely means to choose what you want.

So we are freely choosing theoretical possibilities? If they are ACTUAL from God's perspective, when did the event change hands and become a theoretical possibility? If an event is going to occur, it is either an actual event or it is not, that doesn't change with perspective. In order for one to choose between possibilities, those possibilities have to be ACTUAL possibilities or there is no such thing as choice.

When a person makes a decision (choice) between 2 possibilities, he is not making a choice based on the certainty of what will be, but that does not mean that he can not make an informed decision based upon logical and statistical probabilities. But that's not the issue. You are making choice depend on the results instead of the choice between contingent upon the actual possibilities or probabilities that actually exist. If they do not exist, then there is no connection between "whatever will be will be". Whatever will be merely becomes itself a theoretical possibility which then must be based on determinism in order to be actualized which in turn denies God's foreknowledge because it makes God's foreknowledge depend on something that is only theoretically possible.

 

[Skandelon]

I am saying that God knew every minute detail of every milisecond of the entire future before he built the universe. I am saying he knew precisely what every subatomic particle would EVER DO before he CREATED subatomic particles.

Therefore, this is the universe God INTENDED- because he knew PRECISELY what it would be BEFORE he built it- and if he wanted it otherwise, he could have built it otherwise.

When is "BEFORE" ? How can something be 'before' if time has yet to be created. You seem to impose your own finite time based logic upon an infinite God.

Either this is the universe God intended to exist in June of 2013 or God did not know all things when he built the universe.

Or God's knowledge is not like yours would be if you had a crystal ball and some supplies to build a house that you foresaw in your crystal ball would be built...naw God couldn't be that complex

 

[Van]

Westminster Confession 1646 sec III
"II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass, upon all supposed conditions; yet hath he not decreed any thing because he foresaw it as future, as that which would come to pass, upon such conditions."

This is precisely why Calvinists get so confused in trying to explain free will because they rely on these man made confessions which are replete with inconsistent statements and blatant contradictions. But in writing this statement someone was smart enough to know that God decreeing all things because He foreknew them is a major philosophical problem, so they put in another preemptive clause to give plausible deniability when the issue is brought up, and yet Calvinists always resort back to the "God makes all things happen because He knows them" argument when it suits them, and reject it when the logical conclusion is that God authored and determined evil, temptation, confusion and sin.

So the WCF says the reason God did not predestine everything is because He did not decree what He foreknew. Thus Jonathan D denies the reason given in the WCF, when he proclaims exhaustive foreknowledge causes exhaustive determinism. Calvinism is irrational, incoherent, and unbiblical.

 

[Skandelon]

The problem arises when we suppose that God's knowledge comes from his existing with us on a timeline and looking through the corridors of time and space to merely foresee what will come to pass.

Is God that small? Is he that finite? Is he stuck in time with a crystal ball looking to see what will occur then determining it be?

I'm sorry, but that view seems laughable to me. I suspect God's knowledge is more based in his being the great I AM and existing at all times in all places. His knowledge is based in his infinite presence not necessarily in His predeterminations of things he foresaw at some TIME in the past before he created TIME...just silly...