Predestination: Meaning and Application

So what do you call it when you suggest that someone can be saved through general revelation? I call that being saved apart from the gospel. If if you suggest that God can send angels to preach to the pagans that is almost as far out there. In terms of the system that God instituted there is a need for a human being to share with another human being the gospel. That human being that hears the gospel must respond in faith.

So, why are you trying to twist the meaning of what is the plain and simple reading of Romans 10?

Bob, I will just say that your interpretation of the Bible is very creative and smacks of desparation.... You're reaching pal!

 

Welcome to the thread and thanks for your input. Let me say that God is transcendent over creation. I am not aware of anyone who is a reformed theologian that wants to limit God to time and space. I have avoided engaging that notion because it is a metaphysical argument that is extra-biblical. When you are losing an argument you often will change the subject. The women at the well comes to mind. Let me put it to you like this: either God is the originator of life or he is a viewer of life. The attempt that has been made to place God outside of the determinative effects of this world is what I refer to as a passive aggressive argument. You seem to want to attribute to God the act of creating without giving him the responsibility of what ensues. What humors me is that those of you who think that God is outside of time think that removes him from the initial act of creation. Let's suppose that God is outside of time and can see the beginning from the end and they are one and the same. That is not what we are arguing here. You want to make it out like God is watch an ant farm and has total access to viewing the front back top and bottom. Well, how did the ant farm get there to begin with. While God may be outside of time, creation is not. The created order had a beginning and it can be attributed to God. Just like a golf ball comes into contact with a club, and at that point of contact the club gives the ball all the information it will need in order to take flight. So when God created the world he determined its outcome by initiating the creation. Within that system there is allocation for the free moral agency. But you as a human do not have perfect freedom. Can you decide not to sin anymore? The way we resolve most of the discussion surrounding Calvinism goes back to the condition of man. Anyone on this board who thinks that you just need to believe and does not allow for will of God in salvation, basically attributes to man a power he simply does not have. That is why Eph. 2:8,9 makes it plain that salvation is not of yourself. With predestination that is the case, but with freewill theology man just simply needs to make his mind up to be a better person and he will change. Read Romans 7:7-25 and tell if you think that is the case:

7:7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

 

Bob,

With all due respect you are twisting the Scripture. What is normative? What is the model that the Bible presents as the plan of salvation. The New Testament church was founded with a mission. Now if you want to go and shirk your responsibility to preach the gospel that is your business. What if you are right and I am wrong? I have lost nothing as I stated earlier. But if you are wrong and I am right, then 70% of the world population is lost and therefore in need of a human being to go and tell them about Jesus.

 

Bob,

I have been reading your replies and your starting to prove yourself to be irrational. Therefore what can I say to you? You post entire section of Scripture as if it makes some kind of point. You see in that passage what you want to see there. If you are going so far as to suggest that the gospel is not necessary for salvation then I do not think there is much more to discuss. God spoke to Moses through a burning bush but I would not expect for him to speak to you or me in a like manner. But you somehow want to suggest that because he spoke to Paul in blinding light that this somehow means that God will use this method on a massively larger scale to reach the world. In verse 18 of Romans 10 there is a poetic metaphor utilized but you somehow want to make it mean something other than what it means. Verse 18 states that the geographic scope or the range of the gospel is universal and is intended for every people group. Bob, when I get to the point where someone is reading into Scripture what they want it to mean I generally move on to more rational discussions. You need to reign it in there pal. Good talking with you though...

 

What I just said to Bob goes for you too... but let me just say that Rev. 14:6 is an apocalyptic genre of Scripture. I do not think the intent of that passage is suggest that the folks over in China and India are waiting on a angelic flyby to get saved. I think that passage will have meaning at a specific point in time in accordance with the unfolding of the endtimes, which may or may not be in my life time. The question is what is the normative or established means by which people get saved and what is an exception that has it purpose but is not normative. The angelic flyby is certainly not normative nor is the burning bush or the blinding light. Rational people you would expect would more than likely understand this and not try and force an exception as normative.

You seem to be more of a cynic than a learner... therefore I will not engage your last statement at this time but if you want an explanation I made several comments on the salvation of the unborn and small children in the thread entitled types of Calvinists.

 

I had previously offered a couple of metaphors on how predestination works. I think these account for the human element of belief in the process of election as well as the divine role of determination in creating the world.

Illustration: If I were to set up a maze and put a rat in the maze. I would not have any control directly over the rat and he would not be like a remote control car, and yet I could put in place stimuli that would give the rat impetus to negotiate the maze in whatever way I deemed appropriate. If I put food in the maze the scent of the food could lead him, or I could put negative feedback like electric shock to direct him. Regardless if I wanted to setup a maze I could set it up in such a way that the rat would negotiate to the exact point I desired. There would not be any violation of the rats ability to make decisions. He just would have the necessary eliminates in place to lead him to the eventual end.

Now if I were to put a bug zapper outside my window, I can know that there will be some bugs that get zapped and others that do not get zapped for whatever reason. If I were to have foreknowledge of the individual bugs and their names and I decided to go ahead and put the bug zapper outside my window, one could conclude that I knew who and who would not get zapped and did so with that knowledge. The names of those who get zapped are the elect and the names of those who do not get zapped are the reprobate. It was my decision to put the zapper outside the window and therefore I determined that I would allow for the elect to be numbered and the reprobate to be numbered according to what I foreknew. Yet what determined the fate of the bugs could be viewed much differently. Some bugs were more prone to being drawn to the zapper and others were not. Some bugs never got within a close enough range to even be drawn. In order to be drawn to the zapper you had to be in range [hear the gospel] and you had to feel compelled to respond to the light.

Do you see how this works?

 

Thanks. Maybe if I cut and paste all my comments on the web I could do that for you... It could be entitled "Everything I Learned About God I Learned on the Web." No that would be the book written by the majority of people on the web... JUST pickin.