Preordained free choices

This is non-sense. There is no such thing as freedom to choose that which was desided you MUST choose and nothing else. It defies scripture to say such...stuff.

Let us put it this way; God determined that you MUST at times frustrate His Spirit and that you MUST also commit sin against His Holy Righteousness. He determinded that you MUST at times in your life grieve the Holy Spirit because you DID commit those sins He MADE you to.

How can you grieve the Spirit if it was preordained for you to do it?
Does the Spirit not know the very mind and will of God the Father like the book of Romans declares?

You border the absurd in this. And you know as well as I do, this jargin is nothing more than a philosophical rederndering by a rational approach to the two things that NO man can ever understand this side of Heaven. That God IS soveriegn and that Man has freedom of choice of those things God has placed in their lives.

 

So you have met other Baptists who believe that God is not really in control but is merly responding (playing catch up) to mans choices?? I'm sure there are a few out there but maybe they are more in your area.

Oh wait, you mean redefining 'Calvinisms' VIEW of Soveriegnty. Well that is true if that is what you ment.

Can God still be soveriegn if He gives man the responsibility of choice?
ANSWER: Yes.


Why deny the biblical doctrine of man responsiblity? Both God sovereignty and mans responsiblity are there and neither one negates the other.

 

Ok, that is just about as non-sensical as what I stated was non-sense. But at least give me some credit, it was early in the morning here :laugh:

Let me rephrase it somewhat:
There is no such definition for the "freedom to choose or responsibility of choice" which states - You have the freedom to choose only what God determined for you - be it sin unto eternal damation or grace unto eternal life. It defies scripture to say such...stuff.

This makes Man having NO responsiblity to anything - not to sin as a sinner, NOR to sinning as a saint. God determined it will happen the way He wanted it to happen and He is making sure it will happen no other way.

To say man is free to choose but God MAKES him do what He predeterminded the man to do (this encompasses ALL everything - sin and salvation). Then you have little to no understanding of scriptural freedom for responsibility.

BTW- Most Calvinists don't even use (or understand IMO) the actaul definition of what Non-Cals today state concerning the term free will. This is why I use the term responsibility of choice. It sets the peramitters as being responsible for the truth God has revealed to each person. It is said, and it is true - "we don't make choices in a vaacum". But we do have to make choices based upon revealed truth, whether to accept it unto life or reject it unto death.

 

That second quote looks like something from J.I. Packer's, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God.

 

Well Allan, I guess you would have to explain how God is all knowing, but can not know what man will decide. If God knows what man will decide, then man can not choose to do what God knows he will not do. Go ahead, show me different.

I say that God in His knowing what man will do, in His providence, causes roadblocks that will prevent man from doing what God knows he will not do. Like Joseph's brothers. They would not have chosen to do what God knew that they would not do. That does not make God the author of their sin. God either directly or indirectly causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him.

 

While God has foreordained many things--that Jesus would die on the cross to save those who would come to Him, that we would become like His Son, that we would live forever with Him if we accept Him, and other things, I do not believe He makes ALL of our choices for us. That would NOT be free will. God knows who will and who will not accept Him, and with that knowledge has foreordained that we would be like His Son. I do not believe anyone can come up with scripture that says that God foreordained who He would and wouldn't save other than those who would or wouldn't come to Him. True, only those the Spirit draws will come to Him, but I don't believe God says, "I don't like that person and won't save him even if he asks to be saved. Besides, he's not one of the foreordained." All "foreordained" refers to is His knowledge of who will or will not accept Him.

He does NOT choose who He will or will not save (except that He will not save anyone who does not come to Him in repentance and faith), and He does not choose what flavor of ice cream we eat or what foods we do or don't like. That would take away all free choice and make us nothing but a dummy on a ventriloquist's lap with his hand and mouth controlling everything we say and do. If that was the case we would never sin, because He would make sure we never did. a dummy does and says only waht he's given to say and do.

 

If God knows what man will decide, then man can not choose to do what God knows he will not do. Do you deny this?

Are you sure God does not choose who will be saved and who will not?

 

Did I say that? I thought not. I was saying that God is not make people deny or accept Him.

The last part is EXACTLY what Non-Cals have been trying to state over and over on here since I started on BB. Yet God knows what man will decide IN THE MIDST of his choices God sets before him. The difference is that Non-Cals believe there ample scriptural evedence to state God gives everyone enough truth to seek after God (because He reveals those truths and intervenes in their lives) but not everyone will accept those truths God reveals.

Are you sure you are Calvinist? :laugh:
That is all I have been saying (or at least trying to) for as long as I have been posting on here. Here is the difference I have found in Calvinists (on the BB at least)

That God "...causes all things to work together..." verses God "...causes all things..."

Mans will is always subject to the Soveriegn power and influences of God but is not erradicated nor is it non-existent under God's sovereignty. They work together for His plan, purpose, and pleasure.

 

Allan , you can also give your take on Acts 4:28 as well .

 

While we're in the 8s, how about 2:38-39?

Acts 2:38 Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

As opposed to whom? As many as God will not call.

 

Yes , "as many " -- a definitive number . That is in contrast to those whom He will not call . The Bible presents many contrasts -- saved/unsaved - sheep/goats , Church/world etc.

 

What about it??
You said to see it as an example, but you never asked for anyone to expound upon it.

Really?? So Adam and Eve were free agents then? able to sin or not?? Or did God not predestine them TO sin and from there that all men be under the sway of sin. And that unless God changes a person who hates God into a person who loves Him without any desire from the person what so ever to be changed from the first... how is that not coersively ordaining??

In response to your allegation that I "not pretend that he said something opposite what he actually said and then object to that misrepresentation."

His statement is still non-sensical. God determind a person must do excactly what God wanted that person to do and then that person of their own free will does it. Ok, then lets just play a game.
1) So in this senerio of the ice-cream parlor we have God as the first cause and very reason a person doing what they did for God was reason they wanted what they wanted because He ordained it so. God was the author of that yummy time with the ice-cream.
2) Then God is also the first cause and very reason a father would beat and rape his two year old daughter. They are only doing what God preset or preprogrammed them to do of their own volition. They would not have done it if God had not ordained it such, No??

The pleasure that both got from what they did is because God predeterminded they do those things and nothing else. Man couldn't do it of himself, but God had to be the one to establish everything to have man either of those things. Not a very fun game now is it??

The problem you have just as the Non-Cals have is the same in this. They are arguments from a philosophical position made from assumptions. Scriptures do not state the process of how He molds His soveriegnty with mans responsiblity. It just states He does and that is what I preach. God is in absolute control of all things inspite of mans ability of choice.

What take?? God determind Christ should die according to His foreknowledge. What is the problem?? It is the ultimate or best stated expression of God's sovereignty and mans resposibility doing exactly what Romans 8:28 states... And we know that all things work together for...

 

I know it speaks of Gods plan and I did acknowledge it but what I was stressing is that IN THAT PLAN Mans choice is there as well. I know the Calvinist belief enough to know your position regardings Gods plan so I didn't think I needed to state an already obvious point. But I did need to bring out Mans choice in involved in the things that God works together for our good. Acts 4:27-28 holds to the fulness of what I believe is scripturally theological.

As far as how far I place Gods sovereignty in relation to evils in my life - I acknowledge just as much as the early church did those things set to our lives. But again you by-pass like a freeway that fact that God knows the intents of every mans heart and exactly how they will act or respond to whatever God places before them. Both Gods plan and mans choice work synonomously with God directing man to the path God knew from the beginning they Will choose to take. God is always and at all times in control of all things, including the will of man to chose responsibly to revealed truth.

Uh, with regard to the philosophical position from assumption clause...Unless God has told you how all things work according to His will and process by which He does, knows, and controls all things... It maintains a philosophical postion based on assuption AS TO the WHAT and HOW God does, did, or will do anything.

It course it is the typical response. When a statement makes no sense according to the scriptures and the author trys to play it off as though it is the truth, you will always have those who will call it like it truly is; Non-sense.

About the preprogrammed or preset issue:
Do you deny that man MUST do that which God preset his to? If God is the one who determined what a man will do and man simply follows his course already established, how is this not that same as preprogramming. I realize it is not a word you like, but it correctly symbolizes in modern day terminology that particular idea. Preset, predetermined, or preprogramed they all have the same meaning. That being - The vehicle through which an action is to take place is an established fact to which the vehicle must proceed as though it were self directing or consciencely doing that action for itself. Yet it is preset, predetermind, or preprogrammed to do what it is designed to do.

Darkside - Come join me and we will rule the galaxy together! :laugh:
Again your opinion of what 'most' Non-Cals do or don't do is incredibly limited and lacking.

According to the Bible Satan was given permission to do just what He asked God that he could be allowed to do. God never told satan what TO do with regard to Job except that Satan was not allowed to take Jobs life. God only told Satan to consider Job, and Satan took it from there and used those people whose heart he knew to do what he desired. They chose to follow scheme of satan but again they CHOSE to follow just as Satan chose to come against Job. However, God designed those events to correlate to His plan, knowing the heart and intent of Satan as well as those He knew would follow Satans scheme andwhat they all would do. God soveriegnty and the creatures will working in tandum to bring about God designed outcome. I accept and fully acknowledge it because it is scriptural.

Did God do it? Nope! Scripture is plain that Satan was the causation of these things.

However God knew that satan WOULD do what he did if given the OPTION. God did not MAKE it happen but set the stage based upon what He knows a person WILL do in each circumstance. It is not about foreseeing but foreKNOWING