Perhaps you should look at this way.
According to Calvinism (as we see it) has predestined all things. There is a certain number that will be elected to eternal life and a certain number reprobated to eternal damnation, and nobody can do anything about it.
Yet we can read
[The Great Multitude in White Robes]
After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!” Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?” I answered, “Sir, you know.”And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore,“they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. ‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them,’ nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’ ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’”[Rev. 9-17] Whether you see it my way or your way, we both see a number already settled. This was an account that has yet to happen in linear time, yet John saw it in heaven as an already done deal. It has yet to happen in time, but in eternity it is already determined. We both see a multitude of peoples that have already been in heaven as John laid it out for us.
God's terms have now been set. Everything has been put into motion.
This of course, makes God:
1. the author of evil.
2. The Great Puppeteer, and we the puppets.
3. A monster.
This is not the way we see it, nor do we display Him in such a horrible fashion. God placed Adam and then took Eve from his rib and placed them in the Garden. He also placed in there two trees, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In either camp, God knew the outcome. So if He knew the outcome before He uttered the first word to create all we see, then He had to desire the outcome, seeing the way it came to pass.
That God would reprobate his own creation into the Lake of Fire even when they could have the opportunity and enablement to be saved is irreprehensible.
Man reprobated himself when Adam sinned, and his whole posterity, including you and I, were cutoff from God. That is why Christ came as a Man to repair that breach that separated us from God. The thing that needs to be noted is that man has no desire to serve God outside the Spirit's drawing. Mankind is running from His face and not to Him. I had no desire to serve Him until after He came and drew me. I did not want to go to hell, but my love of sin and self overrode that desire of not going to hell. The love of my sin and myself was greater than my fear of dying lost. God came and change that desire. I wanted to serve Him, and not suffer for eternity.
According to the non-Cal,
God may know all things for He is omniscient, but He does not force anyone against their will.
If God does not change their wills, they will not come. Sinners' wills are to themselves, to serve themselves, to love themselves, more than they do God. As Jesus stated
"yet you refuse to come to me to have life."[Jn. 5:40] There was nothing stopping them from coming to Him. What I mean is God was not holding a hand to their face and pushing them away from Him. They were deafened to His words, they were blinded to His beauty, their sin filled hearts were hardened and could not receive His words. This was do to their sins. Their sins
But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.[Isa. 59:2] This was they.
He is not the author of evil.
Agree.
He gives free will within the scope of his own sovereignty.
Adam ruined that for us. If our wills are free then why did Jesus say
"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”?[Jn. 8:32] Our wills were not free. We were bound by sin and Satan as Paul stated
For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin[Rom. 6:6] and then also
But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance[Rom. 6:17] and then finally
When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.[Rom. 6:20] Satan had our allegiance and not God. Unless God comes and breaks that yoke that Satan has upon us, we can not exercise any move towards Him whatsoever. We are bound, ensnared, entangled in sin by Satan's yoke of bondage. We are Satan's slaves, in other words,
mon ami.
After pouring out his love on the cross for the sins of all humanity: defeating sin, death, hell and Satan, he arose from the dead and sits at the right hand of the Throne of God, ever making intercession for the saints. So great is his love.
Who is He making intercession for, again,
monsieur? :thumbsup:
He does not delight in the death of the wicked.
Agree.
His blood is sufficient to cover all the sins of all mankind of all ages.
It could, yes. It does not, but it could.
But in order for man to go to heaven he must accept the free gift of God. Only then does the gift become efficacious.
Ah yes. It is efficacious because it is received. You have that backwards. It being received by those who at one time opposed Him shows how efficacious it really is. You have the effect effecting the cause.
God is perfectly just and fair in turning in to hell those who have rejected his son, out of their own will. The great love of the cross they have spurned and rejected is the greatest sin anyone could commit.
Well, you said that not everyone will hear the gospel. Without the gospel no one will be saved. I am sure we agree that no one is saved outside the gospel. Is He fair to cast them into hell, even though they never heard it?
The Calvinist has God condemning his creation before the Fall ever happened, before man ever sinned.
That is another topic,
mon ami. That is the supra- vs sub- lapsarian debate. God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world, He chose the sheep before the creation of the world. I rest in that.
The non-cal believes God does not condemn anyone until after he has rejected Christ.
You have God reacting to what man does as if He is sitting there wringing His hands. He already knows those who are going to heaven and to hell and does not have to wait. He is patient with the vessels of wrath only because He is not willing that any of His sheep will die lost.
He himself is responsible for his own sin.
Man is the sole person responsible.
Which God is more a God of love.
The One who actually saves His sheep and not calls them and lets them die lost.
The One who actually saves His sheep and not calls them and lets them die lost.
He who actually saves His sheep and not calls them and lets them die lost.
These are the questions that the non-Cal bring to the table.
He who actually save His sheep and not calls them and lets them die lost.