Three Hard Questions (for free-will believers)

I don't think God forces anyone to believe, I think He causes them to want to.
I also do not think we will know for sure which is which until we get there, and by then we won't care if we know or not.

 

This is a difficult one to answer in short form brother. Therefore you are asking a tall order from me.

First - I don't hold that God had to look down the corridor of time to see anything because He didn't KNOW at the outset. Scripture states He knows the End FROM the Beginning. We as men, even godly men can not EVER know how the mind of God works nor how God KNOWS anything. We Assume to understand how God did or decided anything according to our philosophical presuppotions that are formed due to our theological bents. All we do know is that God (fore)KNEW before creation began and nothing would have begun to be created if God didn't not know all things from the outset.

Now, let me define what I Don't mean by determining, decreeing, and ordaining since I see them used in synonymous terminology. It is not that God Knew mankind as a people in blank slate form and in that knowing of man determinded to pick out a number for salvation. Nor do I hold that God knew man would sin and determinded that He would pick certain people from that group AND THEN decided how He would save them.
Then again who truly knows the sequence in which God set forth these things in His own mind and the extent to which they delve?.

I hold that Gods determining (decreeing and ordaining) as being consistant with Gods soverienty and mans resposiblity in that all that God knew (that which man WILL do [not might], and that which God WILL do to and in conjunction with mans responsiblility) being satisfied with what He KNEW - He solidified, set, ordained to be in the exact manner in which God knew that it will be by setting forth Creation. All of this is according to His pleasure, plan, and purpose. All things were known before the foundation of the world but it was at the foundation of the world where God established all things to be, according to all that He knew WILL be. What He KNEW was to BE once He began - Ordained, predetermind, decreed (can not be changed)

So in the sense of God perfect knowingness there is no chance of deviation from Gods point (eternity with no time) of view the outcome of all things (though all things have not played themselves out as God Knows they will). Those who will not believe are set to that condemnation according to the foreknowledge of God before all things but established once God decree all that He Knew be just as He Knows. Yet, in His KNOWING they WILL not respond He still uses them for His Glory in spite of their rebellion. Mans responsiblity and Gods soveriegnty.

I can actaully take this thing into book form but I don't have that kind of time nor the desire.
But I have simply stated we must take into account all that scripture says about God as well as man's resposiblity and know that in the mind of God, He is seeing all creation unfold to His glory according to Him.

Understand however, I didn't place everything in this rendering, but simply some of the basics to establish at least the premise. Do with it as you (the BB'ers) wish. :tonofbricks:

He foreloves, why? Everyone is/was the same before God elected or chose (in sin and enemies of God).
I contend the Calvinist may abore statements that God chooses the elect Arbitrarily but If God doesn't choose arbitrarily, then there is something about you that is different from the others not elected of the group God has chosen you out of. To say "of course...it is Gods purpose, plan, and pleasure" is a bad attempt at brushing aside something that Calvinists don't grasp. Something that also comes into play in Gods election which makes God choose NOT arbitrary.

We Know God is soveriegn and we Know man is resposible.

WHy can both arguements not be true in mind of God?

 

The work of God is this: To believe... How is that not a work Bapmom? John 6:29.

In context then it was not the disciples asking. The crowd asked Him, "What must we do to do the work God requires?" The work of God is this: To believe... How is that not a work? John 6:29.

john.

 

Both statement are true Allan. God has bound all men over to disobedience, Rom 11:32, and we are responsible.

john.

 

Webdog , I'm perfect . Wait a minute -- imperfect .

 

Perfectly imperfect?
john.

 

Man was designed with a choice in mind because, with out the choice there is no love. Love is a preference of one thing over another. With no choice there can be nothing preferred.

If man has to accept Christ with out a choice to choose something else. Then man really is a robot. He has no real feelings and no real Love, he can't have his own faith, he can't have his own desires. Man only has what has been designed for him. The fact that the natural man loves sin as opposed to being sinless shows man has choice. God gave man a choice because He wants men to love or prefer Him.

Sin and sinless is a preference a preferred choice. Sin wouldn't be sin with out choice. Just as love wouldn't be love with out a choice. The reason is you can't prefer something with out something to prefer it over.

Would you want the love of someone who didn't prefer you over something else. God wants men to have genuine love for Him. A love that is generated by the mans preference of Him over the world.
Where ther is no choice there can be no Love.
MB

 

:applause: Very good explanation Allan. I agree with you. Of course I also see the calvinist side of God foreloving or foreknowing the elect.... because it is there. But I agree with you completely about the antinomy. God is sovereign, and man is responsible. Thanks Allan.

 

I never said anything about God not giving man a choice. Lets assume that your version of free will and choice is perfectly correct. Now, does God know perfectly before He creates them who will and who won't accept Him? If so, why does God simply not create those whom He knows won't accept Him? It doesn't violate choice (those who remain still freely choose Him in the manner you hold for free will), and there are no robots, yet God applies His omniscience (not predestination) so that no one ends up in hell.

How can a loving God knowingly create a person whom He knows for certain is going to hell? Sure, in your paradigm is loving to allow free choice...but wouldn't it be more loving to create only those whom He knows will use their free choice in congruence with His desire for them to be saved?

Again, you are taking my statement way further than is warrented. Read carefully. I am NOT saying that God does ANYTHING to affect the will of a person. In fact, I am allowing that your paradigm of free will is the correct one for this discussion. My question is, given God's perfect omniscience, given the fact that He knows (without causing) what a man will ultimately choose, given those facts (we agree on those facts don't we?) how is it congruent with love and the desire that all men be saved that God would still create a man whom He KNOWS will reject Him? Why not simply choose not to create such a man in the first place? Of all the possible people He could create why did He not simply create only those whom His omniscience told Him would accept Him in the end (and accept Him in terms of your paradigm of free will)?

God has as much of a choice as we do, so why does He choose to create men who are destined (based on God's omniscience, not His predestination) to reject Him and go to hell?

 

Certainly you don't really believe that all men are created individually.
Simply all men were created in Adam and Adam and Eve and all males and females after this were procreated.

If this were the case then why produce any men since we have all deserved to die. Why create Adam in the first place? When Adam knowingly chose to sin because he loved Eve more than God?.

The reason God chose to create men the way they are is so that He could show His mercy and Love towards men. If there were only men who accepted Him then there would have been no need for a messiah. There would have been no hell No correction nothing to be saved from. No reason for accepting Him. No need of deliverance or Salvation. We would all still be in the garden

There just isn't a choice to choose if there is no alternative.

Choice. You see God can't love man with out giving man a choice, just as man can't love God with out choice.

No because with out the alternatives there is no choice.

I realize you would like it to be boxed up nice and tight but, there is more to it than any box can hold.

Not exactly; it seems you believe each man is created individually and they aren't. We were all created in Adam and afterwards males and females procreate. It is the choice of men to have offspring. Women do not have virgin births. Only Mary had that distinction. Men are simply no longer created by God because all men were created in Adam.

Men are procreated by there parents we descend from them. We are after our parents kind. Adam was created. We are a product of our parents inheriting our own nature.
MB

 

MB.

PS 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
Col. 1:16b: "all things were created by him (Christ) and for him."
Neh. 9:6: "You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you."

The Lord gives and takes away.

john.

 

I believe that each and every person is the result of specific act of God. Yes, He acts mediately through the process of human procreation, but He is in control of when physical union results in fertilization and He is in express control of what sperm combines with what egg and the resulting person that occurs.

Even if I didn't believe that, I believe that individual human souls are definitely a special act of His creative power and not simply a product of natural interactions.

Certainly you don't believe otherwise? Seems like a deistic sort of view to me...but thats just first impressions I guess.

To show His mercy. Temporal suffering is nothing compared to eternal glory. Thus, as long as one ultimately accepts Him, then the only suffering one experiences is temporal but one still experiences eternal glory. It is even possible that this temporal suffering makes the eternal glory even more 'appreciated'.

So, for your argument to work, you would first have to show that a universe without sin is
a. possible given that free will exists
b. that it is inherently more loving that we never experience temporal suffering

I am not proposing that God creates only men who perfectly follow His command. i am merely proposing that God creates men who ultimately accept Him and receive salvation. Thus, there would still be a need for Christ and a way of salvation. The problem I see is when one allows that God still creates men who will reject Him no matter what He does AND that He has decided that the only possible result of that is Hell.

A universe in which a little (relatively speaking) suffering takes place is quite reasonable to me. A universe in which God purposefully creates those bound for infinite and eternal suffering seems incongruent with the claim that God loves everyone in the same way and desires all men to be saved in the same way.

When did I eliminate any alternative. As I said, I am agreeing with your paradigm of free will for this discussion. You don't believe that simply because God knows that a man will ultimately accept Him means that that man had no choice, do you?

Ditto to the above. Please hold back on the knee-jerk reaction to a Cist

Well here we part ways. Since this isn't the topic at hand, I shan't pursue this.

That being the case, I grant that this would in fact allow you to escape the difficulty. I doubt many here would find this escape compatible with their beliefs however. In short, it appears to be a deistic view in which things happen by natural causes without the room for God's direct intervention.

In short, God really isn't in control of who is and who isn't born. Ok, it resolves the difficulty...but at what cost? The fact that with your position, the soul/spirit would have to be viewed as a result of natural causes would be esp. interesting to pursue. Maybe I will start a different thread for this.

Thanks for your patience.

 

Why do you believe this? Scripture please. The filling of the earth with others was left up to man and was a commandment.
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Gen 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Notice "Dommion" means control man has control.

What arguement? the truth is the truth it isn't a arguement. Your the one who believes all this stuff with out scriptural support. All you have is your science

That would be universalism. Saddly all men will not be saved and this is reallity.

I don't believe that God creates anyone for hell this is a presumed theology and there is no truth in it. The fact man can respond to the gospel when he hears it proves his capacity of being a willing participant in His own Salvation.

What can I say except that God doesn't go by what you think.

I don't believe in freewill as you and others have described and Have told you that several times yet you insist that you agree with me. You do not.

Why not you've already mentioned it.

I'm not trying to escape I'm only showing you the scriptural proof of man in control of his own destiny.
Gen 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Sure why don't you do that.
MB

 

Quote:
1. If God loves all men, including those who receive eternal life and those who suffer eternal damnation, what does the love of God have to do with anyone’s salvation?

2. If God wills for all men to be saved, including those who receive eternal life and those who suffer eternal damnation, what does the will of God have to do with anyone’s salvation?

3. If Christ shed His precious blood for all men, including those who receive eternal life and those who suffer eternal damnation, what does the work of Christ on the cross have to do with anyone’s salvation?

Well, what do you think?

:type:




I'm by no means a Calvinist, so i'll give my .02 Canadian.

1) God's love is evidenced by the fact that He provided a way back to Himself through the sacrifice of Christ. God's love is unconditional, He loves all, died for all and desires all come to salvation - salvation is not, it is conditional upon continued obedience to Christ and abiding in Him.

2) God wills ALL to be saved and has paid for their sins on the Cross. He has, however, placed a voluntary limit on His will in that He will not force someone against their will to obey, believe and be saved. Free-will is one of the greatest gifts a sovereign God could bestow on His intelligent creatures.

3) Christ's payment of sin was made for all but only effectual for those who believe the Gospel. Because His love is unconditional, He did not just die for those who would accept but also for those who would reject His free gift of salvation. That is true love and a test of true love - it gives and gives even when apparent it will not be reciprocated by all. The Word says that He is "the Saviour of ALL men, specially of those who believe" If limited/particular atonement were true, this verse would prove false. However, because He paid the penalty of sin for ALL men, He is the Saviour of ALL men "because He has provided salvation for all men - and may be called the common Saviour of all...He actually saves all those who are willing to be saved by Him" (Barnes) and believe on His name.



Ray :wavey: