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Throwing this out as a shout-out to sanity

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convicted1

Guest
Things like this drive me away from Calvinism:

It is easy to conclude how foolish and frail is the support of divine justice by the suggestion that evils come to be not by His will, but merely by His permission. Of course, so far as they are evils…I admit they are not pleasing to God. But it is quite a frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing but the author of them. (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God pg. 176)
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As for Molinism, what little I know about it, I don't think it solves the puzzle either. God knows alll things, and what will happen two seconds from now, and 2,000 years from now. But this nowing what someone will do in any given circumstance, I have my reservations about that. That seems like a "crapshoot" theology to me. I don't mean that in an offensive manner, but I just can't figure Molinism out.
 
agedman

agedman

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
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Herald

New Member
I'm as Calvinistic as they come yet do not believe God created evil. He allows it for His sovereign purpose(s), but He did not create it (Jas. 1:13).
 
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convicted1

Guest
Herald said:
I'm as Calvinistic as they come yet do not believe God created evil. He allows it for His sovereign purpose(s), but He did not create it (Jas. 1:13).
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How can you be Calvinistic when the forefather of your belief system stated what he did? Calvin stated that God did indeed author it. :tonofbricks:
 
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mont974x4

New Member
Isa 45:7 The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these.


Rom 9:19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?"
Rom 9:20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it?
Rom 9:21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?
Rom 9:22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
Rom 9:23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,
Rom 9:24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.
 
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Herald

New Member
convicted1 said:
How can you be Calvinistic when the forefather of your belief system stated what he did? Calvin stated that God did indeed author it. :tonofbricks:
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Calvin is not the author of the doctrines of grace. Calvin happened to be an articulate advocate of the doctrine. I know some believers in the doctrines of grace who identify more closely with Augustine than Calvin. I use the terms Calvinism, Augustianism, doctrines of grace interchangeably. It's the same with modern day Arminians. Most Arminians repudiate some of the more controversial teachings of Arminius, such as his denial of original sin.
 
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Herald

New Member
webdog said:
Who created it?
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I don't look at the creation of sin in the same way as I do God creating the heavens and the earth. Sin is the antithesis of obedience. It is not a concrete physical thing that can be touched. To some degree it's a mystery; not able to be adequately explained. I believe God uses evil for His purposes, but He did not create it. I'm happy to rest in that mystery.
 
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convicted1

Guest
Herald said:
I don't look at the creation of sin in the same way as I do God creating the heavens and the earth. Sin is the antithesis of obedience. It is not a concrete physical thing that can be touched. To some degree it's a mystery; not able to be adequately explained. I believe God uses evil for His purposes, but He did not create it. I'm happy to rest in that mystery.
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Sin isn't a mystery. It's transgressing God's laws. Now, if God did create/author sin, as John Calvin stated, then He made something that grieves Him. Satan was/is the father of lies, and he, and he alone, ushered it in. He then got "das boot", and out of heaven he and his minions went.
 
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Herald

New Member
convicted1 said:
That's what I gleaned from your previous post. If I have misrepresented your post, please accept my deepest and most sincere apologies.
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No problem. After re-reading my post I see where I may not have been clear enough. The mystery is in why God allowed sin to come into being and why He chooses to use it for His own purposes.

The 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith explains the mystery of God allowing sin to come into being this way:

6.1 Although God created man upright and perfect, and gave him a righteous law, which had been unto life had he kept it, and threatened death upon the breach thereof, yet he did not long abide in this honour; Satan using the subtlety of the serpent to subdue Eve, then by her seducing Adam, who, without any compulsion, did willfully transgress the law of their creation, and the command given unto them, in eating the forbidden fruit, which God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory.
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God permitted sin but did not create it. There's the mystery!
 
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Winman

Active Member
God permitted sin but did not create it. There's the mystery!
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That's not what the scriptures say, the scriptures say sin is necessary.

Mat 18:7 Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!

Jesus said that offences "must needs be". Sin is necessary. Now put on your thinking cap and tell me why sin would be necessary to God.

This verse also shows that sin comes from the man, not God.

Is anything necessary to God? Why is sin necessary?
 
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