• Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

Why do Arminians have such a small view of God?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Reynolds

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
No one argues that humans are unfree to act. What is stated is that those actions are ordained by the Providence of God.

God is not unaware or uninvolved when anything occurs within His creation. There are no accidents. No "oops." No surprise regarding anything. All things within God's creation are upheld by His righteous right hand. This includes what you or I would label good and evil.
It is precisely this issue that Job addresses with His wife when she tells him to curse God and die. Job's response is, should we praise God for good and not for evil? Job understood the Providential actions of God.
Job had no knowledge that Satan was
No one argues that humans are unfree to act. What is stated is that those actions are ordained by the Providence of God.

God is not unaware or uninvolved when anything occurs within His creation. There are no accidents. No "oops." No surprise regarding anything. All things within God's creation are upheld by His righteous right hand. This includes what you or I would label good and evil.
It is precisely this issue that Job addresses with His wife when she tells him to curse God and die. Job's response is, should we praise God for good and not for evil? Job understood the Providential actions of God.
Job has no knowledge that he is being attacked by Satan. The statement you reference Job making is not Job speaking as a prophet. We have no evidence his statement is inspired. We know the Bible accurately records the statement, but we have no evidence the statement its self. Is inspired.
 

Reynolds

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
N
No one argues that humans are unfree to act. What is stated is that those actions are ordained by the Providence of God.

God is not unaware or uninvolved when anything occurs within His creation. There are no accidents. No "oops." No surprise regarding anything. All things within God's creation are upheld by His righteous right hand. This includes what you or I would label good and evil.
It is precisely this issue that Job addresses with His wife when she tells him to curse God and die. Job's response is, should we praise God for good and not for evil? Job understood the Providential actions of God.
Your in that circle again. Humans are free to act, but they have no choice as to what they do.
 

MennoSota

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Job had no knowledge that Satan was

Job has no knowledge that he is being attacked by Satan. The statement you reference Job making is not Job speaking as a prophet. We have no evidence his statement is inspired. We know the Bible accurately records the statement, but we have no evidence the statement its self. Is inspired.
Who cares if Job knew about Satan's actions or not. That's irrelevant. Job expresses remarkable faith and a belief that God ordains both good and bad. Nowhere do we see God rebuke Job for his statement.
What we see God rebuke Job for is Job's attempt to put the infinite God into a box. This is what I see you doing when you require that God must give humans free will. God isn't required to fit into your philosophy of free will.

All we can conclude about God's work is what God reveals to us in His word. To add something God never declares, merely because it makes sense to our minds is to attempt to put God in a box.

What then does God tell us about His work?

We read in numerous places that God chooses. We read that God predestines. We read that God adopts. These are undeniable things that God very frankly tells us. What we never read about is free will. God never discusses the subject anywhere in His speaking to man.
 

MennoSota

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
N

Your in that circle again. Humans are free to act, but they have no choice as to what they do.
What did I say? It isn't what you claim I say. The circle is in your mind. Open it up to what God is saying, not what you want God to be saying.
 

MennoSota

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Open your own mind up and get off the hamster wheel.
God's word is not a hamster wheel. It's too bad you have closed your mind to reading and understanding God's word in an attempt to cling to a philosophy of free will not supported by God's word.

There is only one way to know God and that is by reading His words. Any attempt to force God into the constraints of a philosophy unsupported by God's word is an attempt to create a small god that we control.
 

SovereignGrace

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Yes, it is according to the boundaries God set. Do you think Adam had freedom to destroy God? Don't be silly. we know what is biblically meant by freewill. Don't play games, figure it out, God did not do this in secret, He let us know what He has done.
Prisons have set boundaries for prisoners. They have cells they reside in. They can walk freely within the confines of that cell, but can not go outside those boundaries set. That's not free.

Adam freely operated within the boundaries God set. That's not free.
 

SovereignGrace

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Sorry, makes no sense. you believe they already could not believe from birth. No matter what they seen you believe they could not believe. Thus, God would be blinding the blind. BUT, according to God they could choose to believe so He decided after all their rejection He would seal them in their unbelief by blinding them. Pretty simple.

The Christ's works were so powerful, if God had not blinded them, they would have believe He was the very Christ, and they would not have crucified Him.

Look at Pharaoh. Pharaoh would have relented to save his own hide, but God was actively hardening his heart because He was going to wipe them off the face of the earth due to their idolatry.
 

SovereignGrace

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Yes, it is according to the boundaries God set. Do you think Adam had freedom to destroy God? Don't be silly. we know what is biblically meant by freewill. Don't play games, figure it out, God did not do this in secret, He let us know what He has done.

Free means no restrictions, unencumbered, &c.

You really need to slay your golden calf and burn it on an altar somewhere.
 

Reynolds

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
God's word is not a hamster wheel. It's too bad you have closed your mind to reading and understanding God's word in an attempt to cling to a philosophy of free will not supported by God's word.

There is only one way to know God and that is by reading His words. Any attempt to force God into the constraints of a philosophy unsupported by God's word is an attempt to create a small god that we control.
Again,you are saying the same thing over and over. Running in that circle. Calvinism is a doctrine based on mans interpretation of the Word of God.

When you effectively deal with Jn 3: 16-17 (without adding words to it) we might have something to discuss. The typical response from the Calvinist talking points is not a correct answer. It will earn you a "try again." Who made you the referee anyway?
 

MennoSota

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Again,you are saying the same thing over and over. Running in that circle. Calvinism is a doctrine based on mans interpretation of the Word of God.

When you effectively deal with Jn 3: 16-17 (without adding words to it) we might have something to discuss. The typical response from the Calvinist talking points is not a correct answer. It will earn you a "try again." Who made you the referee anyway?
I will gladly circle around the word of God.
I notice you refuse to address Romans 3, Ephesians 1 and Ephesians 2.

We can look at John 3.
Note in the dialogue with Nicodemus that it is the Holy Spirit who gives life to our spirit (just like Ephesians 2).
Look at your two verses. Note the great work of God for those who would believe. Note as well that there is nothing about free will.
Notice that verse 20 agrees with Romans 3. No one seeks after God, not even one.
Reynolds, your passage is not about free will even in the least. You are trying to force your human philosophy onto the text and shove a square peg into a round hole. At what point will you let God's word speak for itself and let your pride fall as God becomes your Master?

John 3:1-21
[1]There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee.
[2]After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.”
[3]Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
[4]“What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”
[5]Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.
[6]Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.
[7]So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’
[8]The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”
[9]“How are these things possible?” Nicodemus asked.
[10]Jesus replied, “You are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things?
[11]I assure you, we tell you what we know and have seen, and yet you won’t believe our testimony.
[12]But if you don’t believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things?
[13]No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man has come down from heaven.
[14]And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
[15]so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.
[16]“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
[17]God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
[18]“There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son.
[19]And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.
[20]All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed.
[21]But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.”
 
Last edited:

Yeshua1

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Again,you are saying the same thing over and over. Running in that circle. Calvinism is a doctrine based on mans interpretation of the Word of God.

When you effectively deal with Jn 3: 16-17 (without adding words to it) we might have something to discuss. The typical response from the Calvinist talking points is not a correct answer. It will earn you a "try again." Who made you the referee anyway?
ALL niews of doctrine are based upon how we understand the scriptures....
The truth is that the scriptures show to us that as a direct result of the Fall, none if us can get saved apart from God doing that for us!
 

Don

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
The truth is that the scriptures show to us that as a direct result of the Fall, none if us can get saved apart from God doing that for us!
That has never been in question, by calvinist or arminian.
 

steaver

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
The Christ's works were so powerful, if God had not blinded them, they would have believe He was the very Christ, and they would not have crucified Him.

Well, I gotta give you credit. You are the first one that ever tried to think up an explanation. Everyone always diverts to some other topic or just says "I don't know".

Look at Pharaoh. Pharaoh would have relented to save his own hide, but God was actively hardening his heart because He was going to wipe them off the face of the earth due to their idolatry.

Pharaoh is the perfect example of how God deals with a lost person. Read the entire account, how that Pharaoh was allowed his freewill to choose to obey God. Pharaoh would obey and then he would change his mind. It went back and forth, Pharaoh hardening his own heart and then God ultimately sealing Pharaoh's fate by hardening Pharaoh's heart. Perfect example of God blinding a person AFTER their own freewill choices. Good example! Glad you brought it up.
 

MennoSota

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
You already validated my position...


Even though you don't like the term freewill.
I am still waiting for biblical evidence where man's will is free to go outside the boundary of God's ordained will.
That is the essence of why free will cannot exist. The will cannot escape the boundary of God’s will.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top