Will God Fit in Your Box?

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Originally Posted by Heavenly Pilgrim
http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=1029897&postcount=33
. Because He grants the opportunity to some in no way makes God out to be a respecter of persons. He simply does not grant to us all the reasons why he is selective in allowing some to hear the gospel message and yet others He indeed leaves in their sins.

BR: I point out in Romans 2 that God never states your case above - about the cause of the difference being something "God did".

HP: Let me define what I mean by ‘selective in allowing.’ What I do not mean is that God is likened to one on an assembly line of fruit passing before the workers, and randomly or arbitrarily chooses some to bestow His blessings while passing over all the rest. The fact is that God has chosen NOT to be the sole director, or the necessitating cause of who will and who will not hear the gospel message and decide who will and who will not be saved.

God has chosen to implement means for the accomplishment of salvation that involves imperfect man utilizing imperfect means in an imperfect world. God built the bridge via the atonement by which the possibility exists that ALL could, IF they hear and respond, be saved. Just the same, He does not force or coerce any means to insure that all hear the message, or that the same influences are granted to all. God has so designed the process of the dissemination of the gospel to incorporate mans help, as finite and prone to failure and error as we are, for purposes known only to Himself.

Those God foreknows will be saved, are not as the Calvinist would have us to believe, necessitated by His foreknowledge, or arbitrarily chosen, but rather that God foreknows that that would hear and respond by ‘His chosen means,’ in a complete accordance with the free will of man.

Simply put, God’s ‘selection’ is not an arbitrary end of His necessitated will, but rather the product of the means He has placed into play. These chosen means incorporate not only the free will of man but the freely dissemination of His offer of grace at the hands of those men and women that freely love Him and share the gospel with others free from force or coercion.

 

[BobRyan]

Originally Posted by Heavenly Pilgrim
http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=1029897&postcount=33
. Because He grants the opportunity to some in no way makes God out to be a respecter of persons. He simply does not grant to us all the reasons why he is selective in allowing some to hear the gospel message and yet others He indeed leaves in their sins.



HP: Let me define what I mean by ‘selective in allowing.’ What I do not mean is that God is likened to one on an assembly line of fruit passing before the workers, and randomly or arbitrarily chooses some to bestow His blessings while passing over all the rest. The fact is that God has chosen NOT to be the sole director, or the necessitating cause of who will and who will not hear the gospel message and decide who will and who will not be saved.

Salvation by "better story telling" you are arguing that those "with the best story can be saved and the others can not".

Paul deals with the issue of "not all have access to the details of the story as defined by scripture" problem in Romans 2.



Then Paul deals with the one last remaining objection to an “impartial God” – the fact that some do have access to scripture and the Gospel story found in scripture while others clearly do not – we saw Paul’s solution for that problem here –
http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=1031541&postcount=9

 

[BobRyan]

HP: Who ever said that it is God that does the selecting between the saved and the lost? First, the lost have chosen their own way. God does not create them lost, or force them to be lost. They determine their own estate by the moral intents of the will they form.

As for the saved, God indeed has created a plan that obviously insures that some will receive mercy, but that by no means is equated to God simply necessitating the salvation of any and certainly does not impose any ideas of necessitating the damnation of any others.

...

I see no compelling moral reason why God has to share the gospel message with all on an equal basis or allow the same influences to influence all in the same manner, neither do I believe that is possible.
...

I can see some things that I believe do compel God to act in certain ways. If He is going to praise or blame man for their action, He must grant to man the necessary knowledge necessary to understand the command and the necessary abilities to carry them out. That is precisely why the rejection of Christ is not the damning sin. All have not heard and all do not understand what they must do in order to be saved. That is a job God delegates to finite man to accomplish through the help and aide of the Holy Spirit.

Can anyone think of any morally compelling reasons, violations of first truths of reason, etc., why God must grant to all the opportunity to hear and respond to the gospel, without which God cannot escape the charges of partiality, unfairness, or being a respecter of persons? I cannot think of one. Again, I can see why justice in condemning man necessitates light and abilities, but when it comes to having an opportunity to receive of His mercy I am at a loss to associate any such compelling notions to God’s choices or means by which He chooses to bestow or withhold such mercy. I am not stating that God does not have any reasons why He chooses what He does, but some things are only known to God and God alone.

#1. you argue both sides -- saying God should not condemn those who have no other option but to fail. Then arguing that God is not obligated to place real success within the grasp of each person.

#2. You fall into the error of thinking that "salvation by story telling" is what limits God-- there just arent enough story tellers and God's OWN methods "Drawing ALL" John 12:32 and "CONVICTING the WORLD" John 16:8-15 are simply insufficient to result in real salvation in your model.

But Romans 2:11-16 refutes that idea.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

#2. You fall into the error of thinking that "salvation by story telling" is what limits God-- there just arent enough story tellers and God's OWN methods "Drawing ALL" John 12:32 and "CONVICTING the WORLD" John 16:8-15 are simply insufficient to result in real salvation in your model.

But Romans 2:11-16 refutes that idea.

HP: The problem you are having might be due to your many debates with Calvinism. There are other views out there besides yours and a Calvinistic one you know. There are not just ‘two ways’ to look at this, with our destiny to either accept one or the other, or to support one idea or the other. We are speaking of three views so far presented, the one I am presenting not being Calvinistic or lining up with your views either.

It is you and the Calvinist that state that man has no other destiny than to fail with your notion that man is born estranged from God, sinful from birth and birthed without hope. I have never presented any system that states or implies man has no other option but to fail. God creates every man with the power of contrary choice. Man is not a sinner by necessity as you would have us to believe, but rather is a willful rebel that has chosen sin as opposed to obedience,. Your system of thought is the one that has man created as a failure, to be punished for an unavoidable end, not any that I have proposed or set forth.

Concerning #2 of your post, it is sufficient to state there is not a shred of truth in your conjecture. I would hope in time that you will come to see that.

 

[BobRyan]

HP:
It is you and the Calvinist that state that man has no other destiny than to fail with your notion that man is born estranged from God, sinful from birth and birthed without hope. I have never presented any system that states or implies man has no other option but to fail. God creates every man with the power of contrary choice. Man is not a sinner by necessity as you would have us to believe, but rather is a willful rebel that has chosen sin as opposed to obedience,.

You are arguing semantics.

The Calvinist position is that man is born depraved and God only actually solves that problem for a "selected few".

You position is similar but you do not say man is born spiritually depraved (though you confusingly admit to the sinful nature) you say man is born in "circumstances" where he may or may not have access to the Gospel and that God placed man there (or at the very least arranged circumstances such that the Gospel exists some places). In your view those without access "to the story" are doomed.

so in BOTH the Calvinist model and yours - a selection process takes place... either SELECTING some FEW of the depraved to be zapped-born-again or SELECTING some FEW of the born-on-earth to have ACCESS to the Gospel.

In my view -- by contrast ALL are born depraved and ALL are within God's reach as HE draws ALL enabling ALL to choose life AND sufficient "light from the light of Christ who enlightens EVERY MAN" such that ALL can REALLY be saved if they so desire.

Admittedly - this is THREE opposing views of the way the system works - not two.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

BR: You are arguing semantics.

HP: Please BR. You have bought into the bedrock Augustinian/Calvinistic notion of original sin. That is not bringing to our attention a mere semantic issue. You destroy free will by claiming that man is born a sinner. How can a man be free to do anything when he is born unable to make a choice???? He is born as a necessitated sinner, evil and that continually, remember? Some free will that represents.

BR: The Calvinist position is that man is born depraved and God only actually solves that problem for a "selected few".

HP: Could you forget the Calvinist position for a minute and at least try to entertain something different? I am not a Calvinist BR, and you should know that by now. I agree that they present god as being arbitrary in His selection. I can say almost the same thing they do without insinuating an arbitrary system in the least….IF…one comes to understand the depravity man is born with and HOW God makes His selections, i.e. in line with an accordance to the free will system we both should agree together concerning.

BR: You position is similar but you do not say man is born spiritually depraved (though you confusingly admit to the sinful nature)

HP: Nature, most commonly, has to do with the physical.. Man is certainly born physically depraved, with depraved sensibilities. That is not sin. That is being born with a proclivity to sin, or an influence to sin. You fail to distinguish between the depraved sensibilities and the will of man.

BR: you say man is born in "circumstances" where he may or may not have access to the Gospel and that God placed man there (or at the very least arranged circumstances such that the Gospel exists some places). In your view those without access "to the story" are doomed.

HP: Yes, those that are without the story are doomed, BUT not for being born a son of Adam before the first choice could even be made, as you would have us to believe. They have failed to live up to the light of their own conscience and as such sinned and became guilty before God. Don’t blame that on God. He did not, nor did anything else coerce them to violate their conscience. Their doom is just in light of God’s law which is fair, reasonable, and just.

 

[BobRyan]

In your view - how is it that it "just so happens" that ALL fail in their "free will choices" who do not have access to the gospel IF as you say - they are all born sinless and the Sinful nature has NO imact at all on their free will choice to REMAIN sinless and morally pure???

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

BR: In your view - how is it that it "just so happens" that ALL fail in their "free will choices" who do not have access to the gospel IF as you say - they are all born sinless and the Sinful nature has NO imact at all on their free will choice to REMAIN sinless and morally pure???

HP: Excellent question. As soon as you share with the list ‘why’ our first parents sinned, or the devil himself sinned, created as they were in the perfect environment with perfect bodies fit for pure worship to their Maker, I might begin to have insight enough to answer your question. In the meantime what I will not do is to accept the false Augustinian notion that sin lies in the constitution of the flesh as opposed to the will, a notion that is absolutely contrary to Scripture and reason alike.

I can think of no other presupposition that has more potential for error or that has fostered any more false notions within the church than the doctrine formed by Augustine for which he is rightfully noted as ‘the father of the doctrine of original sin.’

You never heard from me that the sinful nature we inherit from Adam has no effect on the human race. Where have you heard such a preposterous statement?