Wondering Why?

[Pastor Larry]

Jesus in his prayer John 17 mentions Judas as the PREPLANNED one who would betray Jesus. It was not a random act, but a preplanned act.

Doesn't that kind of ruin the "all men have been enabled and have an equal chance" line? Judas clearly didn't.

 

[Ray Berrian]

Jesus calling Judas ‘the son of Hell’ is hardly an endearing word to one who was a part of the twelve. If Judas was a child of the kingdom God would not have said that he was ‘lost’ and that he was a factor in the betrayal. Because Judas was never a true follower of Christ, he slipped away and was disloyal to our Lord Jesus. God being omniscient could and knowing his sinful heart made Judas a part of His Divine plan. God speaking through the Apostle John calls Judas a devil.

 

[Wes Outwest]

Originally posted by Pastor Larry:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Jesus in his prayer John 17 mentions Judas as the PREPLANNED one who would betray Jesus. It was not a random act, but a preplanned act.

Doesn't that kind of ruin the "all men have been enabled and have an equal chance" line? Judas clearly didn't. </font>[/QUOTE]Neither did the other Apostles! However, the ones to whom Jesus came, did have "random opportunity" to believe in Jesus, a relatively few did, but most chose not to.

There are 60+ Old Testament Prophesies regarding the Messiah. One of them says, to wit, 'He would be betrayed by one of his own'. Now that is either foreknowledge of what would happen "randomly", or it reflects a plan whereby "key characters" are elected to their roles.

How many "Key Characters" does one find in any society? There are those who are elect, but not the whole of any population. How many pastors do you usually find in any congregation? I believe you'll find that answer to be proportional in accordance with the size of the congregation.

No one denies that there are some who are "elect", but to say that large segments of the population are "the elect" is only wishful thinking with only one exception, and that is the Elect of God, the seed of Jacob.

 

[Ray Berrian]

Yes, Wes Outwest,

All born of the Spirit Christians are of the seed of Abraham and Jacob. Jacob, not Esau, lead to the birth of Christ and His promised lineage are we who are of the household of faith. Praise be to God!

 

[Wes Outwest]

Ray,
If you are in the bloodline of Jacob, then you can truly say that you are in the collective of God's elect. Otherwise, If you are in the spirit line of Jesus, God the son, then you are one of those who "learned from the teachings of those God the Father gave to Jesus. [John 17:20] I pray not only for these but also for those who through their teaching will come to believe in me.

No, You are not necessarily "an elect", but you are, by Jesus' justifying you through Atonement; and by your FAITH in Jesus sanctifying you, you are ready to be Saved by God into everlasting life.

Yes, you are truly in Everlasting life so long as you don't change your mind and lose your faith. For if that happens, God will blot your name from the book of life, and you will be cast into the lake of fire, the second death, eternal separation from God the giver of all life.

 

[Ray Berrian]

Notice the elect are not secured for Heaven via God’s decree. Jesus is saying in this prayer to the Father in verse twenty that He is not only praying for those on the earth while He was here, but also for all who will follow including you and me. Jesus is praying for those ‘who shall believe on Me through the words of those who will preach and witness to His glorious Gospel.’ [John 17:20]

All Christians in all ages are one with the Father even as the holy Trinity is One. Think of it! We are one with the Godhead.

Wes, your last paragraph is a whole other and larger issue.

'The prayer reaches out to include those who will believe because of the testimony of these men (cf. John 10:16 & Acts 18:9-10). Faith is the necessary condition for enjoying the life of God and therefore of coming into that unity which is found first of all in the Godhead and then in the body of Christ, the Church.' Dr. Everett F. Harrison,Th.D. & Ph.D. "The Wycliffe Bible Commentary" p. 1,113, {Professor of N.T., Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

As a sidebar the word in John 10:16 is not fold, but the Greek word meaning flock.

 

[Pastor Larry]

You guys in your mass of philosophic words completely miss the point: By saying that Judas was chosen from the past to betray the Savior means that he had no chance to do otherwise. Therefore, any claim that all men have the ability and chance is disproven on its face. You might argue for "all other men," but you will run into various problems when you start trying to explain why "all" doesn't mean "all."

 

[ILUVLIGHT]

Hi Larry;
Because prophets looked into the future to see what all takes place while Christ was on earth doesn't mean that Judas was specifically chosen to be that devil. All prophecy means is that someone had the ability to fortell the future accurately. This is not predestination simply because these men were allowed to see the future. Judas wasn't named by the prophet, was He?. For the prophecy to come true all that had to happen was for God to allow it to happen.
There is nothing that is unalterable if there was then God has no Sovereginty. He has created a plan that even He can't change. This destroys the verse where it says "all things are possible with God".
May Christ Shine His Light On Us All;
Mike

 

[Wes Outwest]

Originally posted by Pastor Larry:
You guys in your mass of philosophic words completely miss the point: By saying that Judas was chosen from the past to betray the Savior means that he had no chance to do otherwise. Therefore, any claim that all men have the ability and chance is disproven on its face. You might argue for "all other men," but you will run into various problems when you start trying to explain why "all" doesn't mean "all."

Someone once said of you Larry, that you couldn't even recognize a nit, but here you are pickin one.

There are many who are elect of God, and Judas is one of them, just as Pharoah was elect of God. So there is no problem in Judas, He was an elect of God. God elected him to betray His son Jesus to the religious leaders. Did he have an opportunity to change? Yes, he could have refused to betray Jesus, but then we would not have a gospel message would we? We would not have an Atonement for sin and would all die in our sins. We would not have a resurrection or the promise of God that we will all be resurrected, some to eternal life, others to the final judgment. So, Thank you Judas for being true to your calling!

Larry what you miss is that in every generation of every society there are "key characters" who are "the elect of God for the generation". It is they who will further the work of God, and through them many more will come to have faith in God. Judas was one such key character who was faithful to his calling.
No, Judas is no problem at all!

 

[whatever]

Originally posted by ILUVLIGHT:
Hi Wes;
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Peter says that God planned the murder of Christ, including who would be involved and what they would do.

It is true that the Father sent His son as a sacrifice for our sins, but Christ layed down His life willingly. No one took it from Him. It was not murder.

Joh 10:17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
Joh 10:18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
May Christ Shine His Light On Us All;
Mike

</font>[/QUOTE]That was my quote, not Wes'. Peter said "this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men". Later he said "but you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses." Was Peter wrong?

 

[Ray Berrian]

Judas was not a marked man for Hell. The crucifixion would have happened with or without Judas betrayal. This was merely part of the litany that was prophecied to take place when Jesus was on the earth.

Judas did not fall from grace, he fell from his apostleship. The Lord did not ordain Judas to go to Hell; Judas went ‘ . . . to his own place.’ This was the place of his own choosing, though Satan probably blinded him to the fact that God would still receive Judas. How do we know this to be two Biblical facts? Read Acts 1:25.

It is only a Calvinistic theory which presupposes Judas as being predestined explicitely for the realm of eternal destruction. This is a humanistic philosophic determinism not God who longs to save all of His lost ones. [I Timothy 2:4 {wishes} & II Peter 3:9] No Christian pastor today that I know today, would tell any sinner, even Judas or a fallen Christian that repentance was just beyond their reach.

 

[whatever]

Originally posted by Ray Berrian:
No Christian pastor today that I know today, would tell any sinner, even Judas or a fallen Christian that repentance was just beyond their reach.

I don't know of any who would, either. That's nothing but a strawman.

 

[Ray Berrian]

'I don't know of any who would, either. That's nothing but a strawman.'

I rather see that aspect of my post as a hypothetical not a strawman.

What if Judas would have really repented?

 

[whatever]

Originally posted by Ray Berrian:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> 'I don't know of any who would, either. That's nothing but a strawman.'

I rather see that aspect of my post as a hypothetical not a strawman.

What if Judas would have really repented? </font>[/QUOTE]Had God granted Judas repentance then Judas would have been forgiven. No Christian pastor knows who God will grant repentance to, so no Christian pastor worth his salt would ever say such a thing as you suggested.

 

[Ray Berrian]

whatever,

God forgives all who truly repent. Forgiveness is not merely to certain sinners. I pastored churches for twenty-three years.

By their fruit you will know them; especially if they manifest true love for the brethren.

 

[GeneMBridges]

His foreknowledge doesn't determine anything except what he knows.

Adam's determination determines what God knows.

However, God is also INDEPENDENT. If, as you say we determine what He knows by our free choices, then you have God's knowledge being dependent on something other than Himself. This, by definition, violates the independence of God, because something, e.g. the content of His knowledge, is dependent on something other than His sovereign decree. All things must exist, including all contingencies, by His sovereign decree. This is what we mean by primary cause. However, we are secondary causes, in that we freely fulfill the sovereign decree, and we do so with freedom within the causal structure of universe, which necessarily flows from God, and God's existence is a necessary existence. The moment you say that Adam's determination determines what God knows, you have interjected contingency of some sort into the nature of God, and contingency is, by definition, NOT characteristic of a necessary existence. (Geisler, Oden)


Reformed theology teaches that God's foreknowledge extends to contingencies as well as actualities and that even the contingencies, by virtue that they exist as potentials that can be actualized by free choices, must exist by some sort of unknown determinant in God. All choices, including all actualities are 'determined" in a loose sense. They are not, however determined in a strict sense. Choices are like balls on strings. Depending on how much tension is in the strings, one can make the balls do as much as you will, but, by virtue of the fact you hold the strings, the balls can not move without being in some way determined by the conditions necessary to the existence they have as balls on strings. Likewise, real world choices by real living beings are free, but only free within the causal nexus of available conditions and choices. As I explained to you before, with relationship to the fall, there was a contingency for good and one for evil.

Now, persons are not machines. They make real choices. There is certainly enough "slack" in the decree to allow for free choices. The point is simply that no choice can come to pass without being included in the sovereign decree, because nothing can exist apart from the sovereign decree. and the sovereign decree is the effective cause of all that exists. However it works its way out via secondary causes. Since these secondary causes can not exist and no possibility of any single event can exist apart from God's existence, since existence itself proceeds from the sovereign decree, we are thus left to figure out HOW this determination works its way out. Is God actively causing choices or passively or combinationally. If passive/combinational, then to what extent is He involved such that He is not the active author of evil but that He is the active cause of salvation?

Now, we can get into a discussion of supralapsarian and infralapsarian views on the fall from here or we can just stay with causality. The point I am making is that the sovereign decree is always effective. It can not be ineffective, because it flows from an omnipotent, necessary Being, God, that is the cause of ALL that exists in actuality and contingently/possibility. The effectiveness of this decree can be accomplished by active or passive means.

With respect to the salvation of any person, since we exist after the fall, we say the sovereign decree is accomplished actively for the regenerate and passively for the unregenerate. Arminians affirm passivity, with respect to both, and both man and God are primary causes in the schema of the causal nexus. This is illogical (since there can be no two primary causalities in theism, since the causal nexus exists as a concomitant of the existence of a single, simple primary cause, God), and not exegetically based at all. HyperCalvinists affirm activity with respect to both. There are no secondary causalities in the causal matrix according to hyperCalvinists. On the other hand, radical and consistent Arminians, e.g. Open Theists, have God being so passive that He can not know the future at all. The Reformed position says that God is the primary cause of all things, man is the secondary cause. God actively intervenes in man to regenerate him, the unregenerate he passes over. Thus, the Reformed postion is combinational.

For a good primer on Open Theism, look here:

http://www.carm.org/open.htm

Regarding the fall:

If Adam was innocent with respect to intimately knowing good and evil, then he was disposed to do good OR evil, but not neither good or evil. This is supported by the fact that the text strongly suggests that Adam and Eve were leading obedient lives until the ate of the tree and God communed with them intimately. Doing good may thus be a natural function of innocence or it could be that, since evil is the absence of good, the natural agency of innocence is to what is actual, that is good things, not knowing they are, in fact, good, until one chooses to do something from which good is absent in some manner, though one does not know what evil is. However, as we shall see, Adam did, in fact, while not knowing evil in the sense of experiencing or relating to evil in an evil manner, he did know what obedience and disobedience are. This is what makes him culpable for his sin, and what set his free agency, and therefore our own, toward the agency set toward depravity, and operative only within those constraints.


The question remains, what was Adam's sin? Was it his intent in eating of the tree or was it an intrinsic evil desire? Upon further contemplation, I believe that his intent was, in fact, good, e.g. the proverbial good intention. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Adam believed knowing good and evil was a good thing, and Satan had said they would be like God in knowing it. Adam may well have thought to himself that being like God in knowing good and evil was something God would approve of because it would, in his mind, make him closer to God. Satan, however, knew that this was, in fact, quite the opposite. That is where part of his deception lay.

Adam therefore ate the tree, and THEN his eyes and the eyes of Eve were opened. They died. God's presence left them. Their death was thus a result of the act of God, not any kind of self-actualizing or intrinsically extrinsic monergistic reaction, which I elsewhere postulated. It was a negative monergistic judgment, a removal of their ability to come to God and be in his presence, a removal of moral ability enacted by God Himself upon them either as an active judgment or a passive consequence of their actions, but it was ultimately synergistic between God and man, because both were living. Synergism is possible only when both entities are living, however, it was synergistic only within the causal nexus of the sovereign decree. In that sense, the fall was the determined outcome of one of two potentialities. Since the fall is what came about the actual effectiveness of the sovereign decree was toward the fall (for in it God could show Himself forgiving, etc.), not eternal fellowship. It was accomplished via a passive decree, in that man, being a living soul (not an undead, fallen soul) was able to be the active secondary cause that effected God's effective sovereign decree. Man failed God, even though he "meant well," but he went about it entirely the wrong way. In so doing, he died, and that death was a conditional response by God as the penalty for sin. Either it was accomplished by a direct active decree of God or by a passive consequential decree going out from God. Either way, it can be synergistic without begging the question of intrinsic monergism or illogical or dualistic synergism.

In short, Adam's desire to eat may not have necessarily been evil. His action, however, was disobedient, and that was evil. Adam was not ignorant of what he was doing. Thus we can say, he had the right intention, but did precisely the wrong thing. In acting on his impulse, he disobeyed God and set his free moral agency toward evil, for he committed an act of idolatry. Thus, he sinned even with a desire to do good. However, his nature was innocent (and, flowing from a GOOD prime creative cause, the desires of such a thing would be good in the sense of proceeding toward good until time came where evil could be actualized) His DESIRE was not evil, his ACT was, and thus his came to intimately know good and evil, and his desires became evil from that point onwards, thus setting his free agency in the state set forth according to the doctrine of total depravity as affirmed in the Reformed tradition.

If he had eaten of the other tree as God commanded, the text implies, since God had to cut him and Eve off from the tree of life lest they be forever confirmed in their death, they would have been confirmed by God in an act of perfect reward and been forever preserved from falling as the angels in heaven presently are preserved and the redeemed are preserved from apostasy and all God's people will be preserved after the consumation of the ages.

Caused, uncaused, self-caused....is this logical?

This was a logical self-causation because, unlike illogical self-causation where a potential is actualizing itself, this is the case of an actual deactualizing itself in order to not exist any more with respect to the moral agency of pure good and perfect communion with God. Moving from actuality to potentiality (with actuality being good and evil being the absence of good, e.g. potentiality) is not illogical. Self-causation is only illogical when moving from potentiality to actuality.

Alternatively, God is the actuality that reduces the actuality of the moral agency disposed to good to an absence of moral ability, e.g. spiritual death, a state of potentiality with respect to spiritual life. Since that unique state of libertine free will existed as as type of free agency, intrinsic only to the state of true moral innocence at the creation, this effectively set man's inherited free agency toward evil only, though with the ability to do relative good, his moral will in bondage with respect to the ability to come to God and be saved, understand spiritual truth, etc. Thus it is entirely possible that the fall was, in fact, synergistic. However, because of the fall, an extrinsic monergistic action by God Himself is required, e.g. regeneration, prior to saving faith. This is probably the better option, because it accounts for the theistic premise that all things must be sustained by God Himself in order to exist. Thus, God no longer sustained the potential to do good or evil. He only sustained the potential for evil with respect to man's moral agency. If man had chosen otherwise, it is possible God would have no longer sustained the potential for evil and only sustained the potential for good, e.g. actualized man's free agency toward only good and sustained it as such, which is, in fact, the apparent underlying process in redeemed man's glorified state with the Lord in eternity. However, God has also restrained this so that man's evil is not utter. It is total. Thus man is dead to being able to effect his justification, but he is able to do acts of relative good. (Note that both the Opinions of the Remonstrance and the Reformed position hold to this view).

For the prophecy to come true all that had to happen was for God to allow it to happen.
There is nothing that is unalterable if there was then God has no Sovereginty. He has created a plan that even He can't change.

Larry's point is that you guys are always advancing the argument that your position is less deteminative than Calvinism. However, in acknowledging this, you show that it is no less determinative at all. In fact, by leaving all this in the hands of chance, "random," as Wes writes, you, move away from a personal model to a model driven by impersonal forces, namely chance.

Regardless, the point Larry is making is that if God always knew Judas specifically would betray the Lord and die in his sins, then how is this any less deterministic than the Reformed scenario? True determinism says that we are at the mercy of IMPERSONAL forces like randomness and chance, NOT personal forces outside ourselves. It would seem, by saying that the content of God's knowledge is determined by man's actions and that man's action are truly random in some sense, that it is the Arminian view that is closer to real determinism.

This destroys the verse where it says "all things are possible with God".

Not at all. God can not sin. Thus, "all things" must mean something other than "everything including things contrary to His attributes." Your argument violates God's freedom and independence by making His knowledge and actions contingent on man's.

God must exist independently and not dependently, including His knowledge, because all knowledge necessarily flows from Him, including our knowledge. Since we have causal efficacy, that causal efficacy must also be derivative from God, or else you end up with Open Theism. Open Theism is simply logically consistent Arminianism.

Calvinist are reformed Catholics and Arminians are independant thinkers

On the contrary, Calvinist soteriology is completely antithetical to Rome. Rome denies total depravity/inability. Rome says election is conditional not unconditional. Rome affirms general atonement. Rome affirms resistible grace. Rome affirms conditional security. Sound familar, Mike? It should, that is exactly your belief system. Arminians of your particular variety (since you are a five point Arminian) are Roman Catholics minus the sacraments. Statements like this show you don't understand Catholicism or Calvinism in the least except the straw men Dave Hunt, et.al. put up with such statements.

In my own initial experience of faith I would have to say that personal repentance came first. If you do not repent/turn from your sins, you have not acknowledged your need of Jesus in this eternal matter. Repentance, in my view, is not a one time event at salvation, it is a continual attitude of the heart life in relation to the Lord of glory.

Calvinists do not quibble with you over the order of repentance and faith, because it is considered too close to call. Our contention with you is over the logical order of regeneration and faith, not repentance and faith.

Why do some repent and not others, what is the root cause?

 

[Skandelon]

Originally posted by whatever:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Skandelon:
In regard to Joseph etc. I would describe it like this:

When you watch a puppet show you might say the puppet master controls the strings, but in the case of God could you not also say that it's not that the man upstairs is pulling their strings, it's just that he knows them intimately enough to know which move they will make. Therefore he builds his show around it, and then the audience watches the end result? A perfect harmony of free will and sovereignity.

That's not the language that the Bible uses. Joseph says that God intended it for good. Job says that God took his stuff away, and the writer affirms that Job was correct. Peter says that God planned the murder of Christ, including who would be involved and what they would do. Why shouldn't we use the same kind of language? </font>[/QUOTE]You know in scripture when it speaks of God "changing is mind" because he was going to destroy the Israelites but Moses prays for them. Theologians call that "antropomorphic" language, meaning that is just the way MEN TALK to descibe the way God appears to them. I think that is what we see when the scripture describes God's working with men. I think we have to speculate as to exactly how God does what He does, but certainly we all agree He doesn't author sin, nor does He even tempt men toward it. Why can't we leave it at that? It just seems that we over speculate as to how God brings about his ultimate will and in doing so we appear to make God culpable for more than He is actually cupable for. Certainly God allows/permits sinful choices and even uses such choices to bring about his plans, but why go beyond that? Is there really a need to take it further?

 

[Skandelon]

However, God is also INDEPENDENT. If, as you say we determine what He knows by our free choices, then you have God's knowledge being dependent on something other than Himself.

I know you said much more than this but its late and I'm going to limit my comments to this one point.

Have you considered the possiblity that God chose for His knowledge to be dependant on something other than Himself by choosing to create persons in his own image? Have you left room for the possibility that God sovereignly decreed true volitional freedom that defies human logic in much the same way that His own triune nature defies human logic?

 

[Wes Outwest]

The difference is in the plan!

Under Calvinism, those saved are saved because it was predetermined that they would be saved.

Under non-Calvinism, those saved are saved because God performed all the work of Salvation, except in man! Man is allowed by God to choose whom and what man will believe. It is FAITH in God ALONE that God is looking for in man, and HE saves those who have faith in Him. Those who have faith ARE NOT JUDGED, those who LACK faith condemn themselves, Jesus said so! The only way that can be true is if man has independent freewill to make the choice.

 

[ILUVLIGHT]

Hi Wes;

It is FAITH in God ALONE that God is looking for in man, and HE saves those who have faith in Him. Those who have faith ARE NOT JUDGED, those who LACK faith condemn themselves, Jesus said so! The only way that can be true is if man has independent freewill to make the choice.

You're right here. Man has had a choice since the first man and scripture never says that God took it away from him. The idea that He did is false.
May Christ Shine His Light On Us All;
Mike