The view you describe is a bit more like Arminianism.Evee said:
In Calvinism, God pre-selects who will, and who will not be saved, the atonement of Christ is limited to those that are pre-selected.
Two weeks on TOL for a Calvinist.
- Thread starter Nathon Detroit
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In Calvinism, God pre-selects who will, and who will not be saved, the atonement of Christ is limited to those that are pre-selected.
Machaira
New member
Evee said:
Hi Evee,
What you've stated is actually an arminian position. In other words, God looks down the corridor of time and sees who will accept Him and who will reject Him and saves based on this 'foreknowledge.' The Calvinist position is that no one is capable of seeking God without God's direct intervention. (Romans 3:11 & Acts 13:48 for example.)
WandererInFog
New member
Adam_Kratt said:
Again, another series of straw man arguments. A Calvinist would not say that 9/11 happened because God wanted it to happen in any sort of active sense. He knew that it was going to happen and he allowed it to happen and in the grand scheme of things it (like all other events) will ultimately be used to advance God's plans.
The Calvinist believes in a will that is free, but not autonomous. Which is to say that the will is free, but it is so corrupted that choosing to follow God is beyond it's ability. Man makes his own choices, but his choices are limited by his sinful nature.
Now, admittedly, a lot confusion in discussion results from the sloppy use of theological language on the part of particular Calvinists. (I recall reading a particular Calvinist preacher lament the rise of the "Internet-Calvinist" who barely understanding their theology goes about forums and blogs starting arguments and picking fights and being generally churlish and uncharitable to their fellow Christians.) But if you take the time to read the actual writings of Calvin and those who followed after him, you will find very quickly a separation between those things which God actively wills and intercedes to make happen and those things which he passively allows, generally seperated by the term predestine for the active and foreordain for the passive. For instance, a Calvinist will say that the salvation of the elect is predestined by God while the damnation of the non-elect is foreordained. (This last bit being one of the lines of seperation between Calvinists and Hyper-Calvinists who go further and assert that the damnation of non-elect is actually actively predestined by God.)
Do you know Jim Hilston?WandererInFog said:
Jim is a TOL regular and is a self proclaimed expert on Calvinism.
Jim states that Calvinism teaches that no event has ever occurred that wasn't meticulously decreed in advance by God.
Thoughts?
Machaira
New member
Knight said:
If what he means by 'decreed' is 'forced' then he is probably a hyper-calvinist.
The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter III
Of God's Eternal Decree
I. God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass:[1] yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin,[2] nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.[3]
1. Psa. 33:11: Eph. 1:11: Heb. 6:17
2. Psa. 5:4; James 1:13-14; I John 1:5; see Hab. 1:13
3. Acts 2:23; 4:27-28: Matt. 17:12; John 19:11; Prov. 16:33
That statement clearly makes the next two impossible.Machaira said:
If God ordained everything... then it only follows that He ordained sin and the will of His creatures.
Unless of course there is an alternate definition of the word "everything".
Machaira said:
In other words, those things that we deem to be evil are not really evil because God ordained them? What about when the Bible says, "Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually?" Did He ordain this or not?
WandererInFog
New member
Knight said:
I'd have to read the exact quote. But without context, it would seem to say that every event was decreed by God, as opposed to "comprehended and determined" would be a step beyond what I've read in things such as Calvin's Institutes or the Westminster Confession.
Well... how about we skip to the chase.....WandererInFog said:
Has all of history (including our future) been meticulously planned in advance? Is the future settled, or open (even if just partially open)?
WandererInFog
New member
Knight said:That statement clearly makes the next two impossible.
If God ordained everything... then it only follows that He ordained sin and the will of His creatures.
Unless of course there is an alternate definition of the word "everything".
Actually, the word that I think you're seeing a different definition for is "ordain".
When Calvinist says that God ordained every event in history it isn't the same as saying he directly caused every event.
WandererInFog
New member
Knight said:
Are you asking for my personal opinion or the Calvinist position?
Both.WandererInFog said:
Machaira
New member
Knight and Becky,
Since your respective concerns are similar, I'll try to answer both of you at the same time.
You both seem to be asking, "How does God 'ordain' what He does not force?" An excellent example is found in Isaiah.
Isa 10:5 Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury!
Isa 10:6 Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
Isa 10:7 But he does not so intend, and his heart does not so think; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few . . .
In this example we see the wisdom and discernment of the WCF. Assyria is sent by God and commanded by God to tread down a godless nation. Yet, the king of Assyria does not intend to fulfill God's will, neither does his heart think so, but rather it is in his heart to destroy. While the king of Assyria exercises his free will, God exercises His sovereign control. God ordained the entire event by allowing the exercise of free will. It's within God's power to allow or prevent. Either way, God pulls the strings without violence to free will or secondary causes. 'Everything' fits into God's sovereign purpose. A good way to look at this is to remember Romans 8:28:
Rom 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
How could this be possible unless God 'controls' all things?
Since your respective concerns are similar, I'll try to answer both of you at the same time.
You both seem to be asking, "How does God 'ordain' what He does not force?" An excellent example is found in Isaiah.
Isa 10:5 Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury!
Isa 10:6 Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
Isa 10:7 But he does not so intend, and his heart does not so think; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few . . .
In this example we see the wisdom and discernment of the WCF. Assyria is sent by God and commanded by God to tread down a godless nation. Yet, the king of Assyria does not intend to fulfill God's will, neither does his heart think so, but rather it is in his heart to destroy. While the king of Assyria exercises his free will, God exercises His sovereign control. God ordained the entire event by allowing the exercise of free will. It's within God's power to allow or prevent. Either way, God pulls the strings without violence to free will or secondary causes. 'Everything' fits into God's sovereign purpose. A good way to look at this is to remember Romans 8:28:
Rom 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
How could this be possible unless God 'controls' all things?
RayOfLight
New member
According to your view yes. According to Scripture, no!
To Him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins. (Acts 10:43)
"And you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses. (Col. 2:13)
I posted these comments, having thought of them and typed them. Which came first? In the same way, God made us alive, "having" forgiven us of sins. It is really that clear.
Machaira said:
The Westminster Confession of Faith has got to be the most self contradictory and incoherent document I have ever read! I can't, for the life of me, see why any one would want to quote from it, except to make Calvinism look silly!
RayOfLight
New member
Some few thoughts are in order. First, a better understanding of Acts 2:23; 4:27-28 comes from Steve Gregg:
Acts 2:23 (ESV)
this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
Acts 4:27-28 (ESV)
for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy
servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along
with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, [28] to do whatever your hand
and your plan had predestined to take place.
These two passages can be treated as one, since they both affirm the same thing about the same event, namely, that the crimes committed against Jesus at His crucifixion conformed to God’s predetermined purposes. What we are not told is that God put it into the hearts of Christ’s enemies to do what they did. They had their own malicious reasons to want Jesus dead, and we are specifically told that the devil had some influence in the matter (Luke 22:3, 53).
That God did not choose to protect Jesus from these sinners means that the carrying out of their evil purposes was a certainty, and was part of God’s purpose. However, this was an event of unusual significance. Even if we were told that God had directly inspired these men to sin against Christ, we could not be sure that God does this same thing in less-important situations with every sinner’s choices.
Concerning Proverbs 16:1: The plans of the mind belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD..9: A man's mind plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps...and 33 The lot is cast into the lap, but the decision is wholly from the LORD ...Steve also thinks "these verses indicate God's "ultimate control" over the events that He allows to occur. That is, even if man is the one who plans to do a certain thing, God has the final say as to whether that event will occur. Depending on how the man's own plans may fit in with God's master plan, He either permits or does not permit the plan to meet with success. God has any number of ways to foil any plan of man, if He wishes to do so. He foiled the plans of 40 men to assissinate Paul, and prevented many early attempts on Christ's life, when it was not His will for those plots to succeed. On the other hand, He permitted the final plot of Judas and the Sanhedrin to go through, since it conformed to His plans for Christ's crucifixion to occur at that time. The plots of the latter players were not spawned or ordained by God any more than were the plots of the former, failed efforts. "The plans of the mind belong to man...a man's mind plans his way." But ultimate sovereignty belongs to God, and it is ultimately He who controls the outcome.
This is contrary to the Calvinist's view of meticulous providence. Their view has God even ordaining what the man will think and choose. Thus, with meticulous providence, "The plans of the mind belong to the Lord" as well as the outcome. This is denied in these verses, and in the rest of scripture as well. Only on special occasions of divine judgment is God known to interfere with the free processes of choice in an individual (e.g., in hardening Pharaoh's heart). This was not done to Pharaoh early in his life, but well after he had chosen a course for himself of deliberate evil, and God's special intervention, preventing him from being able to repent, was an aspect of God's judgment upon him for these former free choices. Even the fact that God had to intervene, hardening his heart, in order to prevent Pharaoh from repenting, suggests that the innate power to choose to repent resided in Pharaoh previous to this intervention, and Pharaoh would have been free to repent at any point had not God stepped in with these unusual measures.
As for the lot cast into the lap, I don't think this is intended as an affirmation of meticulous providence so much as a guarantee that when the casting of lots as a means of divine guidance was appropriate (e.g., in apportioning land to the various tribes of Israel), that God would see to it that the lots would fall so as to assure the outcome He desired. The apostles counted on this principle, for example, in seeking God's mind about a replacement for Judas (Acts 1). This needn't mean that God dictates every toss of the dice in a casino (though, even if He did, it would not necessarily follow that God similarly dictated who would believe and who would not). God has the right and the power to control every event in which He chooses to intervene, but there is no affirmation here that He chooses to micro-manage every human decision."
For Eph. 1:11 see here. and more thoughts on Proverbs 16:1,9,33; 19:21 are found here
Second, If it is true, that God, from all eternity, did indeed, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass, then the sovereignty and freedom of God is actually removed! Dennis Bratcher says "In this case, God is bound to His own predetermined will and does not have the freedom to act in relation to human circumstances. If God is locked in to His own predetermined will, and that will is irrevocable, then God is not free." He argues that "this is an aspect that most predestinationists have not really addressed. In this sense, God was actually only sovereign at the moment he issued the decrees and decided on a predetermined plan, because now he is bound by that decision no matter what other circumstances might exist. Of course, if the system is logically coherent, it could easily be countered that God does not need any further freedom since he already knew all of the outcomes anyway because of his decrees. But that is precisely the point. This reduces the sovereignty to a single instant rather than being a characteristic of God."
Concerning God's "decrees", Steve Gregg also says "I find no scriptural warrant to postulate the existence of any such "decrees" as those of which Calvinism speaks. A "decree" is technically a command or a mandate. There are many commands (or decrees) of God in scripture (e.g., the ten commandments can rightly be numbered among the decrees of God), but you will search the scriptures in vain for any mandate (or decree) that any man should sin.
In fact, in the matter of Christians sinning, we are clearly told that God always provides a way of escape (1 Cor.10:13), if we would choose it, so as never to make our sinning inevitable or necessary. If we sin (which we sometimes do), we are doing something that could have been avoided. Why would God go to the trouble of providing a means of escape, in a case where He had sovereignly decreed that we must succumb to the temptation?"
For Calvinism to gain consideration, these things must be addressed. At least in my book. :Nineveh Perhaps Machaira can answer and deal with this thoughts.