Crusader,
Everyone at this forum, I think, now knows what your position is on this, and what mine is. We have both explained and repeated ourselves ad nauseum.
What I don't understand is why, after all that has been written here, you would say, of those who disagree with your exegesis, that they "want one or the other [free will or divine election] at the expense of Gods truth."
You imply that we, who are not accepting your "mystery" thesis, are those who "feel a need to understand exactly what they believe. If they cant understand it then they refuse to put faith in it." I believe in the Trinity and in eternity, both of which defy comprehension, so I don't think I am one of those people whom you describe. I don't feel that I need to understand everything I believe, but I also don't think that I am obligated to misunderstand the intelligible things that are revealed in scripture for our learning.
I realize that you don't understand the scriptures on election in the same way that some of us do, but you should know us well enough, from what we have written, to know that we are not deciding to embrace one biblical concept or the other "at the expense of God's truth." There is no need to sacrifice any of God's truth in the matter. That is precisely what some of us have been saying again and again here.
God's truth is self-consistent. There is no need to pick a part of it and reject the other part. What we have shown is that the truth of God's election, as taught in scripture, is not in logical tension with the truth of man's free will and moral responsibility. You and I both agree that the two concepts are both true. The difference between us is that I have attempted to explain why they are both true, and you have simply concluded, "we can never expect to know why because the mystery is too deep."
You have misunderstood our thought processes and our motives completely.
How about considering perspective?
My point it simple
Without going over again and again whats been stated and restated I think the best way to understand it is ,we are looking at two different sides of the same coin. Much like when people walk through the gates of Heaven....posted on the front arch is " WHO SO EVER WILL MAY COME" and on the other side of the arch is written " THOSE WHOM HE FOREKNEW HE PREDESTINED ". Its clear God called individuals,not the Church...as also it is that God is willing that none perish and who so ever will may come. If you asked me to completely explain how, so you could pick one over the other based on a large preponderance of facts,,,I couldnt to your satisfaction. So I simply accept by faith they both are true because God said they are. I dont think its being intellectually honest to say that Gods foreknowledge is His choosing.They are two completely different things. Nor do I think its intellectually honest to say that if God chooses people and He chooses some and not others, its then logical to assume He sends kids to hell because He didnt choose them...Where did that come from...I think if people on both sides would calm down and just read the Bible they would see that they are both in there..yet we just cant bring them together with our puny, small ,fallen from God minds..not the least of which mine is probably foremost...thats all..or is that more...and what is lost is Gods complete truth..and its lost because we want one view over the other..inspite of the fact that God has no problem understanding how they fit together..
Steve
Steve
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
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Whosoever will!! GOD is NO respector of persons............
Behold I stand at the door and knock if ANYONE hears my voice.
Because GOD knows the beginning from the end
HE knows who will choose to serve him.
This gospel is open to ALL who choose CHRIST as LORD.
Behold I stand at the door and knock if ANYONE hears my voice.
Because GOD knows the beginning from the end
HE knows who will choose to serve him.
This gospel is open to ALL who choose CHRIST as LORD.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
Seems to me the scriptures tell us that God calls on ALL men everywhere to repent and that whosoever will may come. That God has determined in advance by a positive choice who will be saved, while at the same time maintaining all mankind has a free choice, is an opinion, not a proven fact, and an obvious logical inconsistency.
It should be obvious that a God, who is all powerful, who can and does predetermine who will be saved, is then responsible for those who are not.
The Calvinist can not escape the dilemma of the damnation of infants necessitated by their doctrine. In a lengthy debate a prominent Calvinist avoided the subject until there was no escape. Finally his answer was that God did not allow non-elect infants to die - the only infants who died were elect and so were saved! His opponent in astonishment replied that we now had a class of immortal infants!
Homer
It should be obvious that a God, who is all powerful, who can and does predetermine who will be saved, is then responsible for those who are not.
The Calvinist can not escape the dilemma of the damnation of infants necessitated by their doctrine. In a lengthy debate a prominent Calvinist avoided the subject until there was no escape. Finally his answer was that God did not allow non-elect infants to die - the only infants who died were elect and so were saved! His opponent in astonishment replied that we now had a class of immortal infants!
Homer
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
A Berean
"Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and hardens whom he wants to harden." (Rom. 9:18)."That God has determined in advance by a positive choice who will be saved, while at the same time maintaining all mankind has a free choice, is an opinion, not a proven fact, and an obvious logical inconsistency."
[/quote]
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
--jw.
I see running through all these critiques of Calvinism the same fear that as soon as you say God chooses who will choose him that all the verses that say "whosoever will may come" etc. are breached and you have a "logical inconsistency," etc. And I can certainly appreciate that sentiment. But I wonder from the replies if anyone really grasped my point. It's taken me a long time to be able to articulate it even this well. I'll take another shot.
If God's choosing of whom to elect is kept veiled from that person, then from that person's point of view wouldn't it seem like he chose God of his own freewill?
And I think the anti-Calvinist tendency is to send up a kneejerk "That's not fair! Then freewill becomes an illusion and a sham! The whole thing is rigged!" But it's not, unless you (unwittingly perhaps) presume to know the mind of God. (Remember how Paul says rhetorically after his Rom 9-11 discussion "Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" Probably this is why he said it there.)
So for example, when Jesus says (as Steve brought up in the 11/11/04 show) of "Jezebel" in Rev. 3 "I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality and she did not," suppose with me that he is speaking anthropomorphically in a sense -- as the omniscient God he knew all along she would not repent (ultimately, as in everything, for his purposes), but he knows that it will SEEM that way as it is revealed and witnessed by the church in Thyratira and us in turn. And it is effectual that he speak this way, to influence the church toward holiness. (For why would he advise us if we were omniscient like him? The whole point is to instruct us with his Word to influence our future choices and purify human behavior. Hence the "anthropomorphic" speech.)
So "Could she have repented?" I would say after the event is over we essentially share God's perspective on that event and can say it wasn't in the heavenly cards. God's invisible hand was against it. Remember that Paul says: "Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and hardens whom he wants to harden." (Rom 9) That seems to speak to ultimate reality.
But she was an actor in the moment receiving those rebukes and in a sense the event tested her and she was found lacking. God's choice to harden her wasn't known by her or us until the event ends, and then it was known. And while in the event she experienced what we call freewill, just as much as any of us experiences it day to day. If she had chosen otherwise, it would seem to us after the fact that her freewill saved her. But on a deeper level, from God's perspective, he would have softened or hardened her heart for his purposes. God was not on trial; his creature was. And I think Paul's point in Rom. 9-11 is that we can't turn the table on him.
And to address our feeling of unfairness he says:
"One of you will say to me “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it “Why did you make me like this?” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy whom he prepared in advance for glory, even us, whom he called not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
So really I don't think I'm your antagonist in this argument, Arminian-leaners. I'm trying to have us acknowledge that both are taught in Scripture (I'm not imposing it). And so isn't the answer to the way they both can be true and indeed logically consistent the fact that this veil exists between God and man, and that God speaks affirming who he is behind the veil in one passage saying "I harden whom I want to harden," and also speaks anthropomorphically to us in others with words that he wishes "none shall perish"?
In relation to us who receive the words, both are true: one if we are trying to order our affairs (where we may see the Holy Spirit appear and draw people to God expressing his will that none shall perish); and one if we are wondering about how it all looks to the One behind the control panel. They only seem to contradict when we ignore the gulf that lies between his knowledge and ours.
The answer is the veil.
I offer this idea as food for thought. These debates can be headaches sometimes. But "There is a God in heaven that reveals mysteries. (Dan 2) "
If God's choosing of whom to elect is kept veiled from that person, then from that person's point of view wouldn't it seem like he chose God of his own freewill?
And I think the anti-Calvinist tendency is to send up a kneejerk "That's not fair! Then freewill becomes an illusion and a sham! The whole thing is rigged!" But it's not, unless you (unwittingly perhaps) presume to know the mind of God. (Remember how Paul says rhetorically after his Rom 9-11 discussion "Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" Probably this is why he said it there.)
So for example, when Jesus says (as Steve brought up in the 11/11/04 show) of "Jezebel" in Rev. 3 "I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality and she did not," suppose with me that he is speaking anthropomorphically in a sense -- as the omniscient God he knew all along she would not repent (ultimately, as in everything, for his purposes), but he knows that it will SEEM that way as it is revealed and witnessed by the church in Thyratira and us in turn. And it is effectual that he speak this way, to influence the church toward holiness. (For why would he advise us if we were omniscient like him? The whole point is to instruct us with his Word to influence our future choices and purify human behavior. Hence the "anthropomorphic" speech.)
So "Could she have repented?" I would say after the event is over we essentially share God's perspective on that event and can say it wasn't in the heavenly cards. God's invisible hand was against it. Remember that Paul says: "Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and hardens whom he wants to harden." (Rom 9) That seems to speak to ultimate reality.
But she was an actor in the moment receiving those rebukes and in a sense the event tested her and she was found lacking. God's choice to harden her wasn't known by her or us until the event ends, and then it was known. And while in the event she experienced what we call freewill, just as much as any of us experiences it day to day. If she had chosen otherwise, it would seem to us after the fact that her freewill saved her. But on a deeper level, from God's perspective, he would have softened or hardened her heart for his purposes. God was not on trial; his creature was. And I think Paul's point in Rom. 9-11 is that we can't turn the table on him.
And to address our feeling of unfairness he says:
"One of you will say to me “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it “Why did you make me like this?” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy whom he prepared in advance for glory, even us, whom he called not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
So really I don't think I'm your antagonist in this argument, Arminian-leaners. I'm trying to have us acknowledge that both are taught in Scripture (I'm not imposing it). And so isn't the answer to the way they both can be true and indeed logically consistent the fact that this veil exists between God and man, and that God speaks affirming who he is behind the veil in one passage saying "I harden whom I want to harden," and also speaks anthropomorphically to us in others with words that he wishes "none shall perish"?
In relation to us who receive the words, both are true: one if we are trying to order our affairs (where we may see the Holy Spirit appear and draw people to God expressing his will that none shall perish); and one if we are wondering about how it all looks to the One behind the control panel. They only seem to contradict when we ignore the gulf that lies between his knowledge and ours.
The answer is the veil.
I offer this idea as food for thought. These debates can be headaches sometimes. But "There is a God in heaven that reveals mysteries. (Dan 2) "
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
--jw.
Dear Jonathan,
The God you describe seems to be insincere at best, hypocritical at worst, when He desires all to be saved yet behind "the veil" makes sure most have no chance!
I have asked the question before and received no response: was Jesus ignorant of the Calvinist doctrine of election? If not, why did He weep over sinners who would not repent? Were those feigned tears? I hope someone will attempt to answer this.
Why would God call us irresistably to Him then leave it to our free will to be influenced by the word in our conformity to Him? Why not make us perfect while He's at it?
How can Jezebel be accountable for lacking what God prevented her from having? Calvinism presents us with more questions and mysteries than answers.
As for Romans 9, the potter and the clay, I believe it most instructive to read Jeremiah 18 where the similar parable of the potter clearly indicates nations are meant, not individuals. Some of the best minds in biblical exposition maintain that the subect of Romans is about Jews and gentiles, not individuals.
To my mind, all becomes much clearer and easy to understand and harmonize with the known character of God if election is understood as corporate, in Christ. God is love.
The Church never seems to be rid of the "isms" that are brought in, Dispensationalism being another.
Augustine seems to have brought us Calvanism from his former fatalistic religion.
The God you describe seems to be insincere at best, hypocritical at worst, when He desires all to be saved yet behind "the veil" makes sure most have no chance!
I have asked the question before and received no response: was Jesus ignorant of the Calvinist doctrine of election? If not, why did He weep over sinners who would not repent? Were those feigned tears? I hope someone will attempt to answer this.
Why would God call us irresistably to Him then leave it to our free will to be influenced by the word in our conformity to Him? Why not make us perfect while He's at it?
How can Jezebel be accountable for lacking what God prevented her from having? Calvinism presents us with more questions and mysteries than answers.
As for Romans 9, the potter and the clay, I believe it most instructive to read Jeremiah 18 where the similar parable of the potter clearly indicates nations are meant, not individuals. Some of the best minds in biblical exposition maintain that the subect of Romans is about Jews and gentiles, not individuals.
To my mind, all becomes much clearer and easy to understand and harmonize with the known character of God if election is understood as corporate, in Christ. God is love.
The Church never seems to be rid of the "isms" that are brought in, Dispensationalism being another.
Augustine seems to have brought us Calvanism from his former fatalistic religion.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
A Berean
WOW !!!!!!!!!!!!
"It should be obvious that a God, who is all powerful, who can and does predetermine who will be saved, is then responsible for those who are not.
The Calvinist can not escape the dilemma of the damnation of infants necessitated by their doctrine."
Where are these two ideas found in Scripture? I must be missing something cause I cant find them...any assistance would be appreciated...
Thanks..Steve
The Calvinist can not escape the dilemma of the damnation of infants necessitated by their doctrine."
Where are these two ideas found in Scripture? I must be missing something cause I cant find them...any assistance would be appreciated...
Thanks..Steve
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason: