Calvinism and the Truth

[Beorn]

What fundamental issue is that?

The infallibility of the word of God.

 

[Southron]

We deserve death because of sins, I agree. But God gives us a choice through Christ.

Do you really believe that given the choice between eternal life, love, and happiness and eternal damnation, darkness and suffering we still would choose the latter?

Yes but I don't believe it's that simple. There is a lot of pleasure in sin.

But ultimately, I think people feel the same temptation that Eve felt in the Garden. "We shall be as gods" seems to be the hope of the human race. I think our sin-nature causes us to recoil at the idea of submitting to God over our own desires.

 

[MRoCkEd]

Good discussion. For those arguing in favor of free will, how do you explain God's hardening of the Pharaoh's heart?

 

[realtonygoodwin]

We deserve death because of sins, I agree. But God gives us a choice through Christ.

Do you really believe that given the choice between eternal life, love, and happiness and eternal damnation, darkness and suffering we still would choose the latter?

Satan did.

 

[BUSHLIED]

Ok, but what's the purpose of using reasoning and rational thinking if the end result is arbitrary anyway?

arbitrary means you can still have some control over the outcome of your life...you seem to be missing the fundamental issue and are trying so so hard to justify your beliefs..let go. you are trying to use reason yourself..that's the rub...>> that all believers run into. They TRY to use reason to explain beliefs...this thread is a prime example...it frustrating cause you can't see it, i.e. the error in your thinking and being. I am trying to help you.

 

[TomL]

Wow. I go away for a while, and I find 85 total comments. I did not have the time to read all of them, but I did get the gist of what is being discussed.

I don't believe it can be disputed that salvation is totally provided by God. However, I have a question for the Calvinists among us. Where does the Bible say God forces anyone to accept His provision?

 

[eduardo89]

Satan did.

Yes and that proves we have free will to reject God's grace.

 

[erowe1]

Satan did.

Satan did what he was bound by his own character to do. God could have made him such that he wouldn't have fallen. But instead God made him such that he would fall. That was God's plan.

 

[erowe1]

Where does the Bible say God forces anyone to accept His provision?

I see that as a caricature. What Calvinist ever said God forced anyone?

That looks the same as when people claim that someone who was predestined to make a choice didn't really make the choice.

 

[eduardo89]

Satan did what he was bound by his own character to do. God could have made him such that he wouldn't have fallen. But instead God made him such that he would fall. That was God's plan.

God gave him the ability to fall, but God did not force him to.

 

[erowe1]

God gave him the ability to fall, but God did not force him to.

There's that word again. Who ever said anything about force?

God made Satan such that Satan would fall. He did it on purpose according to his own perfect plan. There was a 0% chance that Satan would not fall. He acted according to his character, which God created by design.

 

[MRoCkEd]

Is Calvinism basically that God wrote the book and we are characters in it?

 

[erowe1]

Is Calvinism basically that God wrote the book and we are characters in it?

I'm not sure if that analogy works, since characters in a book aren't conscious.

But I do think that every single detail of everything that ever has or ever will happen from the big to the small, both good and evil, is 100% predetermined. God could have made a world that would have played out another way. But he created this world that was going to play out this way. And there is no chance at all for it to play out any way other than the way he knew from eternity past that it would.

 

[TomL]

Good discussion. For those arguing in favor of free will, how do you explain God's hardening of the Pharaoh's heart?

• Psalm 115.3, "But our God is in the heavens: he has done whatever he has pleased."
• Proverbs 21.1, "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turns it wherever He will."

No one is declaring that God is not sovereign in the affairs of men.

However, from a Calvinistic understanding, why work so hard trying to get Ron Paul elected? Hasn't God already made that choice? Hasn't God set up our government as it is? If so, why try to change it? Why not just accept what God has done, and what he will do?

 

[erowe1]

• Psalm 115.3, "But our God is in the heavens: he has done whatever he has pleased."
• Proverbs 21.1, "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turns it wherever He will."

No one is declaring that God is not sovereign in the affairs of men.

However, from a Calvinistic understanding, why work so hard trying to get Ron Paul elected? Hasn't God already made that choice? Hasn't God set up our government as it is? If so, why try to change it? Why not just accept what God has done, and what he will do?

I'm unclear about your position. First you concede that God is sovereign over the affairs of men, citing a verse that show that he controls the king. Then you ask, "from a Calvinistic understanding, why work so hard trying to get Ron Paul elected? Hasn't God set up our government as it is?" You can ask that question of yourself. If you don't consider yourself a Calvinist, but you still believe God set up the government as it is, then it applies to you as much as it does Calvinists.

And notice that the choices you give aren't mutually exclusive. It is possible both to work toward a good end, and also to accept what God has done and will do.

Speaking for myself, a crucial distinction to me is the distinction between God's prescriptive will, that is what we are morally obligated to do, and his decretive will, that is what is going to happen. I don't always choose to obey God, but when I do, the reason is because there is inherent good in that. That good is there even if God predestined that I would not succeed in what I was trying to do. This applies to politics. It also applies to evangelism. My responsibility is to be ready to make a defense with gentleness and reverence to everyone who asks me for an account of the hope that is in me. Whether God awakens their sinful heart to accept that answer is not up to me.

 

[Sola_Fide]

• Psalm 115.3, "But our God is in the heavens: he has done whatever he has pleased."
• Proverbs 21.1, "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turns it wherever He will."

No one is declaring that God is not sovereign in the affairs of men.

However, from a Calvinistic understanding, why work so hard trying to get Ron Paul elected? Hasn't God already made that choice? Hasn't God set up our government as it is? If so, why try to change it? Why not just accept what God has done, and what he will do?

Are those serious questions?

God predestines all things. He predestines the MEANS as well as the ENDS. He predestines our trying (or not trying) and the results of our trying.

If everything is predestined, why pray? Because our prayers are included in the predestination.

If everything is predestined, why try to change anything? Because our trying is the predestination itself.




I haven't read through this thread yet, but I think I am a little afraid to.

 

[MRoCkEd]

Predestination is just tough for me to wrap my mind around. I understand God knowing in advance everything that will happen, as he is outside of time and all-knowing. But I struggle to understand how every last occurrence is predetermined, including me typing this sentence.

That's why I tried using the story example to try and better understand it; God is the author of the book of the universe, and we are characters on the pages (If I decide to eat an apple, it is because "MRoCkEd decided to eat an apple" is written in the book).

But if this is the case, why do some calvinists also make the distinction between creaturely freedom and moral freedom. For instance, Doug Wilson:

"The first is whether I am a compatibilist when it comes to questions of free will. The answer is yes, if we are talking about creaturely choices, like whether to go left or right, or whether to pick this flavor or that one at the ice cream store. But when it comes to moral choices, I believe that unregenerate men are not free unless and until God creates that freedom in them by granting them a new heart."

Why is there a distinction if everything is predetermined, rather than just broader things like whether we accept Jesus?

 

[erowe1]

Predestination is just tough for me to wrap my mind around. I understand God knowing in advance everything that will happen, as he is outside of time and all-knowing. But I struggle to understand how every last occurrence is predetermined, including me typing this sentence.

That's why I tried using the story example to try and better understand it; God is the author of the book of the universe, and we are characters on the pages (If I decide to eat an apple, it is because "MRoCkEd decided to eat an apple" is written in the book).

But if this is the case, why do some calvinists also make the distinction between creaturely freedom and moral freedom. For instance, Doug Wilson:

"The first is whether I am a compatibilist when it comes to questions of free will. The answer is yes, if we are talking about creaturely choices, like whether to go left or right, or whether to pick this flavor or that one at the ice cream store. But when it comes to moral choices, I believe that unregenerate men are not free unless and until God creates that freedom in them by granting them a new heart."

Why is there a distinction if everything is predetermined, rather than just broader things like whether we accept Jesus? I suppose compatibilism attempts to answer this.

I think the key word in that Wilson quote is "compatibilist." That means he believes "free will" and predestination are compatible. I might be willing to agree with that, except I'm not even sure what the phrase "free will" means. I'm also not sure that his distinction between moral freedom and creaturely freedom really works.

 

[Sola_Fide]

Predestination is just tough for me to wrap my mind around. I understand God knowing in advance everything that will happen, as he is outside of time and all-knowing. But I struggle to understand how every last occurrence is predetermined, including me typing this sentence.

That's why I tried using the story example to try and better understand it; God is the author of the book of the universe, and we are characters on the pages (If I decide to eat an apple, it is because "MRoCkEd decided to eat an apple" is written in the book).

But if this is the case, why do some calvinists also make the distinction between creaturely freedom and moral freedom. For instance, Doug Wilson:

"The first is whether I am a compatibilist when it comes to questions of free will. The answer is yes, if we are talking about creaturely choices, like whether to go left or right, or whether to pick this flavor or that one at the ice cream store. But when it comes to moral choices, I believe that unregenerate men are not free unless and until God creates that freedom in them by granting them a new heart."

Why is there a distinction if everything is predetermined, rather than just broader things like whether we accept Jesus?

Some Calvinists are not good Calvinists. Especially some of these New Calvinists like Doug Wilson who are confused about issues like justification and predestination. These New Calvinists have been influenced by Van Til more than Gordon Clark, and so they accept a whole bunch of things that are not Biblical or Reformed anymore, including common grace, rejections of the Trinity, denials of justification by faith alone, and now from what I see, these waffling statements on predestination. You have to look in to the Clark/Van Til controversy to understand these issues.

Doug Wilson is definitely not someone I would ever go to for sound Reformed doctrine. He has been raked over the coals for the past several years for his deviations from Reformed doctrine by many good Calvinists.

If you want to understand why he thinks it is okay to make these apparently logically contradictory statements and get away with it, then you have to look in to Van Til's insane idea of paradox.


Anyway, if you just work it back logically, it is not possible for God to have predestined one thing without predestinating everything. So even our choosing of the ice cream, or going left or right are absolutely integral to the outworking of God's eternal decree. God could have created any possible world with any possible outcome with any possible "story" that leads to the outcome....but He chose this one.

In Peter's prayer in Acts 4, he explains this outworking of God's eternal decree:

Acts 4:27-28 NASB

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, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.

So, you had 4 parties: Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, and the Jews. They were all pursuing their own interests in accord with their own will, and they all had their own unique motivators for doing what they did to murder Jesus. But they did what they did ultimately "to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur".

Even the little things in life have their necessity in God's decree.

 

[Southron]

But if this is the case, why do some calvinists also make the distinction between creaturely freedom and moral freedom. For instance, Doug Wilson:

"The first is whether I am a compatibilist when it comes to questions of free will. The answer is yes, if we are talking about creaturely choices, like whether to go left or right, or whether to pick this flavor or that one at the ice cream store. But when it comes to moral choices, I believe that unregenerate men are not free unless and until God creates that freedom in them by granting them a new heart."

Why is there a distinction if everything is predetermined, rather than just broader things like whether we accept Jesus?

I'm pretty sure most make that distinction because of Total Depravity. That doctrine teaches that man is incapable of doing good, which includes faith in Christ , but is not necessarily prevented from doing amoral acts. The thought would be that while it takes an act of God to bring repentance, man can tie his shoes without a specific act of God . Personally, I don't take a position either way.

At this point, I'm not sure that matters. If you knew God had a hand in you tying your shoes would you live any differently? Would you cease to live like a person with his own will?