Posted on 06/05/2009 9:01:38 PM PDT by ReformationFan
What's worse than I thought is how brazen Cauvin's departure from Scripture really is:
John Calvin described the "hidden" counsel of God which he said was not explicit in scripture.What? No peepstone or golden plates?
Yeah--They've never been able to reconcile free will with responsibility--or true love.
bttt
“Dieu m’a fait la grace de declarer ce qu’est bon et mauvais – God has been gracious enough to reveal unto me good and evil.” – John CalvinI think a better translation would be "God has given me the grace of declaring what is good and evil."
I can't help but wonder if God knows Cauvin was claiming this.
French Lawyers will say anything!
Yeah—That’s what Joe Smith said, too.
Did God plant the tree in the garden and NOT know what would happen to Adam and Eve?
Is Satan a created being? At any time could God erase Satan from existence? Satan obviously was created by God to serve a purpose of God, just as we all were.
Life is not a game to see who's better at evading the bad guy. We all sin because we are the children of our first father, Adam, and thus all men are fallen. God, in His infinite wisdom, could rightly leave everyone to their own sins and therefore rightly condemn all men to hell.
By His mercy, He ordains some to life through faith in Jesus Christ by the gift of the Holy Spirit working sanctification in their lives, giving them new eyes and new ears and a renewed mind and a heart of flesh, all of which enables them to know "the things of God," the truth of Christ risen and His acquitting them of their sins, past, present and future. And some men He leaves in their fallen state, unrepentant, void of grace through faith, and condemned by their own failure to pay for their sins on their own. As Christ told us, "But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you." (John 10:26.)
after all these years of study and meditation, I keep coming back to this dilemma about who was responsible for original sin. To my mind, it is such a fundamental issue; yet nobody ever seems to address it. At least I have never read or heard of anyone address it.
First of all, our understanding is not perfect. There is a divine paradox at the heart of Christianity. God is one and yet three. Jesus is man and yet God. What we can know of God is found in Scripture and there He tells us that man was created in His image and then fell through disobedience. All men fell.
"For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." -- Romans 5:19
I used to question the wisdom of Calvinism, especially when I had read so little of it. After reading Calvin and Boettner and Spurgeon and Warfield and Edwards and Owen I realized there was a lot I was missing concerning who God really was and how Christians fit into His plan of salvation, all based solidly on Scripture.
It is ALL of God, all the time, whether we can fully comprehend that or not. Anything less demotes God to some lesser being who does not have control of His creation.
If you have the time, there's a great, short little article I really enjoyed a few years ago...
As for who is responsible for the fall, man is responsible for every sin he commits and God has ordained everything according to His eternal decree. The Westminster Confession of Faith says it well, with Scriptural support at the site...
I. Our first parents, being seduced by the subtilty and temptations of Satan, sinned, in eating the forbidden fruit.[1] This their sin, God was pleased, according to His wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to His own glory.[2] II. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion, with God,[3] and so became dead in sin,[4] and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.[5] III. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed;[6] and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation.[7] IV. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good,[8] and wholly inclined to all evil,[9] do proceed all actual transgressions.[10] V. This corruption of nature, during this life, does remain in those that are regenerated;[11] and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified; yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.[12] VI. Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto,[13] does in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner,[14] whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God,[15] and curse of the law,[16] and so made subject to death,[17] with all miseries spiritual,[18] temporal,[19] and eternal.[20]
Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and the Punishment thereof
Calvin rightly tells us...
“Where does the wickedness come from (in man), that he should fall away from his Creator? Well, lest we should think it comes from the act of creation itself (making God responsible), God put His own stamp of approval on what He Himself created, because the Lord had declared (in Genesis 1:31) that, ‘Everything that He has made was exceedingly good’. So what is left to conclude? We must conclude that it is by his own evil intention, then, that man himself (Adam) corrupted the pure nature that he had received from the Lord, and by his fall, drew all his posterity (all of mankind who descended from him) into destruction. Therefore, we should see the evident cause of condemnation for what it actually is: the corrupt nature of humanity - rather than to seek some hidden and utterly incomprehensible cause in God’s predestination!” - John Calvin
Did God know what Adam and Eve would do in His garden? And yet He created them anyway, knowing full well what was to come. Therefore, what was to come must be according to His will, one way or another.
Certainly this apparent paradox is difficult to wrap our minds around, yet without doing so we make God into an impotent bystander, waiting on men to see which road they'll take.
All men follow the road their hearts take them on -- hearts of stone that lead to ruin and hearts of flesh that lead to redemption. As God willed, from before the foundation of the world, per Ephesians 1.
Here's a couple excellent essays on the subject...
And...
That is not true. Calvin was a supralapsarian. You don't get more "Calvinistic" than that.
It's always interesting to hear Arminians accuse Calvin of being antithetical to the five points of Calvinism. Pure revisionism. Usually a sentence is plucked here and there and used to "prove" some lapse in Calvin's orthodoxy. Anyone who reads the Institutes knows that is ridiculous.
The truth is that as a person becomes more "reformed," his view of man and God increase. God is MORE holy, perfect and sovereign than we had ever imagined, and therefore redeemed men have been the "apple of his eye" from before the foundation of the world. The heart of this joy is not in elevating ourselves, but in elevating God's grace which transforms fallen man into one of His repentant, grateful children.
All according to His will and not our own fallen nature.
You forgot "limited" as well--since Calvinists cannot imagine a sovereign God that allows free will.
There's nothing "free" about men's will. The natural man is not "free" to choose righteousness, and the acquitted man is righteous only because it is God's will and not his own.
Consider who pushes the concept of "free will." Humanists, Romanists and politicians.
Stupid argument. You're smarter than that. I know you are.
Man was created in His image. That includes will. Without it, we are merely plants growing by the roadside.
It's been said Arminians deny the true depth of the fall and look upon Adam's crashing from grace as merely a stumble and not the gigantic THUD it really was. You seem to agree with the Arminians.
Stupid argument. You're smarter than that. I know you are.
I could say the same thing about your paltry defense of your Christian faith, but I wouldn't.
Here are two questions and answers that seem to me to be solid, Scriptural thinking...
A. Not sure what "perseverance of the saints" has to do with this? But consider that Adam, when created, was not originally sealed in righteousness. He was given a trial period which would reveal how he would use his will and he failed as the federal head of us all. Theologians call this biblical concept of Adam's trial period the "covenant of works", which lingers with us to this day. Like Jesus said to the rich young ruler, "obey the commandments and live"...i.e. if anyone could obey the commandments perfectly they would not need a savior, correct? God created Adam and gave him a time period to fulfil His Law. He did not create him already sealed in righteounsss. Jesus likewise, though in very nature God, as a human being he had to "fulfill all righteousness" and "fulfill the law" from our side in order to save us. His sinless "passive" death alone does not save us (though that is part of it) but we are redeemed also because he positively fulfilled God's covenant obligations toward us. Likewise we believe Adam had to fulfil a positive righteousness if he were to have gained life.
Q. Why does evil exist? It can't exist unless you place its beginnings in the hands of a "free-will."The only way that you can use Platonic logic and make it work is if you make God the creator of sin. In fact, you would have to do that, or else the logic would be considered "invalid." The only way it could be valid (under supralapsarianism) is if we would call God the sinner. We had to affirm the antecedent (God) in order to be able to affirm the consequent (evil). Though when we did that it only said that because of God's existence evil exists. That would solely make Him evil's creator. A. I see a couple of problems. We must first remember to find all our highest presuppositions for logic in the Word of God, not unaided human reasoning only. You seem to be asking, "did God ordain the fall?" Well, of course He did. Otherwise we would be forced to reach the absurd conclusion that something could take God by surprise. If "chance" exists then there is something out there outside God's ability, sovereignty and authority. If this were the case then we cannot be certain of God's promises for if he let evil into the world unwittingly (by mistake) and without knowing it would happen, how can we be certain chance won't win in the end as well. Did Adam have a free will? Yes it was free from the bondage and corruption of nature, but it was not free to thwart the divine decree that man would fall .... a choice which brought bondage to the human family. Against his better judgment and good inclinations, he chose to rebel against God. But God ordained the Fall just as everything else, but not through coercion. Both superlapsarians and infralapsarians must both admit this. Even if God allowed the fall "passively", that is still part of His decree and providence and so this was His original intent and it could not have been otherwise. Neither position can escape this. Even Arminianism cannot escape this because God had perfect foreknowledge even prior to creation so He could just have easily have chosen not to allow the Fall by never creating such persons. So, even in the Arminian scheme, the Fall still was within his providence and nothing could have changed that. You seem to be worried that God ordaining evil would make him culpable but consider Acts 2-4 where God ordains EVIL events to come to pass but He remains blameless while only those He ordains to commit the acts are culpable:
"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 plan had predestined to take place." Acts 4:27-28 Also consider 2 Samuel 16:11 when someone is cursing David. David responds by saying: "Let him alone, for God hath bidden him." And again, Jesus, in John 19:11 says to he who tries him: "thou couldst have no power against Me, except it were given thee from above." Jesus is here teaching that God gives him the power to commit this horrible act, and the former passages that He predestined these acts to come to pass. These passages teach that God ordained that evil men would crucify His Son. This was the most unjust, evil event in history, and yet God used it to bring about glory to Himself. i.e. He uses sin, sinlessly. SInce the Bible teaches both that God ordains all events and that He remains blameless we must hold this as our presupposition. This is truth even if you can't get your mind around it. To think otherwise is to give authority to something other than Scripture, be it unaided reason or your feelings. If you try to assert that God does not ordain any evil, how do you explain the texts which plainly state that He does. Also if you try to claim that for God to ordain evil, He must be evil Himself, the Bible once again contradicts this assertion. Q...If Adam and Eve were sinless and had an unstained "free-will" then why would they fall? If they had a "free-will" [i.e. free from bondage to sin] and then fell, it would only go against the Calvinistic teachings of "Perserverance of the Saints."
"this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men." Acts 2:24
Without it (free will.) we are merely plants growing by the roadside.
Merely?
"But he answered and said, every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." -- Matthew 15:13
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." -- Romans 6:5-6"For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
No, Calvin found it in Scripture and knew that Augustine had found it before him...
Try this one, too...
"Certainly such an election is of grace, not at all of merits. For he had before said, “So, therefore, even at this present time, the remnant has been saved by the election of grace. And if by grace, now it is no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace.” Therefore the election obtained what it obtained gratuitously; there preceded none of those things which they might first give, and it should be given to them again. He saved them for nothing. But to the rest who were blinded, as is there plainly declared, it was done in recompense. “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth.” But His ways are unsearchable. Therefore the mercy by which He freely delivers, and the truth by which He righteously judges, are equally unsearchable." -- Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints 11
Pray for ears to hear.
I am not an Arminian; I am a Christian.
Huh?
He was given a trial period which would reveal how he would use his will...
Scripture reference for this little gem, please.
God created Adam and gave him a time period to fulfil His Law.
Again--scripture reference please.
...but we are redeemed also because he positively fulfilled God's covenant obligations toward us.
I thought calvinists believe that God is Sovereign--what's this talk about obligations toward us?
Likewise we believe Adam had to fulfil a positive righteousness if he were to have gained life.
Scripture reference, please.
If "chance" exists then there is something out there outside God's ability, sovereignty and authority.
Here is the proof of my earlier post--you cannot fathom a God that can be completely sovereign while other free wills exist.
How do you define the word "ordain"? Is it active or passive?
I gave up that argument long ago--they are too obsessed about having to put another man's name in their descriptions.
And I never realized I was a Calvinist. Then I read about the difference between Calvinists and Arminians, and recognized the arguments used by both. So while we both may rightly call ourselves Christian, my viewpoints line up with Calvinism and your viewpoints line up with Arminianism.
No Calvinist I know says anyone MUST believe in Calvinism per se in order to be saved. I consider it an added blessing to have the security of God's word that He chose me before He enabled me to chose Him. Therefore, my salvation (and yours) rests not in our own filthy rags, but in God's gracious covering of us in His Son's perfection by justifying the ungodly whom God has called to Him, freely making them a new creature in Christ.
One more thing—how do you define “covenant”? Can I make a covenant with my dog? How about with a neighbor’s cat? Can I covenant with my motorcycle?
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