This is my GUESS of how John Calvin might have rationalized this scenario..... An elect man is predestined by God to go to a nudie bar,so God puts a non elect mugger in the nudie bar so the elect man can do something good even though the elect man is currently sinning by being in the nudie bar in the first place. Thus, all of this sin had to happen in order for God to accomplish His plan.
A noble effort my good man, but there are a couple of things here that need to be addressed. First, concerning the "good guy" it makes no difference whether he is elect or not, and if he is elect then it further makes no difference if he is a believer or not. Second, likewise the mugger could be an elect or not, or a believer or not. It makes no difference, and I'm sure that every possible combination has happened in real life at one time or another. It could easily be God's plan that a reprobate rescues a victim from an elect attacker. It's irrelevant. What is relevant is that God ordained it to happen SO it happened, for His reasons which we may or may not have a clue at explaining. Finally, you are right that all of these sins would be in accordance with God's plan, just as the sins leading up to Jesus' crucifixion were a part of God's plan. He didn't leave the salvation of all His elect to chance.
Problem is,that in this analogy,God would be responsible for the sin if He planned and predestined it to happen this way.
I understand that you all see it that way. But it goes back to whether God has a duty to protect people from sinning under their adamic nature, OR is God free to let people sin without God taking the blame. Your side believes the former and mine the latter.
For example, let's say I was an average reprobate (meaning that God hadn't made much to me in the way of "positive" promises). Now, let's say He completely withdrew His protection from me such that I became a raving murderer. I could easily become that if I was sufficiently without God. Now let's say that He decided to do that on a Thursday instead of a Tuesday. Is God responsible for anyone I kill on Thursday? I think your side would say "YES", it's all God's fault, He caused the evil by removing His protection. We don't see it that way.
FK: I understand that you all see it that way. But it goes back to whether God has a duty to protect people from sinning under their adamic nature, OR is God free to let people sin without God taking the blame. Your side believes the former and mine the latter.
No, it has to do with what God "assigned" to each individual before foundation of the world according to the Reformed theology.
For example, let's say I was an average reprobate (meaning that God hadn't made much to me in the way of "positive" promises). Now, let's say He completely withdrew His protection from me such that I became a raving murderer.
According to the Reformed theology, God decided to withdraw His protection in that moment before the hypothetical you , indeed before the world even existed. God decided from eternity that you will go to hell, that you will be a murder, and He even assigned the day and the hour when this will happen, and nothing can change that.
I could easily become that if I was sufficiently without God
Sure, because the Reformed God doesn't want (the hypothetical) you, never did and never will. He only wants you in hell—and you will go to hell not because you are a murderer but because the Reformed God created you specfically to go to hell!
To complete the picture, this Reformed God wants to punish you because He wants you to become a murder! He decided before you existed that you shall commit murder on a given day and a given hour, and it's somehow all your "fault!" You are a goat, not because you want to be a goat, but because God made you a goat and it's somehow all your "fault." And no amount of prayer will change you into a sheep.
Now let's say that He decided to do that on a Thursday instead of a Tuesday. Is God responsible for anyone I kill on Thursday? I think your side would say "YES", it's all God's fault, He caused the evil by removing His protection. We don't see it that way.
You talk as if God is intervening in His rigidly preordained "plan." In fact this plan is so rigid that even God can't change it! You seem to oscillate between two incompatible visions of God: one who preordained the world in which everything happens exactly as He "planned," and one in which God intervenes and makes fine adjustments.
I got bad news for you, FK: if (the hypothetical) you commits a murder on a given day, it's because the Reformed God, and not you, decided that eons ago.
And "my" side will most definitely say "Yes," because you neither decide the day, nor is it really your will that leads you to commit murder but the Reformed God's will! Otherwise your side calls it a "weak" God.
Pretty astonishing, and discouraging, theology, FK. No wonder atheism is a product of the post-Reformation West.