Well, a command or a law is one and the same thing. So, then, why do you disagree with aruanan when he says that God commanded Adam to sin.
From the excerpts I have read it would seem that Calvin would see "command" and "ordain" as the same thing. I do not in today's language because I have too much experience with how that concept would be misused by the loyal opposition. Kosta, you still harp on Pecca Fortier even after I posted an extremely lengthy dissertation on it that I don't remember you even challenging. My memory is that you just ignored it. I surmised that was because you wanted to keep bringing it up. For that reason I am not going to use the word "command". That is, I do not want you to quote me the way you quote Luther. :)
If Adam was destined to sin by God's design, it was obviously not Adam's choice, but God's.
It was God's choice by ordination, and Adam's choice by execution. Adam and Eve had no chance against the serpent and God let it happen.
God made sure Adam's choice was as God wished (that Adam sin) and not as Adam wished. In other words, in the Reformed theology, God is the source of sin. If God did not wish any sin, there would be no sin.
Good start, bad finish. :) Of course Adam wanted to sin. He wanted to listen to Eve and agreed with her that the fruit was pleasing to the eye and good to eat, etc. God just didn't prevent them from going after their desires. God wishing sin is not the same as God authoring it. Now, if you want to blame God for all sin because He created Adam with the capacity for sin, then you can make a case. But that's where you have to go. For your side, either man is sovereign and autonomous above God's will, OR, God authors all sin. We disagree.
Your theory then—that all God has to do is leave us to our depraved nature for us to sin—is not Reformed theory, but Forest Keeper's creation. For, if that is true, then who if not God gave us our "dead" nature? If God is behind everything, then He is behind sin too.
God creates all individuals, and the original sin they are born with is directly a result of Adam's free will choice to sin. That is God's justice. Again, if you want to blame God for having and following His own justice then fine. But that's where you have to go. I didn't invent God's justice or declare what I want it to be. I just report what the Bible describes. God saw it fitting that Adam's sin be on all the people who followed. God also saw it fitting that an innocent man on the cross could pay for all the sins of all time for all the elect. I didn't make that up either.
In other words if God didn't predestine us to have sin-loving nature, we would not be desiring sin.
Yes, in a manner of speaking. We would also not be "humans" as we understand the term now. We would be something else. God could have created all of us without the capability of sin, but He didn't. He had His reasons.
No matter how you turn it around, God is the author of that too.
God IS the author of the arrangement, but not the author of sin itself. He desired for man to fall and He desired to save His elect. None of this was ever outside of His control. Under the Apostolic view, God appears to let His children run amok, doing whatever they want at all times. This is a description of a totally irresponsible and UNLOVING parent. But then, that's what it takes for man to be the boss. :)
Which is what the Orthodox and Catholics on these treads have recognized long time ago about the Reformed, which is that, with this kind of theology of Calvin, the Reformed are on the fringes of Christianity, if not completely outside of it, like the LDS or the JW.
That would seem to be a fair opinion from the Apostolic POV. Any faith that holds to the scriptures as closely as the Reformed faith does MUST seem like it's on the fringes of Christianity from the extra-scriptural and contra-scriptural perspective of Apostolic Tradition and thought.
When you change the common meaning of a word, it would be wise to define it for the sake of better communication even though it is done without any recognizable authority to do so, regardless how "justified" it may seem to you.
Kosta, you still harp on Pecca Fortier even after I posted an extremely lengthy dissertation on it that I don't remember you even challenging.
Guilty as charged, FK. I can't answer all lengthy diatribes from a dozen or so concurrent posters. If I found something new or something that hasn't been rehashed in the past, or if I had changed my mind vis-a-vis Luther's pecca fortiter, I would have replied. My silence is usually an indication that something is "same old, same old."
I surmised that was because you wanted to keep bringing it up.
No, it's because I didn't find anything new in it. I will bring it up when the context calls for it, not to annoy you.
For that reason I am not going to use the word "command". That is, I do not want you to quote me the way you quote Luther
That depends on the context of what you write and not on one word.
It was God's choice by ordination, and Adam's choice by execution.
Huh? It is my choice by "ordination" and the computer's "choice" by execution? I push the buttons and the computer does the what I want it to do. The computer has no choice, executive or otherwise. The computer does what I tell it to do.
If God wills us to do things then we do it, like a computer. No choice of execution here.
Adam and Eve had no chance against the serpent and God let it happen
No, according to the Reformed theology, God specifically made the serpent, and placed him in the garden so as to deceive Eve and make Adam fall for it. God didn't just "let it happen." He orchestrated the whole thing—out of "love" no doubt.
If I put my "power" over you (i.e. by hypnosis), so that you cannot resist, and make you commit a crime while in that state, claiming that I am "guilty" only of "allowing it to happen" would not stand.
Of course Adam wanted to sin
This means you are suggesting that Adam's created nature (before the Fall) was sinful? That's a new one! And God called all His worked "good?" The innovations just keep piling up along with freelance definitions of words.
Now, if you want to blame God for all sin because He created Adam with the capacity for sin, then you can make a case. But that's where you have to go. For your side, either man is sovereign and autonomous above God's will, OR, God authors all sin. We disagree.
Reformed theology leads exactly to that end: if God didn't want evil in the world, then evil would not be in the world. The only reason evil exists in the world is because God made it.
The Christian view is that gave man freedom to choose, and free choice can lead to more than one choice. Since freedom is something God willed, we cannot take that freedom away. You are free to make correct choices until the day you die; and you are also free not to make them. Even when you are trapped and have no way out, you can still choose God and give yourself to Him.
God creates all individuals, and the original sin they are born with is directly a result of Adam's free will choice to sin
So, God creates all men with defective will because of Adam? Or is it that Adam's nature changed after the Fall and fallen humans have fallen offspring by nature? Thus, like a drug-addicted baby, whose addiction is not his, but his mother's fault, man's addiction to sin is a consequence of Adam's sin and not his sin.
A drug addict may wish to rid himself of the curse, but his will is too weak and needs a physician to cure him. But in order to cure him, he must be willing to cooperate with the physician and follow his advice. Being sick is not a sin in itself. It's how you got sick that could be.
I just report what the Bible describes
According to your own definitions.
Under the Apostolic view, God appears to let His children run amok, doing whatever they want at all times
Nonsense, FK. The Church doesn't teach that, and you know that. :)
Any faith that holds to the scriptures as closely as the Reformed faith does MUST seem like it's on the fringes of Christianity from the extra-scriptural and contra-scriptural perspective of Apostolic Tradition and thought
Any religion, sect or cult that teaches that God created evil is not Christianity, never was, and never will be.