OK, we'll have to agree to disagree. I doubt either one of us will persuade the other. :)
You said that God chose to "limit himself with regards to our will." I asked in what way He limits Himself and more importantly to what extent He does so.
OK, I think I see where you're coming from. When I say that He is voluntarily limiting Himself WRT our will, I mean He's not pulling our strings like we are a puppet. We are individuals free to make our choices. It is part of what makes us "in His image." As God, He obviously has the power to make us do, say, think, and act the way He wants. He refrains from that so we can make the free choice of loving and worshiping Him by our own decision. That makes the love, fellowship, and worship much more meaningful.
He sure got in Paul's face. He sure doesn't ask nicely for everyone's repentance (Acts 17:30). And in the case of the men of Tyre, Sidon and Sodom, He sure doesn't do what He knows would be sufficient to bring about their repentance.
He did get in Paul's face. I don't recall another NT instance of that ever happening, though, do you? God doesn't do the same thing twice in the same way. Look at Jesus' miracles--He cured several people of blindness, but never the same way twice. He raised at least two people from the dead--but not in the same way.
He's not a tame Lion....He doesn't do what you think He ought to.
As far as Tyre, Sidon, Sodom, et al, my question is "how do you know?" Sure they fell, and turned away from Him--that doesn't mean He didn't do what was sufficient. That is the curse(?) of free will. You can't *make* someone with free will choose the way you think they ought to go. It's another example of Him limiting Himself to respect our decisions--thus getting in return real love from those who did (and do) listen to Him.
Now THAT is logic that I don't follow. On what basis do you claim that every man MUST be granted the opportunity to turn from it?
If one is to be totally responsible for his sin, one must have the opportunity to not commit (or to be forgiven) of that sin. There must be a way out for responsibility to work. If there is no way to turn from it, and you are stuck in it, then you have no free will, you were created to follow a specific path, and you have no responsibility for that decision. Example--I'm driving a car down a road. Who has the responsibility for where it goes or what it may or may not hit? The car? or the driver? The car is merely doing what the driver tells it to do. No one holds the car itself accountable for its actions--because it has no free will. It was created to perform a certain task, and it was the driver who is responsible.
I'm not a car--I'm the driver. I'm a driver who has learned how to driver, and what the best practices for driving a vehicle are. Likewise, I've learned how to live my life properly, the best way to take care of myself, and what my instructor (God) has said is the best path to follow.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see any grounds...certainly not in Scripture...for the claim that God MUST provide the opportunity of repentance and salvation to the objects of His just wrath.
I view it from a slightly different angle. Don't hate the sinner--hate the sin. His wrath will be poured out over the world, but I see the story of Revelation as God warning us over and over, stronger and stronger, that He is coming and for man to repent. He doesn't want us to be the "objects" of His wrath. His wrath is more fully aimed at Lucifer. Those who choose him over God will be included of course, but He wants as many as possible to turn from evil. Again--you can't force decisions upon unwilling wills, so He won't just "wave his hand" and save everyone.
Conformity to God's will and responsibility on the part of man are not contradictory concepts. Two simple examples are Joseph's brothers and the authors of Scripture. Joseph's brothers were quite clearly held responsible for their actions, yet it was also quite clearly according to God's will that they committed them.
Here I must also disagree. What was meant for evil, God *used* for good. His ability to use any situation for good goes way above competency. Just because something evil happened, doesn't mean it was God's will that it should happen. However, He can use that situation to make something good come from it.
There is no particular characteristic or action which leads God to do this for any...it is purely His good will and pleasure to do so.
This is a big problem with me. This is a very roundabout and wordy way of saying that God is capricious and arbitrary. He has a reason for *everything* He does. He is not arbitrary. The next statement I've heard is that "we just don't know why He picks one and not another, but He's not arbitrary." That basically loses the debate right there. You have a hypothesis, but no reasoning for it, other than the "mysteries of God."
God gave us all we needed to know about salvation in His Word. If He was merely arbitrary about His choices as to who would be saved, and who would not be saved, why do we have Scripture? He'd merely direct the elect to do righteous things, and the reprobate to not do righteous things. Then He could kill all the reprobates like a kid killing ants with a magnifying glass. Set up the dominoes to push them down.
What's the point?
BTW--I appreciate the courteous tone. Some of the others I've exchanged posts with in the past have been less than courteous. After all--I'm reprobate because I believe in free will, so they don't have to be nice. If my tone becomes offensive to you, let me know and I'll double check my meaning. I'm not trying to attack you personally, and this post was written over the course of a couple hours while I work on other things. :)
ShadowAce: “Example—I’m driving a car down a road. Who has the responsibility for where it goes or what it may or may not hit? The car? or the driver? The car is merely doing what the driver tells it to do. No one holds the car itself accountable for its actions—because it has no free will. It was created to perform a certain task, and it was the driver who is responsible.”
I think the issue of free will is a real sticking point in this debate. There seems to be some definition of free will by the Arminian crowd in which human volition is violated when God chooses His elect.
Your description of the driver versus the car is an interesting illustration and I will try to use your same illustration to show the error in your free will argument. The driver of the car can choose to drive on the road, stop and go at will, and obey traffic rules. Or the driver can choose to drive on the sidewalk and run traffic lights or speed excessively. But a driver cannot drive the car to the moon or drive through the core of the earth nor to the depths of the sea - to be honest, most drivers don’t even have an inkling to do such things. But if the driver truly had Armenian “free will” he could do all these things!
The fact remains that all people on earth are constrained by their environments, their desires, and their humanity - all things created by God. People still have free will to follow their desires but these desires are a product of their sinful natures - their nature to make themselves God. These people CANNOT choose God until these fundamental desires and (free) wills are changed.
So how is our desire turned to God? How do we come to submit our lives and heart to the one true Creator of the universe (and all that is in it)? Is it something within us or something that only God can manage? Or is it as the good Arminian would purport - that this is the ONLY part of our lives that God avoids in order to turn this over to our “free will”. Seems odd that God would keep out of the only truly important decision of our lives...
When you say "free choice" what do you mean? Free from what? As v_a said, the central point of difficulty here seems to be the concept of freedom of the will. In your view, what must the will be free from?
He did get in Paul's face. I don't recall another NT instance of that ever happening, though, do you? God doesn't do the same thing twice in the same way. Look at Jesus' miracles--He cured several people of blindness, but never the same way twice. He raised at least two people from the dead--but not in the same way.
Yes, but is the fact that we have such diverse examples a product of some self-limitation on His part, or merely because of the relatively limited number of specific examples we are provided with? While the specific details are different, God's appearance before men to elicit the response of faith is not limited to Paul.
As far as Tyre, Sidon, Sodom, et al, my question is "how do you know?" Sure they fell, and turned away from Him--that doesn't mean He didn't do what was sufficient. That is the curse(?) of free will. You can't *make* someone with free will choose the way you think they ought to go. It's another example of Him limiting Himself to respect our decisions--thus getting in return real love from those who did (and do) listen to Him.
How do I know? Because Jesus clearly and explicitly stated it. "If they had seen they miracles you see, then they would have repented." It doesn't get more explicit than that! :)
If one is to be totally responsible for his sin, one must have the opportunity to not commit (or to be forgiven) of that sin.
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree adamantly with this statement based on the "or to be forgiven" clause. What you are essentially saying is that God was compelled by His justice to send Christ to the Cross to provide the means of forgiveness, otherwise men would not be accountable for their sins resulting from their fallen nature. The Cross of Christ then becomes an act of obligatory justice, not grace. I simply cannot reconcile that notion with Scripture.
As far as your analogy of the car and driver, I don't believe it to be properly applicable because there is nothing in the analogy to account for the reality of original sin and the bondage of the will to sin. Again, the issue of freedom of the will, particularly with respect to original sin, clearly seems to be at the "heart" of our disagreement.
I view it from a slightly different angle. Don't hate the sinner--hate the sin.
I can't read the first fifty Psalms in particular and still say "He hates the sin but not the sinner" with a straight face. You can't have the responsibility you were repeatedly defending and then have the justice be focused on the action and not the one who commits it. God hates sinners with a righteous wrath. It is not an evil hatred, it is a just hatred...but a hatred nonetheless.
Again--you can't force decisions upon unwilling wills, so He won't just "wave his hand" and save everyone.
You have to look at why the "unwilling wills" are unwilling in the first place. That is the core issue.
Here I must also disagree. What was meant for evil, God *used* for good. His ability to use any situation for good goes way above competency. Just because something evil happened, doesn't mean it was God's will that it should happen. However, He can use that situation to make something good come from it.
It doesn't say, "You meant it for evil, but God used it for good." It says, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." The exact same Hebrew word is used for both. Given God's perfect foreknowledge and sovereignty, there is simply no way that evil can occur except by His will. That doesn't mean that the evil originates anywhere other than in the heart of the individual, but it is only by God's ordination that that evil can produce sin. He simply cannot be helpless to let evil happen and merely resigned to looking for ways to use it to His advantage.
This is a big problem with me. This is a very roundabout and wordy way of saying that God is capricious and arbitrary. He has a reason for *everything* He does. He is not arbitrary. The next statement I've heard is that "we just don't know why He picks one and not another, but He's not arbitrary." That basically loses the debate right there. You have a hypothesis, but no reasoning for it, other than the "mysteries of God."
This is a frequent argument, and one I would like to address head on. First of all, while there certainly is opportunity to use the "mysteries of God" as a cop-out to compensate for a lack of any real substantive proof, appealing to the mysteries of God is in and of itself a valid position. Let's face it, God was by no means exhaustive in His revelation and quite clearly left many question unanswered. There are things which we simply cannot fully comprehend given the finity of our knowledge and the finity of His revelation. That said, there needs to be some reasonable justification for drawing up to that point.
The issue I have with the notion that it is "arbitrary" or "capricious" is that both words have connotative definitions which allude to tyranny or malice. That is in direct contradiction to the stated position that it is according to His good will and pleasure. I believe Scripture does lead us to that conclusion...that it is according to His good will and pleasure. To seek for criteria beyond that is to indeed probe the mysteries of God not revealed to us. The question though is whether the fact that it is according to His good will and pleasure should be sufficient enough reason for us, and I maintain that it is. God certainly seems to think it should be (Ex 33:19,Rom 9:15). So I have no problem agreeing with you that God has a reason for doing everything He does, and in this case His reason in general terms is His own good purpose. That He is not more specific than that in His revelation does not mean that that general reason is somehow void.
God gave us all we needed to know about salvation in His Word. If He was merely arbitrary about His choices as to who would be saved, and who would not be saved, why do we have Scripture? He'd merely direct the elect to do righteous things, and the reprobate to not do righteous things. Then He could kill all the reprobates like a kid killing ants with a magnifying glass. Set up the dominoes to push them down. What's the point?
I'm not sure I follow the logic in this conclusion. Notwithstanding the fact that I disagree with the notion that He would be arbitrary in the sense you imply, it doesn't follow that Scripture is pointless because God accomplishes His will through various instrumental means. As a Calvinist I often get asked what the point is in evangelism, and my response is simply that that is the means God has ordained for bringing the elect to faith. Election in and of itself saves nobody. It is the formal cause of our salvation, but it is the work of Christ that is the material means of our salvation and it is faith in response to the revelation of God that is the instrumental means of our salvation. The rationale you provide is the same as those who insist that there must be alien life simply on the basis that the entirety of the universe would be a waste if it weren't true. The fact of the matter is that a universe of such expanse still serves a purpose in glorifying the God who made it all at the mere speaking of His Word(Ps 19:1).
BTW--I appreciate the courteous tone. Some of the others I've exchanged posts with in the past have been less than courteous. After all--I'm reprobate because I believe in free will, so they don't have to be nice. If my tone becomes offensive to you, let me know and I'll double check my meaning. I'm not trying to attack you personally, and this post was written over the course of a couple hours while I work on other things. :)
Well, any here who say you're reprobate solely on the basis of believing in "free will" as you do are treading on dangerous ground. That said, you and I have "fresh legs" with respect to our conversation, mainly because I haven't been engaging in this type of debate (especially here) for quite awhile. Give me enough time and I'm sure I'll offend you somehow, though it is certainly not my intent. :)
There does seem to be a tendency to take personal offense at spirited disagreement around here, as though to argue adamantly against one's position is to call into question their pedigree and human dignity.