Isaiah 45:7 In multiple translations for comparison.
http://bible.cc/isaiah/45-7.htm
Here is a link to the Hebrew...
http://biblos.com/isaiah/45-7.htm
Going to Strong’s and doing a word study on the word *create* as in *create evil*, shows that the word *bara* (create) has more than one meaning.
The meanings are these....
choose, create creator, cut down, dispatch, do, make fat
A primitive root; (absolutely) to create; (qualified) to cut down (a wood), select, feed (as formative processes) — choose, create (creator), cut down, dispatch, do, make (fat).
The word for evil or calamity is *ra* which means
adversity, affliction, bad, calamity, displeasure, distress
From ra’a’; bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral) — adversity, affliction, bad, calamity, + displease(-ure), distress, evil((- favouredness), man, thing), + exceedingly, X great, grief(-vous), harm, heavy, hurt(-ful), ill (favoured), + mark, mischief(-vous), misery, naught(-ty), noisome, + not please, sad(-ly), sore, sorrow, trouble, vex, wicked(-ly, -ness, one), worse(-st), wretchedness, wrong. (Incl. Feminine raaah; as adjective or noun.).
see HEBREW ra’a’
So the verse could very well have been translated:
I form light and dispatch darkness, I make well-being and cut down with calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things.
Besides, *calamity* is not exactly the same as *evil*. God may after all, create calamity, for His purpose, but that’s a far cry from God creating evil.
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I do not buy that God creates evil and I have never been able to wrap my mind around Calvinistic predestination that makes us all puppets on a string who have no choice and that God made men for the express purpose of sending them to hell.
Acts 17:30-31 “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
I simply cannot accept the concept that God commands all people everywhere to repent and then creates them incapable of doing so.
I’ll defend to the bitter end salvation through Christ alone apart from works, the security of the believer, that man cannot come to God unless drawn by the work of the Holy Spirit in his life, and that God is sovereign, but just cannot defend the kind of predestination which makes us mere puppets and God capricious.
If man did not have free will, God would not be constantly challenging us to choose.
Well put.
God created Adam and Eve with free will. The Fall changed things. Radically.
Unless a man has been reborn by the Holy Spirit, that man will always and only choose poorly.
I'll defend to the bitter end salvation through Christ alone apart from works, the security of the believer, that man cannot come to God unless drawn by the work of the Holy Spirit in his life, and that God is sovereign, but just cannot defend the kind of predestination which makes us mere puppets and God capricious.
What you have first described is what Calvinists believe.
If man did not have free will, God would not be constantly challenging us to choose.
God tells us to do a lot of things He knows we can't do unless and until the Holy Spirit regenerates our wills and mind to know the things of God, to repent and believe.
Have you ever read "Bondage of the Will" by Luther?
“I do not buy that God creates evil and I have never been able to wrap my mind around Calvinistic predestination that makes us all puppets on a string who have no choice and that God made men for the express purpose of sending them to hell.”
God created the law of cause and effect that governs actions. Included in it is evil that carries in itself the seeds of its own destruction. That’s why Paul can say unreservedly “the wages of sin is death”.
“I do not buy that God creates evil and I have never been able to wrap my mind around Calvinistic predestination that makes us all puppets on a string who have no choice and that God made men for the express purpose of sending them to hell.”
God created the law of cause and effect that governs actions. Included in it is evil that carries in itself the seeds of its own destruction. That’s why Paul can say unreservedly “the wages of sin is death”.
Could you define this term, "Free Will"?
What is it? How does it work?
Before Calvinists can be charged with denying "Free Will", it would be helpful to know what "Free Will" is.
So, I'm curious.... in your own words: What Is Free Will?
Thanks!!
Do note that we both believe that SALVATION is through Christ ALONE. We cannot save ourselves, we cannot move to that salvation, we can accept the big helping hand that is God’s — and God’s hand does all the work, and to Him all the glory, to us we just must accept. That is our “action”