Westminster Confession - Chapter 3 - Of God's Eternal Decree

Center for Reformed Theology and Apolgetics ^ | 1648 | Protestant Dudes

[wmfights]

That is usually interpreted, I believe, as meaning God is the CAUSE of sin. In a deterministic theology, God makes people commit sin, then judges them for doing what he forced them to do.

Prior to eating the forbidden fruit we were without sin, but thereafter we are fallen sinful creatures in need of a Savior. God put the tree of knowledge in the garden. Doesn't this mean God is the cause of sin.

The final straw that forced me to leave the Baptist Church I had been a member of for 5 years was when I was told that God decided what sins he wanted me to commit and then made me do them.

Do we have the power on our own to go against our nature to sin?

If God knows from the beginning who will do what then it follows that God knows who He will save.

We sin because we like it, and because we cannot free ourselves. But Jesus came to set the captives free, and that is the Good News.

Wonderfully put.

[HarleyD]

OTOH, if God gives us the right to make real choices, then we sin because it is our evil nature at work.

That, of course, presumes your premise to be correct. If, OTOH, we are either slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness, as the scriptures tells us we are, then God gives those who are slaves to righteousness boundaries. There are things that will cause believers to be taken home early.

I would call attention to the words of Job:

Job 2:10 But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

Life for Christians isn't a magical tiptoe through the TULIPs. We share in the same burdens that everyone else does. And all of this comes from God. But for Christians, even those evil things that are brought our way work together for our good.

[Mr Rogers]

I would distinguish between evil events and evil desires. “Evil” events - painful ones, often caused by the sin of another - are often a part of God’s sovereign will. There was nothing pleasant for Israel about being invaded, but God brought it about. When my Dad died when I was 14, it wasn’t pleasant, but as I look back 40 years later, I know it fit God’s timing.

The evil within us is the result of the Fall, and God accepted it would happen as part of his will, but he doesn’t put the evil desires within us. When I was told that God makes me sin, it conflicts with Paul:

” 1What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

That man has a sinful nature should be painfully obvious to all, but that doesn’t mean every choice man makes is sin. A non-christian woman who loves her child isn’t sinning in her love, and a man who gives to the poor may be doing so from good motives, even as a non-christian. Yet the idea that man can be good enough to win God’s approval is ridiculous. One only needs to look around, or examine one’s own life, to realize there is ample evil to justify damnation.

Ancient man was smarter than modern man. Ancient man KNEW he deserved God’s wrath. Modern man, as CS Lewis noted in ‘God in the Dock’, wants to decide if God is good enough for us. And we deserve damnation for that conceit...

[HarleyD]

That man has a sinful nature should be painfully obvious to all, but that doesn’t mean every choice man makes is sin.

The chief aim of man is to glorify God; to love Him with all our hearts, souls and minds. Every choice that we do should be related to this chief aim, just as every thing that Christ did was to glorify the Father. Anything outside of this chief aim does not bring glory to God and is sin.

If this sounds self serving of God, then we must remember that God is perfect love, joy, peace, etc. Quite frankly, what's not to love and serve? The reason we quibble internally with this chief aim and fail to do it is due to our sin nature which rebels against it. We don't like the idea of perfect love, perfect joy, etc.

[paulist]

“Yet Romans 9-11 is manifestly NOT about individual salvation, for individual Jews were and are being saved, but about corporate election”

If this is so, why are particular names mentioned in verse 13 - “As it is written, “Jacob I loved but Esau I hated.”?

Romans 9:18 - “So then he has mercy on WHOMever he wills, and he hardens WHOMever he wills.”