All Men Saved

The Calvinist Corner ^ | March 26, 1992 | Matt Slick

[HarleyD]

did anyone believe in “limited atonement” before Calvin cam along in the 16th century? if yes, i would appreciate someone providing name and citation.

I would suggest you read Augustine's A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints from 428AD, well before Calvin. Augustine lays out the very groundwork for limited atonement. And he states that he got his idea from Cyprian, another church father.

[MHGinTN]

Your assertion is akin to my seeing a car rushing toward a tree and after hitting the tree me being blamed for the car hitting the tree. That God can see all of the volume of time, simultaneously, does not mean God causes each individual event in the volume. God's Spirit sustains the universe in the very precarious balance (on the order of 1/10¹²⁰), but one should not conclude therefore God is specifically making every event happen within that universe.

[RegulatorCountry]

The grave dilemma with "free will" is that if such a concept were true, it would require God not to know in advance who would choose Him. Otherwise, He would be aware of a fixed future from which the "free" chooser could not deviate. If God does know, and the chooser could not deviate, then the chooser is not as "free" as he believed. Oila', predestination. It is everywhere in the Scriptures.

If I were to see you blasting down the road and I knew that a bridge was out just around the next curve, so close that you'd never be able to stop in time, would you be in my thrall because I saw you and knew that, thereby meaning that I forced you run into the river?

No, you wouldn't be in thrall to me. Just because the outcome is known that does not change the fact that you had and have choices to make of your own free will, and continue to make those choices until the day you leave this earth.

[fso301]

Were we all predestined to post on this thread?

[aruanan]

The grave dilemma with "free will" is that if such a concept were true, it would require God not to know in advance who would choose Him. Otherwise, He would be aware of a fixed future from which the "free" chooser could not deviate. If God does know, and the chooser could not deviate, then the chooser is not as "free" as he believed. Oila', predestination. It is everywhere in the Scriptures.

Only if you've got on your predestination-tinted glasses. Your first sentence is defective. The second half of it does not follow from the first. You merely assert that it does. Take a few moments to consider what the fruits of theological determinism have wrought in philosophy, science, and political economy since Calvin first took it out for a spin. It has not been a pretty picture. Attempting to immanentize the eschaton has always resulted in trouble, from Geneva up to the present day.

[Dutchboy88]

"If I were to see you blasting down the road and I knew that a bridge was out just around the next curve, so close that you'd never be able to stop in time, would you be in my thrall because I saw you and knew that, thereby meaning that I forced you run into the river?"

This is the common wrongheaded rebuttal. You completely missed the point. If God knows you are headed into the river, does He know it absolutely? That is, infallibly? That makes the future fixed. If it is fixed, then you are not "free" to miss the river.

Then you change horses and say, "...because the outcome is know that does not cahnge the fact that you had choices and have choices to make of your own free will." Read this over, again. It is not the conclusion of the premise. The question is, "Does God know what you are going to do before you even know that you will be making a choice?"

[aruanan]

In part this is because human nature is so completely corrupted by sin that no person is capable of choosing God unless God first regenerates that person.

Assertion, pure and simple, found nowhere in scripture.

[RegulatorCountry]

He would be aware of a fixed future

What purpose do you believe prophecy to serve, and furthermore, why would a prophecy made in some cases thousands of years ago ever be fulfilled? It's because the future is knowable to God, and if it's knowable it is to some extent fixed.

What never fails to amuse me is all these science fiction fans who are fascinated with time travel. If you can travel into the past, then you're coming from a fixed future in the perspective of the people in the time you chose to visit. And, if the future is not fixed, then there would be no future to which to return, either.

Something tells me that the various authors and screenwriters would be aghast if they ever realized that they've inadvertangly reinforced "predestination." They'd certainly be at pains to find an explanation outside Christianity, at a minimum.

[MHGinTN]

Problem is sourced in our primitive understanding of dimension time.

[RegulatorCountry]

"Does God know what you are going to do before you even know that you will be making a choice?"

Well, yes. This does not make us mindless automatons, is the point I've attempted to put across to you. Foreknowledge does not equate with control.

[MHGinTN]

God is either The Sovereign of His Creation or He is not. God has every right to alter your future or offer to you choices for arriving at several possible futures only one of which you will achieve but it is not God forcing you to arrive at your future.

[wmfights]

At first glance the phrase "He died for all" would lead you to think that Jesus died for every individual who has ever lived. But upon a closer look we see something different revealed. When Paul speaks of people dying, in relation to the death of Christ, he is speaking of the Christians who have died in Christ: "Now if we have died with Christ..." (Rom. 6:8); "If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world..." (Col. 2:20); "For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3); "It is a trustworthy statement: For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him" (2 Tim. 2:11). The only ones who have died with Christ are the believers, not the unbelievers. Therefore, this verse can only make sense if it is understood that the "all" spoken of is not everyone who has ever lived, but only the Christians: "...that one (Jesus) died for all (the Christians), therefore all (the Christians) died..."

Something to consider?

[one Lord one faith one baptism]

of course, Paul is in dispute. On St Augustine, he obviously believed in predestination, as the Church understands it, but where did he ever teach double predestination and limited atonement? thanks.

[HarleyD]

If I were to see you blasting down the road and I knew that a bridge was out just around the next curve...would you be in my thrall because I saw you and knew that, thereby meaning that I forced you run into the river?

How about if God was going to send an Angel of Death to kill all the first born in the land. However, the Angel of Death will skip the house if lamb's blood has been posted on the door post. Is it wrong of God to tell only a select few about the blood or should He be required to tell everyone?

[RegulatorCountry]

The older I get, the more convinced I become that the past isn’t even past. It’s all unfolding simultaneously, to paraphrase Einstein, and we’re living in an illusion created by the senses with which we were equipped, which provide a certain perception of linearity.

[Gamecock]

I answered your first question, not the second.

Oh, and Jesus.

[wmfights]

If predestination is true, then why does this verse state "whoever believes" will be saved? The Bible says that faith is a gift from God (Rom. 12:3); that it is God who grants belief (Phil. 1:29); it is God who produces belief in a person (John 6:29); and only those appointed to eternal life by God are the ones who believe (Acts 13:48). Also, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God (Rom. 10:17). In order for someone to believe, they must hear the gospel of Jesus (1 Cor. 15:1-4) because the gospel is the power of God for salvation (Rom. 1:16). There is no other name under heaven besides Jesus by which anyone may be saved (Act 4:12). And, one must receive Jesus (John 1:12) in order to be saved.

Why doesn't God give belief to everyone?

[one Lord one faith one baptism]

john 6:44 no man can come to me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

[one Lord one faith one baptism]

thanks, i will check it out.

[wmfights]

ping to #32