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To: srweaver; RansomOttawa

Exactly what is the point you are trying to make?

Are you trying to find some charge to lay at God’s feet?


45 posted on 12/20/2017 12:40:09 PM PST by metmom ( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith..)
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To: metmom

My point was to challenge the statement that “God who permits what He hates in order to accomplish what He loves” as an accurate portrayal of Calvinism or Reformed theology. Though I (a long time ago) enjoyed some of R. C. Sproul’s teachings he was clearly Calvinist/Reformed in his theology. And though the only time I heard Joni Eareckson Tada speak she was excellent (at a Biola University graduation), I am assuming she is Calvinist in doctrine, which may or may not be accurate. May Sproul rest in peace, or, rather, enjoy the immediate presence of God (2 Cor. 5:8), and Joni Eareckson Tada be blessed now and forever.

To state that “God permits what He hates in order to accomplish what He loves,” however, is not a faithful presentation of Calvinistic theology, given any common (or even strained) understanding of what those words plainly imply. My point is to point that out.

I whole-heartedly agree with the scriptures you quote in their plain-vanilla meaning – that God desires all people to be saved, that is His will, and His command which can actually be obeyed or disobeyed.

That is NOT the teaching of Calvinism (as defined by Calvin in his Institutes). Also, see the Westminster Confession, Chapter III. Which partly reads:

I. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions; yet has He not decreed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.
III. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death.
IV. These angels and men, thus predestinated, and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished.

http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/index.html?foot=/documents/wcf_with_proofs/III_fn.html#fn1


46 posted on 12/20/2017 1:55:50 PM PST by srweaver (Never Forget the Judicial Homicide of Terri Schiavo)
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