Posted on 02/08/2003 7:43:01 AM PST by Matchett-PI
Exactly. And yet that's the box they've tried to put Him in.
You confuse God's power with man's. He is not to be compared to man. Man is autonimous and can refuse to agree with God's will. But that does not diminish God's knowledge.
Think of it this way, we are like children who must discover for ourselves that God, our Father, loves us. we are not forced to discover that love. But God in his infinite power, which exceeds any human parent, knows what we will do. We are not divine in nature and are not operating in that infinite capacity. Without that free will, which God has given us which separates us from the beasts, man would be less than capable of loving God in a way that is acceptable to His divine nature.
We do require God's help to overcome our fallen nature and that is the mission of Jesus. The sacraments that He gave us are Himself and are necessary to overcome our blindness.
But we are not stripped of our identity as sentient beings. Our free will remains intact.
Are you suggesting that Judas had no ability for "free-will" decisions once Satan entered him?
Jean
At that point I don't see a dual existence for Satan and Judas in the same body. Do you?
(just remember I'm thinking "outloud" here...)
Men regularily refuse to obey God. Men have free will..Neither of those have anything to do with predestination or election..
We do require God's help to overcome our fallen nature and that is the mission of Jesus. The sacraments that He gave us are Himself and are necessary to overcome our blindness.
So God is pretty powerless huh?
I believe God is a Sovereign God who offers man a choice.
It has nothing to do with whether I want Him to be that way or not. That's who I understand Him to be.
Can I choose to be a dog? Or a cat? Can I chose to be something other than the way God made me?
Amen!
Exactly what the scriptures teach!
Who ever denied that God restrains evil?
Yet, when those who reject God continue to do so, God gives them what they want and turns them over to their own passions for their own destruction. (Rom.1)
For the Calvinist, God is either controlling everything directly (and therefore is responsible for sin) or has somehow lost control.
The Biblical view is that God has given certain latitude for man to make decisions,but it is not unlimited.
The Flood is an example of sin getting out of control.
War is another judgment of sin (James 4:1)
God is in total control, but is not responsible for sin or evil, only good ( Matt. 5:45,Acts. 17:25-31)
Amen!
I guess Christ weeping over Jerusalam was all an act! (Matt.23:37) after all, they had been decreed to send him to the Cross and that is why He went there! (Lk.13:33)
If Calvinists would spend more time looking at Christ and less on the mysterious decrees they would have far better understanding of the nature of God.(2Cor.4:4, Heb.1:3,Jn.14:9)
He must want you to sin also since you do!
He must 'want' all the crime and suffering that you attribute to the depravity of man, since it is according to Calvinism, God's will that all of this happen (for His glory!)
Next time you read about some horrible crime or accident why don't you shout praise God!
I mean God could have stopped it if He wanted to do so could He not? Doesn't that make Him really responsible for the act?
(Oh, no, the Calvinist will piously exclaim, God is not responsible,He is only in complete control and nothing could happen unless He wanted it to).
So, it must be really God who is decreeing the act and man is just playing his part in the great puppet show!
Interesting choice of analogy, a play?
We have a villain, Satan, who fell from his own freechoice ( I will stop using the term 'free will' in deference to 'Hank').
Unless, you are going to say that God made him fall and that was what God really wanted?
Then, God is the author of sin since it is He that created both Satan and Adam to do just what they did.
Now, you would have God responsible for Juda's actions as well!
That's not how plays are written. Plays have a first act, second act and third act. And every protagonist needs an antagonist. God gave life to Judas in order that he would betray Christ so that you and I might share paradise with Him.
Judas was not given life by God so that he would do evil. God knew that he would and gave him life anyway.
Judas could no more escape God's will than you or me.
Judas' actions were foreknown by God and those acts were free, as were those of Pilate and the mob.
God did not want them to sin, He only knew that they would and allowed the acts to happen, turning them into good through His wisdom.
Amen!
Just as the Jews could have received Christ as their Messiah and the Cross would have happened in another manner.
Calvinists cannot grasp Omniscience, they do not understand that God can know possiblities as well as the actual. It was 'possible' for Judas to not betray Christ. It was 'possible' for Pilate not to give in to the mob. It was 'possible' that the Jews would accept Christ.
God saw real choices made with these possiblities open.
It was the choices that God saw that made them part of His Plan.
Thus, Judas chose to betray God and that choice was foreknown by God and made part of God's Plan.
It is never God's choice for man to sin or do evil, but if man chooses to do so, that choice is made part of God's Plan as well as God's own decisions on how to handle it and control it.
Funny how she continues to dance around isn't it?
Thank you, I think.
If my notorious reputation had not been alluded to, I probably would not have responded to this post, but I now feel obliged.
Since I have not followed all of this discussion I am only going to address one thing I have seen suggested throughout, and in this post as well, here:
Judas' actions were foreknown by God and those acts were free, as were those of Pilate and the mob. God did not want them to sin, He only knew that they would and allowed the acts to happen, turning them into good through His wisdom.
I think there is some confusion about God's knowledge that always seems to imply if God knows sin is going to be comitted before it is comitted and still allows it to be comitted, in some way that makes God responsible for the sin.
In our human experience, there are sometimes occasions when we know someone is going to do something bad or wrong before the deed is done, but circumstances or inability prevent us from inerrupting the evil deed. In God's case, however, we assume, because God is infinite and omnipotent, that there can never be a case where God could not prevent sin.
But there is one class of things God cannot do, which has nothing to do with his infinite wisdom or power, but with the very nature of God. God cannot not do the logically impossible, because the logically impossible is a violation of truth, and, "... all His works are done in truth." (Ps 33:4)
Now it is logically impossible for God to know someone is going to do something if they are not going to do it. God can only know someone is going to do something, like sin, if they are actually going to do it. If God prevents someone from sinning, then of course they were never going to sin, because God was going to stop them. It is therefore impossible for God to know someone is going to sin, and to prevent them from doing it, or to put it conversely, if God prevents someone from sinning, He could not have known they were going to sin, because they weren't going to sin.
What most people have in mind, I think, is that the future for God is in some sense hypothetical and contingent. For natural events this is no doubt true. Change this small event at this point in history, and all of the future is changed. For example, a strategic ocean storm in the year 1492, could have prevented one of the discoveries of America, and certainly altered history as we know it. Imagine an untimely death for Isaac Newton, Marconi, John Locke, or Thomas Jefferson and its effects on history.
But as soon as you attempt to make those events and actions that result from human action contingent, human behavior ceases to be volitional, and it becomes nothing more than a series of naturally caused events, like storms and physical death. If human behavior is contingent on causes, it is not chosen behavior, but like all other natural events, merely determined by natural or supernatural causes.
Volition, that is, conscious choice, cannot be hypothesized, because volitional choice has no cause. It is not contingent on anything and it is not determined by anything. If anything were the cause of a choice, it would not really be choice, but merely a caused event.
It is therefore impossible to hypothesize what anyone's choice might be, because a choice that is not made (or never will be) cannot be known, so: in temporal terms, the only way we can know what choice anyone will make is to observe it when it is made, in eternal terms (what God can know) the only way it can be known what choice anyone will make is their actually making it, sometime. The difference is, God does not have to wait for them to make it, because "all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do," (Heb 4:13), past, present, and future. But, not even God can see what never was and never will be, such a choice that will never be made. That is a logical impossibility that would require God to violate the truth, which He cannot and will not do.
Hank
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