Posted on 07/17/2003 9:53:46 AM PDT by Frumanchu
There must be a determinate causal factor in coming to faith. If it is just a random impulse or response, it is not a moral choice. The question is then whether or not it is identifiable by God. I would assume that, given God's omniscience, He would be aware of the causal factor of the faith of any particular individual. Furthermore, given His omniscience, I would presume that He knows what factors would be necessary to bring an individual to faith. The question then, given not only God's omniscience, but also His omnipotence, is why given such knowledge God does not act according to it to bring about the salvation of all individuals.
Do you see my point?
There's a huge piece of me that gives assent to what you say. Absolute Foreknowledge assures that God knows everything at the time he sets "the world" into motion. Therefore, He begins the world knowing who will and who will not be ultimately saved.
However, then there's P-Marlowe's view about God's eternal nature; that is, God can equally inhabit the past, present, and future. And thus, P'M's comment: BTW I believe that you can pray that prayer (of salvation) now and God can STILL predestine him from the foundation of the earth.
In other words, new things can happen in the present and future because God also inhabits the past. He is "from everlasting to everlasting."
P-M makes an awesome point.
We search for the right words to distill and convey the immensity of God. Your post is one of the best.
If God could have created the world differently (which He could have), then the world He did create is exactly as He wants it to be.
Those who are saved are saved because their lives wherein their salvation occurs are exactly the lives God granted them.
I found that once I began to understand the enormity of predestination, there was no turning back. It became self-evident; I saw its truth everywhere I looked.
While I trust that those who believe in Christ and follow His path are saved, I've come to see a belief in predestination as an added bonus of God's benevolence. He's given us the gift of true assurance that He's in control of everything, the good and the bad, and that nothing can hurt us forever, nothing can separate us from Him.
It's like what Dustin Hoffman, father of six, said to Warren Beatty when he was still a bachelor -- "Why do you want to deprive yourself of all this love?"
That's how I see a belief in predestination. Why deprive yourself of the comfort of knowing that God isn't your co-pilot; He's the only pilot.
Since this world is not through yet, then the eternal God could, because He is eternal/timeless, go back (our perspective) and make something be incorporated in the movie that hadn't yet been there.
As if the editor of Bruce Almighty could edit it even WHILE YOU WERE WATCHING it on the screen.
Again, the question stands...if such a thing occurs, why does God not bring all individuals to salvation? Consider the following:
"Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you." - Matt 11:21-24 (NKJV)
This line of reasoning you're following removes one of the primary objections often raised to the Calvinist position: that it is unfair or unjust for God to willfully withhold salvation from individuals when it is possible to save them.
New to us, certainly.
Nothing is "new" to God.
You seem to struggle with the idea of prayer and the hope that prayer can actually change problems, life, God's attitude. A pastor probably spends a lot of time nudging people to bring their problems to God so that their prayers can be answered.
But God knows our problems; He arranged for them. He knows our prayers before they're offered; He put them on our lips.
And He created you to be the light for your flock to follow towards Him.
While you think you and He are exchanging turns, God has already finished the game. He wins.
If God chooses to jump in and "edit" the film, that "edit" has been known and foreseen and ordained by God from the beginning of time.
Nothing is unknown to Him.
That's the "click" you struggle with. It's human nature. It's the fear of letting go. It's the ultimate sin of "pride." It's what the Snake whispered to Eve. "God doesn't really mean what He says. You can do it anyway; you're in control. Eat up."
If there is no real "if," (if all is irrevockably and unchangeably predestined by decree) then the Bible verses which speak of "ifs and thens" are not true. They are illusory statements. But in those verses where God uses if-then statements, God's actions are clearly conditioned upon the actions of men. So, unless God was intending to mislead the readers of the Bible, the If-Then statements of God (all 300+ of them) attest to that fact.
Now the question is how do you deal with that fact?
No you're attempting to view this in a perspective of "time." Whatever decisions God makes have been made from the foundation of the earth. But the scripture goes even farther than that. It states that Jesus was the lamb who was slain from before the foundation of the earth. That means that in the eternal eyes of God, that event took place before the foundation of the earth, but in our perspective it only took place 2000 years ago. But we must remember that God dwells right now at the foundation of the earth and he concurrently dwells at the end of creation. Wherever we go or wherever we have been God is there.
Now "if" God chooses to answer your prayer, then his decision to answer that prayer was made in eternity and was in fact made before the foundation of the earth. But that doesn't mean that he is not answering that prayer in response to your prayer, does it? If he answers your prayer then he is in fact responding to something that you are doing. And if you didn't make that prayer, then he wouldn't have answered it, would he?
It's not leap frog. Its eternal reality. God is here. But God is also waiting for us in the future. He is there. He is everywhere.
The Bible is written for human beings to understand and follow. If we had no language, it would be a picture book, telling us the same things -- how to live and what God expects of us.
The greater reality is that God, creator of heaven and earth and all else for all time and beyond, knows EVERYTHING. Always has. All ways; always.
If you blink, He knows it. He fashioned your eyelids; He created the breeze that blows by your face, causing you to squint in the sunlight and BLINK.
If you stifle a sneeze, it isn't because God changed His mind. You were never going to sneeze in the first place.
God bless you (just in case).
Conditional statements can work for illustrative purposes as well as instructive. The verses above readily demonstrate that. The destruction of Sodom occurred hundreds of years before these statements. It was a done deal, and yet Jesus gave a conditional statement regarding something that had no possibility of happening. It was used illustratively.
If I follow your reasoning regarding conditional statements, then I must necessarily believe that it is actually possible for a man to live a completely sinless life. After all, if one perfectly keeps the Law, one has no need for a Savior.
Conditional statements in and of themselves do not comment on a particular individual's ability/inability to meet the condition. They are simple statements of fact.
If the Bible were true and God had decreed all that will happen exactly as it will happen, then there would be no "if-then" statements in the Bible. There would be no implication that IF we do something, such as repent, THEN God will do something, such as save us. Calvinists seem to view the "if" as evidence of the "then" rather than as a condition to the "then". But I do not think that the language of the Bible truly allows for that interpretation.
The IF-THEN statements are clear language that the actions of God in certain circumstances are truly and actually conditioned upon the actions of men where those statements are made.
If God wanted to convey some different fatalistic message, then he would not have used conditional language. That would be dishonest.
Then Jesus was being dishonest. His words there have to be taken literally. If Jesus talked about "ifs" that were not possible, then there could be no "ifs" and Jesus would then have been lying about a possibility that could never have existed.
So in order to believe your interpretation, I would have to believe that Jesus was a liar. Even if it were used illustratively, it had to be taken literally. If it were not a literally true statement, then it would have to be a factually false statement. You can't get around that.
You mouth the words but draw an absurd conclusion.
For whatever reasons God has desired, everything in existence has been detailed to the tiniest nano-particle from before time.
If you pray today, God has ordained that prayer and "answered" it already from before time.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't pray. Prayer is for our benefit, not God's. It's a gift from Him to help us clarify our faith and become closer to Him.
God doesn't send us post-cards or secret vibrations or psychic messages. He gives us prayer, wherein we can speak to Him and He to us.
And all the "if-thens" in the Bible are accurate, from our perspective. But nothing about God is conditional.
There's no "if" in God's vocabulary. There's only "is."
Not so, Marlowe. Conditional statements ARE statements of fact. They show cause and effect. The conditional statement is valid. IF they had seen the miracles, THEN they would have repented. The fact that they did not see the miracles does not therefore invalidate the statement. However, the event has passed. They did not see them, and time would have to be altered for them to see them and repent. Therefore, it is not possible for them to do so.
Marlowe, if gravity suddenly ceased to exist yesterday then you would have flown right off this planet as it spun.
The fact that this has no real possibility of happening does not invalidate the factual conditional statement I just made, nor does it make me a liar for stating it (illustratively I might add). You can't get around that :)
You are talking nonsense here and then you equate Jesus' statement of FACT that IF they had seen the same miracles, THEN they would have repented with your nonsensical statement of natural impossibility. I think you are trivializing what Jesus was saying there.
According to you Calviniststs, the people that Jesus was speaking to had a negative attitude towards the miracles because it was Gods perfect will that they respond negatively to the miracles. According to you Calvinists, the People of Tyre and Sidon were judged because it was God perfect will that they not repent and that they be judged. It was nothing in them, but it was what was in God. Therefore there was no "if" because the "if" that Jesus spoke of was a factual impossibility. That is dishonest. It could not be a true statement under any circumstances.
It is....
....and that reminds me -- I need to ask CCWoody if he has a "big book of OP quotations" saved to disk somewhere. It's not at all uncommon for me to be perusing a thread, begin composing a ludicrously extensive and detailed response to some posting -- and then see CCWoody save me the trouble (usually when I'm about halfway through, natch) by pasting up some old screed of mine from the dusty ages of FreeRepublic Past, thus reminding me: "oh, yeah... I already wrote a book on that subject".
What say, CCWoody? Have you, perchance, an anthology of "Uriel" and "OP" citations you've squirreled away for future reference? If so, FReepMail me for my Email address (you may have it already), I'd like a copy if you have one.
best, OP
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