The issue is that the 'miracles' could not do anything on a dead man (as Calvin defines him). He would have to be regenerated before the miracles could be received.
That is your dogma,not mine. Now, the passage says the miracles would have moved these people to respond-that is all.
The fact that the Lord brought up the issue that they would have repented shows that the decision was theirs in rejecting what was offered to them at first, and it would have been theirs had those miracles been done. Free will is all over that passage. Hey, ftD, for the sake of discussion, I am willing to grant you all of this. You know why? Because you have made an admission which you cannot escape, and that is that there is still no way around the fact that God absolutely pre-determined by His prior, sovereign Choice just exactly what Tyre and Sidon's free will decisions would be. Thus, your statement becomes: The fact that the Lord brought up the issue that they would have repented shows that the decision was theirs in rejecting what was offered to them at first, and it would have been theirs had those miracles been done, and God pre-determined from before Time that their free-will decision was going to be to NOT Repent and be Damned, by His decision that He would NOT perform the action of Grace (a display of miracles) which He knew would predestine them to freely-will repentance. As such, God's absolute predestination pre-determined that their decision would be to NOT Repent. I can, for the sake of discussion, grant you every point you've made.
Thank you, but I will make my own statements. Here is the Biblical way to look at it. God foreknew that those cities would reject of their own free will God's free offer of grace (as seen in Sodom). That becomes part of God's Plan, He let them go their own way, honoring their choice.
The rebuke to the Jews is for their decision in freely rejecting God's greater grace (miracles). The Jews actions were also foreseen and therefore part of God's Plan, yet not part of God's directive will, but permissive will.
How does that sound?
And you still cannot escape Absolute Predestination in Matthew 11. The words of Christ bind you to acknowledge Absolute Predestination; though you rage against them still, you cannot escape them, hard as you try.
No? I just did
Your admissions thus far have already annihilated your objections against the reality of Absolute sovereign Predestination, and you know it well; and now I shall never let you escape that fact. "I am constant as the northern star, Of whose true-fix'd and resting qualities there is no fellow in the firmament".
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes(Pr.12:15)
I assert that Man's Will is not subjected to Force which compels him to do evil; rather, he Wants to do evil, and so he freely wills to do evil.
But, if you want to say that Romans 7:24 teaches that Man's Will is compelled to evil by the flesh, I'll grant the point for the sake of discussion -- as it forces you to an even harsher view of Man's Depravity against God, that of Martin Luther's "Bondage of the Will" rather than John Calvin's position of freedom within the context of depravity. So, if you want to say that Romans 7:24 teaches that Man's Will is compelled to evil by the flesh, I am willing to grant the point for argument's sake.
Thank you, but I will make my own statements. Here is the Biblical way to look at it. God foreknew that those cities would reject of their own free will God's free offer of grace (as seen in Sodom). That becomes part of God's Plan, He let them go their own way, honoring their choice.
And God foreknew that they would of their own free will Repent and accept God if He performed the salvific miracles before them. Remember that before Time, no "choice" of their had yet been made, so their was no "choice" of theirs to honor -- simply the foreknowledge of the different choices which they would make given different elections of grace, either of which Election of Grace the omnipotent God could freely choose to include in His plan, with the knowledge that His own election of Grace would create the conditions under which they would choose one thing, or the other. So whichever foreknown creative scenario God saw fit to create, He would be honoring their choice, because whichever choice they would make (repent or not repent) would necessarily be the dependent result of His prior election as to grace. After all, if God had seen fit to perform miracles, and they had (as He foreknew they would) Repented, He would have honored that Choice too, would He not? And neither choice was predestined to happen until He decided which foreknown creative scenario He was going to create.
The rebuke to the Jews is for their decision in freely rejecting God's greater grace (miracles). The Jews actions were also foreseen and therefore part of God's Plan, yet not part of God's directive will, but permissive will. How does that sound?
It sounds as if you have inappropriately placed a Choice of Man before God's choice to create. Obviously, you cannot do that. Before God decided which foreknown scenario He was going to create, there was no "choice" to "respect" -- neither choice had happened, and neither choice was predestined to happen, until after God decided what His own actions would be. When He decided he would perform no salvific miracles in Tyre and Sidon, THEN their foreknown choice to Not Repent became the predestined choice, and God respected that choice. But, if He HAD decided to perform the salvific miracles, THEN their foreknown choice to Repent would be the predestined choice, and God would have respected that choice.
But neither choice existed in fact until after He had determined whether or not He would perform miracles, so there was no choice to "respect" until after God had decided which foreknown scenario He would create.
You haven't evaded Absolute Predestination in the passage at all, merely tried to place the contingent and dependent choice of a Creature before the antecedent and precedent Creative choice of the Creator. But that is not possible for a Creationist.
Your argument is akin to saying God knew Man was predestined to choose to Fall before He created the universe, and God "respected" that "choice". But there was no "choice" of Man to respect at that point in time, only the foreknown potentiality that Man would Fall -- IF God decided to create the universe and IF God decided to create Man and IF God decided to place the Tree in the Garden. God was not forced to do any of these things; He could have not created the universe, or not created man, or not created the Tree in the Garden.
Thus, It was God's sovereign choice to create the conditions in which Man would Fall; He was under no obligation to create Man at all, and He could have freely chosen to create different conditions (i.e., no Tree in the Garden, etc) under which Man would not Fall. Likewise, it was God's sovereign choice to create the conditions in which Tyre and Sidon would Not Repent; He was under no obligation to create the Tyrians and Sidonians at all, and He could have freely chosen to create different conditions (i.e., ordained salvific miracles, etc) under which the Tyrians and Sidonians would Repent. To deny this, is to pretend that the choices of Men precede the Creation choices of God -- which is the worst kind of idolatry.
And thus, His free choices absolutely predestined their choices in all cases.
Run as fast as you like, yet the words of Christ bind you to acknowledge Absolute Predestination; though you rage against them still, you cannot escape them, hard as you try.