Calvinists often seem to enjoy emphasizing the sovereign power of God but then feign ignorance when it comes to Creation. God created us. We did not ask for creation. We did not participate in our own making. God did that. And if God not only knew but indeed decided a priori that some, indeed most, of His creation would be damned to Hell, then God "caused" them to deny Him. You cannot dance around this. You can attempt to negate it or play word games with it, but in the end, you have a sovereign God who causes EVERYTHING, including the rejection of Himself.
Who's dancing around it or feigning ignorance of His creation, 808b?
Romans 9:19-24 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use, and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And he did so in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles...
Yup.
Calvinists often seem to enjoy emphasizing the sovereign power of God but then feign ignorance when it comes to Creation.I'd like to see documentation of the last claim. As an unashamed monergist, I have not seen any of the authors supporting this position "feign ignorance" on creation. Can you provide citations?
But the opposite point of view is absurd. It has God being subservient to man; God waiting blindly on man; and God not really knowing what man will do next.
You can try to say God knows a person's choices beforehand, and so He knows ahead of time who "deserves" salvation, but that's simply playing word games with God's omniscience. Like tempting the Mods. 8~)
If He's God, He knows everything.
If He's God, He created everything.
If He's God, He can do anything.
And since He's God, if he chooses to permit a man to jump off the railroad platform, and allows the train to continue down the tracks until it hits the man and and splatters his vital bodily fluids all over the mud, even though that man jumped in front of the train on his own, God still did nothing to prevent it.
He could have; but He didn't. So in the great scheme of things, that man met his sad fate among the weeds and cinders. What will be (through the grace and mercy of God alone), will be.
This is not fatalistic, but realistic within the knowledge God has given us about Himself, about the God of Genesis, Exodus, Job, Mark, Romans.
Its like Harley said. Reading the Bible, viewing life, considering alternatives, all from the starting point of God's complete sovereignty, changes everything...for the better.
I offered this to another friend. Live like a Calvinist for one day. (Please, spare us the jokes.) Every step you take, believe that God is lighting your path. Every act you undertake, believe God is guiding your hands. Every struggle you endure, trust that God has given it to you for your growth and His pleasure. And do all this believing every breath you take for 24 hours has been ordained by God to accomplish exactly His will.
Fifty-seven Calvinists on Free Republic will wager that you will feel happier. You will accomplish more. You will be more loving to your family and more gracious to strangers. You will sleep better at night, knowing that God, out of His infinite love for you, has given you a gift more precious than gold.
And here's the best part. This spectacular gift, this wondrous peace, is available to all. Everyone. All over the world. For all time.
And you will know them by their walk.
You can't really blame non-reformed too much. Centuries of denying God's sovereignty in order to maintain human control over other men produces lots of mischief, not the least of which is that man can actually presume to stand up and say to God, "Oh, yeah? Make me."
He always does.
God doesn't cause the rejection of Himself. Mankind is already destined for Hell. God elects His chosen and it is God who RESCUES His chosen from Hell. A vast difference in perspective.
The correct question you should really pose is; “Why doesn’t God save everyone from Hell?” But this would be no different then me asking you, "Why doesn't God allow everyone to 'hear the Word'"? From your perspective you are saying that God created an imperfect system of salvation.
All any of us can say is that is God’s sovereignty.
We often speak of the sovereignty of God at creation.
And if God not only knew but indeed decided a priori that some, indeed most, of His creation would be damned to Hell, then God "caused" them to deny Him. You cannot dance around this. You can attempt to negate it or play word games with it, but in the end, you have a sovereign God who causes EVERYTHING, including the rejection of Himself
No , God takes nothing away from the unsaved , they make exactly the free will choice that they prefer.
God adds to the will of elect the desire and ability to repent and believe, by breaking the bondage of the will.
Men will always choose what they prefer, and unregenerate men will never prefer to have Jesus as their Lord.