[thePilgrim]

John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion
Book III, Chapter 23

I admit, is, dreadful; and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknow what the end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, because he had so ordained by his decree. Should any one here inveigh against the prescience of God, he does it rashly and unadvisedly. For why, pray, should it be made a charge against the heavenly Judge, that he was not ignorant of what was to happen? Thus, if there is any just or plausible complaint, it must be directed against predestination. Nor ought it to seem absurd when I say, that God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity; but also at his own pleasure arranged it. For as it belongs to his wisdom to foreknow all future events, so it belongs to his power to rule and govern them by his hand. This question, like others, is skillfully explained by Augustine: "Let us confess with the greatest benefit, what we believe with the greatest truth, that the God and Lord of all things who made all things very good, both foreknow that evil was to arise out of good, and knew that it belonged to his most omnipotent goodness to bring good out of evil, rather than not permit evil to be, and so ordained the life of angels and men as to show in it, first, what free-will could do; and, secondly, what the benefit of his grace and his righteous judgment could do," (August. Enchir. ad Laurent.)

[thePilgrim]

I thought a few of you might be interested in this topic.

BTW, in skimming through the Finney site, where I found this book, I noticed a section that contains terms as Finney defined, or redefined, to suit his pleasure. At least now I know one reason why, when trying to read Finney, he sounded like a complete doctrinal idiot; we weren't even talking the same theological language.

Your brother,
Christian.

[maestro]

CALVINISM MAKES GOD THE AUTHOR OF SIN

Sin Makes Gnosticism the Author of God

/sarcasm

[stuartcr]

Augustine assumes that God made all things very good....perhaps his assumption is incorrect.

[ksen]

Thanks for this topic Pilgrim. As a relatively new Calvinist I'm still finding new aspects of the theology that I wasn't aware of and am trying to see where my views fit within it.

I believe if pressed that I would consider myself an Infralapsarian. Which as far as I can tell has things fall in this order:

• Create
• Permit Fall
• Elect some, pass over the rest
• Provide salvation for Elect
• Call Elect to Salvation

In writing out that list (from here) I wonder how that fits with the Scriptures that say we were Elect before the foundation of the world?

[UsnDadof8]

Bump for my new name