If God had wanted to elect everyone, He would have.
UNLESS God also has another will that logically would make BOTH "desires" impossible to fulfill completely! "Can God make a rock that He cannot pick up"? Can God save all men if all men are to have free will? In the latter question, we must hold BOTH as true, despite our inability to completely solve this mystery. Refusing one side of the equation is an attempt to rationalize and deify one's own intellect - the heresy of Rationalism. We are not about to go down the road paved by Kant, are we? Remember, the Scriptures are the Word of God, even if we don't understand them fully, we must not deny its dictates - that God desires that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
In the way you seem to be speaking of it, the extra factor (man's free will) is actually the deciding factor in salvation.
This will is maleable by the ever-present graces offered by God - not by our own intellect and desires. Thus, it is incorrect to assume that God has no role to play BECAUSE of man's free will. Quite the opposite. We absolutely require God's sanctifying grace to move our will to please Him.
Free will, in the way you are using the term, cannot be free if God controls.
Free will is not free if there is no choice. When something becomes a necessity, it is not free. Are you making a free will choice when someone puts a gun to your head and tells you to do something? No, your are being coerced.
How in the world does it show love to us for Him to die if it wasn't necessary? And the quote you must be thinking of does not apply. If I said to my wife "I love you honey, I'm doing this for you", and then jumped off a building, would that really be showing love for my wife?
"There is no greater love than this, that a man die for his friends". IF your death was vicarious sacrifice, then it WOULD be an incredible act of self-giving. Surely, you are aware by now that love = giving of yourself?
If Jesus didn't HAVE to die to save us, then He committed blind suicide. I conclude that Christ gave His life FOR us because it was the only way.
Tsk, tsk. You make God the Father out to be a blood-thirsty tyrant, rather than a loving Father. Christ obeyed the Father's Will to the end. You call Christ's death suicide, but it is ultimate trust in His Father's love.
I would still say it was one purpose of them. I'll borrow one of your own types of arguments and ask why would God give a set of Commandments He knew no one could keep to His standards?
Laws are meant to be kept - regardless of another's evil intent on breaking them. Society sets moral standards that are meant to be followed for the good of all. And yet, people break those laws. Hmm, let's just get rid of the legislative branch of the government...
A major reason must have been to show us this was not the way to heaven.
I just finished reading the first 35 verses of Psalm 119. I don't find your concept of the Law in Scriptures, but rather see the Law as a great gift given to man...
It is immaterial if it is categorized as a side effect of men or not, it exists, God is in full control, so He willed it.
I think it would be more proper to say that sin is NOT an existence, but a lack of an existence, namely, good. Thus, God did not create on non-existence. At least that is the concept that the Greek and Latin Fathers have taught from 1500-1700 years ago. Again, we are probably dealing with varying "will's" or "desires" of God.
If God sees that a man will choose 'A', then God will choose 'B'. If God really was in control, He would choose 'B' independently and then make sure that 'A' would make the corresponding "choice".
Or we can say that God foresees what it would take for a man to choose "A" and place the correct circumstances in man's path to choose "A".
NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE on our side has ever said that a regenerated man can only choose good.
I was quoting Harley at the time. I'd have to search to find that exact post. Perhaps you can mail him and ask for a clarification.
We would say that on the side of "good" choices, that man does not have the capability to make them independently of God.
There are differences between "morally good deeds" and "God pleasing deeds". They are sometimes mutually exclusive - such as the Pharisees and their "morally good deeds". Man doesn't necessarily need God to do "morally good deeds", but to perform ONE good and salutary act worthwhile and meritorious in God's eyes absolutely requires God's graces. "For without me, you can do nothing good".
Your side disagrees, and says that man IS "good" enough to make good choices, with help BUT STILL, independently of God (wounded vs. total depravity). Where is each side placing its faith concerning salvation?
This is a perfect example of the caricature of the Catholic position I have described in the introduction of this post. See my immediately preceding response for clarification.
The second you say "plan accordingly", whether outside of time or not, that means God is dependent because God's plan would have been different BUT FOR man's decisions. The only way out would be to say that God's plan is not implemented in full because man's decisions necessarily deviate from what God would have planned had He been in control. (You said that God only gives us the tools to do what He wants, but of course, that doesn't always work out, so therefore the plan God would have made without man's input is thwarted.)
I am pressed for time, so I will try to answer this quickly. Forgive me if it is not precise. God has a particular will for man. How man and God interact, I must humbly say this is a mystery of faith that man's rational thought will never grasp upon. Any system that attempts to explain how God and man interact is bound to run into difficulties in explanation. What is important is that we do not ignore parts of the faith so as to rationalize it. And that is what I see happening by denying man's activity or denying that God does not desire all men to be saved because it doesn't place God in a box of one's intellect...
Regards
I know that you believe nothing happens without God's help or without God offering. I still do not know how you use the word "cooperation". Are there any human examples that would describe what you mean? Let's say my boss thought to himself (ordained) that he was going to have me complete a task. He then orders me to do it and I comply (unconditional election). Assume it would never have occurred to me to complete the task, had I not been ordered to. If you say that I cooperated in a loosely similar manner to salvation, then I would say fine. But I don't think you look at it this way. :)
"Can God make a rock that He cannot pick up"? Can God save all men if all men are to have free will? In the latter question, we must hold BOTH as true, despite our inability to completely solve this mystery.
The answer to the first question is "No". God's omnipotence does not mean He can do anything conceivable, it means He can do anything within the bounds of His nature. In a similar way, God cannot cease to exist, and God cannot sin. To create such a rock would be to create something bigger than Himself. This is impossible because it goes against His nature, that of being infinite.
Likewise, the answer to the second question is also "No". God cannot save all men, if all men are to have free will in the Catholic sense, as I understand it. If man's free will inevitably leads away from God, and God is not in total control of salvation, God needs cooperation, then there is no way God could save all men. That is, if God's nature were really like this. Of course I do not think it is.
Free will is not free if there is no choice. When something becomes a necessity, it is not free. Are you making a free will choice when someone puts a gun to your head and tells you to do something? No, your are being coerced.
This is what I thought your view was. That's why I keep saying I think the salvation decision, under your view, is made independently of God. I don't mean in opposition to God, but rather separately from God. I see God as accomplishing our own salvations through us. I know you don't see it that way. I see your view being that man finishes his own salvation through his free will, independent of God, i.e., not coerced. BTW, I don't think coercion only works in the negative sense. Coercion could also be God opening our eyes to a "decision" which is really no decision at all.
"There is no greater love than this, that a man die for his friends".
This is the quote I said didn't apply. :) In my example, there was no reason for me to jump, it wasn't necessary. Therefore, it couldn't be an act of love. That's why I disagree with you when you say that Christ died unnecessarily and it was still an act of love from Him. If it was unnecessary, then it was suicide, a sin.
You make God the Father out to be a blood-thirsty tyrant, rather than a loving Father. Christ obeyed the Father's Will to the end. You call Christ's death suicide, but it is ultimate trust in His Father's love.
You're not at all addressing the issue of necessity. That's the only thing I have been talking about.
I think it would be more proper to say that sin is NOT an existence, but a lack of an existence, namely, good. Thus, God did not create on non-existence. At least that is the concept that the Greek and Latin Fathers have taught from 1500-1700 years ago.
I actually fully agree with you that evil is an absence of God, like dark is an absence of light, so you are right. However, I'm not so sure the Orthodox see it that way. I seem to remember a few posts to the effect that evil was an actual "thing" that exists independently of good, but I can't remember who said it, so... :)
Or we can say that God foresees what it would take for a man to choose "A" and place the correct circumstances in man's path to choose "A".
If the correct circumstances guaranteed the result, then we might be on the same page. But I don't think you are willing to go there. :)
jokus-UNLESS God also has another will that logically would make BOTH "desires" impossible to fulfill completely! "Can God make a rock that He cannot pick up"? Can God save all men if all men are to have free will?
"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." Rom 9:22
Not only are there the elect which God has foreknown before the foundation of the world but God purposely passes over others. While I know you don't believe in double predestination, the scriptures plainly state there are those who God has purposely created for destruction.
I don't really want to get into the fine points of this. It should be recognize that even Calvinists debate the order of salvation. However, simply because God knew that some of His creation would not come to Him and that He created hell for their destruction, logically implies that He knew and destined their fate.
jokus-"Tsk, tsk. You make God the Father out to be a blood-thirsty tyrant"
jokus-"I was quoting Harley at the time. I'd have to search to find that exact post."
Unregenerated man is in bondage. He can do nothing that is pleasing to God simply because anything pleasing to God must be done by faith. Unregenerated man does not have faith. That doesn't mean that unregenerated man can't do some morally "good" things. It simple means that unregenerate man cannot do anything pleasing to God. God must give unregenerate man faith.
God regenerate man by giving him faith. Regenerated man can/cannot do things that are pleasing to God. Because man is regenerated there will be some things that man will do that will please God. There will be other things that regenerate man will do that is sinful. For these things God will chastise regenerate man for his own benefit to bring man around.
You would like to say that God gives man faith so that he can make a choice but this is nonsense. If man had faith then man would be regenerated now wouldn't he? By definition of "faith", he would do at least one pleasing thing to God-to believe on the one whom He sent.