Posted on 05/21/2008 9:18:30 AM PDT by Ottofire
April 20, 2002
These ten points are my personal testimony to the effects of believing in the five points of Calvinism. I have just completed teaching a seminar on this topic and was asked by the class members to post these reflections so they could have access to them. I am happy to do so. They, of course, assume the content of the course, which is available online from Desiring God Ministries, but I will write them here in the hope that they might stir others to search, Berean-like, to see if the Bible teaches what I call "Calvinism."
1. These truths make me stand in awe of God and lead me into the depth of true God-centered worship.
I recall the time I first saw, while teaching Ephesians at Bethel College in the late '70's, the threefold statement of the goal of all God's work, namely, "to the praise of the glory of his grace" (Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14).
It has led me to see that we cannot enrich God and that therefore his glory shines most brightly not when we try to meet his needs but when we are satisfied in him as the essence of our deeds. "From him and through him and to him are all things. To him the glory forever" (Romans 11:36). Worship becomes an end in itself.
It has made me feel how low and inadequate are my affections, so that the Psalms of longing come alive and make worship intense.
2. These truths help protect me from trifling with divine things.
One of the curses of our culture is banality, cuteness, cleverness. Television is the main sustainer of our addiction to superficiality and triviality.
God is swept into this. Hence the trifling with divine things.
Earnestness is not excessive in our day. It might have been once. And, yes, there are imbalances in certain people today who don't seem to be able to relax and talk about the weather.
Robertson Nicole said of Spurgeon, "Evangelism of the humorous type [we might say, church growth of the marketing type] may attract multitudes, but it lays the soul in ashes and destroys the very germs of religion. Mr. Spurgeon is often thought by those who do not know his sermons to have been a humorous preacher. As a matter of fact there was no preacher whose tone was more uniformly earnest, reverent and solemn" (Quoted in The Supremacy of God in Preaching, p. 57).
3. These truths make me marvel at my own salvation.
After laying out the great, God-wrought salvation in Ephesians 1, Paul prays, in the last part of that chapter, that the effect of that theology will be the enlightenment of our hearts so that we marvel at our hope, and at the riches of the glory of our inheritance, and at the power of God at work in us – that is, the power to raise the dead.
Every ground of boasting is removed. Brokenhearted joy and gratitude abound.
The piety of Jonathan Edwards begins to grow. When God has given us a taste of his own majesty and our own wickedness, then the Christian life becomes a thing very different than conventional piety. Edwards describes it beautifully when he says,
The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires: their hope is a humble hope, and their joy, even when it is unspeakable, and full of glory, is humble, brokenhearted joy, and leaves the Christian more poor in spirit, and more like a little child, and more disposed to a universal lowliness of behavior (Religious Affections, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959, pp. 339f).
4. These truths make me alert to man-centered substitutes that pose as good news.
In my book, The Pleasures of God (2000), pp. 144-145, I show that in the 18th century in New England the slide from the sovereignty of God led to Arminianism and thence to universalism and thence to Unitarianism. The same thing happened in England in the 19thcentury after Spurgeon.
Iain Murray's Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1987), p. 454, documents the same thing: "Calvinistic convictions waned in North America. In the progress of the decline which Edwards had rightly anticipated, those Congregational churches of New England which had embraced Arminianism after the Great Awakening gradually moved into Unitarianism and universalism, led by Charles Chauncy."
You can also read in J. I. Packer's Quest for Godliness (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), p. 160, how Richard Baxter forsook these teachings and how the following generations reaped a grim harvest in the Baxter church in Kidderminster.
These doctrines are a bulwark against man-centered teachings in many forms that gradually corrupt the church and make her weak from the inside, all the while looking strong or popular.
1 Timothy 3:15, "The church of the living God [is] the pillar and bulwark of the truth."
5. These truths make me groan over the indescribable disease of our secular, God-belittling culture.
I can hardly read the newspaper or look at a TV ad or a billboard without feeling the burden that God is missing.
When God is the main reality in the universe and is treated as a non-reality, I tremble at the wrath that is being stored up. I am able to be shocked. So many Christians are sedated with the same drug as the world. But these teachings are a great antidote.
And I pray for awakening and revival.
And I try to preach to create a people that are so God-saturated that they will show and tell God everywhere and all the time.
We exist to reassert the reality of God and the supremacy of God in all of life.
6. These truths make me confident that the work which God planned and began, he will finish – both globally and personally.
This is the point of Romans 8:28-39.
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died- more than that, who was raised- who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
7. These truths make me see everything in the light of God's sovereign purposes – that from him and through him and to him are all things, to him be glory forever and ever.
All of life relates to God. There's no compartment where he is not all-important and the one who gives meaning to everything. 1 Corinthians 10:31.
Seeing God's sovereign purpose worked out in Scripture, and hearing Paul say that "he accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will" (Ephesians 1:11) makes me see the world this way.
8. These truths make me hopeful that God has the will, the right, and the power to answer prayer that people be changed.
The warrant for prayer is that God may break in and change things – including the human heart. He can turn the will around. "Hallowed be thy name" means: cause people to hallow your name. "May your word run and be glorified" means: cause hearts to be opened to the gospel.
We should take the New Covenant promises and plead with God to bring them to pass in our children and in our neighbors and among all the mission fields of the world.
"God, take out of their flesh the heart of stone and give him a new heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 11:19).
"Lord, circumcise their hearts so that they love you" (Deuteronomy 30:6).
"Father, put your spirit within them and cause them to walk in Your statutes" (Ezekiel 36:27).
"Lord, grant them repentance and the knowledge of the truth that they may escape from the snare of the devil" (2 Timothy 2:25-26).
"Father, open their hearts so that they believe the gospel" (Acts 16:14).
9. These truths reminds me that evangelism is absolutely essential for people to come to Christ and be saved, and that there is great hope for success in leading people to faith, but that conversion is not finally dependent on me or limited by the hardness of the unbeliever.
So it gives hope to evangelism, especially in the hard places and among the hard peoples.
John 10:16, "I have other sheep that are not of this fold, I must bring them also. They will heed my voice."
It is God's work. Throw yourself into it with abandon.
10. These truths make me sure that God will triumph in the end.
Isaiah 46:9-10, "I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, "My counsel shall stand that I will accomplish all my purpose'"
Putting them altogether: God gets the glory and we get the joy.
© Desiring God
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Desiring God. Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org
No, but everything He does is to vindicate His Name (Ezk. 36:32-38), that is, His reputation. Calvinism slanders God's Name by saying that He takes pleasure in damning the majority of souls to Hell when He could simply elect everyone. A Biblical theology--one not cherry-picked from a few passages in Paul's writings--exalts God's Name by showing His full justice and mercy: Justice, because we have a valid choice and are perfectly capable of choosing to respond to His "surrender terms," and mercy that He offered those terms to we rebels at all when He didn't have to and we didn't deserve them.
There is no right or wrong above God. Whatever God does is by definition right.
Ah. Might makes right, eh?
When Yeshua comes on the white horse, Rev. 19:16 says, "And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, 'KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.'" The white robes splattered with blood represent His righteous deeds and righteous judgment (Rev. 19:8, Isa. 63:1ff) while the thigh is the place people use to put their hands when swearing an oath (Gen. 24:2ff).
In other words, Yeshua predicates His Kingship not on mere power, but on His righteous deeds, His righteous judgment, and the fact that He keeps all of His promises.
One of those promises is that He does not want the wicked to perish, but to come to repentance. So why don't they? Is it His inability? Or is it because He has sovereignly decided to give all men a choice so that He will be just to condemn those who refuse to accept His surrender terms?
God can (and has) kill thousands and that is right.
God has and will kill when it is right. Which is not to say that there is another giving God a law to follow, just that rightness is an integral part of His nature that is not as capricious as you've made it out to be.
He can (and has) change a human's heart so the human acts against God.
Yes He has. How many times did Pharaoh harden his own heart before God hardened it as punishment? How many times did Israel reject Yeshua before He pronounced the sentence of blindness?
God hardens hearts as judicial punishment, not capriciously.
God can (and has) choose one nation to favor over another.
That would be an election of purpose, not salvation, like choosing one man to be a pastor but not another. Don't confuse the two.
His work on the cross is a difficult and reluctant gift to a creation that had no right to it, and is inclined to refuse it.
Reluctant?
Whatever part we may play in the acceptance of God's work cannot be de-emphasized enough.
So you admit there's a part for us to play.
Again, do you think that if your house were about to be foreclosed, you would boast of the "part" you played in accepting the check of a former enemy who offered to pay off the mortgage for you? Hardly--but you would still say that you accepted the check, not as boasting, but as simple acknowledgment of fact.
Shalom!
God does as He chooses and it is not up to us to pass judgment on God. Our moral sense of right and wrong were corrupted by the fruit. Plus, we have no idea what sacrifices God would have to make by electing everyone. Is it harder to elect certain people? Would the process destroy our free will? Would it make us incapable of love? Only God knows.
Ah. Might makes right, eh?
Not might. The creator of right and wrong is the ultimate authority of right and wrong. Being the ultimate authority means that there is no moral authority above God by which we may judge Him.
One of those promises is that He does not want the wicked to perish, but to come to repentance. So why don't they? Is it His inability? Or is it because He has sovereignly decided to give all men a choice so that He will be just to condemn those who refuse to accept His surrender terms?
The point I'm making is that we cannot know, because God is wildly beyond us. He decides who is saved. He sets the terms. He acts on our behalf and through us so that we may be saved and save others. The point in Calvinism's favor is that we can claim no credit. We do because of God, and the results are because of God.
God has and will kill when it is right.
How do you know that that time it is right, and another time it is wrong? God created morality and gave us our sense of right and wrong. It was corrupted by the fruit, but you obviously have been restored by the Holy Spirit to make that claim. Saying that God does something because it is right or something is right because God does it is meaningless proof by identity. If a foot-long ruler measures something a foot long, was it a foot long because of the ruler?
Yes He has. How many times did Pharaoh harden his own heart before God hardened it as punishment? How many times did Israel reject Yeshua before He pronounced the sentence of blindness?
Allowing human choice before hardening or softening hearts just speaks to God's extreme mercy. The point is that He did it.
Reluctant?
Matt 26:39-44
So you admit there's a part for us to play.
I am not a Calvinist, but I believe it to be as functionally accurate of a theology that people can grasp. I believe fully that God elects us, and fully that we choose, and that there is no contradiction between the two. For the purposes of theological correctness, it is more important to stress God's sovereignty than the philosophical minefield of the exploration of free will.
Again, do you think that if your house were about to be foreclosed, you would boast of the "part" you played in accepting the check of a former enemy who offered to pay off the mortgage for you? Hardly--but you would still say that you accepted the check, not as boasting, but as simple acknowledgment of fact.
I think the analogy is flawed. There are potentially three (or more) people involved in salvation. God, the sinner, and the evangelist(s). Calvinism speaks far more to the evangelists than to the sinner. The sinner saved is grateful, but the successful evangelist is easily boastful.
Great post.
A calvinist bump back to you, but they won’t let me in the club because I’m a calvinist/arminian oddball. But they still like me. :>)
I say that mankind is not "totally depraved". Once one dispenses with that bit of silliness, the answer is pretty obvious. Having been originally made in God's image ... even if since warped by the Fall ... we are capable of recognizing and desiring the good, even if we cannot always do it. That desire is the doorway to repentence.
To say we have a role in the process is like saying that Lazurus had a role in walking out of his tomb when Jesus called him forth.
Hardly. If you want comparable stories, look to the parable of the prodigal son, or the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
The dynamic is especially clear in the story from Luke:
And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" And Jesus answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." (Luke 5:29-32)
Jesus calls ... and sinners have to respond.
"10As it is written:
"There is no one righteous, not even one;
11there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
12All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one."
Romans 3:10-12"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him."
John 6:44"I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me."
Romans 10:20
The dynamic is especially clear in the story from Luke:...
Jesus calls and sinners have to respond.
He said, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." Does the account of the self-righteous Pharisees and the tax collectors and sinners, and the call to repentence somehow negate the truth that no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him?
The sequence or order of the dynamic is clear from Paul in Ephesians. What does he say about your desires when you were DEAD in your trespasses and sin?
1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2
I don't see a lot of "desiring the good" mentioned in there, but I do see the sequence of the Workman's plan.
If you had just said that your desire to repent came in the first place from God, I would have let it be.
"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him."
Cordially,
To see why there's a "two-party" aspect to the matter, it's probably easier to see it by looking at sin, rather than the repentence that follows it.
One of the primary difficulties with the "total depravity" approach (and TULIP in general) is that it logically leads to the absurd position that sin is God's will. Here's why.
First of all, the Bible is absolutely clear on the existence of sin, just as the Bible (including the NT) is absolutely clear on the fact that we will be held responsible for our sins. Sin is something we do that is contrary to God's will. One can plausibly argue that "total depravity" absolves us of all responsibility for sin, for the same reason one can be "not guilty by reason of insanity." And if we're not responsible, we cannot legitimately be said to commit sins at all. But there's a more compelling argument.
The idea of "total depravity" necessarily must deny the possibility of any free-will choice. The whole idea of free will is that, whether by choice or incapacity, God does not control at least some of what we do. Given free will, we would have the ability to freely choose to repent, for example; or to act righteously at least some of the time. This is contrary to the "God only" theology behind the principle of total depravity. So the whole concept of free will must go.
From what I can tell, the "Calvinist" argument against free will hinges on the assumption that the presence of free will represents an unacceptable (and impossible) diminution of God's sovereign power. I have not seen a satisfactory explanation of why God cannot simply choose to allow us to make our own choices (and deal with the consequences); but for some reason, Calvinists seem to reject that option. I believe it has to do with a particular way of understanding how things look from God's eternal viewpoint -- which is unjustifiable, because an "eternal viewpoint" is literally unimaginable to us. We can perhaps approach it by analogy, but no analogy can properly deal with the reality. IMO, if you look deeply enough into "TULIP Calvinism," you'll find a flawed analogy that has been substituted for God's eternal view.
Back to the topic, consider Adam, whose original sin was that he disobeyed God by eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Having eaten the fruit, Adam and Eve knew the difference between good and evil -- only two chapters in, and "total depravity" is already in trouble.... they knew the good, not just the evil.)
I think there are three possible explanations for the Fall: 1) it was God's will for Adam to disobey; 2) Adam was totally depraved and had no choice but to disobey; or 3) it was in some sense a "partnership" between God and Adam, and Adam screwed up.
Now, it's not justified to say that Adam was "totally depraved" from the time God made him; for one thing, Adam was made in God's image -- and God is not "totally depraved." If we dispense with the "total depravity" defense, we must therefore explain Adam's sin on one of the other two bases.
It likewise makes no sense to suggest that it was God's will that Adam should disobey Him. Adam would have been in the strange position of "obeying by disobeying," or "disobeying by obeying." Moreover, this would be a situation where it was God's will that Adam should commit a sin; and if sin comprises going against God's will, this is either absurd; or it suggests that, far from His being all good, we have a rather depraved sort of God. And then again, if God's punishment for the Fall was to make mankind "totally depraved," then again we're left with the conclusion that sin is God's will.
Which leaves us with the final option -- that of a partnership. If it was not God's will that Adam sinned, original sin must have been an expression Adam's will, which was somehow independent of God's will. In this scenario God would have given Adam and Eve a choice, to use or abuse. Now, they obviously chose to abuse their choice; but they could likewise have chosen to do the right thing ... at least for a time, anyway, and perhaps forever.
The post-Eden story tells us of a number of folks who were capable of choosing correctly, at times anyway, including Abel, Enoch (who "walked with God"), Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and even Lot; and further down the line we have Moses (who let his own will supplant God's, and was therefore barred from the Promised Land), and Elijah. The Old Testament clearly shows an element of choice in the relationship between man and God.
To sum up, then, the existence of sin implies choice; and the existence of choice implies the ability to choose to sin or to behave according to God's will. And given the ability to choose ... "total depravity" cannot stand as a general description of mankind.
It does not mean that God plays no role -- He can still (as per John) draw us toward him; but it does mean we (like the Prodigal Son) have a decision to make. We can follow God's lead or, like a mule, refuse to be drawn. God can choose to honor our decision, or not. And he isn't required to give up trying, either.
The parable of the Prodigal Son is crucial in this regard: the Father did not go out to collect his son; instead, once the son had decided to repent and return, the Father welcomed his son back into the fold. The son remembered -- was drawn by -- the life he had left; but he had to decide to humble himself to return to his father's home.
Is God's motive that we are always and completely sinless? Is there a reason why the lost sheep that returns brings more joy to God than the sheep that stay? Is there something about sin that is important to our relationship with God? It is entirely possible that sin in general is God's will for a greater purpose than our salvation. It is also possible that specific sin is our responsibility even though the overarching purpose of our being includes a tiny period of sin.
The idea of "total depravity" necessarily must deny the possibility of any free-will choice.
God knowing what we will do before we do it must also deny the possibility of free will too. But objections to infractions on "free-will" is not about choice, but about responsibility and authority. If we have taken authority over our own actions, and they have not been completely usurped, then we must have responsibility even if we couldn't help it because of our very nature.
To put it another way, our "free-will" with respect to God contains only the meaning and responsibility that God decides. We are beings of limited knowledge, stuck in time and space, with even more limited mental faculties. God is so much greater that He obliterates anything objective. Everything is subject to God, even our "free-will". In the end, our ability to sin is God's decision as much as it is our ability to be saved.
What do we do about this practically? Fall at God's mercy and be joyful that we aren't snuffed out of existence as God has all the right and authority to do. Be grateful that He would sacrifice Himself out of no obligation to us--only His own love. Attempting to understand our nature with respect to God is foolish because God is unknowable in ways that are important to the answer. We are only left with God's own word and to trust that.
I think there are three possible explanations for the Fall: 1) it was God's will for Adam to disobey; 2) Adam was totally depraved and had no choice but to disobey; or 3) it was in some sense a "partnership" between God and Adam, and Adam screwed up.
You missed a few possibilities. It could be that Adam was not depraved, but simple enough to be tricked. It also could be that God always wanted Adam to eat the fruit, but at a later time. It could be that if both Adam and Eve had not eaten the fruit, that God would have restored or destroyed the one who ate, and continue to keep the unblemished humanity alive. It could be that God planned to have Adam and Eve disobey specifically for the purpose of humanity's redemption in Jesus because it allows for better relationship.
Adam would have been in the strange position of "obeying by disobeying," or "disobeying by obeying."
You're still equating God to man here. It's problematic to your theological musings. Stop it :-). God may well will for something that he tells a human not to do. It does not change that the human disobeying God's command is disobedience, even if God wished secretly for the human to disobey. Would that be deceitful? Would that be a lie? Morally wrong? Of course not! It is God. He does what He wishes and we are in no position to judge. In fact, there is no one in position to judge, and God gave us our moral sense, so to judge God is meaningless.
To get a little scientific, there is a point in time called Planck time, 10-43 seconds after the Big Bang. There is no time before this. Time itself stops there, but not just time. Space does too--and not just our sense of space or the matter that is in space, but the very laws of physics that make space possible. Before Planck time, God is. In fact "before" is a ridiculous term because to create time, God must be greater than time--and space since the two are intertwined. To imagine the world where God exists is to attempt to imagine a place where "place" and "time" is a small part that can be created or destroyed at will. It is unknowable where God is, and unknowable what God is, and it is unknowable what God thinks. God is the ultimate exception, and many seemingly contradictory statements are perfectly fine with respect to God--because they are ultimately limited to our space, our time, and our authority.
This is what I was talking about when I expressed the belief that Calvinists rely on a flawed analogy of what Eternity looks like from God's perspective. You addressed the problem yourself, with your fine discussion in the last paragraph of your post.
Because we cannot understand the God's-eye view of eternity, the efficacy of a "free will" argument must be addressed by other means. Discussion of Adam's original sin is one, but by no means the only, way to approach it.
If we have taken authority over our own actions, and they have not been completely usurped, then we must have responsibility even if we couldn't help it because of our very nature.
Sorry, but this is a mess -- I can't make heads or tails out of what you're trying to say. How is it possible to "take authority" over something that is the same time completely out of our control?
You missed a few possibilities.
Well, yes and no. For example, the fact that Adam and Eve were "tricked" raises the question of, "by whom?" The serpent, of course ... and he was either God's agent, or operating independently of God's control. The former leads to the "sin is God's will" scenario; and the latter once again leads to a conclusion of free will. As for the others, all of them are speculative and fail to address the facts: God told Adam "no," and Adam disobeyed. God's future plans are irrelevant to the nature of Adam and Eve's actual actions. Finally, if "God planned to have Adam and Eve disobey," that simply reverts back to one of the cases I addressed before.
You're still equating God to man here. God may well will for something that he tells a human not to do.
Are you suggesting a scenario where God's a liar? That He deliberately misled Adam in order to cause him to sin? I think not. In this matter we might look more profitably to Job, a man who was "blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil." Job's challenge was to avoid sinning in response to extreme provocation, the reason for which he did not know. Satan predicted that Job "will curse you to your face" if God were to "stretch out [His] hand and touch all that he has." "In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong." But the choice was Job's.
Thank you for the compliment. I believe Calvinism is problematic, but it is very useful for believers in steering them in the right (humble) direction with respect to God.
Sorry, but this is a mess -- I can't make heads or tails out of what you're trying to say. How is it possible to "take authority" over something that is the same time completely out of our control?
It's purposefully contradictory. My point is that God can have total authority, but we can still have responsibility over our own actions, mainly because God is in a different plane of existence than we are.
God's future plans are irrelevant to the nature of Adam and Eve's actual actions.
Bingo. That's exactly my point.
Are you suggesting a scenario where God's a liar?
I'm saying that in an overarching sense, humanity is in the exact state God had in mind when He created us. To do so means that He withheld information, but did not lie. It's all hypothetical anyway because we not only cannot know the nature of God, but we also cannot know the trade offs God made in our creation.
In this matter we might look more profitably to Job..
Ah, Job is perfect for a discussion on the authority of God. Look at what God allowed Satan to do to Job, and God's response to Job in the end. God taught Job a lesson in the sovereignty of God, and I believe that was the whole point of the activity. Job had a limited view of God's sovereignty, and God corrected that view.
"In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong." But the choice was Job's.
I agree. But I don't think the fact that Job could choose what he did means that God is limited in his sovereignty somehow, or that God had no hand in Job's choice, or that Job's responsibility for his choice is anything less than total. We are responsible for our decisions ultimately because God declares it so--and if you investigate free-will with respect to God, that is the only conclusion available.
We're in pretty good agreement here, with the exception of a wording choice. God doesn't have to "declare" that we have free will; he need only "choose to permit it." The distinction is perhaps subtle, but nevertheless I think it's important, especially as it relates to the idea of "God so loved the world...." We haven't really touched on "love" yet, and as somebody up-thread pointed out, love without free-will is meaningless. (To put it crudely, it's the difference between a wife and a blow-up doll.)
To say that God "declares" that we have free will sounds almost deist in its implications. "Choosing to permit" free will is more suggestive of the parental aspects of God the Father: like any parent, He will permit free will, but also stands ready to override it if necessary.
I didn't say that God declares free will, but that God declares us responsible for our actions, whether to what degree they are "free" or not is unknowable.
I see the distinction. However, I disagree with you when you say "to what degree they are 'free' or not is unknowable." Once you bring "love" into the mix, the fact that we have freedom of choice at all is pretty well established, and it's pretty wide.
The question then becomes one, not of degrees of "freedom," but rather the extent to which God will over-rule our choices. We're free to choose, which necessarily implies consequences -- and it's the possibility of consequences that makes us responsible.
By the same token, God can choose either to override our choices, or to adjust the consequences of our actions to suit His will -- all of which flows from His sovereignty.
What's in the middle is, of course, a mystery. We don't and can't know how, how often, or why God chooses to act or not. As you pointed out, that's one of the lessons from Job.
From our universe it's obvious and well-established, but once you bring in a creator God in a different plane of existence, we can't even trust causality.
The question then becomes one, not of degrees of "freedom," but rather the extent to which God will over-rule our choices.
Our freedom in this plane of existence has no bearing on God's sovereignty or his freedom to intervene. God already created us "on rails" limited by our physical abilities. What is more difficult to see is His limits on our rationality, and it's impossible to see His limits on our freedom.
We're free to choose, which necessarily implies consequences -- and it's the possibility of consequences that makes us responsible.
How do you know that? Our limited sandbox here on Earth makes it easy to falsely extrapolate into God's realm, but whatever freedoms and consequences there are past this universe is unknowable. We can only know that God holds us responsible, anything of our own is meaningless speculation.
By the same token, God can choose either to override our choices, or to adjust the consequences of our actions to suit His will -- all of which flows from His sovereignty.
God may act and override, but still hold us responsible. That's His right. It's not necessarily an either-or. To call it unfair is pointless and meaningless since God gave you the idea of fairness in the first place and may override it at any time as well.
By that standard, there's little point in discussing the concept of free will at all, except in terms of Pascal's wager -- in which case "free will" is the obvious choice (we must behave as if our choices actually have import).
Otherwise, when we take things to that level, we are in danger of sharing the fate of the poet Cowper who, according to Chesterton, was driven mad by his attempts to discern the logic of free will vs. God's sovereignty.
Exactly. Armenianism and Calvinism are irrelevant with respect to our salvation and who is saved. Calvinism is only useful with respect to a more correct view of God's sovereignty.
Otherwise, when we take things to that level, we are in danger of sharing the fate of the poet Cowper who, according to Chesterton, was driven mad by his attempts to discern the logic of free will vs. God's sovereignty.
I think the key to the whole issue is our usually horribly wrong ideas about God. Once we separate our universe from God's plane of existence, then our free-will, the Trinity, and God's foreknowledge and eternal existence, are acceptable concepts if not understandable ones.
Bugg:”So tell me: Is the King in this parable sovereign or not?”
There are a number of fundamental flaws in your parable, but probably the most important is the issue of hearing and understanding the peril. The rebels in the real story of salvation (unlike your parable) don’t actually hear an offer of mercy - their hearts are so hardened that the Gospel is not even interesting, let alone life-saving. As a matter of fact, these rebels don’t even know there is any danger at hand!
God is the one who softens the heart, who opens the ears, and who gives each that he calls the understanding of their sinfulness. Without this calling, the sinful desires of the present will continue and these men exalt in their condemnation with no true comprehension of their coming judgment.
Have you looked at post #104?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.