[Dutchboy88]

You are welcome, but your response is peculiar. "From man's limited position in space/time, ie. the present, he has freewill and is free to go to the left or to the right, to accept or deny, but as you say God's is transcendent and has foreknowledge, but I do not see how that limits man's freewill or God's willingness to have mercy for all."

Not certain if you are not reading my answer, or you did not catch the concepts, but your response does not address what I wrote.

To wit...I wrote that God's foreknowledge is not the constraining factor, but rather the constraining factor is His predestining all individuals. I simply stated that the REASON that His foreknowledge is absolute, perfect, without error, and true is that it is a reflection of His aboslute, perfect, and error free control of all matters occurring, including where individuals end up. There is not a maverick molecule in existence.

And I noted, if His foreknowledge is absolutely perfect, then that means what He foreknows is absolutely going to occur and if it is absolutely going to occur, then no other outcome could occur in its place. I did not, and never would, say that this absolute control is detectable by man. You and I cannot feel the genius of this "management", nor can any other existent being. Satan cannot "feel" the limits, direction, and control that the God of ALL HEAVEN AND EARTH is exerting upon him...but it is happening to Satan's peril.

Now, this "feeling" that you can go left or right without any perception of control does not mean that the "feeling" is correct. On the contrary, the Scriptures inform us the opposite is happening, Prov. 16:9, "The mind of man plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps." You may think you picked the red sox over the green sox, but your plans were being managed by God. This goes for the apparent random events of the universe. Prov. 16:33, "The die is rolled into the lap, But its every decision is from the Lord." There is no such thing as real chance, real randomness, real anything that this not being ultimately done by God. Again, I am NOT SAYING you can feel it. If you wish, I can provide some 30 passages that state this unequivocally.

Now, if that fact is acceptable, I can from that understand how it is that God is really fashioning all of the decisions of a man's heart and their ultimate destinations. If you trust Christ, if you turn to Him, aware of your desparate sin, then that understanding is not ultimately originating from you. It is because in eons past, your Heavenly Father set His heart upon you to draw you to Himself. The credit is His.

Imagine, not only is the Rescue itself accomplished by Christ (the vicarious atoning death of Jesus instead of you), but the very fact of your heart being broken to come and partake of Him, is due to Him. This position of utter dependency is what the Gospel is really all about. There is no part of this that we can trace to us. This Monergistic work (singularly and only God at work in you) is what removes the opportunity to boast. You cannot say, "Well, at least I decided to follow Jesus and those evil men did not." Such is a form of adoration of my own works.

But, notice, if He decreed you to be adopted in ages past (in Ephesians Paul says it was before the foundation of the world 1:4), then He set in motion all that must have transpired to get you to turn to Him, this is such utter and unbounded love that He expressed toward you that you ought to have one and only one person to thank...God.

So, "mercy" is defined not as giving anyone and everyone who wants it salvation. Rather, "mercy" is God deciding to set some free from the punishment that the rest will not escape. And Paul knows when the Romans understand what he is arguing will say, "Then how can He still find fault, for who escapes His will?" But, the answer is...that is just the way it is.

And, yes, of course we are all offenders. But, your conclusion this should imply, "...salvation be available to all who have freewill to accept it or reject it?" contains those two errors. It assumes the Scripture teaches "freewill" and it assumes the Scripture teaches anyone should be able to choose salvation. Unfortunately, neither of these comport with the text.

I will add as a postscript that you might argue one could find all kinds of places where Scripture calls you to "decide". Such demands do not address whether such a decision is entirely yours to make. It simply states, "Decide". You are reading into it that the decision is to be unaffected, unmanaged, uncontrolled by God. This is often the claim regarding John 3:16. But read the verse closely, John simply states a fact. He does not make an open offer. John 6:44 makes it crystal clear that "No one comes to Me unless the Father draws him."

[Dr. Eckleburg]

I searched for a line or two in your post to highlight, but it was impossible. ALL your post is God's truth. AMEN!

.I wrote that God's foreknowledge is not the constraining factor, but rather the constraining factor is His predestining all individuals. I simply stated that the REASON that His foreknowledge is absolute, perfect, without error, and true is that it is a reflection of His aboslute, perfect, and error free control of all matters occurring, including where individuals end up. There is not a maverick molecule in existence.

And I noted, if His foreknowledge is absolutely perfect, then that means what He foreknows is absolutely going to occur and if it is absolutely going to occur, then no other outcome could occur in its place. I did not, and never would, say that this absolute control is detectable by man. You and I cannot feel the genius of this "management", nor can any other existent being. Satan cannot "feel" the limits, direction, and control that the God of ALL HEAVEN AND EARTH is exerting upon him...but it is happening to Satan's peril.

Now, this "feeling" that you can go left or right without any perception of control does not mean that the "feeling" is correct. On the contrary, the Scriptures inform us the opposite is happening, Prov. 16:9, "The mind of man plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps." You may think you picked the red sox over the green sox, but your plans were being managed by God. This goes for the apparent random events of the universe. Prov. 16:33, "The die is rolled into the lap, But its every decision is from the Lord." There is no such thing as real chance, real randomness, real anything that this not being ultimately done by God. Again, I am NOT SAYING you can feel it. If you wish, I can provide some 30 passages that state this unequivocally.

Now, if that fact is acceptable, I can from that understand how it is that God is really fashioning all of the decisions of a man's heart and their ultimate destinations. If you trust Christ, if you turn to Him, aware of your desparate sin, then that understanding is not ultimately originating from you. It is because in eons past, your Heavenly Father set His heart upon you to draw you to Himself. The credit is His.

Imagine, not only is the Rescue itself accomplished by Christ (the vicarious atoning death of Jesus instead of you), but the very fact of your heart being broken to come and partake of Him, is due to Him. This position of utter dependency is what the Gospel is really all about. There is no part of this that we can trace to us. This Monergistic work (singularly and only God at work in you) is what removes the opportunity to boast. You cannot say, "Well, at least I decided to follow Jesus and those evil men did not." Such is a form of adoration of my own works.

But, notice, if He decreed you to be adopted in ages past (in Ephesians Paul says it was before the foundation of the world 1:4), then He set in motion all that must have transpired to get you to turn to Him, this is such utter and unbounded love that He expressed toward you that you ought to have one and only one person to thank...God.

So, "mercy" is defined not as giving anyone and everyone who wants it salvation. Rather, "mercy" is God deciding to set some free from the punishment that the rest will not escape. And Paul knows when the Romans understand what he is arguing will say, "Then how can He still find fault, for who escapes His will?" But, the answer is...that is just the way it is.

And, yes, of course we are all offenders. But, your conclusion this should imply, "...salvation be available to all who have freewill to accept it or reject it?" contains those two errors. It assumes the Scripture teaches "freewill" and it assumes the Scripture teaches anyone should be able to choose salvation. Unfortunately, neither of these comport with the text.

I will add as a postscript that you might argue one could find all kinds of places where Scripture calls you to "decide". Such demands do not address whether such a decision is entirely yours to make. It simply states, "Decide". You are reading into it that the decision is to be unaffected, unmanaged, uncontrolled by God. This is often the claim regarding John 3:16. But read the verse closely, John simply states a fact. He does not make an open offer. John 6:44 makes it crystal clear that "No one comes to Me unless the Father draws him."

Every word gets an AMEN! The Christian distinctive is real and God-ordained. The temporal world seeks to tell us it's all up to men, but the truth is that now and always it is up to God. His call. Thank God.

[WhatsItAllAbout]

You have made many good arguments, but if your "hard deterministic" view is correct, what's the point?

Why does God go to all the trouble to create a Universe and populate it with little predetermined puppets?

Let me ask you this, was Jesus a man? Didn't he have a choice to go to the cross or was he just going through the predetermined motions?

I am a firm believer in "Compatibilism" as defined below. See the link at The basic philosophical positions on the problem of free


"The basic philosophical positions on the problem of free will can be divided in accordance with the answers they provide to two questions:

Is determinism true?

Does free will exist?

Determinism is roughly defined as the view that all current and future events are causally necessitated by past events combined with the laws of nature. Neither determinism nor its opposite, indeterminism, are positions in the debate about free will.[1]

Compatibilism (also called soft determinism) is the view that the assumption of free will and the existence of a concept of determinism are compatible with each other; this is opposed to incompatibilism which is the view that there is no way to reconcile a belief in a deterministic universe with a belief in a concept of free will beyond that of a perceived existence.[2]

Hard determinism is the version of incompatibilism that accepts the assumption of determinism and rejects the idea that humans have any free will.[3]

Libertarianism agrees with hard determinism only in rejecting compatibilism. Libertarians accept the existence of a concept of free will along with an assumption of indeterminism to some extent. Some of its proponents reject physical determinism and argue for some version of physical indeterminism that is compatible with freedom.[4] Others are Metaphysical libertarians who appeal to mind-body dualism to argue a special case for sentient beings.

The theory of determinism has been challenged from the earliest philosophers, notably Epicurus[5] and Lucretius,[6] to the latest theory of quantum mechanics, which postulates irreducible physical indeterminacy.

The standard argument against the existence of free will[7] is very simple. Either determinism is true or indeterminism is true. These exhaust the logical possibilities.[8] If determinism is true, we are not free. If indeterminism is true, our actions are random and our will lacks the control to be morally responsible."


I know Jesus was theological first and foremost a Jew, so when I have these kinds of questions I like to see what the Old Rabbis had to say on the subject, see the comment from the "Pirkei Avoth" below.


Below is an excerpt from Wikipedia at this Link Predestination"

Jewish views

See also: Free will In Jewish thought

Generally speaking Reform Judaism has no strong doctrine of predestination. Some critics[who?] claim that the idea that God is omnipotent and omniscient didn't formally exist in Judaism during the Biblical era, but rather was a later development due to the influence of neo-Platonic and neo-Aristotelian philosophy. Some modern Jewish thinkers in the 20th century (for example, Martin Buber) have resolved the dialectical tension by holding that God is simply not omnipotent, in the commonly used sense of that word. These thinkers are primarily not Orthodox Jews. Orthodox Jewish rabbis generally affirm that God must be viewed as omnipotent, but they have varying definitions of what the word omnipotent means. Thus one finds that some Modern Orthodox theologians[who?] have views that are essentially the same as non-Orthodox theologians, but they use different terminology.

One noted Jewish philosopher, Hasdai Crescas, resolved this dialectical tension by taking the position that free-will doesn't exist. Hence all of a person's actions are pre-determined by the moment of their birth, and thus their judgment in the eyes of God (so to speak) is effectively pre-ordained. However in this scheme this is not a result of God's predetermining one's fate, but rather from the view that the universe is deterministic. Crescas's views on this topic were rejected by Judaism at large. In later centuries this idea independently developed among some in the Chabad (Lubavitch) sect of Hasidic Judaism. Many individuals within Chabad take this view seriously, and hence effectively deny the existence of free will.

However, many Chabad (Lubavitch) Jews attempt to hold both views. They affirm as infallible their rebbe's teachings that God knows and controls the fate of all, yet at the same time affirm the classical Jewish belief in free-will (i.e. no such thing as determinism). The inherent contradiction between the two results in their belief that such contradictions are only "apparent", due to man's inherent lack of ability to understand greater truths and due to the fact that Creator and Created exist in different realities.

One does not have to be a Chabad Hassid to believe in this, however. It is enough to read the statement in Pirkei Avot: "Everything is predetermined but freedom of will is given." The same idea is strongly repeated by Rambam (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance, Chapter 5).

Many other Jews (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and secular) affirm that since free-will exists, then by definition one's fate is not preordained. It is held as a tenet of faith that whether God is omniscient or not, nothing interferes with mankind's free will. Some Jewish theologians, both during the medieval era and today, have attempted to formulate a philosophy in which free will is preserved, while also affirming that God has knowledge of what decisions people will make in the future. Whether or not these two ideas are mutually compatible, or whether there is a contradiction between the two, is still a matter of great study and interest in philosophy today.

In Rabbinic literature, there is much discussion as to the apparent contradiction between God's omniscience and free will. The representative view is that "Everything is foreseen; yet free will is given" (Rabbi Akiva, Pirkei Avoth 3:15). Based on this understanding, the problem is formally described as a paradox, beyond our understanding."

[WhatsItAllAbout]

One other point I would like to make is that your "hard deterministic" view would necessitated that God be in control of every thought as well as every action resulting from those thoughts.

So again I would ask what's the point if the universe is deterministic, and how could a man be held responsible for his actions if God controls every molecule, in his body and every thought he thinks and there is no randomness in the universe?

[WhatsItAllAbout]

Sorry, the links above didn't work, the links below should.

The basic philosophical positions on the problem of free

Link to Predestination

[MarkBsnr]

I will add as a postscript that you might argue one could find all kinds of places where Scripture calls you to "decide". Such demands do not address whether such a decision is entirely yours to make. It simply states, "Decide". You are reading into it that the decision is to be unaffected, unmanaged, uncontrolled by God. This is often the claim regarding John 3:16. But read the verse closely, John simply states a fact. He does not make an open offer. John 6:44 makes it crystal clear that "No one comes to Me unless the Father draws him."

This is perhaps the finest post that I have ever seen from you on FR. May I congratulate you? It is extensive, well reasoned, and logical in itself.

Your entire point, though, rests on John 6:44 as a stand-alone proposition. It is not. The Catholic viewpoint, from the time of Jesus, has accepted the notion of 'and'. Remember that the message, initially for the Jews, then started to go out to the Gentiles as well. One argument is that the whole notion of 'adopting in' was to provide a logical pathway for Gentiles to be saved by the God of the Jews, without becoming Jewish themselves.

However, we have John 6:44: no man is saved without being drawn by God. Fact and clear. We also have John 12:32: But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.

We have the mathematical operator 'and'. John 6:44 is true. John 12:32 is true. All means all. All men means all men. But drawn is obviously not predestined, since men have the ability to deny God. Peter denied Jesus in the flesh; Adam denied God in the Garden. Shameful as it may be, that is the lot of men in life - to accept or to deny God. It is God that is faithful to man, sadly, the reverse is often untrue.

[Forest Keeper]

But, notice, if He decreed you to be adopted in ages past (in Ephesians Paul says it was before the foundation of the world 1:4), then He set in motion all that must have transpired to get you to turn to Him, this is such utter and unbounded love that He expressed toward you that you ought to have one and only one person to thank...God.

So, "mercy" is defined not as giving anyone and everyone who wants it salvation. Rather, "mercy" is God deciding to set some free from the punishment that the rest will not escape. And Paul knows when the Romans understand what he is arguing will say, "Then how can He still find fault, for who escapes His will?" But, the answer is...that is just the way it is.

AMEN! Outstanding post, Dutchboy. Mercy is a sovereign choice as opposed to an automatic reaction to the choice of another. That's what makes it special and of such higher value.

It's interesting that a common criticism we get is that our love for God is not "real love" unless it is of the kind favored by free will advocates (free from interference from God). YET, God's mercy towards us somehow still counts as "real mercy" even though their triggering mechanism is ultimately wholly of man! It appears that no matter whether we are talking about man to God or God to man the only thing that matters is the sovereignty of man.