The Institutes Book 1, Chapter 3

"As you can see from the direct quote above, Palmer most certainly did state that God foreordained sin. You have said you have a copy of his book so you can confirm it for yourself. I think part of the communication problem may be indirectly related to the fact that you did not grow up in a hyper-Calvinist environment and may simply not been exposed to the unBiblical principles it espouses. This is, of course, no fault of your own."

For the umpteenth time, believing that God has forordained all things including sin is not a distinguishing mark of a "hyper-Calvinist"!

ctd! I find it fascinating that you claim such high intelligence and such a profound understanding of logic and then repeat such an idiotic idea as this.

Absolutely ~none~ of your deferred definitions list this idea as defining a "hyper-Calvinist". Not P-Marlowes thread (article written by C. Matthew McMahon) nor the article by Philip Johnson.

All the definitions you have deferred to define a "hyper-Calvinist" as one who emphasizes the sovereignty of God to the exclusion of the responsibility of man.

Believing that God has forordained sin has nothing to do with this.

I have already showed you more than once that this belief is found in the both the Heidelberg Catechism as well as in the Belgic Confession -two of the oldest Reformed confessions in existance.

I will add a quote from the Westminster Confession of Faith (Chapter 3) regarding the forordination of sin:

I. God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass:[65] yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin,[66] nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.[67]
II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions,[68] yet hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.[69]

In post #94 on this thread, you claim that Calvin cannot be rightly considered a "hyper-Calvinist":

As a practical matter, it would be very difficult to say that Calvin was a hyper-Calvinist since Calvin was who he was.

With that in mind, you should note that John Calvin himself argued for the belief that God forordained the fall (Book III, Chapter 23, Section 7):

7. They deny that it is ever said in distinct terms, God decreed that Adam should perish by his revolt. As if the same God, who is declared in Scripture to do whatsoever he pleases, could have made the noblest of his creatures without any special purpose. They say that, in accordance with free-will, he was to be the architect of his own fortune, that God had decreed nothing but to treat him according to his desert. If this frigid fiction is received, where will be the omnipotence of God, by which, according to his secret counsel on which every thing depends, he rules over all? But whether they will allow it or not, predestination is manifest in Adam's posterity. It was not owing to nature that they all lost salvation by the fault of one parent. Why should they refuse to admit with regard to one man that which against their will they admit with regard to the whole human race? Why should they in caviling lose their labour? Scripture proclaims that all were, in the person of one, made liable to eternal death. As this cannot be ascribed to nature, it is plain that it is owing to the wonderful counsel of God. It is very absurd in these worthy defenders of the justice of God to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. I again ask how it is that the fall of Adam involves so many nations with their infant children in eternal death without remedy unless that it so seemed meet to God? Here the most loquacious tongues must be dumb. The decree, 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.)

...and sin in general (Book I, Chapter XVII, Section 5):

5. By the same class of persons, past events are referred improperly and inconsiderately to simple providence. As all contingencies whatsoever depend on it, therefore, neither thefts nor adulteries, nor murders, are perpetrated without an interposition of the divine will. Why, then, they ask, should the thief be punished for robbing him whom the Lord chose to chastise with poverty? Why should the murderer be punished for slaying him whose life the Lord had terminated? If all such persons serve the will of God, why should they be punished? I deny that they serve the will of God. For we cannot say that he who is carried away by a wicked mind performs service on the order of God, when he is only following his own malignant desires. He obeys God, who, being instructed in his will, hastens in the direction in which God calls him. But how are we so instructed unless by his word? The will declared by his word is, therefore, that which we must keep in view in acting, God requires of us nothing but what he enjoins. If we design anything contrary to his precept, it is not obedience, but contumacy and transgression. But if he did not will it, we could not do it. I admit this. But do we act wickedly for the purpose of yielding obedience to him? This, assuredly, he does not command. Nay, rather we rush on, not thinking of what he wishes, but so inflamed by our own passionate lust, that, with destined purpose, we strive against him. And in this way, while acting wickedly, we serve his righteous ordination, since in his boundless wisdom he well knows how to use bad instruments for good purposes. And see how absurd this mode of arguing is. They will have it that crimes ought not to be punished in their authors, because they are not committed without the dispensation of God. I concede more - that thieves and murderers, and other evil-doers, are instruments of Divine Providence, being employed by the Lord himself to execute the judgements which he has resolved to inflict. But I deny that this forms any excuse for their misdeeds. For how? Will they implicate God in the same iniquity with themselves, or will they cloak their depravity by his righteousness? They cannot exculpate themselves, for their own conscience condemns them: they cannot charge God, since they perceive the whole wickedness in themselves, and nothing in Him save the legitimate use of their wickedness. But it is said he works by their means. And whence, I pray, the fetid odour of a dead body, which has been unconfined and putrefied by the sun's heat? All see that it is excited by the rays of the sun, but no man therefore says that the fetid odour is in them. In the same way, while the matter and guilt of wickedness belongs to the wicked man, why should it be thought that God contracts any impurity in using it at pleasure as his instrument? Have done, then, with that dog-like petulance which may, indeed, bay from a distance at the justice of God, but cannot reach it!

Clearly, the belief that God forordained "whatever comes to pass" including the sin that we do is not a characteristic of "hyper-Calvinism". With the high intelligence and prowess in logic you claim to have, it would behoove you to cease from insisting that it is.

Jean

"As you can see from Johnson's article, he even mentions the CRC as being hyper-Calvinistic, in general. Certainly that does not mean that all congregations within that denomination were taught or preached hyper-Calvinism. Certainly some Congreations and ministeres got it right, but for Jean to say that there is not nor has been an element of hyper-Calvinism is clearly and effectively controverted by Johnson. "

Johnson's article makes no mention whatsoever that the CRC is "hyper-Calvinistic".

You are either making this up or you are misreading this.

Johnson mentions the CRC only one time -and that in opposition to Herman Hoeksema and the Protestant Reformed Church which broke off of the CRC over the issue of "common grace".

It was the PRC which denied "common grace" and not the CRC. Again, Johnson makes no mention of the CRC being "hyper-Calvinistic".

With the high intelligence and prowess of logic that you claim to have, I'm a bit taken aback that you would make such a mistaken...or was it an intentional... misrepresentation?

Jean

What a hyper Calvinist, Calvin was. :~)

"What a hyper Calvinist, Calvin was. :~) "

Yup! ctd's "understanding" of "hyper-Calvinism" demonstrates jude24's observation of how the term "hyper-Calvinism" is practically, defined!

Jean

I'm glad I finally contributed something original ;-).

(Sometimes I feel like a midgit amongst an army of giants here....)