No, I have repeated to you the Word of God, I have tried to reason with you, and you won't listen. You refuse to face the implications of what you believe, and you elevate man's place and reduce God's Sovereignty. You don't see that because you don't want to see that. I'm not making a case for Calvinism, I'm making a case for the Word of God. It is you who want to characterize what I say as Calvinist Rhetoric because it gives you an easy way to dismiss what I have said without addressing it. You don't want to address it because you can't. If anyone should move on, it should be you, because it is you who are out of step here, not me.
Your system makes God the author of Sin and then expects to have man glorify him, for saving some, when He could have saved all.
My system?? MY SYSTEM??? What in blazes are you talking about? I do not make God the author of sin, and there is no theological system named after me, thank God! Man sinned, in direct disobedience to the command of God. God did not authorize it, He did not cause it, and He did not sanction it. God knew that it would happen, because He is omniscient, and knowing what man would do, He made, before the foundation of the world, a Plan to redeem the man He knew would sin. That does not make God the author of sin in any way. That is your cop-out to avoid the clear truths of scripture regarding man's utter depravity and inability to seek God, and God's Sovereignty over His creation, to save some and not others, in order to magnify His Glory in His Righteousness and Holiness, showing all of creation that He is a Just God who punishes the wicked and rewards the righteous. You don't understand it, so you think it's unfair. You construct a system wherein man is the center, and it is God who must cater to man's decisions, man's desires, and man's will.
This is all about God, it always has been, and it always will be. It's not about man. Man is the creature, not the Creator. The sooner you learn that, the better off you'll be.
That sounds pretty Arminian to me.
Calvinism tells us God wanted it to happen.
Why then do I see so little of the word of God in your posts?
It is you who want to characterize what I say as Calvinist Rhetoric because it gives you an easy way to dismiss what I have said without addressing it.
It has been addressed time and time again!
You don't want to address it because you can't. If anyone should move on, it should be you, because it is you who are out of step here, not me.
I tried to end the discussion on a friendly note, agreeing on what we agree on and agreeing to disagree on what we don't.
Your system makes God the author of Sin and then expects to have man glorify him, for saving some, when He could have saved all. My system?? MY SYSTEM??? What in blazes are you talking about? I do not make God the author of sin, and there is no theological system named after me, thank God!
You are defending Calvinism are you not?
That is the system I was alluding to.
Man sinned, in direct disobedience to the command of God. God did not authorize it, He did not cause it, and He did not sanction it. God knew that it would happen, because He is omniscient, and knowing what man would do, He made, before the foundation of the world, a Plan to redeem the man He knew would sin.
Well, if God did not authorize it, it would not have happened!
Now, the question is, did it happen because God wanted it to (despite the commands against it) or did it happen despite what God wanted and God allowed it to happen.
Now, Calvin states that God did indeed want Adam to fall as part of God's Plan to glorify Himself (Book 3, Chapter 23).
That means that mankind is in sin because it is God who Decreed it from a directive, not permissive will thus, it is God who is the author of sin.
That does not make God the author of sin in any way. That is your cop-out to avoid the clear truths of scripture regarding man's utter depravity and inability to seek God, and God's Sovereignty over His creation, to save some and not others, in order to magnify His Glory in His Righteousness and Holiness, showing all of creation that He is a Just God who punishes the wicked and rewards the righteous. You don't understand it, so you think it's unfair.
And you do understand it?
God puts man into a sin state (see Calvin) and then picks some to be saved and lets the rest go to the Lake of Fire-for His glory!
And this is despite clear scripture that states that God wants all men to be saved (1Tim.2:4, 2Pet.3:9-see Calvin once again)
You construct a system wherein man is the center, and it is God who must cater to man's decisions, man's desires, and man's will.
No, I hold to what the Bible says and not what a philospher dreamed up (Augustine)
God desires the best for His creatures, not suffering.
The cause of suffering in this world is from sin, which is not God's doing, He allowed it as part of His Plan, but He wants only good for His creation (Psa.103:8, Lk.6:36)
This is all about God, it always has been, and it always will be. It's not about man. Man is the creature, not the Creator. The sooner you learn that, the better off you'll be.
Yes, it is about God, a good, merciful, kind, loving God!
Not a God who would create only to send some to hell for His 'glory', and this because He put them into the sin state in the first place (according to Calvin)
imarc.cchistory7.html
6. In much the same manner he contends that the necessity of sinning is laid upon the reprobate by the ordination of God, and yet denies God to be the author of their sinful acts, since the corruption of men was derived from Adam, by his own fault, and not from God. He exhorts us "rather to contemplate the evident cause of condemnation, which is nearer to us, in the corrupt nature of mankind, than search after a hidden and altogether incomprehensible one, in the predestination of God." "For though, by the eternal providence of God, man was created to that misery to which he is subject, yet the ground of it he has derived from himself, not God; since he is thus ruined, solely in consequence of his having degenerated from the pure creation of God to vicious and impure depravity." Thus, almost in the same breath, he affirms that men became reprobate from no other cause than "the will of God," and his "sovereign determination;" that men have no reason "to expostulate with God, if they are predestinated to eternal death, without any demerit of their own, merely by his sovereign will;"-and then, that the corrupt nature of mankind is the evident and nearer cause of condemnation; (which cause, however, was still a matter of "appointment," and "ordination," not "permission;") and that man is "ruined solely in consequence of his having degenerated from the pure state in which God created him."
These propositions manifestly fight with each other; for if the reason of reprobation be laid in man's corruption, it cannot be laid in the mere will and sovereign determination of God, unless we suppose him to be the author of sin. It is this offensive doctrine only, which can reconcile them. For if God so wills, and appoints, and necessitates the depravity of man, as to be the author of it, then there is no inconsistency in saying that the ruin of the reprobate is both from the mere will of God, and from the corruption of their nature, which is but the result of that will. The one is then, as Calvin states, the "evident and nearer cause," the other the more remote and hidden one; yet they have the same source, and are substantially acts of the same will.
But if it be denied that God is, in any sense, the author of evil, and if sin is from man alone, then is the "corruption of nature" the effect of an independent will; and if this corruption be the "real source," as he says, of men's condemnation, then the decree of reprobation rests not upon the sovereign will of God, as its sole cause, which he affirms; but upon a cause dependent on the will of the first man: but as this is denied, then the other must follow.
Calvin himself, indeed, contends for the perfect concurrence of these proximate and remote causes, although in point of fact, to have been perfectly consistent with himself, he ought rather to have called the mere will of God THE CAUSE of the decree of reprobation, and the corruption of man THE MEANS by which it is carried into effect:-language which he sanctions, and which many of his followers have not scrupled to adopt.
7. So certainly does this opinion involve in it the consequences, that in sin man is the instrument, and God the actor, that it cannot be maintained, as stated by Calvin, without this conclusion. For as two causes of reprobation are expressly laid down, they must be either opposed to each other, or be consenting.
If they are opposed, the scheme is given up; if consenting, then are both reprobation and human corruption the results of the same will, the same decree, and necessity.
It would be trifling to say that the decree does not influence; for if so, it is no decree in Calvin's sense, who understands the decree of God, as the foregoing extracts and the whole third book of his "Institutes" plainly show, as appointing what shall be, and by that appointment making it necessary. Otherwise, he could not reject the distinction between will and permission, and avow the sentiment of St. Augustine, "that the will of God is the necessity of things; and that what he has willed will necessarily come to pass," volume 3, chap. 23, sec. 8. So, in writing to Castellio, he makes the sin of Adam the result of an act of God: "You say Adam fell by his free will. I except against it. That he might not fall, he stood in need of that strength and constancy with which God armeth all the elect, as long as he will keep them blameless. Whom God has elected, he props up with an invincible power unto perseverance. Why did he not afford this to Adam, if he would have had him stand in his integrity?" And with this view of necessity, as resulting from the decree of God, the immediate followers of Calvin coincided; the end and the means, as to the elect, and as to the reprobate, are equally fixed by the decree, and are both to be traced to the appointing and ordaining will of God.
On such a scheme it is therefore worse than trifling to attempt to make out a case of justice in favor of this assumed divine procedure, by alleging the corruption and guilt of man: a point which, indeed, Calvin himself, in fact, gives up when he says, "That the reprobate obey not the word of God, when made known to them, is justly imputed to the wickedness and depravity of their hearts, provided it be at the same time stated, that they are abandoned to this depravity, because they have been raised up by a just but inscrutable judgment of God, to display his glory in their condemnation."
Let me know if the link does not work, I did not copy it directly off the site.
Try this one.
http://www.imarc.cc/history7.html