That assumes those 'factors' are static...that God has no choice but to allow history to unfold a certain way. If as you say it is an evaluation of 'factors', and as you say God is in control of those 'factors,' then cannot God, working with His wonderfully omniscient foresight, determine which 'factors' will bring about a desired result?
Thus,that is a individual decision, that comes from many factors, but decided on one's own voliton.
Your 'but' sticks out a bit, dec. If one weighs the factors, then decides against the obvious choice, then the decision is not made according to factors but according to something else. If you say it's made purely by volition, that's like saying something happens purely by chance without an external influence.
LOL! Faith doesn't come by hearing and hearing by the word of God? I guess that is yet another Scripture that doesn't mean what it says! You Calvinists make me chuckle!
Now you know that's not what I was saying, dec. If my wording choice was poor, I apologize...but do you really think in that statement I was trying to disprove a direct quote from Scripture? My point presupposes that statement, and then asks the question that if faith does come by hearing, how is it fair for a native in the jungle who never hears the gospel and thus never comes to faith, to be condemned for that choice? You say that God foresaw in advance that he wouldn't choose if presented with it, so He didn't bother to present it? Well, he's not being presented with it, so God was basing it on a hypothetical that never actually occurred. How many hypotheticals did God run through before He gave up? If He ran through say one billion different hypotheticals and no matter what that man did not choose, it seems to me that there's something wrong here...that something at the very core of this native's being is flawed or pre-disposed. And if that is the case, I submit that it is a direct result of God's creative power. Of course, this is operating logically from your position. Calvinism has a much better and simpler explanation.
As for 'fairness', God doesn't have to get everyone the Gospel if He knows they are going to reject that Gospel. He knows the heart of every individual and knows if they will respond to that Gospel.
Ahh...now we're getting somewhere. The crux of the issue, dec. It's more than just an academic evaluation of the factors...it's the condition of the heart. It's desire. If decisions were made purely on evaluations of factors, I would never eat a cheeseburger or ice cream. I know these things are bad for me nutritionally and that they contribute negatively to my overall health, but I desire them nonetheless. When you were talking before about choosing against desire, what you were really talking about was choosing against logic. EVERY CHOICE you make is ultimately according to desire. Not only us, but every choice God makes is according to desire, and praise Him that His desires are pure and good!
God knows what it takes to get someone who would respond to the Gospel saved and will move heaven and earth to get it done. Is there anything impossible for God?
According to you, it's impossible for Him to get some people to choose for Him no matter what He does. He can 'move heaven and earth' but they will never believe. And you STILL cannot explain to me why that is, Ed.
How did coercion get in here. You choose between desires do you not? The choice is base on what you want at the moment and thus, choose for. How do you see coercion?
If we make choices according to the influence of external power, it's coercion. I'm just 'evaluating' what you said:)
The permissive will is an Arminian view, one that Calvin rejected outright!
You are dead wrong, dec. Calvin rejected the ARMINIAN notion of permissive will which has permissive will at the forefront. Only a hyper-Calvinist (who is really not a Calvinist at all) would deny God's permissive will. Your statement shows how little you really know about Calvinism and how enslaved you are to your preconceived notions.
So, in effect, when you sin, you are doing your own will, and God is not controlling you, but allowing you to sin. Sounds like free will to me! LOL!
Let me ask you something, dec. Do you believe God is actively involved in restraining evil in the world, or do you believe it runs rampant and God either does not have or does not use a means of trumping it? I'd like you to consider Pharaoh for a moment. What was God's means of hardening his heart? Clearly there was a permissive action on God's behalf. Could not God have struck Pharoah dead before he persecuted and tormented His people? But God was more than a passive bystander in the showdown with Moses wasn't He? So what was the means of hardening? Did God place sinful desire in Pharaoh's heart? Did He compel him to his resistence? Or did He simply remove the restraints already in place...lengthen the leash so to speak? Who is the author of sin in this case? Clearly it is still Pharaoh and not God. And yet God deliberately turns him over to this sin...in fact he was "raised up for this very purpose."
Round and round we go and you still cannot tell me what specifically leads a person to make the irrational choice to reject Christ. What made you make the rational choice, Ed? Were you more intelligent than someone else? Were you more righteous? Or was more revealed to you than someone else? Did God's will to elect you proceed according to your will?
To borrow a quote from Sproul, your protests against God's sovereign and unconditional election echo the "protest[s] of fallen man complaining that God is not gracious enough." "The outcry is based on a superficial understanding of the matter."
The Calvinists think because the Arminians hold that man is being allowed to act, that the act is not in fact decreed in history.
As already noted, Wesley did believe in the fact that God does control history.
Now, let us see how Calvin handles it
(This is from Genesis 45)
Good men, who fear to expose the justice of God to the calumnies of the impious, resort to this distinction, that God wills some things, but permits others to be done. As if, truly, any degree of liberty of action, were he to cease from governing, would be left to men.
Arminians (Arminus and Wesley) did not hold to this, but that God knew what man would do willingly and allowed it, such as in the case of your sins, which you admitted were from a 'permissive will'
If he had only permitted Joseph to be carried into Egypt, he had not ordained him to be the minister of deliverance to his father Jacob and his sons; which he is now expressly declared to have done. Away, then, with that vain figment, that, by the permission of God only, (emphasis added) and not by his counsel or will, those evils are committed which he afterwards turns to a good account. I speak of evils with respect to men, who propose nothing else to themselves but to act perversely. And as the vice dwells in them, so ought the whole blame also to be laid upon them. But God works wonderfully through their means, in order that, from their impurity, he may bring forth his perfect righteousness.
This is what the Arminians would agree to, God letting man act according to his own nature, freely and still working it for God's own ends (e.g.Phraroah)
This method of acting is secret, and far above our understanding.
Agreed, so why do Calvinists insist they know how it does happen!
Therefore it is not wonderful that the licentiousness of our flesh should rise against it. But so much the more diligently must we be on our guard, that we do not attempt to reduce this lofty standard to the measure of our own littleness. Let this sentiment remain fixed with us, that while the lust of men exults, and intemperately hurries them hither and thither, God is the ruler, and, by his secret rein, directs their motions whithersoever he pleases.
Here we see who is really performing the action, God Himself, who is 'directing the reigns'
At the same time, however, it must also be maintained, that God acts so far distinctly from them, that no vice can attach itself to his providence, and that his decrees have no affinity with the crimes of men.
Calvin knows that there is a problem with what he just said so he attempts to get God 'off the hook' by making the 'control' distant.
It doesn't how many decisions are made between the act if they are all being willed by God Himself.
Thus, in the case of our own sins, you stated a 'permissive will' was the issue.
Thus, God is 'allowing' you to sin against His own will.
Or, are you saying that God really wants you sin.
That is how Calvin saw the control of man, that God had to directly will each act, since God really wanted each act to happen for His own glory.
Your use of a 'permissive will' is meaningless if in fact, it is God who is willing that you sin and you are in fact, doing His will when you do so.
Finally, the statement that I do not understand Calvinism is one commonly made against those who boil it down to its essential element, God is the author of sin and death, the very thing that He Himself condemns.
The differences between 'Hyper' and 'moderate' do not affect that essential element.
The 'outcry' would be meaningless if, one, it were man who freely sinned, and not God who decreed that very sin (for His glory) (see Calvin on Adam's fall)
Two, that the greater Adam had not appeared and taken care of the Original sin issue (Rom.5:18)
Third, to save some when all could be saved (none being worthy) is unjust.
Rhetorical appeals are nothing but smokescreens to hide the realization that Calvinism makes a mockery of God's love for all men (the Love that Calvin stated God had in 2Pet.3).
Unable to grasp why God would allow those whom He died for to perish, the Calvinists simply retreat to a mystical Sovereignity, that in kind is no different then that of Islam.
The same thing that makes a Christian make the 'irrational' choice to sin, the will.
So, when you sin, your will decides between the influence of the flesh and world, vs that of the Holy Spirit and sometimes the flesh/world win!
Now, how do, being a mere human, 'grieve and quench' the Omnipotent power of the 3rd member of the Trinity?
You choose to, thats how, and the mechanism you use is the will that God in His grace, gave you, the will.
Now, are you going to tell me that your choices to sin are 'rational'?
Are they God's directive will, or is God 'permitting' you to sin because He has given you 'free will'?
The reason that is is because God chose to have it that way!
He wanted creatures to freely choose for Him, which meant that the choice had to be a real one, not directed by Him.
God could have made us all loving Him and there would have been no Fall.
God was willing to endure the rejection of some, to have the free love of others.
That is the very nature of love, a desire for a true response.
Calvinism tends to think that God is some sought of inpersonal force, indifferent to the response of man, but on the contrary, God is always striving with man, until man's own rejection is so stubborn that man must now face God's wrath and not His love. (Acts.7:51)