Results 1 - 6 of 6
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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | "Decree" can mean "allow?" | Gal 2:17 | RWC | 13558 | ||
Thank you for such a detailed answer! But I must ask you to clarify something that you wrote. Please be patient with me if I am asking things here that, by the sounds of things elsewhere, might already have been hashed over to the point where some people were getting somewhat emotional. That is not what I want. I just want to try and sort out some of my understanding (and no doubt some mis-understanding) about predestination (and at some point a little later on, about limited atonement), and to do so in as rational a way as possible ("rational" here meaning both logical and free of emotion). You see, I don't seem to fit very well into either the Arminian or Calvanist camps (and that might not be a bad thing!), and I want to know if that is because I don't understand one or both of them well enough. So, with your permission, a question from your response: You wrote: "The understanding of it hinges on grasping the meaning of the word 'decree.' To decree something is to simply declare that that thing shall happen. In the case of God's sovereign decree, the decreed event can either come from God causing it directly, or by God allowing it to happen." How does God's action of decreeing that something will and must take place equate to God simply allowing something to take place, especially if He would really rather that the thing not happen in first place? To my way of thinking, (and I have certainly been wrong before and will be again) fore-telling or predicting that something would happen is a very different thing than decreeing that it will and must happen. Is there something that I'm missing here? And I could ask this same basic question of you from several of your paragraphs. For example: "From eternity past, God knew that His creation would rebel against Him." To me, that speaks of God's fore-knowledge. That is different than predestining something, isn't it? or... "God, by creating the agents involved and allowing them to sin on their own, decreed what would come to pass." To me, "allowing them to sin on their own" seems to speak of something other than what Spurgeon was talking about when he said "In eternity past, God did most wisely decree...and [did] in a most holy and infallible manner execute all his decrees, without being author of the sin of any creature." There are a few other places that I could I quote for you, but fearing that I might be laboring my point, please permit me one more. You said "The simple fact is that God is in control of every infinitessimal detail of His creation. Nothing happens unless He ultimately allows it...." As your statement reads, I don't think that there are many believers from either camp who would disagree with it in the slighest. But if by the phrase "in control of" you actually mean that all these details are absolutely predestined, that they are that way precisely because God decreed that they would be, and that God has not left any room for them to be any other way (which is what it seems to me that Spurgeon was saying, and which is what I have understood the Calvanistic view of predestination to say), then that must mean that God would be the author of sin (which, I presume we both agree, cannot be). I don't know any other way around that conclusion. Please show me how you have avoided this. This is a long post. Thank you for your time and consideration. It is appreciated. Bob |
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2 | "Decree" can mean "allow?" | Gal 2:17 | Reformer Joe | 13563 | ||
Bob: I guess the hardest part about the Reformed view to accept from our finite perspective is the idea that God pre-determined that sin would (temporarily) be a part of His grand design. It is more than the case of him allowing sin; you are correct. He actually decreed that sin would exist on the earth by virtue of His creation of Lucifer and a human couple he knew would succumb to Satan's treachery. Another very good example is the crucifixion. Was that a part of God's plan? In other words, did he intentionally send His Son to the earth for the express purpose of being murdered unjustly? I think that most Bible believers will admit that He did just that. What Reformers would argue is that He also orchestrated events so that there would be a party of Jewish leaders called Pharisees would emerge and eventually become hypocritical "whitewashed tombs" that would be His instrument in the death of Jesus Christ. Now the sticky point comes from this question: did God cause the unjust death of His Son? I hold that the answer is "yes," and I think Scripture supports that as well: "But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand." --Isaiah 53:10 Here we read that God "was pleased" to actively participate in the crucifixion. However, we also see that the guilt of actually killing Jesus rests on the Pharisees, not on God: "Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become." --Acts 7:52 We have a seeming paradox here. God orchestrated events so that Christ would die; it was no accident, and it was far more than a case of "a necessary contingency to insure optimal design." As I stated before, this is "Plan A." On the other hand, it is the Pharisees who bear the blame for the actual murder of Jesus, through which people who are guilty of rebelling against our Holy creator are saved. Now the question you seem to be interested in is, "Did God MAKE the Pharisees sin?" The Pharisees were born sinners, so the answer to that is "no." On the other hand, God directed their innate sinfulness through circumstance and withholding repentance so that the very act he decreed (the atonement) would take place. We see the same thing in the case of the Pharaoh. Pharaoh was already a sinner, but God hardened his heart so that he would not be "saved," so to speak, so that God would be glorified through the Exodus. Could God have changed Pharaoh's heart so that he would "let His people go"? Absolutely, but he chose rather to utilize the Egyptian's innate sinfulness for His purposes. Does that mean that Pharaoh was not responsible for his actions? No; he was not willingly cooperating with God, although in God's sovereign decree he did just that. Same holds true for Satan. Satan chooses to be evil, but we see in Job 1 where God most actively directs that evil in a particular direction (Job-ward). So we see from Scripture that God brings into existence evil people (after all, isn't that exactly how you and I started out?) for His purposes. Some He doesn't save. Some He does. Both are responsible for their own sins. God shows mercy to the latter, but both groups of people God decreed would exist and both serve his purposes. Romans 9 gives a much more lucid argument than I have here regarding "vessels of mercy" and "vessels of wrath" (imagine that: the Holy Spirit explaining it better than me!). It is undoubtedly a hard issue to wrestle with from a finite, human perspective, but the bottom line is that on a certain level God intends that sin exist for now and that it work for His purposes. Just as he brings Moses and Paul into existence for His purposes, so he brings Pharaohs and Pharisees into existence for His purposes as well. Our roles are decreed, and yet we are guilty of our own sin, not God. Complicated? Yes, but also very biblical! Feel free to respond, Bob. I don't mind wrestling throught his issue with you at all! --Joe! |
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3 | So God is the cause of sin then | Gal 2:17 | RWC | 13593 | ||
Hello Joe, Thank you again for your willingness to discuss this with me logically! It really is appreciated! I have a couple of questions from this posting; one that is primary and one that would be supplemental. In your opening paragraph, you write: "It is more than the case of him allowing sin; you are correct." Ok. I'm glad we have that squared away. In that same opening paragraph, you wrote: "I guess the hardest part about the Reformed view to accept from our finite perspective is the idea that God pre-determined that sin would (temporarily) be a part of His grand design. He actually decreed that sin would exist on the earth by virtue of His creation of Lucifer and a human couple he knew would succumb to Satan's treachery." My primary question then is this: are you actually saying here that you believe God is the author, the source, the cause of sin? Forgive me if I am not understanding you correctly, but that is what this sounds like. And if I am not understanding you correctly, please help me to see whatever it is that I am missing! That, then brings me to my supplemental question. At several points in your post, you mention the responsibility, blame, and guilt of the sinner. My supplemental question, which assumes that I have understood you correctly above, is this: If God has pre-determined every infitessimal detail of history, which must obviously include sin, then how can those individuals who commit those predetermined sins be held responsible for them? Responsibility, if I understand it correctly, implies the ability to exercise at least some measure will. Will, again if I understand it correctly, requires two things: the *ability* to make a choice and the *opportunity* to make a choice. If either of those two things are removed in any given situation, then the exercise of will is also removed. Would that not also mean that responsibility and guilt have also been removed? If you are meaning that God is the cause of sin, then you are quite right in saying that this would be the hardest thing to accept in the reformed point of view. For me, I think it would be impossible to accept, and I say that for two reasons that I can think of immediately, and both of them have to do with what I understand of the character of God. The first reason is that it seems to fly in the face of God's holiness. If God is holy (and I am quite sure that we are both completely conviced that He is!), then it seems completely contradictory (not just paradoxical!) to suggest that He is also the author (cause, source) of sin. The second reason is that it seems to fly in the face of God's justice. If God is just (and, again, I am quite sure that we are both completely conviced that He is!), then it seems completely contradictory (again, not just paradoxical!) to suggest that He would hold sinners responsible for things over which they neither the ability nor the opportunity to change. How have you intellectually worked your way through or around these issues? Thank you again for your patience with me in this, Joe. I have found our dialogue to be stimulating and pleasant. And I do need to get some of this stuff sorted out in my own mind. Thanks! Bob |
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4 | So God is the cause of sin then | Gal 2:17 | Reformer Joe | 13602 | ||
Bob: In order to be more clear, I am going to quote from the Westminster Confession of Faith, one of the important documents reflecting the Reformed view. This is the first section of Chapter III, entitled "Of God's Eternal Decree": "God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established." So we see two important things right away: 1. ALL things are ordained by God. 2. God is NOT the author of sin. God not only foreknows sin; he allows sin to exist and uses it ultimately for His glory. You would agree that nothing happens without God allowing it, correct? I guess what differentiates the Reformed view from others is that rather than merely saying God's ultimate purposes are accomplished DESPITE the sinful rebellion of His creation, the Reformed theologian will state emphatically that God weaves the rebellion of man in the tapestry of His overall plan. However, man is the CAUSE of man's sin, not God. Regarding the human will, permit me to quote again from the WCF, from Chapter IX, "Of Free Will": ************************ II. Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom, and power to will and to do that which was good and well pleasing to God; but yet, mutably, so that he might fall from it. III. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation: so as, a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto. ************************ Therefore the Reformed view agrees with Scripture that while man was created with the ability to please God, that was lost in the Fall for Adam and all of his natural descendants. Romans 8:7-9 demonstrates that the unregenerate human is completely incapable of pleasing God. God did not cause this sinfulness, either; it proceeds from the curse which resulted from Adam's sin (Genesis 3). Another place where we can see this illustrated is the story of Joseph and his brothers in Genesis. After his entire ordeal from being sold into slavery, to being framed for sexual assault, to spending years in prison unjustly, to rising to the top of the political ladder in Egypt, he had this to say to his brothers: "Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his household and ruler over all the land of Egypt." --Genesis 45:8 Joseph says that GOD sent him to Egypt, but it was by means of the sinful actions of his brothers. This mans that God ordained it to happen, but didn't author the sin. How would you interpret this verse otherwise? Man's sin was part of God's decree. Joseph repeats the same idea again in the last chapter: "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive." --Genesis 50:20 There is no mistaking that God MEANT it to happen, not merely that he allowed it to occur and "cleaned up the mess" for His glory and His purposes. Again, he did not cause the sinful attitudes of the brothers, but since the original intent was to kill Joseph, it isn't too much of a stretch to suggest that God redirected that motive through Reuben. On last thing: You wrote, "If God has pre-determined every infitessimal detail of history, which must obviously include sin, then how can those individuals who commit those predetermined sins be held responsible for them?" Rather than answer myself, I will let the apostle Paul do the talking: "You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, 'Why did you make me like this,' will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?" Romans 9:19-21 Just out of curiosity, how would you work the verses here and in my other posts into another framework. Where do you stand on the reconciliation of God's sovereignty and man's sin? --Joe! |
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5 | So God is the cause of sin then | Gal 2:17 | Lionstrong | 13605 | ||
Rom. 9:19-21: A very powerful passage! God is soveriegn over what a man will be, and then to hold him accountable for what he does. He has potter's rights to make to make one man a vessel of wrath and hold him accountable for his sins, and to man another man a vessel of mercy and reward him for his good works in Christ! Peace, Lionstrong |
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6 | So God is the cause of sin then | Gal 2:17 | Gregrook | 13809 | ||
I think that is correct. He can do what he wants. | ||||||