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NASB | Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Romans 1:20 For ever since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through His workmanship [all His creation, the wonderful things that He has made], so that they [who fail to believe and trust in Him] are without excuse and without defense. [Ps 19:1-4; Eph 2:10] |
Subject: Is God somehow responsible? |
Bible Note: "Do I agree that 'everything' happens according to God's eternal plan? No! Do I believe that everything God ordains to happen will happen? Yes!" I think we see pretty much eye-to-eye on these two statements, if I am understanding you correctly. If by the first one you mean that we do things that God does not want us to do, then I give a resounding, Reformer Joe-style "Amen!" And of course I agree with the second statement. This is why I think that giving a simplistic understanding of God's will is a mistake. Does the Bible say that God always gets His way? Yes...and no. "There is a subtle difference. I don't believe that God plans out every decision and action of man." Neither do I. At the same time, I would say that every human action is already incorporated into God's plan. To say otherwise would be treading into open theism. I think where we are differing is not in saying that God foresees things. Where we differ is in stating what man is capable of after the Fall, and in the degree to which God intervences in human history and individual human lives. I think that it is too simplistic to say that He works around the intentions of human beings, as I see Joseph's brothers and Absolom and the Assyrian invasion and Pharaoh and Satan himself as biblical examples of God taking the intentions of the wicked and not just responding to their actions, but maneuvering their actions so that while they sin of their own accord, God gets his desired outcome. "Back to Adam and Eve for a moment, I thought you didn't believe in human free will?" I take Jonathan Edwards' position that our wills are determined by our natures. We do what we desire most, and our natures are such that we don't ever desire to submit to the Father and embrace Jesus Christ. Adam an Eve didn;t start out with a corruptible sin nature, but obviously is was a nature that was susceptible to corruption. "If God only permitted their sin, what was the cause of their sin?" Their own wills, untainted by a previously existing sin nature, responding to Satan's temptation." "If God only allowed the decision, then He didn't sovereignly decree it would happen." How so? If we think of every action in the universe as directly caused by God, or granted permission for God to occur, or granted with modification, then that still makes God the sovereign cause or gatekeeper of every event in creation. And that's why I am an infralapsarian, incidentally. For the reprobate, God has to do nothing but "give them over" to their natural inclinations, as Paul puts it in Romans 1. One might even call it "spiritual entropy." God only has to do nothing regenerative in a person's life and their trajectory will be toward hell. I agree with you as far as the person who will be in hell is concerned, God gives him his way. That person's will is only constrained by the sociological checks that God has sovereignly established to keep the consequences of a sinful life within His ordained parameters. For the elect, however, I see the new birth as an essential logical precursor to the will. This is the other area in which we differ. You see that grace as only prevenient, enabling the person to be on a neutral ground of sorts to make a decision. I see that grace as making a fundamental change in the very nature of the person, making him into a human being who now wills to embrace the message of the gospel that has accompanied the Spirit's work in his very self. "It seems to me that God allowed their decision, but that He was not the cause of it." I agree. "Concerning Piper, how could it be true that a sovereign God could will something, but it not come to pass?" To be honest, I am not familiar with Piper's view. Different Reformed people approach in different ways the complexity of the Bible's mention of God's will. I think it is biblically supportable to speak of "God's will" in one sense of God creating, causing or permitting something; and "God's will" in another sense of what is in conformity to His law. When I sin, I am in in a violation of God's will, but God permitting me to sin is also according to his will, sovereignly speaking. God detests the act itself, but has already put the act he permits (and whose commission, extent, and effect He governs) in the grand scheme of His sovereign plan. --Joe! |