Calvinism: Is the bible lying or is God powerless to save everyone?

[Skala]

"
How is this "NOT" what Calvinists hold since these quotes are verbatim and pertaining to the context? Are you saying that some versions of Calvinism hold radically different positions than Calvin did? That might be true.

I think our friend simply can't articulate what he means. The confessions are clear that God uses secondary causes. I'm not the best at explaining it either, but the story of Joseph is a good biblical example:

"You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good" Gen 50:20

The brothers' evil actions and sins against Joseph were part of God's plan to get Joseph into Egypt to save many lives, per Joseph's admission:

"It was not you (my brothers) who sent me here, but God sent me to save many lives" Gen 45:8

Yet we know for a fact that it was the brothers that sent Joseph to Egypt. However, Joseph concludes that it was really God working behind the scenes. This is a theology lesson about how God operates and works through mankind, even mankind's sins.

So God decreed the brother's actions (as evil as they were) because it was the way God was choosing to get Joseph into Egypt. God carries out his own plans through the acts of men.

Please notice, Joseph does not simply say "God figured out how to use your sinful actions and spin it around because he's really clever and figured out how to make lemonade out of lemons". Instead, the Bible tells us that was God's plan all along. God "MEANT IT" for good. God is not merely reacting to, and fixing a poor situation. God MEANT the poor situation. He MEANT Joseph's brothers actions.

The difference is in the intentions of both parties:
God's intentions are always holy and just and good (Per Genesis, God was doing it to "save many lives")
But Joseph's brothers intentions were evil. (they meant it for evil).

That's just one example of God decreeing sin, but not being guilty for sin or the author of sin.

Another example is the crucifixion. Acts 4:27ff tells us that God predestined what wicked men would do to Christ, yet we know the end result is salvation for billions of human beings. God's intention is good, man's intention is evil.

So the Calvinist position is that God decrees all things, even sinful acts, but the intentions of God and man are never in sync.

As someone else said:

'it is not the case that God’s free will overrides man’s free will. God does not overpower or compete with man’s free will. Again, the existence of human free will depends on God’s causing not just the fact of free will, but the acts of free will. That is how God sustains free will. For if God did not do so, humans would not be free creatures."

 

[Albion]

And why do we sin in the first place?...the fall. According to Calvinism, who presistined and preordained the fall?...God. So according to Calvinist theology, God would be the creater and architect of sin. Apparently to purpose of sin is to use that sin to create "vessels of wrath" to glorify Himself.

How is this "NOT" what Calvinists hold since these quotes are verbatim and pertaining to the context?

No, God is not responsible for sin, and certainly not because he preordained it.

"Man falls according as God's providence ordains, but he falls by his own fault." Bk 3, Ch 23, s. 8

 

[Marvin Knox]

I would still like this question answered. It is very relevant to predestination, IMHO.

Well if He did not predestine it to happen then He certainly put out a lot of effort to make sure that the odds were a few billion to one that it would happen.

Just to put things a little crudely for simplicity and understandings sake ------ Those who do not believe that He predestined the fall apparently believe that God just sort of stacked the deck by accident as He winged His way through that part of history.

Since Adam and Eve "lived and moved and had their being" in Him and since He "fills Heaven and Earth" and "all things were created by Him and for Him and in Him all things consist" (including the dirt that Adam was made out of, Lucifer's tail, the skin of the fruit, the flesh of the fruit and the seed of the fruit, the air through which the sound waves of temptation's voice traveled, the flesh of the hands that grabbed the fruit and the tongue which tasted it ........ well enough of that. You must get the picture since you are a Bible believer) -------- God was intimately involved in everything from the gift of free choice to the nature of the fruit. How could one say that things just "happen" apart from God's predesignating decrees?

Honestly - does anyone really believe that an abstract "knowledge of good and evil" and all that that entails really resided physically in the flesh of an apple or some other kind of fruit? Surely this was a huge concept about which God wants full knowledge of in the ages to come. Surely His planting of the tree and the events following were part of a plan to get these things out in the open from start to finish once for all before going on into ages without a chance of these things happening again.

These things get difficult to explain simply because those who deny predestination seem (to be frank) to be reading about an entirely different God than the omniscient, omnipresent, and providentially controlling God I read about.

People (saved or unsaved alike) move and think and live and die as real people with real identities and with real choices to make. But that doesn't make them independent from God at all.

He's God and we're not. I don't understand it all. But come on now - things don't "just happen on their own" - unless of course the thing we are talking about is God Himself.

The Bible pictures a totally independent Being who knows and always has known all things possible from a literally infinite combination of intertwining things and event which He Himself must create, sustain, and orchestrate and allow.

Nothing just happens independent of God. If we're talking about the God of the scriptures it just isn't possible.

If God knew from before the "foundation of the world" (and He did) every possible thing that could happen in history all depending on just how and when He chose to participate (everywhere?) - then He simply must have decided which combination of history He was going to orchestrate before He started participating in it at a literally atomic level.

God works "all" things after the council of His will. Note that - "all" things. All things means the giving of a serpent voice through Lucifer. It means how many hairs will remain on my head at 71. It means whether or not my neighbor is even capable of grasping the gospel and how many years he will live and whee they will live and to whom they will be born as He knit them together. It means everything in history from the first "let there be" to the last "so be it".

The Bible pictures a God who works concurrently with His creation. All the while He decrees and does good things while at the same time the means He uses to do those good things are being done (and right judged for it) by His creation (some of which are evil).

God does good in the predestined crucifixion while bring it to past through the evil choices and actions of men.

Oh well - I'll just let it go for now.

But I will say that I just can't believe how many people here go out on a limb to pontificate about things that they have not thought all the way through.

I doubt that all this typing does any good in the end. I keep trying not to witness to truth here because people don't want to really think and work at it. But for some unknown reason I just keep coming back for more.

 

[Albion]

Well if He did not predestine it to happen then He certainly put out a lot of effort to make sure that the odds were a few billion to one that it would happen.

Why would you say that? Just because it did come to pass? There's no logical connection there.

Just to put things a little crudely for simplicity and understandings sake ------ Those who do not believe that He predestined the fall apparently believe that God just sort of stacked the deck by accident as He winged His way through that part of history.

None of that follows. To foreknow something is not to preordain it (to occur).

 

[Marvin Knox]

Those who find the narrow gate are those who 'STRIVE' to enter.

As usual - you've got it completely backward. Such is you false gospel of works.

First you find it then you strive to enter in. You do not (as you try to make it) find it by striving to enter. That makes no sense. Nor does you version of the gospel.

Some who find the narrow gate (the gospel of grace I've shown you here) will strive to enter in while others mock it and do not strive to enter in. But rather they try to take the broad way in (namely pretty much every kind of human endeavor but simple trust in Christ).

“Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it.”

“But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

"Make every effort to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.”

 

[ToBeLoved]

Well if He did not predestine it to happen then He certainly put out a lot of effort to make sure that the odds were a few billion to one that it would happen.

Just to put things a little crudely for simplicity and understandings sake ------ Those who do not believe that He predestined the fall apparently believe that God just sort of stacked the deck by accident as He winged His way through that part of history.

Since Adam and Eve "lived and moved and had their being" in Him and since He "fills Heaven and Earth" and "all things were created by Him and for Him and in Him all things consist" (including the dirt that Adam was made out of, Lucifer's tail, the skin of the fruit, the flesh of the fruit and the seed of the fruit, the air through which the sound waves of temptation's voice traveled, the flesh of the hands that grabbed the fruit and the tongue which tasted it ........ well enough of that. You must get the picture since you are a Bible believer) -------- God was intimately involved in everything from the gift of free choice to the nature of the fruit. How could one say that things just "happen" apart from God's predesignating decrees?

Honestly - does anyone really believe that an abstract "knowledge of good and evil" and all that that entails really resided physically in the flesh of an apple or some other kind of fruit? Surely this was a huge concept about which God wants full knowledge of in the ages to come. Surely His planting of the tree and the events following were part of a plan to get these things out in the open from start to finish once for all before going on into ages without a chance of these things happening again.

These things get difficult to explain simply because those who deny predestination seem (to be frank) to be reading about an entirely different God than the omniscient, omnipresent, and providentially controlling God I read about.

People (saved or unsaved alike) move and think and live and die as real people with real identities and with real choices to make. But that doesn't make them independent from God at all.

He's God and we're not. I don't understand it all. But come on now - things don't "just happen on their own" - unless of course the thing we are talking about is God Himself.

The Bible pictures a totally independent Being who knows and always has known all things possible from a literally infinite combination of intertwining things and event which He Himself must create, sustain, and orchestrate and allow.

Nothing just happens independent of God. If we're talking about the God of the scriptures it just isn't possible.

If God knew from before the "foundation of the world" (and He did) every possible thing that could happen in history all depending on just how and when He chose to participate (everywhere?) - then He simply must have decided which combination of history He was going to orchestrate before He started participating in it at a literally atomic level.

God works "all" things after the council of His will. Note that - "all" things. All things means the giving of a serpent voice through Lucifer. It means how many hairs will remain on my head at 71. It means whether or not my neighbor is even capable of grasping the gospel and how many years he will live and whee they will live and to whom they will be born as He knit them together. It means everything in history from the first "let there be" to the last "so be it".

The Bible pictures a God who works concurrently with His creation. All the while He decrees and does good things while at the same time the means He uses to do those good things are being done (and right judged for it) by His creation (some of which are evil).

God does good in the predestined crucifixion while bring it to past through the evil choices and actions of men.

Oh well - I'll just let it go for now.

But I will say that I just can't believe how many people here go out on a limb to pontificate about things that they have not thought all the way through.

I doubt that all this typing does any good in the end. I keep trying not to witness to truth here because people don't want to really think and work at it. But for some unknown reason I just keep coming back for more.

Well let's see. The prequel to what happened to Adam & Eve in the fall is Lucifer's rebellion.

And Lucifer's rebellion was because of his pride, that he wanted to be God. Not like God, but be God. And he took 1/3 of the angels with him in rebellion also.

From this, my thought is that Lucifer and the angels getting cast out of heaven to the earth was the first problem.

So, in this we see that God would also have predestined Lucifer's fall as well as 1/3 of the angels fall so God could bring evil to the earth.

Then God creates man, then woman and then gives them a choice to obey Him or not obey Him.

So if God predestined the fall of mankind, then He also predestined the fall of the angels. So did God purposely give Lucifer pride so all of heaven would fight? Did God then give Satan and his angels 5,000 years to rule over mankind, only sending a Savior 3,000 years later and then making mankind wait another 2,000 years for it all to end? Then did God give Eve low self esteem so she would believe Satan's lie? Then God could send those He preordained to hell like He wanted to and save those that He also wanted too.

I think that story is about a billion to one in odds that my God is not like that. He is who the Bible says He is and cannot co-exist with evil, nor predestine evil.

Let's not act like this whole Calvinism theory makes sense, much less the fact that it call's our God a liar when He says that He can only give good things.

 

[ToBeLoved]

..

 

[Marvin Knox]

Why would you say that? Just because it did come to pass? There's no logical connection there.

Because He brought it to past through a zillion activities required for the creation event to exist let along function intricately.

None of that follows. To foreknow something is not to preordain it (to occur).

In this case it was both.

If He foreknew it then it was destined to happen.

Since God is the one who must hold all of destiny in His hands (or to be more precise His "Word") then He is the one doing the predestining.

Nothing carries through to their destiny unless God is involved up to His wonderful eyebrows.

There's only one God and we aren't Him.

 

[EmSw]

As usual - you've got it completely backward. Such is you false gospel of works.

First you find it then you strive to enter in. You do not (as you try to make it) find it by striving to enter. That makes no sense. Nor does you version of the gospel.

Some who find the narrow gate (the gospel of grace I've shown you here) will strive to enter in while others mock it and do not strive to enter in. But rather they try to take the broad way in (namely pretty much every kind of human endeavor but simple trust in Christ).

“Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it.”

“But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

"Make every effort to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.”

Eternal life is within the narrow gate. No one can enter that gate unless he strives to enter. Tell me how anyone has eternal life without striving to enter. Notice the order Marvin - STRIVE (that is, labor fervently), ENTER (the narrow gate), RECEIVE (eternal life).

And it doesn't say 'trust' to enter the narrow gate. The gospel of grace is not the gate, Jesus is.

 

[ToBeLoved]

Because He brought it to past through a zillion activities required for the creation event to exist let along function intricately.

So I take it you do not believe God created in 7 days then? So God did zillions of activities for creation to exist? Maybe that's how evolution got going. Animals morphed over the time it took for God to do a zillion things. How long did it take for the zillions of activities of creation?

 

[Marvin Knox]

So I take it you do not believe God created in 7 days then? So God did zillions of activities for creation to exist? Maybe that's how evolution got going. Animals morphed over the time it took for God to do a zillion things. How long did it take for the zillions of activities of creation?

Where did I say that God did not crated in 7 days (I take you really mean 6 days right)?

There are a zillion activities taking place under your fingernail as we speak - let along in the heart and lungs and under the lounge of Adam and Eve before the fall. Just how many molecules in the universe do you think were existing by Him and for Him and being held together in Him during those 6 days.

I'm going to take a metaphoric stab at it and say something over a zillion (whatever that is).

Don't be so ready to revert to insults just because I'm on an opposite side of this particular discussion rather than think through what is really meant.

 

[Albion]

Because He brought it to past through a zillion activities required for the creation event to exist let along function intricately.

But that doesn't mean that he forced Adam and Eve defy him.

In this case it was both.

Well, that's how you make your theory work. However, there's nothing about foreknowledge (which almost all Christians of whatever sort accept as true) that makes preordination go along with it. Nor (as I read what you quoted) is that inherent in the statements you gave us.

If He foreknew it then it was destined to happen.

You mean that he knew it was going to happen. Big difference.

 

[EmSw]

So I take it you do not believe God created in 7 days then? So God did zillions of activities for creation to exist? Maybe that's how evolution got going. Animals morphed over the time it took for God to do a zillion things. How long did it take for the zillions of activities of creation?

Very true TBL. God doesn't have to watch over every little thing for it to come to pass. God has put laws into effect which govern His universe. God doesn't have to do anything for gravity to work. It's His law and gravity will obey whatever God designed it to do. When water gets down to 32 degrees, God doesn't have do anything for it to freeze. All God's laws will do exactly as God has chosen. He doesn't have to bring about anything for earthly materials to break down; they break down according to His laws.

 

[EmSw]

Don't be so ready to revert to insults just because I'm on an opposite side of this particular discussion rather than think through what is really meant.

...says the Great Insulter...

 

[ToBeLoved]

Where did I say that God did not crated in 7 days (I take you really mean 6 days right)?

There are a zillion activities taking place under your fingernail as we speak - let along in the heart and lungs and under the lounge of Adam and Eve before the fall. Just how many molecules in the universe do you think were existing by Him and for Him and being held together in Him during those 6 days.

I'm going to take a metaphoric stab at it and say something over a zillion (whatever that is).

Don't be so ready to revert to insults just because I'm on an opposite side of this particular discussion rather than think through what is really meant.

No insult intended, maybe a little sarcasm, but not insult.

 

[Marvin Knox]

But that doesn't mean that he forced Adam and Eve defy him.

Wow that's wonderful you and I are in agreement with what the Westminster Confession of Faith and virtually all Calvinists believe.

You didn't per chance think that you read where I claimed that God "forced Adam and Eve to defy Him did you?

...........However, there's nothing about foreknowledge (which almost all Christians of whatever sort accept as true) that makes preordination go along with it.

No - of course not.

But there is the split second God uttered a Word to get the ball rolling toward what He saw before that was only a possibility of what He would involve Himself in until He spoke.

You mean that he knew it was going to happen. Big difference.

Big difference before God got moving. But once He got going with that first spiritual syllable as it were the two kind of melded together did they not?

Predestination is not, with God, the waving of some kind of magic wand and proclaiming that it is now destined to happen.

Predestination is God bringing an idea from His infinite mind to past by preceding each phase of that unfolding idea with activity of a magnitude in His creation that we can't even imagine how it is. We only have the illuminating knowledge that He graciously gave us through the writings and words of Paul to shed light on how magnificent His involvement even in our own being really is.

I don't want to engage His foolishness again - but if you'll look at EmSw's un-Biblical statement in post number 373 above you'll see how it does not work.

Compare what a person who refuses to look at the scriptures in a systematic way says with the words of scripture concerning His omnipresence in His entirety and without division in "all things."

I suppose such a foolish person believes that when God is said to ride on the clouds that He makes a trip to earth occasionally and saddles up for an evening. I suppose such a foolish person believes that when God came down on Pentecost that He had never before seen or entered into the upper room until that day.

The idea, which he seems to hold, of a sort of Jeffersonian absentee God who is transcendent but certainly not immanent is not something that the scriptures leave for us to believe about God's relationship with His creation.

God is involved in intricate and unimaginable ways in every occurrence in His creation. That certainly includes all of the events which lead up to and form the likelihood of the choices you make. You know - think "I will hooks in jaws and draw him forth out of the North country" or I will harden Pharaoh's heart or I will cause an evil thought to come into his mind not to mention a million other illustrations having only to do in these cases with choices men make - let alone the function overall of their being.

One hardly knows where to start and end in a discussion like this - but I'll end it with this. I've always thought and tried to illustrate that those who fight against the idea of predestination and sovereignty in general almost have to be worshiping a different God then the one the scripture leads us to believe in.

 

[Marvin Knox]

No insult intended, maybe a little sarcasm, but not insult.

Let me just kind of piggy back onto the thoughts you had come to mind when I said that God was involved in the things leading up to the fall in a "zillion" ways.

You seemed to think that I must have meant over a billions year or so as the evolutionist would see things to say such a thing as that God had done over a zillion things and many more which precipitated the fall.

No offense this can be meant for people in general - but I really wonder sometimes if people who are not Reformed for want of a better word even think of God the way I do.

When you pray to God and praise Him for all that He is and what He means to you surely you include in your adoration the fact that He is omnipresent in every minute atom and every chemical molocule that flows across a synapse in your brain as even as you form words of adoration.

Surely folks don't lift up their eyes toward Heaven and really believe that He's up there beyond he Milky Way and not as much present in the air around you and in your lungs and in the stars themselves as He is on His throne.

The point is that the God of the Calvinist and the like seems to be a few zillion times bigger and more active than the God of the non-Calvinist or whatever else opposes them.

The other side seems to think that God is kind of small and sitting on a chair next to the activities on earth rather than intimately involved in everything from the activities of the smallest bacteria to the abstract thoughts and intents of the human brain.

The other side seems to think that God just sort of did a few things that we see in the first of Genesis and then took His hands off and watched to see what would happen (as per the ruminations of EmSw).

The entire witness of the scriptures including the N.T. witness speaks of a God much more involved. "In Him we live and breath and have our being" and do I not "fill the heavens and earth?" come to mind.

However the being of men and their thoughts and "fee will" choices are - they most assuredly do not exist outside of the presence of God Himself.

Theologians are supposed to take each item of information that we know about God to be true - and lug it along to considerations of other areas of inquire.

I'm just amazed considering the judgment that awaits every man for every word spoken and the much more strict judgment that is in store for those who would open their mouths or pens to teach ---- I'm amazed at the number of people who would tackle a difficult area like "soteriology" without taking along some of the most basic knowledge that a person should assimilate during Sunday school.

When discussing election or predestination or the like - I am might say something about the omnipresence of God only to have one of these shallow people say something along the lines of "huhhh?" what's that got to do with it.

My theological journey has been somewhere around 60 years now and I can't expect that everyone should have covered the same ground that I have. But I do marvel that so many people would come to these advanced notions without even first covering the basics and putting them in their theological knapsack to help with these understandings.

 

[Marvin Knox]

By the way - I have (undoubtedly correctly) been accused of insulting some people.

But, for what it's worth, I try hard to only do that with people who get snarky in almost every post; who make illogical theological statements while apparently thinking themselves quite clever; who constantly misstate my beliefs and the beliefs of Reformed theologians and who preach a gospel of human merit and will not be corrected on it.

I'll try to work of that trait that I have. But almost without doubt I'll drop back onto that low ground again in the future as my patience with them wears thin mainly because they stalk me every where I go and try to interject their nonsense into any conversation I am having.

 

[Marvin Knox]

I've got an eye operation tomorrow which will put my computer time on hold for a few days.

You can roast me while I'm gone.

Try to ignore the cat from Texas though. I don't think he's all there.

This might be good time to just give up this mostly unproductive activity.

 

[EmSw]

I've got an eye operation tomorrow which will put my computer time on hold for a few days.

You can roast me while I'm gone.

Try to ignore the cat from Texas though. I don't think he's all there.

This might be good time to just give up this mostly unproductive activity.

Marvin, I hope everything turns out okay. I'll be praying for you.