But it has been. The reason it still stand is because there are people who don't reason properly. As I pointed out about the WCF. The statement is a flat out contradiction, yet there are people here who are arguing that it is not. The statement violates the Law of Non Contradiction, thus it is not valid. However, instead of saying, oh, well maybe they were wrong on that point, they argue that the men were correct even against what is logical.
This just isn't true.
What the WCF is asserting is not a contradiction.
If you fired a bullet at me and the bullet killed me - it is not a contradiction to say that the bullet was the direct cause but that you were the first cause in that you had fired the bullet while knowing full well that the bullet would kill me.
Every court of law on earth and every rule of logic would agree that you and the bullet were both causes of my death.
This is true even though, as the WCF would assert, quite rightly, that the
actual death proceeded only from the bullet itself.
Perhaps the WCF would put it something like this:
"Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of Butch, the first Cause, the death of Marvin came to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, Butch ordered it to fall out, according to the nature a second cause, either necessarily, freely, or contingently."
And, "Butch did, from before Marvin's death, by the counsel of His own will, freely ordain Marvin's death- yet so, as thereby neither was Butch the direct cause of Marvin's death nor was the power of the bullet to actually end life taken away but rather established.
While it is perfectly true that it was only the bullet that actually killed Marvin - it is also true that Butch was also a cause – and it is perfectly logical to say so.
Either way, Butch, you'd go to jail because you caused my death.
Don’t strain at the example to exactly by the way. Obviously any example that we could possibly use from the lives of men will fall short in many ways simply because we are dealing with God.
You want to judge God by those exact same standards. The problem is that God is not altogether like men. His ways are not our ways. He makes the laws and He sets the standards.
He says that He gave men free will while knowing exactly what the consequences of that action would be. He says that the choices of those men, being the direct cause of sin, are what He will judge as worthy of Hell.
He says that He Himself is not worthy of Hell.
You can close your law book at this stage and go home. The Supreme Court has spoken.
You cannot long stand in judgment of God without yourself entering into sin.
Just agree as to what He has said that He has done. Just let Him deal with any guilt or innocence.
By the way – I find it interesting that God has poured out of His eternal wrath on Himself for all the sins of the world.
Even if, somehow, He were to be found guilty of sin, there is not a single thing that I could do to Him that He has not already done to Himself.
That’s one of the many, many reasons that I can comfortably tell it like it is concerning what He has done and just let it go at that.
Other people here, apparently, not so much.