No such thing as free will.
- Thread starter JackSparrow
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Actually it seems to me you say man sins because God controls everything and planed for man to sin.
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cygnusx1
Jacob the twister.....
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Which is nothing like saying if man sins God sins .
Consider causality , proximate , ultimate , secondary and primary , there is variety in every instance , every action is a complexity of causation.
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Not in this case. If God controls man completely and man sins, God and not man is the cause of the sin--there is no secondary or primary to worry about. It is the same if God sends a lying spirit to lie for Him and the lying spirit does what God sent him to do--God is the liar. The principal is responsible for the actions of the agent if the agent is authorized to act for the principle and follows the instructions of the principle.
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The spirit was acting for God personally when the spirit lied. If the principal controlled the agent and commanded the agent sin, then the principal is the sinner.
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cygnusx1
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I don't agree and neither do scores of Reformed theologians , multiple causation is real and it is easily observed , It is man not God who sins , it is not the agent sent but the agent doing that which is wrong that sins , God sending out lying Spirits in the O.T. Is matched by the N.T. Where God sends upon certain men a strong delusion to damn. Them , men who rejected the truth !
Does that delusion mean God sinned ? Of course not , God is not under Law , we are , the Law is laid down for sinners , is it wrong to kill ? Of course it is , but you are well on the way to having just a few pages of a a bible left if you say every time you read God killed someone , it makes Him a sinner or a murderer , you have placed your reason above scripture.
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Yes sending a delusion and making men reject the truth would be God being responsible for them rejecting the truth. You cannot imagine how unimpressed I am with scholars who refuse to accept that the verse says because their favorite theology of infallibility of scripture would be destroyed. I am not concerned about preserving the man made institution of worshiping the bible as inerrant and dictated by God. I am very concerned about preserving the goodness and truthfulness of our Creator. It is very important to me that God does not lie. I am not willing to sacrifice that to the possibility that God sends lying spirits to lie for Him so I can keep the comfort of believing in the inerrantcy of the Bible.
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cygnusx1
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You still cannot see the inherent contradiction in your denial of scriptures inerrancy , you say you are concerned about the goodness and truthfulness of the creator , but without a trustworthy. Bible , what can you defend except anything that can be considered , by your own flawed argument , faulty .
God cannot be guilty of murder but how many texts state God destroyed humans ? Start with Genesis 6 , oh wait is that another scripture you disregard ,,and on it goes
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Shulamite
My Bridegroom suffered this for ME
With all respect, the entire bible, front to back, is the word of God, breathed by God, not by men. To doubt the 100% accuracy of the bible concerns me. We are all at different maturity levels in our understanding of God's word, but we should never doubt it's 100% validity. Jesus is the written Logos, made flesh, those words are HIM and He is Truth.
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Yes. God did not kill anyone and does not need to kill anyone. He also does not ask human being to kill other human beings. He did not command Joshua to kill all the women and children of Jericho. You say that we cannot defend God as good if we do not have a inerrant Bible. For the first four hundred years following the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, Christians had no New Testament at all, and certainly they did not have an inerrant one. Were they able to defend God as good? For fifteen hundred years or more the vast majority of Christians did not have access to a Bible and could not have read it if they had. Were they able to defend the goodness of God? I think so. The Bible itself does not claim inerrantcy and does not claim to be the Word of God. In fact in John 1 the Bible says the Word of God is Jesus. One people who wrote the New Testament said he and all the others made many mistakes in their theology.. James 3:2. What does that say about what they wrote being inerrant?
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I keep seeing inerrancy being mentioned. There are certainly differences in translation.
Isaiah 45:7 for example. Does god create calamity or evil. Since debating this I have asked a professional translator. He said in essence translators have to use the wider context when translating. There is not a word for word translation from Hebrew to English. Combined with a word have multiple meanings.
Hence we get controversy between those who take passages literally and those who see a figure of speech.
We have a Canon. We do not have everything that e,g Paul wrote.
The Book 1 Corinthians perhaps should be 2 Corinthians as 1 Cor 5:9 ("I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people") - We do not have this first letter.
Not errant, just not so straight forward.
Any one know who wrote the book of Romans ?
Isaiah 45:7 for example. Does god create calamity or evil. Since debating this I have asked a professional translator. He said in essence translators have to use the wider context when translating. There is not a word for word translation from Hebrew to English. Combined with a word have multiple meanings.
Hence we get controversy between those who take passages literally and those who see a figure of speech.
We have a Canon. We do not have everything that e,g Paul wrote.
The Book 1 Corinthians perhaps should be 2 Corinthians as 1 Cor 5:9 ("I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people") - We do not have this first letter.
Not errant, just not so straight forward.
Any one know who wrote the book of Romans ?
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I certainly do not believe God created evil. I believe man created evil by not being obedient to the command to love. I also do not believe God creates calamity since it rains on the just and the unjust. I do not believe hurricanes or earthquakes etc. are send to places because of the wickedness of the people living there.
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I think some just want to cut out the parts that make God look like anything but a cosmic Santa Claus.
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Hi Elman
All this is a complicated subject.
John 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
So did God create evil ? Yes and no. Yes he did as "through him all things were made". Including Satan.
Before you fire that rocket launcher at me wait 1 second ( OK 10 ). Does it follow that God made man to do evil ? NO, NO, NO, NO. Here is the big split ( in general) between Calvinists and Arminians. Arminians hold more to free will - not enough to save oneself - but more than enough to be responsible.
This might re trigger the risk taking God idea which I will counter with God is more than big enough to handle the risk.
Another, perhaps better question is why would God do this. It would need another thread. You mentioned hurricanes sent to the wicked. Maybe you are correct. I know for certain that Christians suffered loss in the last Pacific Tsunami and other natural disasters. I do believe God creates calamity. Christians in e.g Syria are persecuted. Yet oddly enough, Christianity is the stronger for it. Here in the west what have we to contend with ? An internet forum.
Just some thoughts.
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