Calvinist limited love for mankind

nolidad said:

Love to a "calvinist" is the same to an "armeniusist". for if one does not accept what is called Calvin, then by default they accept the teaching of Jacob Armenius.

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Or they are convinced of Amyraldism (4 point Calvinism,) or they’re a Molinist, or they believe in Provisionism, or they’re an Open theist. The idea that it’s either Calvin or Jacob Arminius (or Pelagius if the detractor really dislikes you) is not true, it’s a Calvinist pat answer.

Jesusthekingofking said:

wow Provisionism is baptist traditional view of salvation (unless you're reformed baptist then most likely you're a calvinist)

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I think the main point is that Calvinists need to stop with some of these canned talking points, they’re not good arguments.

“If you aren’t a Calvinist you’re an Arminian” is one of the absolute worst examples. Ditto the “You believe you save yourself!” argument.

Calvinists would be so much more convincing if they’d move beyond those catchphrases.

Jesusthekingofking said:

You can know the love of God through Jesus. He's the savior of the whole world according to the apostles. Who's the elect is God's job not ours. Just preach Jesus died on the cross to restore and save this sinking world.

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I do preach that God died to save whoever will come to him, as a matter of fact. There is hardly a more precious thing than to see someone come to Christ. I have no idea if this person or that is one of those God chose for His own adopted child, except by their testimony and the Spirit that sometimes works on me concerning that person.

The "Savior of the whole world" (1 John 2:2) grammatically and contextually means that for the whole world, there is no other savior. I.e., if anyone in the whole world is to have a savior, it is Jesus Christ. The use of the term, "the whole world", is to show that he is not only the savior of the Jewish elect, but of the elect of every people.

I do not preach that God is trying to restore a sinking world --I preach that he will ultimately do that, as the King of the World, according to prophecy upon his return --not according to my own desires, but not right now. He will not restore this order of things, though there may be temporary improvements; in fact, he plans to literally burn it up eventually.

Cormack said:

Or they are convinced of Amyraldism (4 point Calvinism,) or they’re a Molinist, or they believe in Provisionism, or they’re an Open theist. The idea that it’s either Calvin or Jacob Arminius (or Pelagius if the detractor really dislikes you) is not true, it’s a Calvinist pat answer.

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Well a four pointer believes in four of the 5 points and hold to the armenist teaching for the fifth!

As for Molinism- that looks like a bowl of Spagetti, theologically speaking. Scripture refutes this.

Provisionism (SBC mainstay) is a muddle of Calvinism and armenism. SCripture refutes this.

Open theism is a very serious heretical and anti-biblical doctrine. Scripture refutes this as well.

Mark Quayle said:

Sure they can. Do you believe God's love to be the same to everyone?

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Absolutely.

Mark Quayle said:

Does he not have particular love for those he redeems? Are the non-elect given the mercy of God's grace for salvation?

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Yes, they have. God gives mercy to all, but not all accept it.

Mark Quayle said:

But have the non-elect not been given this temporal life, and a mind to reason, provision for living, enjoyment?

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How reassuring. You are destined for eternal destruction through no fault of your own, but you get beer, hot dogs and a little sex...quit whining about dying eternally.

Mark Quayle said:

Does God's love for a person mean God will do only what that person considers good? Or does it mean perhaps, something more along the lines of intimate attention to the work of his hand?

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I have no idea what that means. God's love is beyond our capacity to totally understand, but we can catch glimpses of his perfect love that knows no limits if we are willing to look for them in the self sacrificial actions of some humans, even some humans who aren't redeemed.

Mark Quayle said:

We really don't know. We aren't God. And he doesn't operate by your standards or opinions.

We can know love by knowing God, not by judging God. God does not love as a result of the fact that love is good. Love is what it is, because God is love. It is defined by God, not by our notions.

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Interpretation: God can do any sort of evil and we have to call it love. No,no, a thousand times no! God illustrated love by dying in agony for us. We don't have to guess what love is.

Cormack said:

Well, if we want to be technical, they’re being punished not for their enmity towards God but on account of Gods enmity towards them.

Their own feelings of enmity weren’t a twinkle in their grandfathers eye before God had planned out their entire (unloved) kind.

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Enmity, and feelings of enmity, are not the same thing. God indeed punishes them because of their sin. They are not neutral concerning him, upon which setting he decided to have enmity towards them.

Cormack said:

Which would be a sham offer, since the sacrifice isn’t made for all according to the 5 point Calvinist.

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That's the same sort of bad logic that says the command implies the ability to obey. We look at everything backwards. For whatever reason, i.e. whether by natural fact or by forecausation by God, we are all born slaves to sin. Whether our logic says we are able to obey or not, we never do, because we WILL NOT, as Romans 8:7 says, "the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so." Our will is born in slavery to sin.

Cormack said:

I think the grim reality is that life isn’t all champagne and chocolate strawberries for the majority of people out there. Paul compared the pain of this life to but a moment and a light affliction only because in light of eternity there’s so much goodness. An eternity of good can easily outpace a lifetimes worth of affliction.

An eternity of torment in the unquenchable fires of hell added to a lifetime of HIV, dysentery and famine in the life of an African man doesn’t ring true regarding a life to be “enjoyed” by God.

We could go the other way and exhaust the logically possibilities. Give that African man a cure for HIV and AIDS, cure his every ill and feed him with the finest foods. Preserve him for 100 years in luxury, driving the best sports cars and loving the most beautiful women. Then send him to hell for an eternity of shame, pain, torment and loneliness.

An eternity of bad will crush and erase any amount of temporal good. Any temporal love (if we withhold eternal love and provide eternal punishment) will become hate.

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I put in the fact that man is given common grace and mercy; some no doubt wish they had never been born, and yes, even those who want to blame FreeWill for the evil in this life and for eternity suffered will have a hard time explaining how God is love, yet even knowing this was coming for some he went ahead and created it all anyway. My point, then, is that blaming free will vs predestination makes no difference in the end. If you want to blame God, you will, and if you know God as the merciful God of Scripture then you will see that in him, without need to blame free will.

Cormack said:

You’re human, Mark. It’s okay. Jesus used human analogies in the form of what we call parables constantly, so why Christians would often treat them with such distaste is beyond me.

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Ha ha. When Jesus did it, he had ability that I do not, to show spiritiual things he understood in ways I do not. My distaste has to do with my inability, and with the backwards present concept people have that God is like us --he is not like us. In fact, the only human example that immediately comes to mind that Jesus uses for comparison with the eternal was to say "...how much more will your father in heaven give...", which rhetorically assumes God is much more than we are; again, he is not like us --we are like him, only not so very much.

renniks said:

Absolutely.


Yes, they have. God gives mercy to all, but not all accept it.


How reassuring. You are destined for eternal destruction through no fault of your own, but you get beer, hot dogs and a little sex...quit whining about dying eternally.



I have no idea what that means. God's love is beyond our capacity to totally understand, but we can catch glimpses of his perfect love that knows no limits if we are willing to look for them in the self sacrificial actions of some humans, even some humans who aren't redeemed.



Interpretation: God can do any sort of evil and we have to call it love. No,no, a thousand times no! God illustrated love by dying in agony for us. We don't have to guess what love is.

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↑
M: "Sure they can. Do you believe God's love to be the same to everyone?"
REN: Absolutely.
MQ: "Does he not have particular love for those he redeems? Are the non-elect given the mercy of God's grace for salvation?"
REN: Yes, they have. God gives mercy to all, but not all accept it.

Then, you believe Christ died in vain for many. You believe Christ paid for their sin on the cross, no? Yet somehow that payment was not effective, because they will also have to pay, in the end. Fact is, this idea, and all its explanations, are drawn by reasoning from the assumption that there is autonomy, to whatever degree, in "free will", which is not taught in the Bible.

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MQ: "But have the non-elect not been given this temporal life, and a mind to reason, provision for living, enjoyment?"
REN: How reassuring. You are destined for eternal destruction through no fault of your own, but you get beer, hot dogs and a little sex...quit whining about dying eternally.

They are destined for eternal destruction through EVERY fault of their own. (And for whining when it certainly IS their fault. (Romans 1:21)) You are repeating the objection that so many use: That God is unfair if he requires something from anyone that person is unable to do. That is a false notion. If he makes something for the purposes of destruction, he has every right to do with it as he pleases. The fig tree had every human excuse, "But, it wasn't in season! Why did you kill it?" It was his. He looked for fruit and it had none. The wages of sin is death. Pretty simple. Nowhere does that Bible claim free will in involved, though it certainly does claim that Choice is involved, and Calvinism does not deny choice.

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MQ: "Does God's love for a person mean God will do only what that person considers good? Or does it mean perhaps, something more along the lines of intimate attention to the work of his hand?"
REN: I have no idea what that means. God's love is beyond our capacity to totally understand, but we can catch glimpses of his perfect love that knows no limits if we are willing to look for them in the self sacrificial actions of some humans, even some humans who aren't redeemed.

I'm there trying to hint at possible (and scriptural) facts that are beyond our understanding, that may well include love we had not considered. God is most likely intimately involved with every motion of every particle and force in the universe --I can't see how it could be otherwise. And that involvement could be called Love just as surely as it could be called anything else. God is delighted with what he has done (the work of his hands), with his plan, with the Bride of Christ. Yes, he loves it.

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MQ: "We really don't know. We aren't God. And he doesn't operate by your standards or opinions."

MQ: "We can know love by knowing God, not by judging God. God does not love as a result of the fact that love is good. Love is what it is, because God is love. It is defined by God, not by our notions."

REN: Interpretation: God can do any sort of evil and we have to call it love. No,no, a thousand times no! God illustrated love by dying in agony for us. We don't have to guess what love is.

That's plain silly, if not abhorrent. Why would God do evil? --of course he does not! Why come up with the statement, then? Of course we don't have to guess what love is, but we do have to acknowledge that we don't know enough about it to start making up doctrine not in Scripture --i.e. autonomous free will-- to explain something that might not make sense to us.

Cormack said:

There’s so much that’s being ignored in my posts that I think it’s important to distill a large part of the topic for the sake of clarity.

My entire previous reply only really contains 2 arguments and 2 pointed questions, there’s a lot of other ideas in between to do with the natural ability of man and deterministic absurdities but these two things are the major points, the post argues for (1) a well meant offer of the gospel and (2) the insecurity of believers if 5 point Calvinism and the false hope were correct.

Each of the four points has been ignored. If those points are incontrovertible, then Calvinism is an unliveable philosophy for the Christian. No Christian can live unaware as to their own salvation or without a firm confidence in the fulfilment to the good promises of God. Are they incontrovertible?

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I don't know who you are addressing here, but I'll bite.

(1) Calvinism teaches that the offer is indeed valid --that is, any at all that come to Christ, he will indeed save. But some won't. Their will is set against God. Thus they are unable. John 3:16 "whosoever", but who would that be? John 3:18 "...are condemned already, because they have not believed." The ONLY ones who come to Christ are those he has transformed, the born again by the Spirit of God within them, so that they are indeed willing and able to love God, and are no longer at enmity with him.

(2) How are believers insecure if 5 point Calvinism is correct? And what are you referring to by "the false hope"?

My young insecurity was in the validity of my "accepting" of the Gospel. Now my security is in Christ --not that I believe my sincerity any more than before, but I do believe that God need not answer me, nor does he owe me anything, yet knowing that he is doing all things from Creation to the end FOR HIS OWN SAKE, gives me all the confidence I need, that he is just and merciful, having a reason for creating us that has at best a contingent purpose in creating the ultimately lost --that of his own praise and glory, per Scripture. Furthermore, I have every Biblical promise the Arminians claim, to top it off!

The 5 points serve to accentuate that. They do not leave me unaccountable to God, but they do compel me to live for Christ, obedient, happy, confident that God is good, and I am not one of the elect: at least for now I am thankful to him for letting me know him and admire and praise him, faulty as I might do so. I am confident that he will do everything he set out to do from the beginning. I also am learning to enjoy watching him use me, in both obedience and my disobedience. I am not steering this ship.

Mark Quayle said:

Then, you believe Christ died in vain for many. You believe Christ paid for their sin on the cross, no? Yet somehow that payment was not effective, because they will also have to pay, in the end. Fact is, this idea, and all its explanations, are drawn by reasoning from the assumption that there is autonomy, to whatever degree, in "free will", which is not taught in the Bible.

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Are you serious? If autonomy doesn't exist, the entire Bible reads like nonsense. Adam didn't disobey if he didn't have free will, and the same applies to every disobedient person in the book.

Mark Quayle said:

They are destined for eternal destruction through EVERY fault of their own. (And for whining when it certainly IS their fault. (Romans 1:21)) You are repeating the objection that so many use: That God is unfair if he requires something from anyone that person is unable to do. That is a false notion. If he makes something for the purposes of destruction, he has every right to do with it as he pleases. The fig tree had every human excuse, "But, it wasn't in season! Why did you kill it?" It was his. He looked for fruit and it had none. The wages of sin is death. Pretty simple. Nowhere does that Bible claim free will in involved, though it certainly does claim that Choice is involved, and Calvinism does not deny choice.

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Total contradictions in every sentence... it's their fault but they had no other choice! No one can take such absurdity seriously. Under your system, they are destined by God for all eternity, before they exist, for death. To say it's their fault is silly nonsense.

Mark Quayle said:

That's plain silly, if not abhorrent. Why would God do evil? --of course he does not! Why come up with the statement, then? Of course we don't have to guess what love is, but we do have to acknowledge that we don't know enough about it to start making up doctrine not in Scripture --i.e. autonomous free will-- to explain something that might not make sense to us.

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Only in Calvinism God causes all evil. Why pretend otherwise?
For Calvin said God “wills and wills not the very same thing” and yet God ‘remains free of any taint.’ (Institutes, 1:18.1 [See CCEL 1230 of the PDF of Institutes, at pages 193-200, viz., 193-94].) In context, Calvin meant God wills evil and wills not evil at the very same identical time, but is not morally culpable for having willed evil.

Calvin taught God directs all the evil thoughts as well as the good thoughts of both humans and Satan. The idea of free-will is a false “idol.” (Institutes 1.5.11.) Free-will is supposedly a name without substance. (Institutes 3.2.16.) [See also 2.5 "The Arguments Alleged in Support of Free-Will Refuted" at Institutes PDF page 260.]

Calvin taught this idea about God as the driving force behind every evil thought and deed most pointedly in Chapter Eighteen in Book One of the Institutes of the Christian Religion. This chapter was entitled “The Instrumentality of the Wicked Employed by God While He Continues Free from Every Taint.” The citation is Institutes, 1:18. [See PDF Institutes pages 193-94.]

There Calvin says “whatever we conceive in our minds is directed to its end by the secret inspiration of God.” In other words, all thought--including all evil thoughts, malice, unbelief, and our lost condition--are directed, not merely permitted, by God.

How then can a God who intends good also intend evil? Calvin answers this by unabashedly insisting that when God directs evil, God “wills and wills not the very same thing.” (Institutes, 1:18.1.) Calvin defends a completely schizophrenic God. No wonder Calvin could endorse murder and feel no guilt. He was just being like his god.

renniks said:

Only in Calvinism God causes all evil. Why pretend otherwise?
For Calvin said God “wills and wills not the very same thing” and yet God ‘remains free of any taint.’ (Institutes, 1:18.1 [See CCEL 1230 of the PDF of Institutes, at pages 193-200, viz., 193-94].) In context, Calvin meant God wills evil and wills not evil at the very same identical time, but is not morally culpable for having willed evil.

Calvin taught God directs all the evil thoughts as well as the good thoughts of both humans and Satan. The idea of free-will is a false “idol.” (Institutes 1.5.11.) Free-will is supposedly a name without substance. (Institutes 3.2.16.) [See also 2.5 "The Arguments Alleged in Support of Free-Will Refuted" at Institutes PDF page 260.]

Calvin taught this idea about God as the driving force behind every evil thought and deed most pointedly in Chapter Eighteen in Book One of the Institutes of the Christian Religion. This chapter was entitled “The Instrumentality of the Wicked Employed by God While He Continues Free from Every Taint.” The citation is Institutes, 1:18. [See PDF Institutes pages 193-94.]

There Calvin says “whatever we conceive in our minds is directed to its end by the secret inspiration of God.” In other words, all thought--including all evil thoughts, malice, unbelief, and our lost condition--are directed, not merely permitted, by God.

How then can a God who intends good also intend evil? Calvin answers this by unabashedly insisting that when God directs evil, God “wills and wills not the very same thing.” (Institutes, 1:18.1.) Calvin defends a completely schizophrenic God. No wonder Calvin could endorse murder and feel no guilt. He was just being like his god.

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You apparently haven't read the rest of Calvinism's teachings, in particular I reference the "two wills" of God: his command, and his secret will, or his plan.

Also you neglect the title of what Calvin writes in, "The Instrumentality of the Wicked Employed by God..." God uses means to accomplish his ends. He uses the sinfulness of the Devil and his minions, and the sinfulness of humanity and of the individual, though meant to obstruct God's way, to accomplish what he has set out to do from the beginning. God indeed controls all things. Yet we know he does not sin, nor does he even tempt anyone. No, he leaves the tempting to others, and even to the individual to temp himself.

How it makes sense for God to allow evil, yet not control it, is beyond me. You would have him merely curb it, and not direct it?

Does, "As a watercourse in the hand of God is the heart of the King; he directs it wherever he pleases." mean to you only that God leads only the person that follows?

renniks said:

Total contradictions in every sentence... it's their fault but they had no other choice! No one can take such absurdity seriously. Under your system, they are destined by God for all eternity, before they exist, for death. To say it's their fault is silly nonsense.

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Did they not choose, and that according to their own will?

And does not God have the right to do with them as he pleases, since they are his creation?

Furthermore, he has treated them according to what they agree to do. They have drawn up a legal contract, so to speak, where they will behave thus, and reap the rewards. He is not unfair, then in giving them what they deserve.

renniks said:

Are you serious? If autonomy doesn't exist, the entire Bible reads like nonsense. Adam didn't disobey if he didn't have free will, and the same applies to every disobedient person in the book.

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You sound like an unbeliever here; you may as well say the Devil was being obedient by fulfilling God's will by his rebelling. Of course he was doing exactly as God had planned, but God uses his rebellion to accomplish what God set out to do from the beginning. That is not obeying God's will ("revealed will", or "command").

The ironic thing is that science and philosophy both agree on this one thing, that the law of causality demands all things except first cause are the result of causes. As I have said before, there are no little first causes walking about the earth. Yet you demand autonomy, which by definition is not caused. I will attribute your lack of logic to lack of thinking, rather than to presumptive self-importance.

So, @nolidad, when you’re shown to write an inaccurate and misleading comment, namely...


your natural response isn’t to retract or correct your inaccurate and misleading statement, your natural response is to ignore your previous error, expand the scope of the topic and begin writing further inaccurate, misleading and disparaging statements about other belief systems.

Mark Quayle said:

Enmity, and feelings of enmity, are not the same thing.

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A simple definition reads “a state or feeling of active opposition or hostility.” The question is who felt enmity, hostility, or was in active opposition to the other first, God or the creation.

Under Calvinism it’s obviously God on both counts. God is making a forever plan against these non existent plebs “before they’ve done anything good or bad.”

If you insist that enmity and feelings of enmity aren’t the same (and you’re able to explain the idea) you should.

So far however enmity, the order of who had enmity first and the origin of both parties enmity is clearly explained under Calvinism.

God had enmity first, he authored the sinners enmity, then punished the sinner for being hateful and filled with enmity.

Madness of the highest order, my friend.

Mark Quayle said:

i.e. whether by natural fact or by forecausation by God, we are all born slaves to sin.

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By Gods decree, that’s the term on Calvinism.

The “natural fact” is contingent upon Gods decree before the world began, so there’s no use in anybody punting to the natural state of man or punting to mans choice to reject God or anything else because they’re all content in the decree of God.

You’ll remember my earlier quote from John Calvin, Adams fall into sin and the ruin of his children was arranged by God.

Your “slavery to sin” is part of the decree of God according to Calvinism, everything else (e.g. secondary causes, original sin, inability) is just window dressing for the decree, Gods divine decree to have eternal enmity towards a subgroup of mankind.

Mark Quayle said:

That's the same sort of bad logic that says the command implies the ability to obey.

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I’ve actually shared 3 objections on the insincere offer of the gospel, with only 1 of those objections to do with the absurdity of commanding people to do things they can’t actually do. Not accepting that should necessarily implies could is just another issue of simple logic that the crazy world of Calvinism faces (or refuses to face in this case.)

So far you’ve ignored two of the points but interacted with this idea, although there’s nothing logical, sensible or even coherent about your stance here.

If a father punished his 2 week old child for not cleaning his room or doing his taxes you’d rightly call the father a dummy. An immoral dummy!

Why in the name of all that’s holy are you commanding that child to do something they clearly have no ability to do. God’s a loving Father, He uses the language Himself, the character above who commands an infant to do things they can’t isn’t a loving father.

When Pharaoh removed building material in the days of Moses, even the Jews complained they didn’t have the raw materials to do the things being asked of them.

Asking for bricks to be made by your slaves when you don’t provide (or have removed the building materials) is madness.

Commanding an incapable sinner to obey commands is as illogical as ordering you to build a house while I remove all of the much needed materials and tools.

There’s no “logic” on the Calvinists side here, there’s only men invoking mysteries we don’t need to rescue their philosophy, promoting themselves and trapping the confused in a net of absurd double speak.

Two loves, two calls, two conversions, two wills, the pattern is two faced and allows for anything.

Mark Quayle said:

he is not like us --we are like him, only not so very much.

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See there’s the double speak, what’s hidden in the “not so very much?”

Is this where we hide all of our philosophy’s absurd doctrines in a veil of mystery?

To the Christian that veil was torn long ago.

We know who our saviour is, we know He died for us and that the deepest love of God blesses our lives.

Does the Calvinist know any of that? It seems they don’t.

If they don’t, who are they to teach the Christian?

The Calvinist knows nothing but desires to teach everything.


Anybody can use an analogy to help show spiritual truths, not just God in the flesh, in fact, Jesus used parables so His listening audience didn’t know what was going on.

He used parables to obscure His message, lest the people hearing believed and turned because then Christ said “I would heal them.”

So you’ve got two possible situations being shared by Jesus (not 1 determined timeline without truly autonomous choices,) in one situation He speaks plainly and people convert and they’re healed at the time, or He withholds the truth, forces a confrontation at the cross and brings a universal sacrifice to the entire world for all time. Jesus wanted the all time healing and not the immediate healing of His audience.

You’re perfectly capable of using analogies to explain spiritual truths, Jesus revealed the truth of His parables to the 12 in private and to us by the scripture.

The real problem is that your philosophy renders you incapable of writing obvious truths revealed by God. The philosophical chains of Calvinism are so bad that you can’t say Jesus died for you without contradicting Calvin.

That must be a red flag in our thinking.

“He is not like us, we are like him”

That lands you in similarity no matter the word order, no matter which way the traffic is moving it’s man and God sharing in common some aspect of themselves.

It’s by that shared aspect that God communicates, not by some hidden thing we don’t understand.

Man being made in the image of God means we’re like Him, and because God can come and be born as an actual human in the form of Christ that shows the nearness is there, adding the parables just seals the deal.

The incarnation is the biggest thumb in the eyes of all this love is hate hidden in mystery nonsense.

Insisting on the otherness of God to help push a nonsense idea of love being unknowable (or looking like hate) is a hopeless pastime that Calvinists seem guilty of.

Mark Quayle said:

(1) Calvinism teaches that the offer is indeed valid --that is, any at all that come to Christ, he will indeed save. But some won't. Their will is set against God. Thus they are unable. John 3:16 "whosoever", but who would that be? John 3:18 "...are condemned already, because they have not believed." The ONLY ones who come to Christ are those he has transformed, the born again by the Spirit of God within them, so that they are indeed willing and able to love God, and are no longer at enmity with him.

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None of this addresses the fact that everyone is offered the gospel, but the gospel isn’t for everyone. Offering someone a gift that isn’t for them is a sham not just because they can’t accept the gift, it’s a sham because there’s literally no gift to take.

Mark Quayle said:

(2) How are believers insecure if 5 point Calvinism is correct? And what are you referring to by "the false hope"?

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The false hope is an idea shared by John Calvin which helps explain apostasy under Calvinism. If you’d like the quote go back into my messages, it’s here in the topic. You’ve replied to messages containing the false hope quotation....

If you aren’t fully reading my messages but replying anyways, this will become an issue. You’ll end you replying to everything but responding to nothing.

You replied to the post without directly addressing the false hope. Hopefully you’ll understand if I ignore the remainder of this section of your reply, since it doesn’t really address the false hope in any meaningful way.

Mark Quayle said:

and I am not one of the elect: at least for now I am thankful to him for letting me know him and admire and praise him,

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So it’s correct that you don’t know if Christ died for you, you don’t know if you’re elect and you don’t know if God loves you with His deepest love?


I think at this stage it’s less of a proper bite, more like having a little nibble on the corners and putting the rest back into the fridge for later I’ll look forward to something more on target.

Mark Quayle said:

Also you neglect the title of what Calvin writes in, "The Instrumentality of the Wicked Employed by God..." God uses means to accomplish his ends. He uses the sinfulness of the Devil and his minions, and the sinfulness of humanity and of the individual, though meant to obstruct God's way, to accomplish what he has set out to do from the beginning.

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The prophet Nathan says using secondary causes in order to distance yourself from sin is a farce, the being who set the events in motion is a guilty party, not somehow shedding the guilt in between (2 Samuel 12.) Punctuating the point by these words directed to king David after he used and manipulated the situation to kill Uriah....

“Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon.“

Using secondary causes to act out wicked deeds is explicitly condemned by God. So trying to make God the cause of literally everything, then trying to escape the force of that by invoking secondary causes, that’s a bad idea.