Does God predestine sin?

disciple Clint said:

God is holy, God does not sin, God hates sin therefore God does not cause sin.

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AGREED!

There are two doctrines I have quit believing can reconciled with HIS goodness (loving and righteous in justice) except by erudite sophistry.
The first is: GOD (who would not create Satan evil) created HIS Bride (and every other human) evil by making them humans in Adam's line when there was no reason for HIM to do this. It is written GOD is light for a reason and that reason is that light cannot create dark! It is impossible because by its essence light destroys dark. Dark is created when someone turns against the light and blocks the light...which GOD CANNOT do as a house divided against itself cannot stand, not even by using a surrogate sinner to apply his sin to HIS creation.

People are willing to believe that GOD cannot create evil, then they allow themselves to be persuaded that in our creation GOD DID have us created evil by creating us human and by having us humans inheriting from Adam his sin or the effects of his sin.

That we are conceived or born as sinners must be explained but choosing a blasphemy is UNNECESSARY when another method of our being sinners before being human is available...

It makes a considerable difference, however - nothing less than our understanding of the nature of God is at stake - whether one says that God has eternally willed the history of sin and death, and all that comes to pass therein, as the proper or necessary means of achieving his ends, or whether one says instead that God has willed his good in creatures from eternity and will bring it to pass, despite their rebellion, by so ordering all things toward his goodness that even evil (which he does not cause) becomes an occasion of the operations of grace.

God has fashioned creatures in his image so that they might be joined in a perfect union with him in the rational freedom of love. For that very reason, what God permits, rather than violate the autonomy of the created world, may be in itself contrary to what He wills. But there is no contradiction in saying that, in his omniscience, omnipotence, and transcendence of time, God can both allow created freedom its scope and yet so constitute the world that nothing can prevent him from bringing about the beatitude of his Kingdom. Indeed we must say this: as God did not will the fall, and yet always wills all things toward himself, the entire history of sin and death is in an ultimate sense a pure contingency, one that is not as such desired by God, but that is nevertheless constrained by providence to serve his transcendent purpose. God does not will evil in the sinner. Neither does he will that the sinner should perish (2 Peter 3:9; Ezek. 33:11). He does not place evil in the heart. He does not desire the convulsive reign of death in nature. But neither will he suffer defeat in these things.

David Bentley Hart. The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? (Kindle Locations 684-687). Kindle Edition.

The curious absurdity of all such doctrines is that, out of a pious anxiety to defend God's transcendence against any scintilla of genuine creaturely freedom, they threaten effectively to collapse that transcendence into absolute identity - with the world, with us, with the devil. For, unless the world is truly set apart from God and possesses a dependent but real liberty of its own analogous to the freedom of God, everything is merely a fragment of divine volition, and God is simply the totality of all that is and all that happens; there is no creation, but only an oddly pantheistic expression of God's unadulterated power. One wonders, indeed, if a kind of reverse Prometheanism does not lurk somewhere within such a theology, a refusal on the part of the theologian to be a creature, a desire rather to be dissolved into the infinite fiery flood of God's solitary and arbitrary act of will. In any event, such a God, being nothing but will willing itself, self, would be no more than an infinite tautology - the sovereignty of glory displaying itself in the glory of sovereignty - and so an infinite banality.

David Bentley Hart. The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? (Kindle Locations 759-765). Kindle Edition.

There is, of course, some comfort to be derived from the thought that everything that occurs at the level of secondary causality - in nature or history - is governed not only by a transcendent providence but by a universal teleology that makes every instance of pain and loss an indispensable moment in a grand scheme whose ultimate synthesis will justify all things. But one should consider the price at which that comfort is purchased: it requires us to believe in and love a God whose good ends will be realized not only in spite of - but entirely by way of - every cruelty, every fortuitous misery, every catastrophe, every betrayal, every sin the world has ever known; it requires us to believe in the eternal spiritual necessity of a child dying an agonizing death from diphtheria, of a young mother ravaged by cancer, of tens of thousands of Asians swallowed in an instant by the sea, of millions murdered in death camps and gulags and forced famines (and so on). It is a strange thing indeed to seek peace in a universe rendered morally intelligible at the cost of a God rendered morally loathsome.

David Bentley Hart. The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? (Kindle Location 831). Kindle Edition.

Cockalorum said:

Since God is sovereign and everything created is for a purpose (John 1:3, Proverbs 16:4, Colossians 1:16, Romans 9:18) according to his will and for his pleasure (Psalms 115:3, Job 42:2, Proverbs 16:9, Matthew 26:39) and God knows all things and everything that will ever happen. (Isaiah 46:9-10)

God is the author (Isaiah 45:7) does he use sin of the righteous to bring us closer to him? (Romans 8:28) we know that "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." John 6:37 would this mean that God predetermines/predestines sin as well according to his will? (Genesis 50:20)

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God has ordained sin in the world to serve his purposes.

Jonaitis said:

Yes, God did preordain evil for good. It is a hard pill for many Christian today to swallow, but there are plenty of examples throughout the Scriptures. Just think about Christ. He suffered at the hands of sinful men, but God intended to use their harm for His redemptive purpose. He predestined everything that would happen to Jesus long before His incarnation! The beauty in this truth is that, not even evil can stop God from doing good, for everything is under His divine providence. God allowed sin to exist to bring good out of it, showing that not even sin can have a reason outside of God's divine purpose. This gives us hope, because we can trust Him to walk with us in the valley of the shadow of death, for His rod and staff is with us (Psalm 23).

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Christ was destined to die; the scriptures did not convey a specific mode. In fact, Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit said: “Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8). Why would God inspire him to write something that would be a mere hypothetical idea? Unless of course one does as the Calvinist and try to make a verse mean something other than what it actually says.

Clare73 said:

God has ordained sin in the world to serve his purposes.

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Nonsense.

Jonaitis said:

While we have the will to act, not even this is outside of His providence. Think about Joseph. His brothers betrayed him, yet God used their evil to bring about good (Genesis 50:20). When Israel rebelled against the Lord throughout their generations, God raised up the Assyrians and Babylonians to chastise them for their error. In the eyes of Nebuchadnezzar, he intended to conquer and destroy, but yet God revealed that even he was under his divine providence. Somehow, God is sovereign over all the affairs of men without removing their responsibility and choice. It is one of those many paradoxes that makes us stand in awe of our awesome God.

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God is sovereign, and God can bring good out of evil choices, but to charge God with causing sin and suffering is slander against him.

Cockalorum said:

where is that found in scripture?

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Joshua 24:15

Isaiah 55:6-7

Deut. 30:19-20

Ezekiel 18:30-32

Would you charge God with mockery, saying we do not have the ability to choose?

Greg Cheney said:

Nonsense.

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Perfect sense. . .

TedT said:

Your conclusions are wrong because
your premises are based upon faulty interpretations of scripture...

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Falls somewhat short of Biblical demonstration.

Clare73 said:

Perfect sense. . .

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So God created man, forced him to sin, refused to allow him to repent, then sentenced him to ECT.

John Wesley: "“You represent God as worse than the devil; more false, more cruel, more unjust. But you say you will prove it by scripture. Hold! What will you prove by Scripture? That God is worse than the devil?”

Clare73 said:

Perfect sense. . .

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John Wesley, comments about the ultimate implication of Calvinism: “…one might say to our adversary, the devil, ‘Thou fool, why dost thou roar about any longer? Thy lying in wait for souls is as needless and useless as our preaching. Hearest thou not, that God hath taken thy work out of thy hands; and that he doeth it much more effectually? Thou, with all thy principalities and powers, canst only so assault that we may resist thee; but He can irresistibly destroy both body and soul in hell! Thou canst only entice; but his unchangeable decrees, to leave thousands of souls in death, compels them to continue in sin, till they drop into everlasting burnings. Thou temptest; He forceth us to be damned; for we cannot resist his will. Thou fool, why goest thou about any longer, seeking whom thou mayest devour? Hearest thou not that God is the devouring lion, the destroyer of souls, the murderer of men? Moloch caused only children to pass though the fire: and that fire was soon quenched; or, the corruptible body being consumed, its torment was at an end; but God, thou are told, by his eternal decree, fixed before they had done good or evil, causes, not only children of a span long, but the parents also, to pass through the fire of hell, the “fire which never shall be quenched; and the body which is cast thereinto, being now incorruptible and immortal, will be ever consuming and never consumed, but “the smoke of their torment,” because it is God’s good pleasure, “ascendeth up for ever and ever.”’” (Free Grace, Sermon 128, Preached at Bristol, in the year 1740)

So why didn't God destroy Lucifer at the outset?

Greg Cheney said:

So God created man, forced him to sin, refused to allow him to repent, then sentenced him to ECT.

John Wesley: "“You represent God as worse than the devil; more false, more cruel, more unjust. But you say you will prove it by scripture. Hold! What will you prove by Scripture? That God is worse than the devil?”

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Why does God take credit for creating evil?

Isaiah 45:7 (KJV) I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Isn't God here telling us that He created the serpent and then allowed him to deceive mankind? Why would God create evil then allow that evil into His perfect creation?

Cockalorum said:

where is that found in scripture?

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Deuteronomy 30:19; Joshua 24:15; John 7:17.

rwb said:

Why does God take credit for creating evil?

Isaiah 45:7 (KJV) I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Isn't God here telling us that He created the serpent and then allowed him to deceive mankind? Why would God create evil then allow that evil into His perfect creation?

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God can cause evil in the sense of calamity and destruction; God does not cause evil in the sense of wicked actions.

disciple Clint said:

sovereign does not mean that God is required to control every single thing that happens, God can permit something to happen that is not part of His affirmative will. Study the permissive and prescriptive will of God.

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However, the Bible knows nothing of a "permissive" will of God (Exodus 4:21; Exodus 9:16; 1 Samuel 18:10; 2 Samuel 24:1, 2 Samuel 24:10; 1 Kings 22:23; Job 12:16; Ezekiel 14:9; Daniel 4:25).
The Bible knows only the revealed will of God, which man is commanded to obey, but disobeys, and
the secret will of God, which God has decided it is best for us not to know (Deuteronomy 29:29),
and which is always done (Isaiah 46:10-11).

The Bible knows nothing of a God who unwillingly grants what he does not wish to happen (Exodus 4:11b, Deuteronomy 32:39; 1 Samuel 2:7; 1 Kings 11:14, 23, 1 Kings 12:15, 24; Job 1:12; Isaiah 45:7, Isaiah 53:10, 54:16; Jeremiah 44:27-28; Lamentations 3:37-38; Amos 3:6; Zechariah 11:16; Matthew 10:29; John 9:2-3; Revelation 17:17).
The God of the Bible is sovereign. Everything that happens is according to his secret and all-wise counsels (Isaiah 53:10; Daniel 11:36; Acts 2:23, 3:18, 4:28, 13:48),
determined in eternity past before the worlds were ever created (Matthew 25:34; Ephesians 1:4; Revelation 13:8, 17:8).

The Bible knows nothing of a God whose will is thwarted by man (2 Chronicles 20:6; Job 9:12, Job 42:2; Isaiah 14:27; Daniel 4:35),
nor of a God whose plans are conditioned or determined by (Exodus 9:16, Acts 4:28) the actions of men,
nor who sustains loss because of (John 6:37; Acts 13:48) the actions of men.
The Bible knows only a God who ordains or decrees (not permits) everything (Lamentations 3:37),
down to the last detail (Psalms 50:11, Psalms 139:16, Psalms 147:4; Matthew 10:30).

It is men, not the Bible, who present God as simply knowing in advance what men are going to do.
The Bible presents God as causing men to do what he wills them to do (Genesis 20:6; Exodus 3:21, 14:17, 23:27; Deuteronomy 2:25, Deuteronomy 2:30; Joshua 11:20; 1 Samuel 10:9; 2 Samuel 24:1; 1 Kings 22:23; 1 Chronicles 5:26; Ezra 1:1, Ezra 1:5; Nehemiah 2:12, 7:5; Proverbs 21:1; Ezekiel 14:9; Daniel 1:9, 11:36; John 6:37; Acts 2:23, 4:28, 13:48; 2 Corinthians 8:16; Revelation 17:17.

For the answer to man's objection to this, see Romans 9:19-21.

rwb said:

Why does God take credit for creating evil?

Isaiah 45:7 (KJV) I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Isn't God here telling us that He created the serpent and then allowed him to deceive mankind? Why would God create evil then allow that evil into His perfect creation?

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You simply have a misunderstanding of this verse. Notice he contrasts this evil with "peace", not "righteousness". It is a reference to the calamity and destruction he can bring, not to moral evil.

Greg Cheney said:

God can cause evil in the sense of calamity and destruction; God does not cause evil in the sense of wicked actions.

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Who has stated or implied that God causes evil in a wicked sense? God plainly states He creates evil, why? Because He created the evil being, Satan, then allowed him to deceive mankind through the serpent, why? God must have a purpose for allowing His perfect creation to be polluted by sin and death through sin, what is the purpose for God allowing this? We know God uses sin, that He allowed to enter into His perfect creation to accomplish His will, so what is God's will, that He would allow this evil being, whom He created to enter into His perfect created order?

When thinking on the answer, remember God already had an answer for the problem of sin and death through sin before the foundation of the world; i.e. the Lamb slain from before creation.