Does God predestine sin?

Clare73

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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?”
Wow! Your God is not Biblical!
 
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Clare73

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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)
And is that the complete context?

How did Calvin get into this. . .I thought we were discussing Scripture.

Let's not deflect.
 
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rwb

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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.

Really? How do you prove what you assume? Because God takes credit for creating the serpent, who is Satan. And is not he the deceiver of the whole world?

Genesis 3:1 (KJV) Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

Revelation 12:9 (KJV) And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
 
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TedT

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Really? How do you prove what you assume? Because God takes credit for creating the serpent, who is Satan. And is not he the deceiver of the whole world?

ImCo, Satan was created innocent and chose by his free will to rebuke YHWH as a liar and therefore a false god driven by a psychotic megalomaniac, the unforgivable sin.
 
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Clare73

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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?
Psalms 89:42; Isaiah 42:24, 43:24, 53:10, 54:16; John 9:2-3; Acts 4:28
 
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rwb

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ImCo, Satan was created innocent and chose by his free will to rebuke YHWH as a liar and therefore a false god driven by a psychotic megalomaniac, the unforgivable sin.

Please provide proof from Scripture of your assumption. Otherwise opinion is something we all have but remain opinion without biblical proof text.
 
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Clare73

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So how could God hold anyone accountable for their sins if he predestined them and wanted them to happen in the first place?
Yes but if God predestined people to sin "according to his will" (see OP); if God decided that they would sin, how could he punish them for doing what he wanted?
Once again that concept is going to make God responsible for all sin, obviously that is not the case. It will result in an unjust God who causes sin and then punishes people for sinning . Think about it.
Sounds familiar. . .see Romans 9:19 and its answer.
 
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Strong in Him

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Sounds familiar. . .see Romans 9:19 and its answer.

In other words you have no answer beyond, "it was his will."?
Really?? God is light with NO darkness in him, 1 John 1:5, he is love, 1 John 4:8, he is perfect, Matthew 5:48 and he declared all his creation to be very good, Genesis 1:31 - yet he deliberately made people to be sinners and not know him. Then he would punish them for never having known him; which is what he had decided to do?

You might as well say that God created a creature to be a cat; it is a sin to be a cat and God will punish the creature for not being a dog.
How unreasonable is that?
 
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Clare73

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No free will for sinners!

Was Christ just babbling when He claimed "Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you that everyone practicing the sin is a slave of the sin." in Jn 8:34, etc.?

Choosing to sin enslaves the will, filling it with addictive enslaving desires: James 1:14 But each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed.
Rom 7:20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. This is why we cannot chose to have faith in Christ and so save ourselves but must rely upon HIS grace to give us faith.

Even knowledge of the truth cannot save us from our enslavement because we love sin more than the truth: Rom 1:18 to the end of the chapter.
Sinners have limited free will, they have the ability to choose voluntarily, without external force or constraint, what they prefer, like.

Their free will (power) being limited, they cannot make all moral choices; e.g., they cannot choose to be sinless in thought, word and deed.
 
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TedT

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Please provide proof from Scripture of your assumption. Otherwise opinion is something we all have but remain opinion without biblical proof text.
I have the same proof that allows you to believe that Adam and Eve were naked instead of cunning in evil even though the word `RM is used of Adam and Eve and the serpent...GOD cannot create evil!

Light cannot create darkness.
A good tree cannot put forth rotten fruit.
A stream of life giving water cannot put forth salt or brackish water.
Psalm 5:4 You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell. HE would never create evil people for any reason at all. HE has no need for evil and by nature destroys it as soon as HE can after it is created by the free will of HIS creation.
 
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Clare73

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GOD's sovereignty SERVES HIS love, HIS righteousness and HIS justice ...Sovereignty cannot override HIS attributes to make unrighteousness righteous, unlovingness to be loving nor injustice to be just.
Who made that dubious rule?
This dubius rendering of theology denies any real understanding of GOD HIMself.
"Dubious" is the definition proposed above.
 
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Clare73

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Or, God loved some before life because He simply wanted to? Was there anything on the part of Israel that God decided to choose them to become His people at that time? No, for Moses tells them in Deuteronomy 7:7-8, "The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers". God did not have to choose Abraham, He could have chosen anyone. His freedom to choose is perfectly justified in itself, because He is God.

The same is for us. There is nothing on our part that moved God to choose us, and if there was then we have something to boast about.

Why do you think there *has* to be a reason? Is not God greater than we? Are not His thoughts and ways higher than ours? God did not have to create anything, for example. God is perfectly glorified and content in Himself. He does not need the worship of men and angels. The fact that He did create does not necessarily imply that there had to be a reason, or even a need, He just did. If you can agree with that, I don't see why you can't follow that line of thought consistently with His other actions. It seems that your argument is more of an emotional appeal, because it doesn't seem fair.

We defend the aseity of God, but no one asks why God exists at all, because the answer is that God is His own cause and reason. He does not depend on something outside of Himself to determine His existence, and the same goes for His plans. God is independent from us, and can do anything without our permission or acceptance. God is not a small sovereign. God is who He is.
Nay, there is no implication that God *needs* the presence of evil to bring about good, and I am not even saying that. Rather, God, who is all-wise, all-powerful and all-good, obviously allowed the fall to occur, and worked through it for His own redemptive purposes.
Scripture doesn't present God as "allowing" anything, but rather preordaining everything, even the fall for his purpose: i.e., Romans 9:23.
A wicked world exists, and God who created it is perfect. We cannot deny these two facts, so there must be some correlation with both that make both necessary, or else you present god as a struggling beggar with his own creation, pleading with men like undisciplining parents of spoiled rebellious children. God is not holding a broken egg, hoping that some of it won't slip through His hands.
 
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Clare73

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You've began with the wrong premise. Begin first with Christ, and also end with Christ.

No, God did not predetermine/predestine sin. That would make Him a liar, a hypocrite, and a sinner.

-CryptoLutheran
No, it would not.

Sin did not catch God by surprise, nor happen outside his will and power.
 
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Clare73

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None of which means He predestined sin.
The problem isn't saying God is sovereign, of course He is. The problem is making that the basis of theology instead of Jesus. Philosophy isn't how we understand God, Jesus Christ is how we understand God. So the starting place of theology is not God's sovereignty; the starting place of theology is Jesus.

-CryptoLutheran
And the starting place of Jesus and everything else Christian is the word of God written, understood in its own terms and in the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.
 
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Clare73

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In other words you have no answer beyond, "it was his will."?
PRECISELY!!!

Are you saying I should apologize for accepting and agreeing with Scripture?

Perhaps you missed Romans 9:20: "But who are you, O man, to talk back to God?
Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'
(Isaiah 29:16, 45:9)"
Really?? God is light with NO darkness in him, 1 John 1:5, he is love, 1 John 4:8, he is perfect, Matthew 5:48 and he declared all his creation to be very good, Genesis 1:31 - yet he deliberately made people to be sinners and not know him. Then he would punish them for never having known him; which is what he had decided to do?
You might as well say that God created a creature to be a cat; it is a sin to be a cat and God will punish the creature for not being a dog.
How unreasonable is that?
See Romans 9:20, above.
 
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TedT

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Sinners have limited free will, they have the ability to choose voluntarily, without external force or constraint, what they prefer, like.

What we think of (what feels like...) as righteous desires and likes are in fact evil thoughts and desires because our evil nature corrupts even our most loving and noble desires to fulfill some sinfulness: Isa 64:6 Each of us has become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind. We have no free will to correct this corruption that permeates our whole being, life and will...at least until we are reborn into HIS Spirit.

A will that can't chose to be righteous is not FREE by any useful definition at all. I thought you were a Calvinist, not an Arminian...?
 
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rwb

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I have the same proof that allows you to believe that Adam and Eve were naked instead of cunning in evil even though the word `RM is used of Adam and Eve and the serpent...GOD cannot create evil!

Light cannot create darkness.
A good tree cannot put forth rotten fruit.
A stream of life giving water cannot put forth salt or brackish water.
Psalm 5:4 You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell. HE would never create evil people for any reason at all. HE has no need for evil and by nature destroys it as soon as HE can after it is created by the free will of HIS creation.

Sorry, but this is about as clear as MUD! I have no idea of what you are saying??? Your argument is with Scripture because I did not say God created evil, He did!

Isaiah 45:7-9 (KJV) I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it. Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?
 
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rwb

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Lest any begin to say God created the serpent (Satan), and by his free will he chose wickedness and evil. Christ does not agree!

John 8:44 (KJV) Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
 
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PuerAzaelis

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Even the predestination itself to the eternal kingdom is so arranged by the omnipotent God that the elect attain it from their own effort.

Gregory, quoted in Carole Straw, Gregory the Great: Perfection in Imperfection (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), p. 140.
 
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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)

It's a No.

Scripture is written in the Jewish sense that God is sovereign and thus is responsible for whatever happened. It's just a written sense and better be interpreted as "God allows free will to run its own course." Thus God is not to blame while a sinful entity with freewill will be judged by Law. That is, from a legal and lawful point of view, only those who sinned will be held responsible by Law. However, this is under the circumstance that God is in control of everything, that is, nothing is unexpected. Free will goes as expected while God knows everything beforehand. It is so because it is inevitable in terms of building an eternity where God will live with angels and humans happily ever and forever.

Moreover, God hates sin and is never beneficial from sin. He bears with our sin but only till the Final Judgment. After that evil and death will be eradicated, and everyone will be happy. God has no ill will in the whole process.
 
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