A Few Questions for Calvinists (Trying to figure out what you believe).

[ToBeLoved]

Very well then.

I fail to see where God setting boundaries takes away anyone's freedom to break those boundaries.

This is reminiscent of the fruit of the tree boundary given to Adam in the garden by an order from God.

He not only had free will to disobey. He did disobey.

By the way - one of the false charges against Calvinists is that their saying that God decreed certain things automatically negates the free will of those involved.

In the case of Calvinism, it is a false charge.

But here, with you, it is absolutely what you are teaching - completely thought through by you or not.

You are looking at it from a human point of view that one human could kill another. But satan is not human and I guess God wasn't going to allow him to kill Job.

satan is not a human creature. I will not assume that the same things apply to satan as a non human that God has given or applied to us.

It could kind of maybe in some way seem like the garden scenario, but we do not know that God allows human beings and non humans what kinds of free will. I'm not even sure an angel could suffer death at all. The only reason death was an option was because Job was human. I dont think an angel can be destroyed, personally.

I don't like to make assumptions in scripture. I'm pretty strict on that, IMHO.

 

[JLB777]

Of course man was created with a free will to choose. The choices were to obey or resist. Of course Lucifer had a free will to choose. The choices were to obey or resist.

The choices were to obey or disobey.


JLB

 

[Marvin Knox]

The choices were to obey or disobey.JLB

Resist is a synonym for disobey in my language. I'm writing in English.

Do you have incite into the original Hebrew which I lack - or are you simply being obstinate?

I have no idea why you would make a silly supposed distinction like that.

But then I don't know what your contention with me is at all in this thread even though I have asked you to get to it.

You engaged me originally on this thread with the silly request which follows.

Please provide scripture that says, "God created original man with the ability to obey rather than resist God".

Make it disobey if it turns your crank.

Even though it's a silly question, I have humored you so far.

I've asked you straight out why you would ask such a silly thing and what exactly your point is.

It seems to me that your point is that you believe Adam had no ability to obey God and that he had no choice but to eat the fruit. Is that your contention?

That's the kind of false doctrine which Calvinists are often falsely accused of teaching. Now you, a non-Calvinist, seem to be teaching it outright yourself. I don't get it. But I'm willing and even anxious for you to explain things to me.

I'm perfectly willing to dialog with you. But not if you just want to snipe away and not discuss doctrine in a decent way.

Please make your point, if you have one, or get out of the kitchen.

 

[JLB777]

It seems to me that your point is that you believe Adam had no ability to obey God and that he had no choice but to eat the fruit. Is that your contention?

Absolutely not. How silly.


Adam as well as Lucifer have a free will to choose to obey or disobey.


Case Closed.

Calvinism is Heresy.



JLB

 

[Marvin Knox]

I don't like to make assumptions in scripture. I'm pretty strict on that, IMHO.

That's a pretty good general policy and one which I try to adhere to as well.

What I can't figure out is why you think God telling a person (be he human or angel) not to do something renders him unable to disobey by doing it instead. That makes no sense to me.

Granted that angels are not men. So I suppose other principles of judgement could apply to them.

But what I'd like to know is why you take exception with my contention that Satan can obey God - even though he seems to pick disobedience most if not all of the time.

It seems to me that this is quite a big assumption on your part.

 

[ToBeLoved]

What I can't figure out is why you think God telling a person (be he human or angel) not to do something renders him unable to disobey by doing it instead. That makes no sense to me.

If God is the highest authority. And God, the highest authority, tells satan, a lower authority created by the highest authority, that he cannot do something, why if you believe God is in control, would you believe that satan had a choice to disobey at all.

God had the authority over satan to not allow him to kill Job. Satan didn't have a choice. God made His will known.

I think God put satan on a leash.

 

[Marvin Knox]

Absolutely not. How silly.
Adam as well as Lucifer have a free will to choose to obey or disobey.

Which is my contention as well as the contention of every so called Calvinist I am aware of.

Case Closed. Calvinism is Heresy. JLB

OK - now I get it.

You hate Calvinism and prefer to snipe at them rather than dialog intelligently.

You have been branding Calvinists (a title which you seem to have branded me with) with the old straw man charge that they believe that Adam did not have free will.

This is not a fair charge. Calvinists believe in the ability of Adam to make choices just like everyone else.

They just believe that no will since the fall is completely free from either outside or inside influences.

As you have had explained to you a dozen times or more - Calvinists simply believe the scriptures which tell us that fallen men will not receive the things of God even though given the legitimate choice to do so.

They believe that God, in His grace, draws some men in a special way in order to lead them into belief and the justification which follows.

They believe that fallen man's propensity to resist God is his own fault and that he will be judged righteously for the choices he makes out of his nature.

These things are without dispute according to the clear teaching of the scriptures.

There is some disagreement as to the exact time when men incur this strong propensity to resist God. Some would say that it is at conception and some would say that it is at the time of their individual first sin.

Whatever the case - all Calvinists, like non-Calvinists, believe that any lost man will be judged and found guilty based on his own personal sins. They also believe, quite rightly, that anyone who is saved is saved only in so much as he is a new creation in Christ.

 

[Marvin Knox]

If God is the highest authority. And God, the highest authority, tells satan, a lower authority created by the highest authority, that he cannot do something, why if you believe God is in control, would you believe that satan had a choice to disobey at all.
God had the authority over satan to not allow him to kill Job. Satan didn't have a choice. God made His will known. I think God put satan on a leash.

Satan had good reason for not resisting the will of God in this case and we are not given what that reason was.

He may well not have been able to disobey. Of course that conclusion would be an assumption.

But we do know for absolute sure that he had the ability to obey - because he did.

 

[ToBeLoved]

Satan had good reason for not resisting the will of God in this case and we are not given what that reason was.

He may well not have been able to disobey. Of course that conclusion would be an assumption.

But we do know for absolute sure that he had the ability to obey - because he did.

I just wanted to make clear my stance.

Like you said, there is not enough information to be conclusive, but that is what I personally believe.