Hi LateApex,
But, is not God implicated?
Whose decision was it to create a realm wherein there is a lineage and should the first parents fall, all the consequences of that fall are passed onto its lineage?
Supposing God has foreknowledge, what is implicit in His choice to create the human realm?
All mankind is fallen and in sin.
Now, I have no problem lending some culpability to Adam and Eve, but how is there no culpability to assign to God (given He was the One who made the decision to create this realm with its characteristics)?
I also am unable to assign any culpability to any descendant of this realm for being in the state they are in.
It seems to me for your post to have merit, it would have to be reasonable to assign blame to descendants of this human realm for the condition they inherited (fallen and in sin).
And this does not even get into God's decision to require the lost to live eternally. Timothy says that only God has immorality so if the lost have it, it must be conferred onto them by God. So, it is God's choice to have evil and evil beings and untold pain to exist forever.
Further violation of my reason.
Blessings,
o2
Blessings,
Tony
The Sovereignty of God
This may also help you understand. From A.W. Pink :
First, the doctrine of Reprobation does not mean that God purposed to take innocent creatures, make them wicked, and then damn them. Scripture says, "God hath made man upright: but they have sought out many inventions" (
Eccl. 7:29). God has not created
sinful creatures in order to destroy them, for God is not to be charged with the sin of His creatures. The responsibility and criminality is man's.
God's decree of Reprobation contemplated Adam's race as fallen, sinful, corrupt, guilty. From it God purposed to save a few as the monuments of His Sovereign grace; the others He determined to destroy as the exemplification of His justice and severity. In determining to destroy these others, God did them no wrong. They had already fallen in Adam, their legal representative; they are therefore born with a sinful nature, and in their sins He leaves them. Nor can they complain. This is as
they wish; they have no desire for holiness; they
love darkness rather than light. Where, then, is there any injustice if God "gives them up to
their own heart's lusts" (
Psa. 81:12).
Second, the doctrine of Reprobation does not mean that God refuses to save those who earnestly seek salvation. The fact is that the reprobate have no longing
for the Saviour: they see in Him no beauty that they should desire Him. They will not come to Christ-why then should God force them to? He turns away
none who
do come-where then is the injustice of God foredetermining their just doom?
None will be punished but for their iniquities; where then is the supposed tyrannical cruelty of the Divine procedure? Remember that God is the Creator of the wicked, not of their wickedness; He is the Author of their being, but not the Infuser of their sin.
God does not (as we have been slanderously reported to affirm) compel the wicked to sin, as the rider spurs on an unwilling horse. God only says in effect that awful word, "Let them alone" (
Matt. 15:14). He needs only to slacken the reins of providential restraint, and withhold the influence of saving grace, and apostate man will only too soon and too surely, of his own accord, fall by his iniquities. Thus the decree of reprobation neither interferes with the bent of man's own fallen nature, nor serves to render him the less inexcusable.
Third, the decree of Reprobation in nowise conflicts with God's goodness. Though the non-elect are not the objects of His goodness in the same way or to the same extent as the elect are, yet are they not wholly excluded from a participation of it. They enjoy the good things of Providence (temporal blessings) in common with God's own children, and very often to a higher degree. But how do they improve them? Does the (temporal) goodness of God lead them to repent? Nay, verily, they do
but despise "His goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering," and "after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath" (
Rom. 2:4,
5). On what righteous ground, then, can they murmur against not being the objects of His benevolence in the endless ages yet to come? Moreover, if it did not clash with God's mercy and kindness to leave the entire body of the fallen angels (
2 Peter 2:4) under the guilt of their apostasy still less can it clash with the Divine perfections to leave some of fallen mankind in their sins and punish them for them.
