quote=Uphill Battle; these questions I've had about calvanism have never been answered to my satisfaction:
1) Why should anyone try and lead a holy life?
Gratitude for salvation.
...the predestined are predestined.
Don't try to confuse me! (lol)
they either a) will lead a holy life because they have no choice (robotism) or b) will do so by their choice, despite the logical incongruity of having the choice in the first place. Which is it?
They have the choice like they have life itself. It was destined to be so.
Imagine a choice being predestined. Is it still a choice? I say it is.
2) why "go ye forth and make disciples of all nations" if what you do is of absolutely no effect?
Predestination doesn't destroy effect any ,ore than it destroys cause or choice. It doesn't eliminate or destroy anything, it only predestines them.
The people who are predestined are already going, regardless of what you say or do.
That's not necessarily true (the "regardless" part). God orders our steps.
3) what does "whosoever will may" mean to you?
Without context, I would say it means the person that decides to (whatever) has permission.
4) The passage in which Jesus mourns over the unbelief of the Israelites, longing to gather them as a mother hen does her chicks... how does that describe predestination, when he is mourning those who WOULD NOT come?
The existence & exrecise of a will does not prove that the exercise was any less predestined than the existence of the will itself. Nor does God mourning a situation He has ultimate power over & therefore responsibility for. Having responsibility for sinners does not make Him guilty of their sins.
You can hold a parent responsible for their children's behavior, but you cannot say they are guilty of the children's trespasses.
5) Why does God hold a goat responsible for being a goat, when he made him a goat?
Romans 9:
19: Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
20: Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
21: Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
He doesn't hold them responsible for being goats. He made them unto dishonor & dishonor is their destiny. He is responsible for all that.
22: What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
I have a feeling that is what you realy object to - that God is willing to show His wrath,... but saying "Poor goats!" is having sympathy for the devil.
It is valuing human life over divine purpose.
23: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
24: Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
25: As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
26: And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.
