Athanasian Creed said:
Ah, so God doesn't 'commission' the sin or sinfulness of men but He allows it as part of His 'permissive' will? That doesn't sound like Calvinist teaching to me - when you get right down to it, Calvinism can't escape the fact that it's tenets make God the Author of sin since His will is sovereign and there is no such thing as free-will for either the elect or the reprobates?!
WHY didn't God's "sovereign will" prevent sin from entering the world, in the first place?? And secondly, what is the reason Christians sin?? Is it also God's will that they sin as well?
Ray
what are you on about "it does not sound like Calvinism to me" ?????????????????????????
How many times must posters inform other posters to get a first hand knowledge of this subject before they begin burning a million straw ,,,, donkeys ????
had you done some homework on this you wouldn't have blundered.
here let this quote help enlighten you , notice carefully that it is based on the a Calvinist confession of Faith
GIRS syllabus index: Survey Studies in Reformed Theology
Theology Proper index: Theology Proper Theology Proper - Lesson 4
The Decrees of God
by Pastor Bob Burridge ©1997
God's decrees do not lead to Fatalism
Christians often have a hard time understanding what separates two very different views about what directs all things toward their certain outcome. The one is fatalism and the other is the concept called predestination.
The difficulty comes from two influences at work in our fallen nature. The one is a desire to imagine that the individual, not anything outside of him, has ultimate control of his own destiny. And there is a revulsion against the concept of a personal and sovereign God who is beyond our full comprehension.
The idea of personal control of all things leads to the one extreme which denies that the end of all things has any determined element to it. Pure naturalism dominates the thinking of Western culture in our present era. Physical laws and human choices are seen as the controlling factors for the direction of events in history.
But there has also been a long persisting understanding that there is something more moving all things toward a fixed goal. So to preserve the second prejudice against the control of a personal God some have accepted the view of fatalism.
Thankfully, the believer is not left to speculate upon such things from within his own human prejudices. He has a Bible which records God's own words clearly ruling out the uncertainty of events, and at the same time marking the difference between his sovereign control and the pagan idea of fatalism.
Fatalism views god as nothing more than the workings of natural or unknown impersonal forces which make all things come out in some predetermined way. The Stoic called it Destiny. One scholar explained fate by imagining man as a water-beetle caught in a torrent of water. He may struggle, or he may let himself be swept along in peace simply accepting his doom. If we see God's providence as nothing more than fate, then the best we can hope for is to resign ourselves to the horrors that may lie ahead, and be swept along by blind destiny.
That is not the biblical picture of God's providence. Fate is like the workings of a machine without reason or purpose. The God of Scripture acts personally to carry out his plan to a specific, known goal by directing all things for his own glory and for the blessing of his people.
The Bible makes it clear that God brings about everything he determines should happen. Nothing can occur that will ruin his plan. Psalm 115:3, Psalm 135:6 and Job 42:2 are among the passages that make this point. Even acts of sin and evil are permitted to occur so that they be used to serve God's end. While this does not make evil to be good, it shows that evil is never beyond God's control. God may control evil without being said to cause it. Evil condemns the rebel but is employed to reveal more of the glorious perfections of God (see Genesis 50:20, Acts 2:23 4:27-28). The personal nature of God gave Job the courage to say, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him!" (Job 13:15)
There is no heresy greater than that which reduces the loving work of our Sovereign God to mere natural forces at work blindly. We are created in his image as persons, not as machines. We act and think and choose. We alone are responsible for our sin. But, as for the good we do, our faith, repentance and obedience, God alone provides the ability. He gives life to our fallen hearts, turns us by his Holy Spirit and gives us a new nature that impels us to do good. Yet even in his work of grace, we come as persons made willing, not as machines or as rebels screaming and kicking against his redeeming love.
The biblical position is not the same as fatalism. Fate drags us to an irrational destiny with no purpose and does not consider us as real persons. Predestination has a good purpose and is designed by a loving God to reveal his own glory and to produce benefits for his people. The biblical doctrine treats us as persons who participate as real beings who reflect the sovereign work of God on our hearts. The biblical teaching does not let us blame God for our rebellion, yet it will equally not let us take credit for our restoration or for the good we do.
In 1904 Dr. B. B. Warfield wrote an article for the Presbyterian magazine explaining the difference between the biblical doctrine of predestination and the pagan teaching called fatalism. He ended his article with a story that illustrates something of the difference between blind, mechanical fate and the workings of a personal and sovereign God:
"There is a story of a little Dutch boy, which embodies very fairly the difference between God and Fate. This little boy's home was on a dyke in Holland, near a great wind-mill, whose long arms swept so close to the ground as to endanger those who carelessly strayed under them. But he was very fond of playing precisely under this mill. His anxious parents had forbidden him to go near it; and, when his stubborn will did not give way, had sought to frighten him away from it by arousing his imagination to the terrors of being struck by the arms and carried up into the air to have life beaten out of him by their ceaseless strokes. "One day, heedless of their warning, he strayed again under the dangerous arms, and was soon absorbed in his play there -- forgetful of everything but his present pleasures. Perhaps, he was half conscious of a breeze springing up; and somewhat in the depth of his soul, he may have been obscurely aware of the danger with which he had been threatened. At any rate, suddenly, as he played, he was violently smitten from behind, and found himself swung all over at once, with his head downward, up into the air; and then the blows came, swift and hard! O what a sinking of the heart! O what a horror of great darkness! It had to come then! And he was gone!
"In his terrified writhing, he twisted himself about, and looking up, saw not the immeasurable expanse of the brazen heavens above him, but his father's face. At once, he realized, with a great revulsion, that he was not caught in the mill, but was only receiving the threatened punishment of his disobedience. He melted into tears, not of pain, but of relief and joy. In that moment, he understood the difference between falling into the grinding power of a machine and into the loving hands of a father.
"That is the difference between fate and predestination. And all the language of man cannot tell the immensity of the difference."
(Benjamin B. Warfield, 1887-1921)
The Decrees of God
"The decrees of God are, his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass." (Westminster Shorter Catechism, question #7)
The Extent of the Decrees
Nothing in the universe can be considered to be exempt from God's decrees. While events in the universe can be thought of as conditioned upon other events, it is never accurate to say that any of God's decrees are conditioned upon something not decreed. That would make the condition more absolute in determining the course of events than God. If any single influence is a condition external to God's decrees then he could not control with absolute certainty the outcome of his universe toward his intended end. That conditioning issue would have ultimate sovereign control and would contradict clear statements of God's word.
The approach we will follow in this study will be to enlarge upon what is revealed in Scripture about God's decrees while ruling out some of the common objections raised against this doctrine. Often by correcting misconceptions we are forced to reduce what we believe to the simplest statement based upon biblical fact alone. One of the most common struggles in understanding this doctrine is the presence of evil in God's universe and the free actions of intelligent creatures. If God has foreordained all that comes to pass so that there is no uncertainty that his decrees will be carried out exactly as he intended them, then how does this relate to sinful acts which are admittedly present?
God Is Not the Author of Sin
All the actions of created intelligences are not merely the actions of God. He has created a universe of beings which are said to act freely and responsibly as the proximate causes of their own moral actions. When individuals do evil things it is not God the Creator and Preserver acting. If God was the proximate cause of every act it would make all events to be "God in motion". That is nothing less than pantheism, or more exactly, pandeism. The Creator is distinct from his creation. The reality of secondary causes is what separates Christian theism from pandeism.
God Cannot Sin
Sin is an action or desire contrary to God's moral principles. The Westminster Shorter Catechism, in answer to question #14, defines sin as, "any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God."
It would contradict God's revealed nature to imagine that he does not accomplish what he wants done, or that he does things contrary to what he wants done. By definition that would be sin and God cannot sin.
1 John 1:5 "...God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all." James 1:13 "...God cannot be tempted by evil"
James 1:17 "Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow."
It is impossible that God, as revealed in Scripture, should choose to do anything contrary to his own desire or nature. God cannot have a "split personality" where he is at odds with himself.
God is Sovereign Over All His Creation
In the previous chapter of the confession concerning God's nature it was shown that God does maintain absolute control over all things. This idea will be taken up further in our study of God's Providence. In this present section we are concerned primarily with his control of the moral actions of persons in his creation.
God is able to prevent men from sinning. For example, God speaking to Abimelech concerning Abraham's wife said ...
Genesis 20:6 "I also kept you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her."
God is also able to use the sins of His creatures to accomplish His decrees. When Joseph's brothers conspired to kill him and sell him into slavery it is said...
Genesis 45:7-8 "God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his household and ruler over all the land of Egypt." Genesis 50:20 "And as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result to preserve many people alive."
Elsewhere in the Bible the same principle is taught...
Psalm 76:10 "for the wrath of man shall praise Thee;" Acts 14:16 "in the generations gone by He permitted all the nations to go their own ways;"
Psalm 106:15 "so He gave them their request"
Though sin is able to be restrained by God, and though he obviously permits it, he always employs it for his ultimate glory. However sin is never said to be produced by God, and sin is never said to be condoned by him. Sin remains that which is contrary to the moral principles of God.
Since the mind of God is not divided into parts (there are no parts to know something detached from anything else he knows) the decrees relating to sin and evil are not separate things from his overall plan for the universe. Everything is altogether and eternally inclined toward his ultimate plan of glory and good. This indivisible plan is revealed to us in individual parts because that is the way we finite beings come to understand things. Systematic knowledge is only a characteristic of the creature. To divide up the divine mind into such compartments is to degrade the unified and perfect nature of God. Therefore to see sin as an act of God would put him in rebellion against himself. This is inconsistent with the self revealed nature of God and is self contradictory.
All That Is, Exists for God's Glory.
God made all things to declare his nature and glory.
Colossians 1:16 "for in Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things have been created through Him and for Him."
Some things manifest the riches of God's glory:
Romans 9:23 "He did so in order that He might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory"
Some things manifest God's wrath:
Romans 9:22 "What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?"
God, in creating the best kind of universe for making his attributes and glory known, made a universe that would include sin and evil. That does not make evil "good". It does not follow logically. The Scriptures teach that God is not the author of sin or of evil. God's word is not unclear when allowed to speak for itself. The overwhelming testimony of the Bible is agreed upon by all who accept it as God's word. Note that the following highly regarded professors and theological writers all concur on this as a clearly stated biblical fact
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