Double Predestination/Predestinarianism

[cubanito]

Then there are those like me who believe that logic does not apply to Creation or God. I do believe in Absollute Truth that both is and can be effectively communicated: either by God's revelation or by man's efforts. However, while Absolute Truth can be aprehended, it can not be comprehended; we know only in part. Even after glorification we will never be the Eternal God, seeing the end from the begining, having been before existing and so on.

Since I am told by God He has predestined all, I believe it. However, because I am forever "trapped" in creaturehood, my reality is that I do have a real choice. If it makes you feel comfortable, you can think of it that the only truth we can comprehend is that we DO have free will, and thus, it is always "true for me" as the pst modernist would say. Call it an illusion caused by the ignorance caused by being only temporal if you wish; since that "illusion" is a permanent feature of being created, it is real for my state.

If van Til would have aquainted himself with Godell's incompleteness theorems, the continuum hypothesis, Einstein relativity or quantum mechanics he may have explained himself better. Still, this is what van Til was driving at: God is NOT bound by logic, WE are. Thus, His ways and Thoughts always have an incomprehensible edge to them.

So ignore this and continue to pretend you can put God in your box. As for me, I believe in triple predestination AND in my haveing made a decision for Jesus. Because of Titus 1:12 I believe both TULIP and the remonstrants were each correct in their assertions, and wrong in their negations.

JR, a post-modernist who holds to effectively communicable Absolute Truth

 

[twin1954]

The word “many” means “all” (i.e. everyone) in the verses below:

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. (Romans 5:15 ESV)

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. (Romans 5:18 ESV)

In the first verse above it says “For if many died through one man's trespass” whereas in the second verse above it says “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men”

Since it’s true that all men in their natural state lie dead in original sin because of Adam’s fall it follows that the word “many” means “all men" or “everyone” in the above verses. Therefore it follows that one act of righteousness (i.e. Christ's death on the cross) atones for everyone's sins and everyone is objectively justified.

However this doesn’t mean that everyone will be saved because people also need to be subjectively justified though faith in order to be saved, and of course not everyone is subjectively justified because the Father doesn’t draw everyone to Christ and grant them faith.

What you fail to recognize is that Paul's argument is about representation. The parallel passage is 1Cor. 15:22 In Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive. The key word is "in". All men naturally born are born in Adam therefore all men are dead and die. In the same way that all who are in Adam die all who are in Christ are made alive. Now you admit that not all men are in Christ else they would be given life and faith. So your argument fails because it is based in a faulty premise.

 

[twin1954]

I’m of course aware of the difficult of understanding since God loves everyone and sends Christ to atone for everyone’s sins why He doesn’t elect to save everyone. But this difficulty of understanding how God can apparently desire one thing but accomplish something else is what the Scriptures teach. They teach universal atonement and election and predestination. So I have no wish to correct what the Scriptures teach or to force them into a mold of my own making.

I start from a different perspective than you. I start from the fact that God loves everyone and sent Christ to atone for everyone and then wonder why He doesn’t elect to save everyone, whereas Calvinists start from the other perspective and think God elects only to save some so how can He love everyone and send Christ to atone for everyone.

The solution is that God has two wills. He genuinely loves and desires to save everyone according to his revealed will but His hidden will of predestination has already determined the outcome of all events and the course of world history. I don’t pretend to understand this, but I’m content to just allow God to be God and accept that He has infinite wisdom and understanding and I don’t. Humans can’t expect to understand God. God is mysterious.

You actually start from a presupposition that you arrive at through reading particular verses apart from the teaching of the Scriptures as a whole. I start from the teaching of the whole of Scriptures and read individual verses in that light. In all honesty my approach is much more consistent.

The answer to the inconsistency of your approach as being a mystery is a cop out actually. Certainly much of God and His ways are mysterious but to refuse to accept what is clearly revealed by the teaching of the Scriptures as a whole and hide behind the cop out of we just can't understand is like sticking your head in the sand. What God has revealed He has revealed consistently in His Word as a whole.

 

[cubanito]

....

The solution is that God has two wills. He genuinely loves and desires to save everyone according to his revealed will but His hidden will of predestination has already determined the outcome of all events and the course of world history. I don’t pretend to understand this, but I’m content to just allow God to be God and accept that He has infinite wisdom and understanding and I don’t. Humans can’t expect to understand God. God is mysterious.

Your first statement: "The solution is that God has two wills." is at odds with what follows.

stating that God has 2 wills is problematic. Are we postulating Schizophrenia? Shall we give up on the Aseity of the Trinity? I am sure that with sufficient epicycles we can make this appear to work, sort of, but why try when the real solution is in the latter part of your statement, which is basically what I also just posted:

"Humans can’t expect to understand God." By that I believe you meant to add "fully" before understand.

YES, exactly the point! It was mathematically proven that ANY created system that involves more than one object MUST always remain incomplete OR have no bearing on reality in the 1920's. Quantum mechanics has been extensively verified in multiple experiments, and most of our electronics are built using this theory: no scientist claims to understand quantum mechanics. It runs counter to logic. Our minds are INCAPABLE of thinking this way. The mathematical symbols can be manipulated but only God understands the meaning.
JR

 

[twin1954]

Then there are those like me who believe that logic does not apply to Creation or God. I do believe in Absollute Truth that both is and can be effectively communicated: either by God's revelation or by man's efforts. However, while Absolute Truth can be aprehended, it can not be comprehended; we know only in part. Even after glorification we will never be the Eternal God, seeing the end from the begining, having been before existing and so on.

Since I am told by God He has predestined all, I believe it. However, because I am forever "trapped" in creaturehood, my reality is that I do have a real choice. If it makes you feel comfortable, you can think of it that the only truth we can comprehend is that we DO have free will, and thus, it is always "true for me" as the pst modernist would say. Call it an illusion caused by the ignorance caused by being only temporal if you wish; since that "illusion" is a permanent feature of being created, it is real for my state.

If van Til would have aquainted himself with Godell's incompleteness theorems, the continuum hypothesis, Einstein relativity or quantum mechanics he may have explained himself better. Still, this is what van Til was driving at: God is NOT bound by logic, WE are. Thus, His ways and Thoughts always have an incomprehensible edge to them.

So ignore this and continue to pretend you can put God in your box. As for me, I believe in triple predestination AND in my haveing made a decision for Jesus. Because of Titus 1:12 I believe both TULIP and the remonstrants were each correct in their assertions, and wrong in their negations.

JR, a post-modernist who holds to effectively communicable Absolute Truth

Under your view then what is true for you may not be true for me. If that is the case then there is no absolute truth as you claim to believe. Truth is not determined by what you experience truth simply is true. Logic is a tool by which we seek to establish truth but it doesn't determine truth. Truth is what God says.

As far as all the other philosophical stuff I have never read VanTil, Einstein or any of the others you speak of so I can't comment on it.

 

[Edward65]

You actually start from a presupposition that you arrive at through reading particular verses apart from the teaching of the Scriptures as a whole. I start from the teaching of the whole of Scriptures and read individual verses in that light. In all honesty my approach is much more consistent.

The answer to the inconsistency of your approach as being a mystery is a cop out actually. Certainly much of God and His ways are mysterious but to refuse to accept what is clearly revealed by the teaching of the Scriptures as a whole and hide behind the cop out of we just can't understand is like sticking your head in the sand. What God has revealed He has revealed consistently in His Word as a whole.

I don’t see how it would be consistent for Christ to teach us all to love each other including our enemies if He didn’t also love everyone and desire to save everyone - which means His atonement covered everyone. It would be contradictory of Christ to teach us one thing and yet He Himself follow a different course of action and neither love us all or desire to save us all.

I’m not the one who’s starting from a presupposition arrived at through selective reading of the Scriptures - that’s what Calvinists do who believe in limited atonement. They start off with the presupposition that since God elects only some to be saved it can’t be the case that Christ atoned for everyone. So they then start interpreting the Scriptures according to their own liking. Where it says that God loved the world and desires all to be saved they interpret that to mean that God only loves the elect and desires only to save them. (“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16; This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 1 Timothy 2:3-4 ESV)

The Scriptures taken as a whole don’t support the Calvinist belief in limited atonement. I can’t in all honesty conclude that God only loves the elect and doesn’t care about saving the non-elect . That’s not how I understand the Scriptures and I’m sure that they don't teach that.

 

[JM]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42zgwz-0G1E

 

[cubanito]

Under your view then what is true for you may not be true for me. If that is the case then there is no absolute truth as you claim to believe. Truth is not determined by what you experience truth simply is true. Logic is a tool by which we seek to establish truth but it doesn't determine truth. Truth is what God says.

As far as all the other philosophical stuff I have never read VanTil, Einstein or any of the others you speak of so I can't comment on it.

There is Absolute Truth, but it can only be fully perceived by the Trinity. We creatures have each a partial part of that singular Truth, and now even further obscured by sin. Each person trapped in his own relative fragmentary truth, God has broken in and effectively revealed more than sufficient of Absolute Truth that each person can make a choice to believe God or not. That choice is predestined by God, but as none outside the Trinity has God's omniscience, that choice is a real choice within the framework of that creature. The choice is how to answer "Has God said?" I affirm that God did indeed breathed out the Scriptures, and made them sufficiently clear that there is no excuse for not trusting them. The clarity and sufficiency of Scripture is plain enough, though an occasional verse may prove difficult.

Post modernism is a simple choice: either accept that Absolute Truth must be revealed by a being outside creation, or forever give up hope of knowing ajnything surely. As the hymn puts it, outside Christ, all other ground is sinking sand. Kurt Godell, the mathematician who proved the impossibility of ever constructing any sytem of thought that involves counting which fully describes reality actually said his theorems were a mathematical proof that God existed. I made that choice, which to me seems a choice and not predestined, to trust God as EXCLUSIVELY recorded in Scripture, and forever forego my attempt to be God. Most post modersnists prefer to live in the darkness of denying any absolute truth so they can retain the illusion of being their own god.

I am in full agreement that my choice 30 years ago was predestined from "before" time itself was created. However, that Truth is forever veiled from my eyes, even after glorification, for I am no Eastern Orthodox theodicist who claims to eventually become God. I am happy in my creaturehood. I understand there is an edge to my sandbox beyond which the comprehension of God is impossible to me. It is a bid enough sandbox (the Universe) that I shall never bore of exploring it, neither shall I exhaust understanding God more and more in the billions of centuries He has set before me.

I do believe in Absolute Truth. I do believe it can be effectively communicated IN PART from God to man, and then between men. I am not sure I can effectively communicate it to my a woman like my wife, but it's fun to try and she appreciates the effort (OK, that was just a random sexist joke). I deny logic can fully describe God. Logic can not even describe creation succesfully. I deny my mind can understand all aspects of God.

If you think you can, then your thoughts are as high as His thoughts, and you'd better talk it over with isaiah.

JR

 

[cubanito]

Oh, and also have a chat with Eupeminedes, the Cretan PROPHET whom Paul cites in Titus 1:12

JR

 

[twin1954]

Oh, and also have a chat with Eupeminedes, the Cretan PROPHET whom Paul cites in Titus 1:12

JR

I agree that it is impossible to fully understand God but we can understand what He has revealed. Deut. 29:29

Don't discount the Spirit opening up the Word as well.

I know that postmodernism rejects objective truth for the most part and in some ways it has a point. But postmodernism's relativism is dangerous. By that thinking I may be looking at a telephone pole and you are looking at a goat while we are both looking at the same object. Postmodernism makes truth to be a matter of perception rather than objective.

 

[Edward65]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42zgwz-0G1E

This video is a travesty of the truth. The Scriptures teach universal atonement e.g.

For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

(1 Timothy 4:10 ESV)

 

[twin1954]

This video is a travesty of the truth. The Scriptures teach universal atonement e.g.

For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

(1 Timothy 4:10 ESV)

So then I expect that you can refute the truth that if Christ died for all men then His death has no bearing on whether men are saved. Also if universal love is true then the love of God means nothing.

If you can refute the premise that if Christ died for all men then He failed.

 

[Edward65]

So then I expect that you can refute the truth that if Christ died for all men then His death has no bearing on whether men are saved. Also if universal love is true then the love of God means nothing.

If you can refute the premise that if Christ died for all men then He failed.

The fact that Christ atoned for everyone’s sins makes salvation available to everyone but only on condition that they respond in faith and believe in Christ as their Saviour. The love of God extends to everyone but if a person rejects God’s love by rejecting Christ then he rejects salvation and Christ’s atonement isn’t applied to him. The correct way of looking at the atonement isn’t that Christ failed but that people fail to benefit from it because of their unbelief. God desires to give everyone salvation but most don’t want to receive it.

I’m in agreement with the comments below made by someone else which show that unlimited atonement is the teaching of Scripture:

One of the strongest arguments in favor of unlimited atonement is the free offer of the gospel found all throughout the Scriptures: for the Scriptures are filled with statements that the good news of Jesus Christ is to be preached to every creature under heaven; but there would be no good news to tell every person unless Jesus Christ had actually died for the sins of each and every person! You cannot promise hope to people for whom there is no hope. You cannot tell people God loves them if in fact He does not. But since God commands us to call each and every person to repent and believe the gospel (Mark 16:15, Acts 13:38, 17:30, Romans 10:12-18, Colossians 1:23, 28, 1 Timothy 2:4, Titus 2:11, Hebrews 2:1-4, 4:2, Revelation 22:17, etc.) there must be a real hope corresponding to the call, and there must be a real love for all mankind inevitably emanating from the heart of God. "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." (Isaiah 45:22) How could God call all the ends of the earth to be saved if in fact it was impossible since Christ died for none but the elect? No, we do not believe in a God who pulls our leg and makes promises that are meaningless and empty. The very fact that salvation is offered freely to all men necessarily requires that Christ died for the sins of all men, just as the Scriptures have plainly shown us. Let all the world know that God is not a God of utility but a God of love! One of the most unbecoming things I have ever seen is when adherents of limited atonement evangelize the lost, for they do not sound like the Bible. They do not freely offer hope and eternal life through Jesus Christ to the lost. They can never tell the lost that God loves them and that Christ died for them because He may not have. They say: "Christ died for sins" instead of "Christ died for our sins". They say: "If you are elect you are reconciled to God" instead of "we beseech you in Christ's stead: be ye reconciled to God." Thus the sinner is not directed to look unto God's loving all-sufficient sacrifice in Christ Jesus and to God's desire to save them but unto wondering whether they are elect or not. God forbid that this be our evangelism! Give me the sweet good news of the gospel of Christ for every creature!

 

[cubanito]

I agree that it is impossible to fully understand God but we can understand what He has revealed. Deut. 29:29

Don't discount the Spirit opening up the Word as well.

I know that postmodernism rejects objective truth for the most part and in some ways it has a point. But postmodernism's relativism is dangerous. By that thinking I may be looking at a telephone pole and you are looking at a goat while we are both looking at the same object. Postmodernism makes truth to be a matter of perception rather than objective.

We have here the usual problem of different definitions.

1- post·mod·ern·ism noun
( sometimes initial capital letter ) any of a number of trends or movements in the arts and literature developing in the 1970s in reaction to or rejection of the dogma, principles, or practices of established modernism, especially a movement in architecture and the decorative arts running counter to the practice and influence of the International Style and encouraging the use of elements from historical vernacular styles and often playful illusion, decoration, and complexity. from Postmodernism | Define Postmodernism at Dictionary.com

so neither of us is using the word as defined in that dictionary

2- you are using it as most commonly used by true Christians: a denial of Absolute Truth OR, if such Truth exists, a denial it can be effectively communicated

3- I am using it based on it's historical roots in the mathematics and physics which began in the mid-1800s with non-eucledian geometries and culminated in the mid 1920s. The advances in mathematics and physics put an end to Newtonian physics and the "modern" idea optimistic that man could arrive at absolute truth, or any truth, by reason. If you study this enormous transition you find that multiple lines of inquiry led to the same conclusion: while ther is Absolute Truth, it is impossible for man to find it. You then have a choice: submit to the notion that to have any Absolute Truth it must come from an Eternal Creator OR give up knowing anything for certain. This is a remarkably similar statement to the Gospel, just hear it in this result from Einsteinian relativity: 1- the only absolute frame of reference is that of an observer moving at the speed of light 2- it is impossible to attain that speed no matter how much effort is exerted 3- it is possible to travel at the speed of light, but only if one is created traveling at that speed.

Do you not hear the Gospel echoes from those statements? Again, Kurt Godel in proving that NO created system of thought (that involved more than one thing or idea) could be both complete and real claimed he had a mathematical proof of God. These historical facts of science are being supressed from school. Unfortunately very vew theologians know much of math or physics (Polkinghorne is one, but he's got serious issues).

So find a word you like for me. The assistant pastor at my church calls me a classical Reformed van Tilian after spending some time understanding what I was saying. I prefer to call myself a postmodernist to reclaim that word to it's proper use.

JR

 

[JustAsIam77]

Cubanito, it's great that you are continuing to post here.

You pose thoughts that are far beyond my comprehension such as mathematical proof of God, I know I need no visible proof or equation of physics to tell me Christ is my Saviour as the Holy Spirit has imparted that knowledge to me.

Question, God is omnipotent, yes? Is there anything He cannot decree?

Obviously the written Word will stand forever, but could He turn back time for instance?

 

[twin1954]

So find a word you like for me. The assistant pastor at my church calls me a classical Reformed van Tilian after spending some time understanding what I was saying. I prefer to call myself a postmodernist to reclaim that word to it's proper use.

How about intriguing?

 

[Radagast]

This video is a travesty of the truth. The Scriptures teach universal atonement e.g.

For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

Really? If that first "all" refers to the actual salvation of every human being, then what does "especially" mean?

 

[stenerson]

The fact that Christ atoned for everyone’s sins makes salvation available to everyone but only on condition that they respond in faith and believe in Christ as their Saviour. The love of God extends to everyone but if a person rejects God’s love by rejecting Christ then he rejects salvation and Christ’s atonement isn’t applied to him. The correct way of looking at the atonement isn’t that Christ failed but that people fail to benefit from it because of their unbelief. God desires to give everyone salvation but most don’t want to receive it.

Saying that Christ atoned for sins but did not actually save anyone through that atonement is doing violence to scripture and to the very concept of atonement/ mediation/ intercession..
"For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy."
It's a done deal (in God's mind). I heard greek scholars say this is better translated "He forever made perfect those that are being perfected."
The Atonement will bring many sons to glory.

 

[Edward65]

Really? If that first "all" refers to the actual salvation of every human being, then what does "especially" mean?

With respect to the verse: “For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.” (1 Timothy 4:10 ESV) Christ is the Saviour of all in that He has atoned for the sins of everyone and everyone is objectively justified, but this needs to be applied to each person individually who is to be saved, and each must believe for himself in order to be saved. So Christ is the Saviour of everyone, but because His atonement is efficaciously applied only to those who believe, in that the Father draws only them to Christ, He’s in a special way the Saviour of Christians.

The analogy of a meal that’s been prepared for everyone but which benefits only those who actually consume the meal illustrates that it's not sufficient for salvation that Christ is the Saviour of the world and has atoned for everyone's sins - a person needs to accept this through faith (i.e. actually eat the meal) if he is to be saved.

Evidence of Christ’s love for the non-elect and his desire to save them is found in His weeping over Jerusalem. If He was content that those who had rejected Him and killed the prophets - and who had been predestined to do so by God’s hidden will - should be damned, then He wouldn’t have wept over them. He would have just looked on the fate of Jerusalem as a justly deserved punishment which wouldn’t have elicited any sympathy from Him about what was going to happen to them, but instead He weeps over them.

The guy in the above video pours scorn on the idea that God loves those who aren’t members of the elect and yet here we have an example, in Christ’s weeping over Jerusalem, of Christ’s concern for the non-elect and his obvious love for them, and His wish that they hadn’t brought on themselves their own destruction - which happened shortly afterwards when the Romans came and destroyed the city and killed over a million Jews.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! (Luke 13:34 ESV)

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19:41-44 ESV)

 

[Edward65]

Saying that Christ atoned for sins but did not actually save anyone through that atonement is doing violence to scripture and to the very concept of atonement/ mediation/ intercession..
"For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy."
It's a done deal (in God's mind). I heard greek scholars say this is better translated "He forever made perfect those that are being perfected."
The Atonement will bring many sons to glory.

The ESV reads “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified”. (Hebrews 10:14) so “he has perfected” means that the elect are imputed with righteousness because of Christ’s death. However being regarded as righteous by God depends not only on Christ’s atonement but also on faith. That’s what's missing from what you say. You take Christ’s atonement and make the unwarranted assumption that everyone who has been atoned for will be saved, in which case faith then becomes simply a recognition of a status which has already been established rather than the effecter of that status.

The Scriptures teach universal atonement and justification through faith where faith is the deciding factor in whether a person will be personally justified. The idea that if a person has been atoned for he is automatically going to be saved isn’t the teaching of the Bible. The Bible teaches that justification depends on faith where faith is the effecter of one's justification:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life". (John 3:16 ESV)

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:21-26 ESV)