What exactly do you mean by "cause things within ourselves"? By agent causation I mean we are capable of causing our own acts in a way that is not reducible to causation by circumstances or events.
So far that accurately describes "free agency".
Think of inanimate objects that we say are caused. We would say that if such a causation occurred, that it would be between events or states of affairs. The dam's breaking was an event that was caused by a set of other events, the dam being weak, the flood water being strong and so on. Yet if man is accountable for his actions, then there is some event that is caused, not by other events or states of affairs but by the agent himself. In some sense we "cause" our desires that manifest into actions in a way that those desires derive from our wants, so I suppose you could say we cause things within ourselves that way.
Well the distinction in the example is without a difference. Is the dam any less in need of condemnation because it would be naturally destructive? So too the person isn't any less in need of condemnation because he would be naturally destructive. They're both actually responsible. No one would simply let the dam collapse because that's its nature. No, the dam would need to be destroyed. Why? Because it's right to destroy something that does not measure up to its purpose.
No, I do not think that would make the agent uncreated however it would make the agent a 'prime mover unmoved' in only those things he causes on his own.
It's interesting to conclude this so candidly as a free will argument. That'd be plenty to cause some negative response from most theologies -- attributing something to people that's really God's prerogative.
What's the involvement of God in creating the will (or heart) of man, then?
We can "cause" things within ourselves as in our desires and such, but there are things that we cannot cause within ourselves that only God is capable of bringing about. I do not see any inconsistency here.
So at this point you're saying there are what, categories or characteristics or specifics of the will or emotions that we cause, ourselves? It seems to me the important thing here would be to define what it is we can cause and what we can't -- because those -- whatever they are -- can't be both from God and from us, due to this logical consistency.
On that count, Scripture itself shouldn't attribute to God any of those things we do ourselves; and vice versa.
Right, because God directly intervenes to predestine the elect while He does not need to for the reprobate. If the reprobate are 'left' as they are and there is no divine intervention, then they are not predestined to damnation.
I still find this to be an arguing over terminology. The term "predestine" in this sense is used for God's judgment of those not elected. That is, God's intervention in history is still assured, and predicted. It is judgment for the wicked:
some have not been chosen or have been passed by in God's eternal election-- those, that is, concerning whom God, on the basis of his entirely free, most just, irreproachable, and unchangeable good pleasure, made the following decision: to leave them in the common misery into which, by their own fault, they have plunged themselves; not to grant them saving faith and the grace of conversion; but finally to condemn and eternally punish them (having been left in their own ways and under his just judgment)
You may not like using the same term for this as for the elect, but on theological terms that's what it's been named.
Predestination is centralized around intervention so if God is not involved with those events He foreknows of, it cannot be adequately claimed as an event that is predestined.
Where is it centered around intervention, and isn't God intervening in the affairs of the world to bring about the Last Judgment?
As I was saying earlier, scripture only attests to predestination in the sense of salvation, and no other sense of predestination is conveyed, i.e. a predestination of the damned.
They stumble because they disobey the messagewhich is also what they were destined for. 1 Peter 2:8
Also, what do you mean God "created the reprobate"? Do you mean God fashioned the reprobate's nature? Then that direct intervention you were saying does not exist is indeed present in their damnation.
Does God or does He not form people in the womb?
The damned are so as a result of God electing the some of humanity to salvation, which is to say that there is a necessitated damnation of the remnants of man. That is not in any sense equivalent to saying that God predestined them to damnation, so I don't think we should claim that.
Double Predestination agrees with the first sentence, but denies the second sentence. Asymmetric predestination attributes the predestination to different interventions and causes of God, which is why the second sentence isn't established. There is a sense in which God predestines people to condemnation for their sins.
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I must be tired. Only Christ is worthy of the atonement and through His righteousness we are made worthy. The atonement we recieve is propitiation, which is a reconciliation, thats seen in the relationship by which we recieve and accept repentance and grace.
