Greetings everyone,
This is my first post on these forums. I read 'em for a couple weeks and it seemed there were some bright people around, so I thought I'd join in the discussion. I've been a Christian for five years, and it was about two years ago now that God illuminated my mind with regard to election and the bondage of the will. As theology is organic, the rest of the soteriological doctrines started to fall into place with the acceptance of election. And, over the past couple years, I've moved steadily towards a paedo-baptist, covenantal framework.
Anyhow, I had a question. Sometimes it takes awhile for me to fully explain myself, so... bear with me. When I first came to accept Reformed soteriology, I accepted it hook, line, and sinker because the Bible writes it in Day-Glo technicolor. And I still do. However, I held no injustice to have been done to sinners, since they themselves were not only guilty in Adam, but each and everyone had personally committed transgressions before God. Obviously, mery is, by definition, not a right. If all are guilty, God does no injustice by showing mercy to some, and wrath to others. And that's the line we usually take with Arminians.
However, to be fair, I understand why some of them have problems with this. If this is where it stopped, I could not. But usually in our intraecclesial discussions we start at mankind's choice to sin, and display God's eternal election of grace. We usually treat exhaustive foreordination in a different category. But the Arminian sees the situation (and he does see wrongly) not as a judge releasing, say, 3 out of 10 guilty offenders, but as first ordaining the crimes of all ten, then bringing them to court and only freeing 3.
When I first accepted Biblical soteriology, I did not hold to exhaustive foreordination. Really it was just mental sludge. I fully thought that God had predestined and ordained a certain, specific number from the mass of perdition, and that that number, no less, no more, would certainly be conformed to the image of His Son. But I guess I held to an Augustinian (if I understood it right, or maybe an Armininan interpretation of Augustine) view of time. So God could exhaustively know the future without ordaining all things in the future, since the future was Present to Him. So He sees the future Now, and does not foretell it. In this way, I could account for Adam's utterly free choice, and yet the sovereign election of God once that choice had been made.
Well, I would say over the past two years I've moved more towards exhaustive foreordination. Actually I pretty much accept it now, I just dont' understand it. I know I can't fathom God, but I don't even understand the logical coherence of the doctrine. A number of things did this. First of all, virtually the only ecclesial communion to affirm the doctrines of grace (which I know to be God's truth) affirm exhaustive foreordination, then, if my mind is unclear, I would rather side with them in my lack of understanding, as opposed to the Orthodox, Catholics, and Arminians, who I knew to be wrong on so much. Secondly, I knew of God's ordaining specific sins, like Joseph being sold into slavery, David and the census, and, most of all, Christ's crucifixion. At the time I didn't know if these were isolated cases, or meant to serve as a principle or window into Providence. Lately I've taken them as more of a window into Providence that sets the backdrop for all of the other so-called autonomous actions of man. But even then, I didn't have a problem with God ordaining sinful actions in sinful men, since their nation was sin and they would sin regardless. But I still couldn't understand how God could ordain Adam, who had no sin nature, to sin. Also, lastly, I came to rethink time. This is also something I need to spend a lot more time on. I often think that Reformed types need to clarify their view of time. On the one hand, we say that if God knows the future, then He must have predestined the future. On the other hand, we usually stress that all future is concurrent and Now to God. So if, from eternity, the future was never built upon any past or present, but was always "now" to God, then, logically (just with that, ignoring Biblical evidence) He theoretically could no the future without ordaining it. I actually read an article on monergism lately saying the same thing. So... I don't know where I stand now. I would say that I don't think the future is an actuality, and it does not "exist" to God except in so far as He has infallibly and exhaustively ordained it. And in that schema, foreknowledge would necessitate foreordination. (As a side note, I don't think the proginosko's of the New Testament are used, at least in Romans and 1 Peter, as "omniscience" verses, but rather, more or less, to demonstrate God's electing, sovereign love; I am just here speaking about theological foreknowledge and omniscience).
Anyway, suffice it to say, I now see that if God knows the future, He must have ordained the future (and I think this could affect our view of time if we thought it through). Now, my main question, is how do we deal with God ordaining sin? If we came right out and said it I might actually have less of a problem with it. And I think many "grass-roots" Reformed folks are as confused as I am, though they don't admit it. I don't know how many times I've seen Reformed people on message boards say that God only permits sin. And I might be able to see the distinction, but if God has exhaustively foreordained every jot and tittle of what takes place, then Adam had to sin, at a certain time, at a certain place, in a certain way. It was necessitated. Now Westminster seems to deal with this by saying that God is the first cause, but he uses secondary causes. I don't understand that. To me, and I'm not trying to be blasphemous, but to understand... that's like saying me pointing the gun and pulling the trigger is the first cause of a shooting, but that the actual bullet is the secondary cause responsible for the death. Do you see what I'm saying? I don't think that the Confession does a good job of explaining the doctrine, even if they might be right. Also, it seems Reformed types seem to say that Adam could not have sinned. Granted this possibility was in his nature, but with respect go God's plan it was not a possibility.
I guess my main thing is, how do we say God is *not* the author of sin, if He has infallibly rendered certain, concretely certain, that sin should take place? Sometimes talk of first causes and second causes seems to me like scholasticism, and I would almost want to say that God is not the author of sin simply because He has no standard to which He must adhere. I.E., whatever God does, by definition, is good, even though it is evil when performed by His creatures, since He sets the standard for them. I don't know.
I probably sound like a wishy-wash, but... its just an issue with me. I participate on message boards on Crosswalk and in conversations wiht people... and usually I try to be a scourge to Arminians when it comes to them treating Scripture like a hog pushing around a sack of grain. I believe election with all of my heart, and I believe, 95%, in exhaustive foreordination of all actions, sparrows, and falling leaves. But I don't see how to disentangle God from being the actual cause of sin, and I think our case would be stronger if we could set it forth in a clearer manner.
Anyway, blessings to you all, sorry for being long-winded,
Joshua
This is my first post on these forums. I read 'em for a couple weeks and it seemed there were some bright people around, so I thought I'd join in the discussion. I've been a Christian for five years, and it was about two years ago now that God illuminated my mind with regard to election and the bondage of the will. As theology is organic, the rest of the soteriological doctrines started to fall into place with the acceptance of election. And, over the past couple years, I've moved steadily towards a paedo-baptist, covenantal framework.
Anyhow, I had a question. Sometimes it takes awhile for me to fully explain myself, so... bear with me. When I first came to accept Reformed soteriology, I accepted it hook, line, and sinker because the Bible writes it in Day-Glo technicolor. And I still do. However, I held no injustice to have been done to sinners, since they themselves were not only guilty in Adam, but each and everyone had personally committed transgressions before God. Obviously, mery is, by definition, not a right. If all are guilty, God does no injustice by showing mercy to some, and wrath to others. And that's the line we usually take with Arminians.
However, to be fair, I understand why some of them have problems with this. If this is where it stopped, I could not. But usually in our intraecclesial discussions we start at mankind's choice to sin, and display God's eternal election of grace. We usually treat exhaustive foreordination in a different category. But the Arminian sees the situation (and he does see wrongly) not as a judge releasing, say, 3 out of 10 guilty offenders, but as first ordaining the crimes of all ten, then bringing them to court and only freeing 3.
When I first accepted Biblical soteriology, I did not hold to exhaustive foreordination. Really it was just mental sludge. I fully thought that God had predestined and ordained a certain, specific number from the mass of perdition, and that that number, no less, no more, would certainly be conformed to the image of His Son. But I guess I held to an Augustinian (if I understood it right, or maybe an Armininan interpretation of Augustine) view of time. So God could exhaustively know the future without ordaining all things in the future, since the future was Present to Him. So He sees the future Now, and does not foretell it. In this way, I could account for Adam's utterly free choice, and yet the sovereign election of God once that choice had been made.
Well, I would say over the past two years I've moved more towards exhaustive foreordination. Actually I pretty much accept it now, I just dont' understand it. I know I can't fathom God, but I don't even understand the logical coherence of the doctrine. A number of things did this. First of all, virtually the only ecclesial communion to affirm the doctrines of grace (which I know to be God's truth) affirm exhaustive foreordination, then, if my mind is unclear, I would rather side with them in my lack of understanding, as opposed to the Orthodox, Catholics, and Arminians, who I knew to be wrong on so much. Secondly, I knew of God's ordaining specific sins, like Joseph being sold into slavery, David and the census, and, most of all, Christ's crucifixion. At the time I didn't know if these were isolated cases, or meant to serve as a principle or window into Providence. Lately I've taken them as more of a window into Providence that sets the backdrop for all of the other so-called autonomous actions of man. But even then, I didn't have a problem with God ordaining sinful actions in sinful men, since their nation was sin and they would sin regardless. But I still couldn't understand how God could ordain Adam, who had no sin nature, to sin. Also, lastly, I came to rethink time. This is also something I need to spend a lot more time on. I often think that Reformed types need to clarify their view of time. On the one hand, we say that if God knows the future, then He must have predestined the future. On the other hand, we usually stress that all future is concurrent and Now to God. So if, from eternity, the future was never built upon any past or present, but was always "now" to God, then, logically (just with that, ignoring Biblical evidence) He theoretically could no the future without ordaining it. I actually read an article on monergism lately saying the same thing. So... I don't know where I stand now. I would say that I don't think the future is an actuality, and it does not "exist" to God except in so far as He has infallibly and exhaustively ordained it. And in that schema, foreknowledge would necessitate foreordination. (As a side note, I don't think the proginosko's of the New Testament are used, at least in Romans and 1 Peter, as "omniscience" verses, but rather, more or less, to demonstrate God's electing, sovereign love; I am just here speaking about theological foreknowledge and omniscience).
Anyway, suffice it to say, I now see that if God knows the future, He must have ordained the future (and I think this could affect our view of time if we thought it through). Now, my main question, is how do we deal with God ordaining sin? If we came right out and said it I might actually have less of a problem with it. And I think many "grass-roots" Reformed folks are as confused as I am, though they don't admit it. I don't know how many times I've seen Reformed people on message boards say that God only permits sin. And I might be able to see the distinction, but if God has exhaustively foreordained every jot and tittle of what takes place, then Adam had to sin, at a certain time, at a certain place, in a certain way. It was necessitated. Now Westminster seems to deal with this by saying that God is the first cause, but he uses secondary causes. I don't understand that. To me, and I'm not trying to be blasphemous, but to understand... that's like saying me pointing the gun and pulling the trigger is the first cause of a shooting, but that the actual bullet is the secondary cause responsible for the death. Do you see what I'm saying? I don't think that the Confession does a good job of explaining the doctrine, even if they might be right. Also, it seems Reformed types seem to say that Adam could not have sinned. Granted this possibility was in his nature, but with respect go God's plan it was not a possibility.
I guess my main thing is, how do we say God is *not* the author of sin, if He has infallibly rendered certain, concretely certain, that sin should take place? Sometimes talk of first causes and second causes seems to me like scholasticism, and I would almost want to say that God is not the author of sin simply because He has no standard to which He must adhere. I.E., whatever God does, by definition, is good, even though it is evil when performed by His creatures, since He sets the standard for them. I don't know.
I probably sound like a wishy-wash, but... its just an issue with me. I participate on message boards on Crosswalk and in conversations wiht people... and usually I try to be a scourge to Arminians when it comes to them treating Scripture like a hog pushing around a sack of grain. I believe election with all of my heart, and I believe, 95%, in exhaustive foreordination of all actions, sparrows, and falling leaves. But I don't see how to disentangle God from being the actual cause of sin, and I think our case would be stronger if we could set it forth in a clearer manner.
Anyway, blessings to you all, sorry for being long-winded,
Joshua
, if you look very carefully at Romans 9 , are you smiling yet , notice that there seems to be a tight connection between the purpose of the making of vessels for destruction and the vessels made for honour , it's almost saying ....look you cannot have the one without the other.....meaning there is zero possibility for God to display mercy forgiveness compassion and GRACE , if sin never existed! 
and that He certainly didn't make adam and eve knowing they would sin, and so on. It was amazing the sore spot I hit.
about)
