If God is omnipotent, why can't He smite the devil?

Sanguine said:

Wasn't this a foreseen consequence?
If so, (and I don't mean to repeat myself, but rather clarify)

Isn't this just defusing you're own bomb?

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Since there is nothing at all that can ever take God by surprise, of course He knew what Adam would do. Notice, however, that knowing what someone will do, and causing them to do it are two different things. So God is not "defusing His own bomb", but is cleaning up the mess Adam made.

Marz Blak said:

Bob Moore:

So let me respond briefly and generally to only a couple things. I can see now that if I am to seriously discuss this with you, I have a lot of studying to do.

Again, I fail to see how the view at its root fails to fall prey to the objection that if God is the omniscient Creator, and He created us, then we are exactly how He wants us to be; and so either saving or damning anyone for any reason seems arbitrary.

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With regard to Election:

Did you read the relevant portion of the Westminster Confession I posted? It will answer your question. One of the problems that men have is that they want to judge God by human standards, and that is just not possible. As the scripture says, "Will the thing that is made say to it's maker 'Why have you made me thus'"? Or, in Romans 9:21, "Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?" The obvious answer is: of course He does. Once that is understood then things begin to come into focus. It does seem arbitrary and unfair, but only if one does not have a firm grasp on just Who it is he is dealing with.

Again, we wouldn' t be disobedient unless God wanted us to be. And how can God create us with free will then blame us for using it? This meets no definition of fairness that I can construct; and I see no reason to worship, to give glory, to a such a being.

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No. We are disobedient because we want to be. Adam, as the Federal Head of the human race acted not just for himself, but for all of us. The Bible tells us that: Romans 1:18-22, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,...." Do you see the possibility (wink, wink) that this is talking about you?

Speaking of glory, how does any of this bring God glory? And why does an omniscient being need glory? What is glory?

It brings Him glory because He is not in any way bound to save anyone. He does so freely, because He does so desire. If you received a magnificent gift from someone would not that person be magnified in your eyes? And with regard to those of His enemies (we all were formerly His enemies) whom He does not save, His divine justice is served. There are two sides to the coin: mercy and justice. He has mercifully redeemed some of His enemies, but is not constrained to redeem them all. So then some receive mercy, and some receive justice. No one receives injustice.

This, again, seems arbitrary to me. If God can and does change people's hearts to save them, thus depriving them of their free will, then why does He give them free will in the first place, since it can only get them in trouble as long as they have it, and they can only get out of trouble by God's taking it back away again? I really don't see the logic of this.

You have misunderstood. No one is deprived of free will because of the salvation call. We still have the free will we were born with, but the ability to choose the things of God, freely and without constraint, is what is restored. This is not to say that suddenly every choice we freely make is going to be the right one. We still have remnants of our sin natures hanging around, and now and then we all do something stupid. But as a Christian grows and matures in the faith there is constantly less of that sort of thing, but we can never cease from sin until we die. Then, and only then, will we be made perfect. In other words, the will of the natural (i.e. unsaved) man is free only to sin, because everything he does is for the wrong motive. Remember, the perspective of God is what matters, not our own. So that what we see as 'good works' being done by unsaved people have only civil value, and count not at all with God. Isaiah 64:6, "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." But the will of the saved man can either sin or not sin by conscious choice.

Again, there are a lot of things about this entire construct that seem arbitrary to me.

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Of course they do. But if you have other than mere intellectual interest it is most likely because you are being directed down that path. I will leave you with one last passage to consider.

James 1:5-8 "But if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting: for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord; a doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways."

But if you could post or PM a couple of good resources for understanding Calvinism, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks.

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I'll send you several resources, but the best place to start is with the basic doctrine. And there is no better exposition of it than the Westminster Confession:

http://www.freepres.org/westminster.htm

This is the heart of Biblical Christianity, which is all that Calvinism is.

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Marz Blak said:

Why does Adam's choice affect me?

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Because Adam, your grandfather, was your perfect representative. But he, being made a perfect man, deliberately chose, by his free will, to disobey God. In so doing he corrupted not just himself, but his descendants as well.

HOWEVER, there is a second time when you were perfectly represented:

1 Corinthians 15:22, "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive."

The sense here is that the death wrought in us by Adam will be countered by Christ with eternal life. Some with Him forever, and some in eternal torment.

Marz Blak said:

Or, rather, what someone claims to be the word of God, with little in the way of supporting evidence.

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Ah, this is a good question. To determine whether or not scripture is of man or God, there are a couple of important details we need to look at.

1. Scripture cannot be a contrivance of mankind, because everything it teaches, everything that is is in it, goes against the nature of man. It flattens our pride, it pokes holes in our thoughts of self-sufficiency, it says we are sinners. It says we are not free to make our own rules, and what man wants to believe that? Certainly, no man of his own sinful spirit would write something so unpalatable to those it seeks to reach. THis is one way we know it is from God.

2. Scripture cannot be from man because it does not place man at the center of the religion. Man wants to make his own rules, determine his own reality, perceive life and the world according to what suits him. This is the lifeblood of postmodernism. Man wants to rule his destiny, and scripture places God in the center.

Here is an example you may have heard me use before, and which you may undoubtedly hear again, but it's such a good example that I'd like to share it with you.

It was once thought that the solar system rotated around the earth. And, one could suffer and even be killed for suggesting otherwise, even in the face of physical evidence that it actually revolves around the sun, because the church was corrupt. (Another reason why man can never be the authority.)

Why the earth? And why was it so disturbing to powerful men that the universe actually revolved around the sun and not the earth?

Therefore, Knowing that we all have an inherent tendency to center our worlds, days, thoughts, and motives on ourselves, if God is the center of scripture as He alone has the right to be as creator, what would that say about Who really breathed the thoughts in the Bible?

In other words, inquiry into the the possible existence and nature of God, unlike any other subject, cannot rationally be undertaken. Special Pleading.

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It's impossible to have a world without Him. To say this world was not designed is impossible to believe. That takes faith. It simply isn't logical.

And the Jesus/God thing: again, unsupported assertion.

See above.

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No, it isn't unsupported. It's simply unaccessible to some for a time. But let's take a look at human psychology. We tend to filter our beliefs largely upon what we want to be true, unless something greater hinders this process. This is the way of the old nature. Because if we really look at the raw truth, we know we need redemption. But we want to earn it. If we earn it, there's some dignity in that. But to say that our sins are so bad that they put an innocent man on a tree, well... that isn't very flattering, is it. So it's easy to reject it, and in fact we all would if it were not for God's Spirit intervening and revealing the truth. You can actually see this truth, but it has to be seen with the soul, not with physical eyes, ebcause God is Spirit and operates in Spirit. If we operate in flesh and seee only with fleshly eyes, we cannot see it.

It's like those pictures you used to be able to get at the mall. You'd just see a pattern of colored dots, and that's all it looked like. But if you relaxed your eyes and allowed the colors to blend together, what looked like just a meaningless spatter of color became an image. Did you ever see one of those?

Written by whom?

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The Lord breathed into His vessels to pen. God uses natural means to accomplish His will. But it is entirely His word.

Excellent, and correct in every detail.

Thanks, bro! I've been enjoying your work, too!

Whitehorse said:

Ah, this is a good question. To determine whether or not scripture is of man or God, there are a couple of important details we need to look at.

1. Scripture cannot be a contrivance of mankind, because everything it teaches, everything that is is in it, goes against the nature of man. It flattens our pride, it pokes holes in our thoughts of self-sufficiency, it says we are sinners. It says we are not free to make our own rules, and what man wants to believe that? Certainly, no man of his own sinful spirit would write something so unpalatable to those it seeks to reach. THis is one way we know it is from God.

2. Scripture cannot be from man because it does not place man at the center of the religion. Man wants to make his own rules, determine his own reality, perceive life and the world according to what suits him. This is the lifeblood of postmodernism. Man wants to rule his destiny, and scripture places God in the center.

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But both those arguments fall apart when you take into account that a man can write scripture which neither advocates man as self-sufficient nor places him in the center of all things...

Why would he write something for a religion, something that he would neither want to follow, nor that others would have any desire to follow, either? It completely goes against his self interest. It would never happen.

You seem to be implying that the Bible, by it being scripture, is something no one in their right mind would follow because it goes against their self-interest, yet I see there are millions would follow it exactly because it promotes their self-interest. Humans have an innate need to be happy, and the Bible provides guidance for fulfilling that impetus. They see that the Bible advocates a God who cherishes mankind above all else, that man is genuinely special and has a place in Heaven, and so on. The Bible speaks of God creating an entire universe suitable for mankind's existence, of endowing man with sapience and incredible mental faculties so that he may appreciate the beauty of all that surrounds him, and most importantly, the Bible gives man a purpose, a reason for being, not some inconsequential or ultimately meaningless reason, but one with a grand purpose.

To me, the Bible is an example of scripture that does exactly what you claim it doesn't do: It places man in the center of the universe and asserts that man is truly an exceptional creation in the whole of existence.

No, I'm certainly not saying that. Remember, man in hias natural state is not godly. We do not love God by our own sinful natures. The only way someone can love God is through the Holy Spirit. Our natures become redeemed, and this enables us. It takes no effort whatsoever to sin. But it takes a great deal of struggle and effort to walk in the ways of God because it requires forsaking our own desires and living according to the new nature, which is through the Spirit of God.

No, scripture doesn't place man in the center of the universe. If it did, we'd do whatever we wanted, and God would just let us into His heaven without any stipulations, without any atonement. God did all those things for man not because man is great to God, but because God is great and is willing to offer atonement to us. He does this not because He thinks we are great, but because He is great and His greatness manifests itself in mercy. As it is written:

Revelation 15

15:2And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.

15:3And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.

15:4Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest.

You can't just generalize about human nature into black and white terms because everyone has a different mindset. There are those who genuinely desire the love of God and believe fully in the Bible, others who merely find Christianity favorable because it promotes a philosophy that accords with what they want to believe in, and still others who love God but don't see the Bible as being the only word of God.

The reasons for believing in anything are numerous and vacillate from person to person. A book isn't the word of God simply because it advocates a worldview in which man is not self-sufficient and not the center of the universe. Anyone can write such a book, and there will be people willing to believe in it even if it goes against their own self-interest.

In other words, your argument isn't an absolute truth and thus not sufficient to discern genuine scripture from BS.

MATRILEB said:

But both those arguments fall apart when you take into account that a man can write scripture which neither advocates man as self-sufficient nor places him in the center of all things...

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How do you suppose it is that so many men, over the course of two thousand years or so, writing 66 different books, can all be agreed, no part contadicting any other part? In those 66 books we see the plan of God progressively unfolded from act one to the final curtain. We find hundreds of prophecies of the coming Christ, exact in all points, from Genesis to Malachi. Then we have the historical Jesus, attested to by eye witnesses, feared and denied by the Pharisees, raised from the dead and seen by hundreds who, upon His departure, sent to His sheep the Holy Spirit who straightway set them on fire. No, this is not the work of men writing for their own purposes.

MATRILEB said:

You can't just generalize about human nature into black and white terms because everyone has a different mindset. There are those who genuinely desire the love of God and believe fully in the Bible, others who merely find Christianity favorable because it promotes a philosophy that accords with what they want to believe in, and still others who love God but don't see the Bible as being the only word of God.

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Without intending to you have pretty accurately described the three common states of men. The genuine, the philosophically interested, and the deceived.

The reasons for believing in anything are numerous and vacillate from person to person. A book isn't the word of God simply because it advocates a worldview in which man is not self-sufficient and not the center of the universe. Anyone can write such a book, and there will be people willing to believe in it even if it goes against their own self-interest.

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I presume you do not accept it. May I ask if you believe that there is such a thing as absolute truth?

Since there is nothing at all that can ever take God by surprise, of course He knew what Adam would do. Notice, however, that knowing what someone will do, and causing them to do it are two different things. So God is not "defusing His own bomb", but is cleaning up the mess Adam made.

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How does that logic hold when God is the source of Adam. Couple that with omniscience and there is no way God can be absolved of responsibility.

Bob said:

Since there is nothing at all that can ever take God by surprise, of course He knew what Adam would do. Notice, however, that knowing what someone will do, and causing them to do it are two different things. So God is not "defusing His own bomb", but is cleaning up the mess Adam made.

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Sanguine said:

How does that logic hold when God is the source of Adam. Couple that with omniscience and there is no way God can be absolved of responsibility.

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I don't know how else to say it. According to you, God is the fountain and source of sin, and that is, to put it as mildly as possible, heretical. If you are comfortable with it, fine. Go in peace.

Bob Moore said:

Because Adam, your grandfather, was your perfect representative. But he, being made a perfect man, deliberately chose, by his free will, to disobey God. In so doing he corrupted not just himself, but his descendants as well.

HOWEVER, there is a second time when you were perfectly represented:

1 Corinthians 15:22, "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive."

The sense here is that the death wrought in us by Adam will be countered by Christ with eternal life. Some with Him forever, and some in eternal torment.

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Bob Moore,

Thanks for the info. I'll look into it. I would be less than honest if I said that my interest was any more than academic, but I'm ALWAYS willing to learn.

As to your answers, I am sorry but I am still not satisfied. They basically seem to boil down to 'because the Bible says so,' which I don't find remotely satisfactory.

As to the 'Adam' question, you're answer there isn't really satisfactory either, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it implies that you take a literalist reading of Genesis, believe in YEC, etc., which I find simply incredible. If this line of religious belief requires one to believe YEC, then it's a non-starter for me.

Secondly, even assuming Adam WAS my nth-generation direct ancestor, why did I inherit his transgression? Does this transmission of transgressions extend to other chains of ancestry too, or is it just for Adam? If my father murdered someone, does God hold me to account for that too? If so, does that make sense to you? If not, what's different about my father and Adam, my (grand^n)-father?

Again, I find that the ethics and/or the rationality you ascribe to your God with regard to this matter to be...questionable, to say the least.

I don't know how else to say it. According to you, God is the fountain and source of sin, and that is, to put it as mildly as possible, heretical. If you are comfortable with it, fine. Go in peace.

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Not directly, it's a progression: God creates Adam, fully aware that he will "sin" - Adam sins, man falls - God throws man a lifeline. For this to work, omniscience has to be dropped, or omnipotence (in which case god was making poor use of supreme knowledge.)

Marz Blak said:

As to your answers, I am sorry but I am still not satisfied. They basically seem to boil down to 'because the Bible says so,' which I don't find remotely satisfactory.

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No doubt. But then you have no reason to trust it, do you?

As to the 'Adam' question, you're answer there isn't really satisfactory either, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it implies that you take a literalist reading of Genesis, believe in YEC, etc., which I find simply incredible.

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Do you? That's interesting.

If this line of religious belief requires one to believe YEC, then it's a non-starter for me.

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Surely you, an obviously intelligent man, are not telling me that you must insist on the explanations of the naturalists. Right now you don't have enough information to make a rational decision about those matters. But be that as it may, it is not of first importance.

Secondly, even assuming Adam WAS my nth-generation direct ancestor, why did I inherit his transgression?

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Because Adam was the head of the human race, created perfect, and when he freely chose as he did, he lost his perfection and his fellowship with God. His descendants could never return to the perfection that God requires because they could not be more than perfect which would be required if they were to counterbalance their sin. Thus man could not regain what Adam threw away apart from the soverign redeeming action of God.

Does this transmission of transgressions extend to other chains of ancestry too, or is it just for Adam?

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No, because we all descend from him.

If my father murdered someone, does God hold me to account for that too? If so, does that make sense to you? If not, what's different about my father and Adam, my (grand^n)-father?

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No. The Bible is specific about that. The difference is that your father was never the perfect head of the race.

Again, I find that the ethics and/or the rationality you ascribe to your God with regard to this matter to be...questionable, to say the least.

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Of course you do. It could not be otherwise right now. But you are well aware that there is much theology you have not yet acquired. In other words, start with addition and subtraction, and leave fractals for later.

Sanguine said:

Not directly, it's a progression: God creates Adam, fully aware that he will "sin" - Adam sins, man falls - God throws man a lifeline. For this to work, omniscience has to be dropped, or omnipotence (in which case god was making poor use of supreme knowledge.)

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I'll put it this way. You profess to be an atheist. In order for that to hold any water at all you have to settle upon some supposed fault in God which would then appear to justify your unbelief. I do not wish to insult you, but the truth is that you do not have the least idea what you are talking about, or the things about which you make assertions.

I personally think defeating Satin inside of urself is one of the many tests that God has givin us to pass so we could enter Heaven