Where....God....owns....all....fact. I admit I need things clearly stated Mark. Please do so here.
Maybe I should have you read my second response below first. Here I have made a statement without much explanation with "...where God owns all fact..." I do have a habit of talking past people sometimes, and not explaining why I said what I say. I can't always blame it on what I'm afraid will happen here, that what I say to explain will cause even more confusion! I do have a tendency even, or maybe specially, in my less concise statements, to assume the listener automatically considers and/or agrees with things that I assume, that they do not.
The short version is: I said, "...where God owns all fact..." as over against the Arminian notion that he does not actually control all things. Arminians seem to think that man owns some of it that God does not.
But that is too short, and invites some objections, such as that if only "God owns all fact", that God then is responsible and man is not, for man's sin. Obviously, I do not suggest man is not responsible for his own sin.
The longer version has everything to do with the "Aseity of God" and the "Simplicity of God" not to mention the usual qualities we quite rightly attribute to him, such as Omnipotence and Immanence. For the sake of approaching bedtime and my ever-increasing age, as attractive as it is to go there, I will refrain for tonight. I will just say that God is in and of himself altogether the only 'brute fact' and all other fact is caused by (or in some descriptions, 'descended of'), him, so that what we perceive and organize in our minds as reality, is not by any means the whole story.
Ok, I will say this too: God is by definition of 'omnipotence', or 'first cause', not subject to anything else. He does not "live up to any principles or fact" to which we in our thinking might subject him to —all fact comes from him, to include reality itself, and all else: logic and math, matter and energy, beauty and pleasure, governing principles and everything we consider truth, and, it also means that suffering and sin also descend logically, in some way, from him, (but I will object vehemently to the claim that I imply he is "the author of sin" or that he sins in any way, or even tempts anyone to sin).
If you stated one shouldn't worry about if they're one of the elect yes. And many I think would interpret that to mean don't even have a second thought about examining yourself. They would consider that as worrying about whether one is the elect. You have made it clear now though. You've stated one should be concerned enough to examine oneself. That's the type of wording I'd suggest you should stay with.
Point taken, and it is a good one. I will try to do better at that, though I can't promise satisfactory results.
FWIW my point, which I took to be obvious, is that the outlook of the Reformed/Calvinist is by nature that of one attempting to understand all things from God's point of view, as opposed to this temporal point of view to which we are all currently subject. As such, we can run into the discovery that this life is about Christ, and not about us (or only secondarily about us). With the heart and mind there, many things, particularly worries, fade away into gratefulness and admiration for the indescribable God who had mercy on sinners, and that, for his own sake. With that last sentence, I hope you can agree.
