Logical Problems with Calvinism

[nobdysfool]

Dear Calvinist Brother,

In my opinion, your view of God is limited by the mental framework you attach to His greatness. Since He must preordain everything in advance to remain sovereign, any challenge to your view of God and man’s ability to make choices becomes a limitation on God’s sovereignty (if true) or a misunderstanding of free will.

We can agree to disagree

Please don't take this the wrong way, but you just engaged in faulty reasoning. I specifically stated that God's ordaining of all that is, is done because He IS sovereign, and not because He must do so to remain Sovereign. In other words, He does not have to do anything to retain a position He holds with no challenge, He ordains all that is because it's His creation, and He does with it as seems good to Him.

If there is any mental framework involved in my understanding, it is this: God is God, and I am not. He is much better, in fact perfect, at ordaining the events of my life, and all that is.

You have created a straw man (I say this respecfully) and knocked it down.


In Christ!

As far as free will, and your claim that I have created a straw man, I respectfully disagree, because I have seen and heard exactly what I referred to. I don't deny that man has the ability to choose, that is self-evident. what concerns me is the attempts and tendency to imbue man's ability to choose with more power and reach than he actually has.

The modern-day emphasis on free will is necessarily vague, and hard to pin down, precisely because men are attempting to make it more than it is. In my estimation, when it is over-extended, i.e. claiming that man can choose God-pleasing actions while still dead in sins, is an echo of the original rebellion.

 

[expos4ever]

The burden of proof is on you to defend your claim about God's sovereignty. I have challenged that view. So, ball's in your court.

Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10 NIV).

How does this not require us to believe that God's will is not always done? If God's will always gets done, what point is there in praying for it to be done? Would it make sense to pray that 2+2=4? The point is that if God truly always gets His way, our praying that His will be done is entirely inconsequential.

And I have a hard time believing that Jesus would ask us to pray for something where our prayers would be of no consequence.

I suggest this one is even clearer:

But the Pharisees and the experts in the Mosaic Law rejected God's purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John.

I will be interested to read how you, or others, explain this text. Surely it clearly asserts that these Pharisees thwarted the accomplishment of God's will.

 

[Isaiah55:6]

Salvation is ALWAYS based on believing what God says about His Son and His promise of eternal life for believers.

I agree salvation is Always based on believing what God says about his son and his promise of eternal life for believers. Faith alone is Christ alone. We agree. But faith won't come until he regenerates you.

Regeneration is not salvation. I think that's where a lot of the confusion is. It's part of salvation but it's not it in of its self.

 

[expos4ever]

I thought Rice's and Pinnock's "Open Theism" had been given a fair hearing by many/most denominations and seminaries over 10 years ago and was declared to be a heresy by all of them IOW, according to the churches and seminaries (like TEDS), there is no Biblical case for anything short of "full" omniscience ..

Surely you realize this could be seen as a form of the "appeal to authority" error. Now to be fair to you, it is certainly not at all clear you are indeed making that error which would take the form of simply invoking some authority's conclusion in order to make one's case.

Here is my "big-picture" take on the matter of omniscience: There are clearly texts whose "plain reading" deny full omniscience. I know the standard responses to these texts and I suggest they are overly-contrived and therefore implausible. I strongly suspect - and I know this will sound patronizing but I have to say this because it is relevant to this matter - that many derive psychological comfort from believing that God knows everything (who wouldn't, me included?) and are therefore strongly biased to believe in full omniscience. At the end of the day, I think the Biblical texts force us to accept what seems hard to believe - that God does not fully know everything that will happen (or, for that matter, that He can fully control everything that will happen). One reason this seems hard to believe is that a caricature of the Christian God so deeply permeates our culture - and that "god" does not line up with the one presented in the Scriptures. Analogy: there is a "Sunday School" caricature of Jesus that probably most Christians implicitly accept - that He was (is) the kind of person who would never evade, mislead, manipulate, or break the Law. But I suggest that a sober, careful reading of the scriptures shows that He did all these things (of course, I will deny that in so Jesus was sinning).

 

[Job8]

Free will is an inconsistency in and of itself.

Only to some human beings. To God free will is perfectly consistent with His sovereignty as well as all His other attributes. As God has said, His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. He gave men and angels free will, but He also holds each one accountable.

 

[Job8]

Here is my "big-picture" take on the matter of omniscience: There are clearly texts whose "plain reading" deny full omniscience.

It is not merely the plain reading of a text, but the comparison of Scripture with Scripture that is required. And those texts which are less clear must be seen in the light of those which are perfectly clear. Is God totally and absolutely omniscient, and has He been thus from all eternity and will remain thus to all eternity? There are dozens of verses which confirm this truth. Here are a couple of examples:

He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite. (Ps 147:4). The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good... Hell and destruction are before the LORD: how much more then the hearts of the children of men? (Prov 15:3,11)

Are all stars included? Is every place included? Are all the hearts of all men included? Only someone who is intellectually dishonest will deny the absolute omniscience of God.

 

[expos4ever]

He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.

All this does is establish that God has extensive knowledge of creation. I really think you are taking great liberties here in taking what is clearly a "poetic" statement and bend it into a some sort of precise formulation to the effect that God knows everything about everything.

Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.

(Ps 147:4).

The concept of "perfect or infinite understanding" does not, I suggest, imply omniscience. I may have perfect understanding in relation to identifying people based on the sound of their voice. But if I cannot hear a particular voice, I cannot identify it.

The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good... Hell and destruction are before the LORD: how much more then the hearts of the children of men?

(Prov 15:3,11)

Again, this is a poetic way of expressing that God knows a lot. I think its inappropriate to take it literally

I realize that I need to make a stronger case than I have made and I do not have time to do that now.

However, while I work on that, can you explain how God could be omniscient in the following account:

In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, "Thus says the Lord, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.’" 2Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the Lord, saying, 3"Remember now, O Lord, I beseech Thee, how I have walked before Thee in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Thy sight." And Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4And it came about before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, that the word of the Lord came to him, saying, 5"Return and say to Hezekiah the leader of My people, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of your father David, "I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord. 6"And I will add fifteen years to your life, and I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake

Does God not change His mind? If so, at one point, His knowledge of the future entailed that Hezekiah would die shortly. After the prayer, God now believes that Hezekiah will live for 15 more years. So was God not "incorrect" in His knowledge "before the prayer"?

 

[FreeGrace2]

Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10 NIV).

How does this not require us to believe that God's will is not always done? If God's will always gets done, what point is there in praying for it to be done? Would it make sense to pray that 2+2=4? The point is that if God truly always gets His way, our praying that His will be done is entirely inconsequential.

And I have a hard time believing that Jesus would ask us to pray for something where our prayers would be of no consequence.

I suggest this one is even clearer:

But the Pharisees and the experts in the Mosaic Law rejected God's purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John.

I will be interested to read how you, or others, explain this text. Surely it clearly asserts that these Pharisees thwarted the accomplishment of God's will.

I don't see how rejecting God's will or purpose has ANY effect on His sovereignty. It seems the meaning of 'sovereignty' means different things to different people.

God, in His sovereignty, permits people and angels to sin. And that in no way lessens His sovereignty.

If 'sovereignty' means that God causes everything to occur, then we're just all in a very big puppet show. And that is clearly not Scriptural.

 

[FreeGrace2]

I agree salvation is Always based on believing what God says about his son and his promise of eternal life for believers. Faith alone is Christ alone. We agree. But faith won't come until he regenerates you.

The evidence for that is not found in Scripture. In fact, the evidence is the other way around.

Eph 2:5 equates being "made alive: (regeneration) with "having been saved". Then, in v.8, Paul notes that we are saved by grace THROUGH FAITH. So it's clear that faith must precede both being made alive and salvation.

Regeneration is not salvation.

Paul equated them in Eph 2:5. Can anyone have one apart from the other?

 

[expos4ever]

If 'sovereignty' means that God causes everything to occur, then we're just all in a very big puppet show. And that is clearly not Scriptural.

Well, I misunderstood you and I probably bear responsibility for that. We agree on this particular point despite our other theological differences.

 

[Job8]

All this does is establish that God has extensive knowledge of creation.

Do you realize how ludicrous that sounds? As far as I am concerned, God's omniscience and all His attributes and character are non-debatable. As already pointed out, that would be heretical and blasphemous doctrine.

 

[expos4ever]

Do you realize how ludicrous that sounds? As far as I am concerned, God's omniscience and all His attributes and character are non-debatable. As already pointed out, that would be heretical and blasphemous doctrine.

You appear to be simply declaring yourself to be an authority as to what is to be debated. What qualifies you to be the arbiter of this? I suggest that it can only be helpful to allow full and open dialogue on what the Scriptures actually teach in this respect. Calling someone else's position "ludicrous" or "blasphemous" or "heretical" - with no supporting argument - is not what I would call constructive and helpful.

What would be appropriate and helpful, of course, would be for you to respond to clear questions I raised relative the Hezekiah account.

 

[Job8]

Faith alone is Christ alone. We agree. But faith won't come until he regenerates you.

Faith comes by hearing the Gospel, and the Gospel is the seed which brings about regeneration.

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Rom 10:17)

Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (James 1:18)

Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. (1 Pet 1:23-25).

So now the questions are (1) are people really reading their Bibles or simply regurgitating what some have taught? (2) are people really believing what God has stated in Scripture, or simply skipping over those verses that don't suit them? (3) are people deliberately misinterpreting the Gospel so that they do not have to repent of their false notions?

 

[Job8]

What would be appropriate and helpful, of course, would be for you to respond to clear questions I raised relative the Hezekiah account.

Isaiah 38:1-22 is by no means a passage that reflects adversely on God's ABSOLUTE OMNISCIENCE. While God knows the end from the beginning (study the book of Job) He does not necessarily disclose His plans in advance, since He tests the faith of His servants and His saints.

God already knew in advance that He would grant Hezekiah a specific life-span (as He knows it for absolutely every human being). Isaiah was told to tell Hezekiah "thou shalt die and not live". It does not say "thou shalt die tomorrow" or "thou shalt died within one week". Therefore that is a generic statement given to test Hezekiah and see how he would respond. We know how he responded, in that he was unprepared to die immediately, and he cried bitterly about this ("and Hezekiah wept sore" v 3). Therefore God granted him another 15 years.

How in the world would anyone imagine that this incident proves that God did not already know Hezekiah's lifespan in advance? And does God not have the authority and liberty to change the lifespan of any man if He so chooses? After all every life is in His hands.

No, my friend, you have absolutely no evidence that God's omniscience is limited in any way whatsoever. All you have is someone teaching you the false doctrine of so-called "Open Theism" which is in the same category as "Theistic Evolution" -- pure conjecture.

 

[expos4ever]

God already knew in advance that He would grant Hezekiah a specific life-span (as He knows it for absolutely every human being). Isaiah was told to tell Hezekiah "thou shalt die and not live". It does not say "thou shalt die tomorrow" or "thou shalt died within one week".

Come on, now - it is clear from context that God is saying Hezekiah will die soon. Heck, He instructs Hezekiah to "get his house in order". Such an instruction would never be given to someone with 15 more years of living ahead of them!

How in the world would anyone imagine that this incident proves that God did not already know Hezekiah's lifespan in advance?

I just explained this - it is clear from the passage that God changed His mind about how long Hezekiah would live. So before He changed His mind He had a certain (shorter) lifespan in mind than after He changed His mind.

To deny this is to deny the logic of the passage.

And does God not have the authority and liberty to change the lifespan of any man if He so chooses? After all every life is in His hands.

I trust you realize the implications of this. Let's say you God changes His mind about how long Fred will live.

1. On Tuesday, the lifespan of Fred, as set by God, is 65 years.
2. On Wednesday at noon, God changes Fred's lifespan to 70 years.

Questions for you:

On Tuesday evening what does God believe to be the age Fred will live to?
On Wednesday evening what does God believe to be the age Fred will live to?

I think your only way out of this pickle is to back off on any claim that there is a "settled" future that God's knows perfectly.

 

[expos4ever]

All you have is someone teaching you the false doctrine of so-called "Open Theism".

Please do not speculate about you cannot possibly know - whether someone "taught" me this, or whether I thought of it on my own.

 

[nobdysfool]

All this does is establish that God has extensive knowledge of creation. I really think you are taking great liberties here in taking what is clearly a "poetic" statement and bend it into a some sort of precise formulation to the effect that God knows everything about everything.

Since all that is was created by Him, why would He not know everything about that which He has created?

The concept of "perfect or infinite understanding" does not, I suggest, imply omniscience. I may have perfect understanding in relation to identifying people based on the sound of their voice. But if I cannot hear a particular voice, I cannot identify it.

God is not limited to our 5 senses. He's not just a bigger version of us, which is what you seem to imply.

Again, this is a poetic way of expressing that God knows a lot. I think its inappropriate to take it literally

Or, it could be that like Pinnock, et al, you are trying to diminish God, make Him less of a threat to your chosen views.

I realize that I need to make a stronger case than I have made and I do not have time to do that now.

then why did you bring it up? You had to know you were going to be challenged about it....

However, while I work on that, can you explain how God could be omniscient in the following account:

In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, "Thus says the Lord, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.’" 2Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the Lord, saying, 3"Remember now, O Lord, I beseech Thee, how I have walked before Thee in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Thy sight." And Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4And it came about before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, that the word of the Lord came to him, saying, 5"Return and say to Hezekiah the leader of My people, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of your father David, "I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord. 6"And I will add fifteen years to your life, and I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake

Does God not change His mind? If so, at one point, His knowledge of the future entailed that Hezekiah would die shortly. After the prayer, God now believes that Hezekiah will live for 15 more years. So was God not "incorrect" in His knowledge "before the prayer"?

How do you know that God didn't say what He said to Hezekiah, to motivate him to pray and seek God, SO THAT God would add 15 years to his life, as God intended all along? God informed Hezekiah that, given his current condition, he would die, telling him so through the Prophet Isaiah. Several things are proven here. First, God answers prayer, and prayer can change things. Secondly, Isaiah was, in a sense, tested, having already given one Word of the Lord to Hezekiah, and then, because Hezekiah prayed, and God answered that prayer, Isaiah went back in and delivered another Word which set aside the first one.

Where do you get the idea that God changed His belief??? God was not "incorrect" in His knowledge. If Hezekiah had not prayed and reminded the Lord of his faithfulness, he would have died, as God told him through Isaiah. And it's not as if God "forgot" what Hezekiah had done and how he had walked before God, God said what He said to Hezekiah to move Hezekiah to pray and beseech God to keep him from dying. This is a powerful proof that prayer can and does move God. Trying to use this to make God appear confused and forgetful is a gross misuse of Scripture.

 

[Hammster]

Just so everyone knows, the official view of CF is that God is omniscient in all things. Alternate views such as open theism are not allowed to be discussed in the Christian Only areas.

 

[expos4ever]

Just so everyone knows, the official view of CF is that God is omniscient in all things. Alternate views such as open theism are not allowed to be discussed in the Christian Only areas.

While I think that such a rule is highly suspicious, I will obey it and will not discuss the matter further.

 

[Isaiah55:6]

So now the questions are (1) are people really reading their Bibles or simply regurgitating what some have taught?

Both? I can't speak for all people. I go by what I think it's teaching.

(2) are people really believing what God has stated in Scripture, or simply skipping over those verses that don't suit them?

'

Again I can't speak for all people.

3) are people deliberately misinterpreting the Gospel so that they do not have to repent of their false notions?

Personally, I was arminian most my life. I hated Calvinism when I first heard about it about 3 years ago. I badly wanted to refute it. The more I studied it and learned what it actually teaches I came to the conclusion that Calvinism (I wish it had a different name) was the most biblical view.