Problem with Election

Dorothy Mae · Jun 22, 2018

GodsGrace101 said:
I read the bible as written. I could not see predestination there.
When I saw the word "predestined" it did take me aback...but from all I had read till then, I knew it had to mean something else.

I felt, and always have from then, that God would like all humanity to be saved -- but, being a just God --- a person has to WANT to be saved. They have to want to be on God's side.

Also, I know persons that were Christian, for example, and then they became JW's. Or VV. Some of it has to do with approaching the bible with preconceived ideas, but not in every case.

I recommend when you read the word "predestined" in the Bible look carefully at the text and see what one is predestined for. You will never find predestined for Heaven or Hell. Never. In Ephesians you will find that it says we who believed are predestined to become sons or offspring of God. That is what we are predestined for. Since we play the major roll in how that is fulfilled for obvious reasons, predestined to be like Jesus is the plan of God. It does not mean we cannot fail. So predestined means God wants us all to be like Jesus and that is the plan. Salvation is not mentioned.

And yes, God wants all of humanity to be saved but he is not going to let all those who loved wrong and selfishness into Heaven because he cannot stand them suffering. Unless we repent, we will not be let in. And it is his house and He gets to say who comes in. So I agree with you are very right wne you say that you do not see the predestination doctrine in the Bible. If a man only had the Bible and no teacher, he would not have come up with that doctrine from reading the Bible alone. Men made that one up for personal reasons.

Dorothy Mae · Jun 22, 2018

Jack Meredith said:
We are self-deluded with sensations and appearances. You are playing games with your mind, as do we all, not God. The work of God is to believe on the One Whom He has sent. John 6:29 KJV

If anyone will keep my teaching, he will know the truth and the truth will make him free. Jesus

Anyone willing to keep his teaching will not be self-deluded with sensations or appearances.

Jack Meredith · Jun 22, 2018

Dorothy Mae said:
If anyone will keep my teaching, he will know the truth and the truth will make him free. Jesus

Anyone willing to keep his teaching will not be self-deluded with sensations or appearances.

And if our will is already free, why do we need to be made free?

Dorothy Mae · Jun 22, 2018

Jack Meredith said:
And if our will is already free, why do we need to be made free?

Jesus wasn't speaking of the will. The will is not made free by keeping his truth. The will already is free and is assumed to be free by the writers of the Bible or else they would never have called men to repent. "Repent" makes no sense if no man can. It only makes sense if man and God know each man can.

Jack Meredith · Jun 22, 2018

Dorothy Mae said:
Jesus wasn't speaking of the will. The will is not made free by keeping his truth. The will already is free and is assumed to be free by the writers of the Bible or else they would never have called men to repent. "Repent" makes no sense if no man can. It only makes sense if man and God know each man can.

In what way, then are we made free?
Free will is an illusion, like a mirage. The sun doesn't rise and set. From our point of view it sure seems to. But God is God, He's not a gentleman. This is His show, not ours. When did it become about us? In the garden.

grasping the after wind · Jun 22, 2018

GodsGrace101 said:
I don't understand the above.
How do YOU think of God?
How is His nature?

God is who He is. His nature is what His nature is. I do not have a vote.

Dorothy Mae · Jun 22, 2018

Jack Meredith said:
In what way, then are we made free?
Free will is an illusion, like a mirage. The sun doesn't rise and set. From our point of view it sure seems to. But God is God, He's not a gentleman. This is His show, not ours. When did it become about us? In the garden.

We are not made free, we ARE free. You freely are on the computer typing your message. You freely live where you do, assuming you are not in jail. You will make free choices regarding what to wear and eat and so on within the limits of your material ability. Free will is real and the denial of it is freely done freely deluding oneself that one is not free and therefore not responsible. I mean you are free to deny you are free if you want. No one is making you decide you are not free.

What does the sun have to do with the point? What you are doing is picking something we describe as "rise" or "set" because that is a lot shorter than "the earth has turned again such that the sun now appears on the side of the planet we live on." Come on. Can't you see "rise" is a lot shorter? And God is most certainly a gentleman. If not, he would have blasted you for insulting his character. But here you are, free to call God names.

Maybe you might want to abandon your mirage that you are not free, embrace that responsiblity and freely choose to want to pursue Him whom you insist is no gentleman. You might find the truth that you are free and you freely give your love who Him who is the most gentelmanly of all.

Dorothy Mae · Jun 22, 2018

grasping the after wind said:
God s who He is. His nature is what His nature is. I do not have a vote.

Ah but we can know Him and undertand Him

grasping the after wind · Jun 22, 2018

GodsGrace101 said:
This says a lot about me. But it doesn't say enough about God...

God is love.
1 John 4:8

God is merciful.
Deuteronomy 7:9
2 Corinthians 1:3-4

God is just.
Romans 3:26

This is the God I know.

However, what is Love? what is just? I also believe God is Love and God is Just. Given that,how is God supposed to act? If he forgives the malevolent he is loving but unjust. If he punishes the malevolent he is just but unloving. Have we decided that God must conform to our moral imperatives?

grasping the after wind · Jun 22, 2018

Dorothy Mae said:
Ah but we can know Him and undertand Him

Can We ? much like my wife, I believe I may know him but I am far removed from understanding him.

Jack Meredith · Jun 22, 2018

Dorothy Mae said:
We are not made free, we ARE free. You freely are on the computer typing your message. You freely live where you do, assuming you are not in jail. You will make free choices regarding what to wear and eat and so on within the limits of your material ability. Free will is real and the denial of it is freely done freely deluding oneself that one is not free and therefore not responsible. I mean you are free to deny you are free if you want. No one is making you decide you are not free.

What does the sun have to do with the point? What you are doing is picking something we describe as "rise" or "set" because that is a lot shorter than "the earth has turned again such that the sun now appears on the side of the planet we live on." Come on. Can't you see "rise" is a lot shorter? And God is most certainly a gentleman. If not, he would have blasted you for insulting his character. But here you are, free to call God names.

Maybe you might want to abandon your mirage that you are not free, embrace that responsiblity and freely choose to want to pursue Him whom you insist is no gentleman. You might find the truth that you are free and you freely give your love who Him who is the most gentelmanly of all.

You have a very naive idea of the will. We are purchased with a price and we are not our own.
But, again, in what way are we set free?

Dorothy Mae · Jun 23, 2018

grasping the after wind said:
Can We ? much like my wife, I believe I may know him but I am far removed from understanding him.

Yes we can. How do I know? Jesus said that eternal life is actually knowing God. The old testament says let him who boasts boast in this, that he knows and understands God. Moses understood God. Abraham understood God. It is possible but like with all fields of knowledge, there is a price to be paid. He does not reveal Himself to the casually interested person.

Dorothy Mae · Jun 23, 2018

Jack Meredith said:
You have a very naive idea of the will. We are purchased with a price and we are not our own.
But, again, in what way are we set free?

Actually, this is the view of the will that a just court system takes. It is the view that all of us have in real life. Maybe in a philosophy class in college one can toy with the idea that the will is something else. But if anyone walks into the class and starts throwing mud at everyone, no one says that the perpetrator is not operating under free will so is not to blame. This is what free will means in real life and everyone knows everyone else has free will as evidenced everytime they BLAME someone else for something they did.

And when we stand before God, we will give an answer as to the deeds done in the body. God considers us having free will and freely done what we did. He will not be looking into the mirror at Himself and tell Himself that He did not purchase that one and they had no free will.

To answer the question as to what we are set free from in your thinking, I need more information. Are you are a Christian or an atheist?

Dorothy Mae · Jun 23, 2018

grasping the after wind said:
However, what is Love? what is just? I also believe God is Love and God is Just. Given that,how is God supposed to act? If he forgives the malevolent he is loving but unjust. If he punishes the malevolent he is just but unloving. Have we decided that God must conform to our moral imperatives?

We must conform to his moral imperatives, which, by the way, are the same moral imperatives of every victim of every sin. I mean the thief might ask what exactly is stealing but the man whose car was stolen knows exactly what it is.

grasping the after wind · Jun 23, 2018

Dorothy Mae said:
Yes we can. How do I know? Jesus said that eternal life is actually knowing God. The old testament says let him who boasts boast in this, that he knows and understands God. Moses understood God. Abraham understood God. It is possible but like with all fields of knowledge, there is a price to be paid. He does not reveal Himself to the casually interested person.

I suppose then you may well decide to consider me a casually interested person and ignore my reasonable objections to your subjective assumptions. I would submit that neither Moses nor Abraham understood God but they simply obeyed Him without understanding Him at all.

needhugs · Jun 23, 2018

GodsGrace101 said:
Very sweet of you, but no thanks.

lol i think you just lost your right to complain bitterly about untruths, if you say 'no thanks' to the truth

grasping the after wind · Jun 23, 2018

every victim of every sin. I mean the thief might ask what exactly is stealing but the man whose car was stolen knows exactly what it is.[/QUOTE]

I agree with bulk of what you are saying here. However, God decides what is or is not benevolent or malevolent. There is no overarching principle that God must conform to against his Will. Those who quote Euthyphro forget the Greeks were pantheists and not monotheists so the argument that Socrates puts forth about gods having different priorities and opinions on what is moral does not apply.

Radagast · Jun 23, 2018

Dorothy Mae said:
This is what free will means in real life and everyone knows everyone else has free will as evidenced everytime they BLAME someone else for something they did.

That "real life" version of "free will" requires that you take the action that you wanted to take. Because you wanted to take it, you can be blamed.

That kind of free will is fully compatible with predestination.

Imagine that you are trapped in a locked room. But you don't know it's locked (you never try the door). You stay in the room because it's full of fun toys: you want to stay there, and you do so of your own free will, even though the person who locked the door predestined you to stay there.

InterestedApologist · Jun 23, 2018

Marvin Knox said:
Reformed theology does not allow for God forcing anyone to do anything they are not willing to do.

Predestination and the somewhat related doctrine of election - do not in any way eliminate the free choices made by men (be they elect of reprobate).

Saying this doesn’t make it true. Calvinism is based on the foundation that, above all else, God’s defining attribute is His sovereignty over everything that happens.

The U and the I in TULIP directly contradict what you said:

U is unconditional election, which means the elect are chosen before the foundation of the world to be God’s.

I is irresistible grace, which means the elect cannot say no to being God’s elect.

If that were not enough, another favorite proof text of Calvinism is in Romans when Paul says some vessels are made for honor and some for dishonor. Another favorite is that God hated Esau. If this is true, than under the Calvinist perspective, it is not only the elect that are being controlled by God, but also the wicked...God did harden pharoh’s heart after all.

I have heard your claim made by other Calvinists as well, but I do not understand how it is consistent with the Calvinist doctrine?

grasping the after wind · Jun 23, 2018

Radagast said:
That "real life" version of "free will" requires that you take the action that you wanted to take. Because you wanted to take it, you can be blamed.

That kind of free will is fully compatible with predestination.

Imagine that you are trapped in a locked room. But you don't know it's locked (you never try the door). You stay in the room because it's full of fun toys: you want to stay there, and you do so of your own free will, even though the person who locked the door predestined you to stay there.

That doesn't work as one of those might decide to leave. Election requires that no one can decide to leave.

Problem with Election

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