Problem with Election

[112358]

Here is a question for the group regarding total depravity. If we are incapable of anything but sin before we come to God, why are there nonbelievers who lead moral lives and do lots of good things, who love their families and fellow men, who treat people better than a lot of “Christians” do? Is that a totally depraved soul?

 

[GodsGrace101]

In Reformed Theology we teach that Faith does come by hearing the Word of God! And we also teach that the Gospel is to be preached to all MEN! Yes, God has revealed himself to mankind! We are on the same page so far.

So what's your point?

If the Westminster Confession is correct and if Unconditional Election is correct, then what difference does it make to preach the gospel? God will save whom He will save. Is He not sovereign and able to do so?

In your teaching faith does not come by hearing...
It comes by God choosing to save a particular person.
Which goes against everything the bible teaches about God.

The Westminster Confession:
The Westminster Confession of Faith states, "God has predestined and foreordained some men and angels to everlasting life out of His free grace and love without any foresight of faith or works in man or perseverance in either of them, and others are foreordained to everlasting death and the number of either is so certain and definite that it cannot be increased or diminished." (Chap. III, art. 3,4 &5; Chap. X, art. 2)

 

[GodsGrace101]

And here's a thought. Why is it that Satan's not willing that anyone should be saved but all should be lost and that means 100% of humanity BUT God wouldn't be the opposite...Not willing that any 100% of humanity should perish but all should come to repentance?

 

[GodsGrace101]

When one knows Him, the answers become clear. Just wanted to throw in that one can know answers to these and the other hard questions. We are not left in the dark. It is just that the light is expensive. As I said, casual inquirers are not given any information worth talking about.

Actually, this is the one unanswerable question for Christianity.
Do you think you have the answer? I'd like to hear it!

 

[112358]

If the Westminster Confession is correct and if Unconditional Election is correct, then what difference does it make to preach the gospel? God will save whom He will save. Is He not sovereign and able to do so?

In your teaching faith does not come by hearing...
It comes by God choosing to save a particular person.
Which goes against everything the bible teaches about God.

The Westminster Confession:
The Westminster Confession of Faith states, "God has predestined and foreordained some men and angels to everlasting life out of His free grace and love without any foresight of faith or works in man or perseverance in either of them, and others are foreordained to everlasting death and the number of either is so certain and definite that it cannot be increased or diminished." (Chap. III, art. 3,4 &5; Chap. X, art. 2)

This stuff literally makes my heart ache every time I read it. A God who has foreordained a being created in His own image and likeness to everlasting death? What depressing and dangerous theology!

 

[Dorothy Mae]

And here's a thought. Why is it that Satan's not willing that anyone should be saved but all should be lost and that means 100% of humanity BUT God wouldn't be the opposite...Not willing that any 100% of humanity should perish but all should come to repentance?

Satan means adversary so their desires are opposite. Does this make a difference in anything?

 

[GodsGrace101]

So how does an elect according to his infinite mercy not vibe with scriptures?
Or "the God you know"?
Either you do believe his Word....(Mark 13:27 And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.)
Or you don't...

Because it sounds a lot like your limited understanding of who God is, prompts you to think you know righteousness better than he does?

It seems my post was clear.
I really don't know what else to say.

 

[Dorothy Mae]

Actually, this is the one unanswerable question for Christianity.
Do you think you have the answer? I'd like to hear it!

I'm sorry Grace. What was the question?

 

[Dorothy Mae]

You are misunderstanding election. The non-elect never believe, and they never want to.

It seems my post was clear.
I really don't know what else to say.

The problem with the Calvinist election is the non-elect cannot want to. They are blinded by the will of God because they are not chosen before they were born.

 

[GodsGrace101]

This stuff literally makes my heart ache every time I read it. A God who has foreordained a being created in His own image and likeness to everlasting death? What depressing and dangerous theology!

Amen to that brother.
Just keep preaching the truth.
A God who is willing to die HIMSELF, but just for a lucky few and not for everyone.
It is truly not understandable.

And this idea didn't even exist in the early church.
Some here seem to think the early church means when Jesus was still on earth since I've been asked if I don't believe in the bible. The early church means after the ascension. The Apostles and the Apostolic fathers.

The early theologians pre the Nicene council, IOW, in 325AD.
NOT ONE theologian ever had this concept of God choosing people to be saved.

What they did teach was to believe in Jesus and obey Him. Everything they wrote taught free will of each of us to choose God and to make moral decisions.

Maybe instead of studying Calvin, the ECF's should be studied!

 

[Dorothy Mae]

This stuff literally makes my heart ache every time I read it. A God who has foreordained a being created in His own image and likeness to everlasting death? What depressing and dangerous theology!

You understand that correctly. The danger is that those who embrace either shut down their minds as to what this means, or accept that God is unjust and cruel and not care as long as they are going to Heaven. One can easily see what kind of person this makes. Jesus wept over Jerusalem who refused to receive God's grace. No Calvinist would have had that reaction. They either would have shrugged their shoulders and said "God's ways are higher than ours" believing He ordained that state of rejection or would have said "let 'em burn." But weeping? Never.

 

[Radagast]

Here is a question for the group regarding total depravity. If we are incapable of anything but sin before we come to God, why are there nonbelievers who lead moral lives and do lots of good things, who love their families and fellow men, who treat people better than a lot of “Christians” do? Is that a totally depraved soul?

That is not what "total depravity" means.

 

[Dorothy Mae]

That is an utter falsehood.

I can only assume that you totally misunderstand Reformed theology.

Since for the Calvinist "God is sovereign" means He gets his will done including making those who are chosen to be saved believe and blind those He chose not to be saved, that is exactly what Calvinist theology believes. You see, if you start with God choosing this person and rejecting that person for heaven and they cannot miss either, then they are forced to believe or forced to want to believe or however you want to lay out the plan. God is the one choosing and those chosen cannot miss. Ergo, God is forcing them. If He makes them think they want to believe and they cannot choose otherwise, He is employing manipulation which is also forcing His will upon them. It is the same thing. What you do not have in Calvinism is the free will to reject what God wants for a man (salvation.) Since that is eliminated, God is forcing. There are no other choices.

 

[MDC]

You understand that correctly. The danger is that those who embrace either shut down their minds as to what this means, or accept that God is unjust and cruel and not care as long as they are going to Heaven. One can easily see what kind of person this makes. Jesus wept over Jerusalem who refused to receive God's grace. No Calvinist would have had that reaction. They either would have shrugged their shoulders and said "God's ways are higher than ours" believing He ordained that state of rejection or would have said "let 'em burn." But weeping? Never.

Romans 9:22. 1 Peter 2:8.

 

[GodsGrace101]

I'm sorry Grace. What was the question?

LOL
I'll repeat it, but there's no answer!

If God is all-good and omnipotent...
Why does evil exist?

IOW, is there some evil in God?
Is He not able to remove evil from the universe?
It IS a problem within Christianity and the one question for which there is no answer.

Good ole' Augustine thought he had the answer in his new Christian days. But, as usual with him, he did change his mind later on in life and deided that, indeed, there was no answer to this problem.

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
One question preoccupied Augustine from the time he was a student in Carthage: why does evil exist in the world? He returned to this question again and again in his philosophy, a line of inquiry motivated by personal experience. Augustine lived in an era when the pillar of strength and stability, the Roman Empire, was being shattered, and his own life, too, was filled with turmoil and loss. First he lost his mistress, then his mother, and finally his son. To believe in God, he had to find an answer to why, if God is all-powerful and also purely good, he still allows suffering to exist.

Augustine’s answers to this question would forever change Western thought. First, he states that evil exists because we have free will. God enables humans to freely choose their actions and deeds, and evil inevitably results from these choices. Even natural evils, such as disease, are indirectly related to human action, since they become evil only when in contact with people. According to this theory, a disease spreads only because men and women put themselves in harm’s way. Augustine gave a more theological explanation later in his life: we cannot understand the mind of God, and what appears evil to us may not be evil at all. In other words, we cannot judge God’s judgment. The roots of both of these answers stemmed from two philosophies, Manicheanism and Neoplatonism, which shaped Augustine’s ideas.

source: SparkNotes: Saint Augustine (A.D. 354–430): Themes, Arguments, and Ideas


Is God the author of evil or its helpless victim? St. Augustine's answer has been the most intellectually credible and emotionally satisfying solution to this vexing problem.

One doesn't need a Ph.D. in theology to look around the world and realize something is desperately wrong. The existence of evil is one of the most vexing challenges a Christian--or any person, for that matter-- must grapple with. It's occupied the minds of great Christian thinkers since the beginning, including St. Augustine (354-430). For much of his life he worked hard at a solution.

source: Augustine on Evil | Stand to Reason

This is more complete and also mentions John Calvin at the end of the article and how he accepts that God created evil.

Augustinian theodicy - Wikipedia

And this speaks of how he changed his mìnd on the millenium, but it's not the only concept.
Why Saint Augustine Changed His Mind About the Millennium

 

[Dorothy Mae]

That is not what "total depravity" means.

If you want to be thought of as having something you know about the subject, you need to do more than say "that is not it." Just makes one think you have no idea what it is but not that or that you do not want to admit that this is a problem in the theology and the easiest way to deal with the problem is simply deny it but not think about it.

 

[GodsGrace101]

The problem with the Calvinist election is the non-elect cannot want to. They are blinded by the will of God because they are not chosen before they were born.

Right. And this changes the nature of God since He desires that all men be saved, and they can be by accepting His conditions.

Calvinism believes God created evil also. In Genesis we read that everything God made was good.
Genesis 1:31

We also read that God created man in His own image.
Genesis 1:26
God is love. We need love and feel love.
God is the creator. We create through art.
God is social. We desire to belong to a family.
God is moral. We have moral laws written within us.
God is eternal. We will never die after the 1st death.
God is just. We seek justice.
God is perfect. We seek perfection.

The evil force, satan, has had an effect on all of the above.
To believe that God created such a being, as mirroring Himself, and then RUINED it, is to not use common sense.

 

[GodsGrace101]

If you want to be thought of as having something you know about the subject, you need to do more than say "that is not it." Just makes one think you have no idea what it is but not that or that you do not want to admit that this is a problem in the theology and the easiest way to deal with the problem is simply deny it but not think about it.

 

[Marvin Knox]

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.

God saying it makes it true.

God is infinite and not finite. None of God's attributes (including His sovereignty) is are divisible from the others. No Reformed theologian believes otherwise.

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

And your point is?

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

Neither of these two points speak to the will of men.

If God chooses to make a new creation who will respond favorably to the gospel - it does not force that new creation to do so or force the old creation to not do so.

No Calvinist believes or teaches otherwise.

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.

No - no one's will is being controlled - only reinforced.

God hardens a heart which rejects Him and gives a new heart which will accept Him to some to the praise of His amazing grace.

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

Now you know the answer as to how these things can be so. I glad I had the opportunity to contribute to your understanding.

 

[Radagast]

If you want to be thought of as having something you know about the subject, you need to do more than say "that is not it."

And I would if I thought there was any point in a conversation.