Questions on the extent of God’s sovereignty.

Aviel said:

Isn't that the fatal flaw of some of Calvinism?

He wrongly defined God's Foreknowledge as "pre-destined" and wrote a Theology around that miscomprehension?

He simply could not comprehend that God knowing everything that is going to happen NEXT... is not the same as God causing every thing to happen.

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That, indeed, is the problem, not only with Calvin, but many other successors as well as hybrids.

Hammster said:

That is what I was doing. And you said


So, it seems you want it go one direction.

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We can talk about "what if this had been different", but we can't conclude anything, as we don't know.

'""""what if there was no Eve"""""

Then there is Satan talking to Adam..... would it have turned out differently?

It seems to me that Satan has the power to tempt, and would have caused Adam to bite the apple, just maybe a few days later.

"""What if there was no Lucifer....."""

Ok, well, God would have created another Cherub to be the music minister in heaven, and would they have always become Vain and wanted all the glory?

It seems likely.

WE know that God wants family, and Created us to be like Himself, and we know that He was willing to die for us, and did.

God is love.

Aviel said:

We can talk about "what if this had been different", but we can't conclude anything, as we don't know.

'""""what if there was no Eve"""""

Then there is Satan talking to Adam..... would it have turned out differently?

It seems to me that Satan has the power to tempt, and would have caused Adam to bite the apple, just maybe a few days later.

"""What if there was no Lucifer....."""

Ok, well, God would have created another Cherub to be the music minister in heaven, and would they have always become Vain and wanted all the glory?

It seems likely.

WE know that God wants family, and Created us to be like Himself, and we know that He was willing to die for us, and did.

God is love.

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If you can take the time please read my post 180.
Everything is driven by man's object and not God's desire to show His Love by sending Christ to the cross.
Everything needs to start with the objective.

The differences and issues begin with misunderstanding of the objective. Most Christians like: Man’s objective is to “bring glory to God” and have scripture references to support that objective, but a person can take any commandment or direction of God given in scripture and have Biblical support for call that command: “Man’s Objective”. We are certainly commanded to do that command, so why is it not man’s objective?

There are the two superior commands which all other commands are subordinate to and combined would be like: “Love God (and secondly others) with all your heart, soul, mind, and energy.” That appears to be man’s “Mission Statement”. The huge problem with fulfilling that “Mission Statement” is the fact that the “Love” needed would have to be huge, way beyond anything man could develop, learn, deserve, earn, pay back, be instinctive to man, or somehow just be forced upon humans.

Thus, the reason you have free will, is because it is required for you to complete your earthly objective.

This messed up world which includes satan roaming around is not here for your pleasure, but to help each of us to become like God Himself in that you have the unique, unbelievable Godly type Love (God himself is Love).

There are just somethings even an all-powerful Creator cannot do (there are things impossible to do), like create another Christ, since Christ has always existed, the big impossibility for us is; create humans with instinctive Godly type Love, since Godly type Love is not instinctive. Godly type love has to be the result of a free will decision by the being, to make it the person’s Love apart from God. In other words: If the Love was in a human from the human’s creation it would be a robotic type love and not a Godly type Love. Also, if God “forces” this Love on a person (Kind a like a shotgun wedding) it would not be “loving” on God’s part and the love forced on the person would not be Godly type Love. This Love has to be the result of a free will moral choice with real alternatives (for humans those alternatives include the perceived pleasures of sin for a season.)

God has created beings to shower them with the greatest gifts possible, the greatest gift being having a Love like His.

If there is this Creator of the universe out there, His “creations” could not really “do” anything for Him, so this Creator would have to be seen as a Giver (Unselfish Lover) and not trying to “get” something from His creation.

God would create the right universe for the sake of the individuals that will accept His gift (the most powerful force [Love] in all universes, since that force [Love] compels even God to do all He does) and thus the willing become like He is (the greatest gift He could give).

What keeps the all-powerful Creator from just giving whatever He wants to his creation, eliminating the need for free will and this earthly time.

This Love is way beyond anything humans could develop, obtain, learn, earn, pay back or ever deserve, so it must be the result of a gift that is accepted or rejected (a free will choice).

This “Love” is much more than just an emotional feeling; it is God Himself (God is Love). If you see this Love you see God.

All mature adults do stuff that hurts others (this is called sin) these transgressions weigh on them, burden them, to the point the individual seeks relief (at least early on before they allow their hearts to be hardened). Lots of “alternatives” can be tried for relief, but the only true relief comes from God with forgiveness (this forgiveness is pure charity [grace/mercy/Love]). The correct humble acceptance of this Forgiveness (Charity) automatically will result in Love (we are taught by Jesus and our own experience “…he that is forgiven much will Love much…”). Sin is thus made hugely significant, so there will be an unbelievable huge debt to be forgiven of and thus result in an unbelievable huge “Love” (Godly type Love).

Sin has purpose in helping willing humans in fulfilling their objective. God does not like it but allows it.

Unfortunately, I, along with others, needed to see and know the brevity of life in order to respond sooner than later. Time is not on our side, since we do not get better, but worse. If everyone had at least 60 years, there would be no rush to repent and repenting does not get easier with time. We all tend to spiral down into the pigsty of life (like the prodigal son) and that does help, if when we do come to our senses we turn to the Father, but that does not have to take 60 years.

Let’s talk about “Adam and Eve”:

Adam and Eve were made “very good” by God’s standard (as good as made beings could be made, but not perfect like Christ). They had the same “objective” as you and I have, but what we and they found out was: what would be perceived as an ideal place and condition, was actually a lousy place to fulfill man’s objective. Not sinning meant they deserved all that God was giving them (it was His responsibility to care for His creation). There was no reason for Adam and Eve to humbly accept God’s gifts as pure undeserved charity and they had to be given a survival instinct to give value to life, but that creates a self-concern and a kind of selfishness. They were eventually going to sin, have curses to live with, and eventually die. Is death bad in and of itself? Curses limiting resources also provided a way to experience Love through helping others, and now they had a need for undeserving charitable forgiveness.

I am not wanting to go back to the Garden situation even without the tree of knowledge and satan roaming around, since Adam and Eve sinned in that situation. What would a better situation look like?

This messed up world is what I and others need to fulfill our objective, I need: death, Christ to go to the cross, past sins, work to do, purpose for being here, tragedies of all kinds, hell, guidance to know what pleases and displeases God, Christ’s example, the indwelling Holy Spirit and the Church.

God creates people without their will, in a state of sin for which they can't choose or act against and because of sin, must go to hell to be tormented. For giggles God decides to save some people and for lols not save others.

I know this because I am saved and better than everyone else. Did I deserve it? Nope. Earn it? Nope. I just know it will be LOL to watch people being tormented whose existence and sinful state they had no choice or consent.

Hammster said:

Straw man much?

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I think that is a straw man argument oddly because you don't know what that means.

Hammster said:

I think we can all agree that God is sovereign. This thread is meant to try to explore the extent of His sovereignty. So to start, I pose these questions.

Does God know every action man might freely choose? If so, can He let man do that action if it suits His purpose? Also, can He intervene to prevent man from performing that action?

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Question 1 yes
Question 2 yes
Question 3 He can but will He? Nobody knows.

SavedByGrace3 said:

I believe God imparted elements of His sovereignty into every created thing, animate or inanimate.
Everything has the right to exist and interact with every other thing. Spinning all together, it is called the course of nature. That includes us, we are subject to the course of nature. Somethings things happen to us that are merely the course of nature doing it's thing. A rock falls on your head. No purpose. No plan. No intent. Just an accident.
Of course He can intervene, but looking at the world around us, it is evident He does not.
The big mistake many people make is equating absolute sovereignty with total control. One can have total sovereignty without taking control of everything.

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I was at a trampoline park one time and I was playing in a huge ball pit with my daughter. This thing was like 25 feet X 40 feet. Long story short I lost my wedding ring. I combed the floor with my hands for about 45 minutes and couldn’t find it. I found someone else’s ring and a cell phone but not mine. My family was getting hungry so I stopped and went & ordered a pizza and we sat down and ate. After eating I prayed to The Lord asking Him to please help me find my lost wedding ring. I went back to the ball pit and reached down to the floor and as soon as my hand touched the floor my ring was exactly in the center of my palm. I didn’t have to slide my hand around or anything. As soon as my hand touched the floor my ring was right in the middle of my hand. My first that was “what? No way” and when I stood up and saw that it was actually my ring my heart just stopped for a second. Immediately I was amazed and literally shocked. I’ve always believed that God performs miracles to help us from time to time but I had never experienced anything this blatant before. It literally brought tears to my eyes the thought that God Himself took the time and made an effort to perform this miracle for me, such an insignificant person. It really made me feel blessed and significant to Him. I immediately shared the story with everyone I knew but I thought it would be relevant to share here as a testimony to God intervening today. I absolutely believe He does.

Hammster said:

I think we do know, because we have scripture.

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Verse?

Hammster said:

But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.
— Genesis 12:17

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Yeah there’s no doubt that God intervened in this situation but I would say that this is a bit of a special situation. Obviously God performed numerous miracles to bring the Jews to the promised land and firmly establish their foothold in it but I don’t think we can use these examples to say that He does the same to save each & every individual. Take for example Revelation 2:20-21 God didn’t cause Jezebel to repent. The same thing with Romans 2:4-5, and John 5:34 God didn’t cause them to repent either. In both of these cases God was urging them to repent either thru Paul’s or Jesus’ preaching yet they still managed to refuse. If God’s intervention was assured to save certain people then John 15:1-7 would be a pointless message and verses 2 and 6 would be an impossibility. As well as 2 Timothy 2:12. In 2 Timothy 2:12 Paul tells Timothy that even they could be denied by Christ. So I don’t think we can take the examples of intervention that God took upon certain key individuals and apply that same concept with everyone because we can see cases that contradict that notion, even amongst His chosen apostles.

BNR32FAN said:

Yeah there’s no doubt that God intervened in this situation but I would say that this is a bit of a special situation. Obviously God performed numerous miracles to bring the Jews to the promised land and firmly establish their foothold in it but I don’t think we can use these examples to say that He does the same to save each & every individual. Take for example Revelation 2:20-21 God didn’t cause Jezebel to repent. The same thing with Romans 2:4-5, and John 5:34 God didn’t cause them to repent either. In both of these cases God was urging them to repent either thru Paul’s or Jesus’ preaching yet they still managed to refuse. If God’s intervention was assured to save certain people then John 15:1-7 would be a pointless message and verses 2 and 6 would be an impossibility. As well as 2 Timothy 2:12. In 2 Timothy 2:12 Paul tells Timothy that even they could be denied by Christ. So I don’t think we can take the examples of intervention that God took upon certain key individuals and apply that same concept with everyone because we can see cases that contradict that notion, even amongst His chosen apostles.

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This is a nice, solid argument establishing that God's actions in human history are particular and not general. Jesus healed some people, but not every person living during His earthly ministry. In the same way, God saves some people, but not each and every individual.

bbbbbbb said:

This is a nice, solid argument establishing that God's actions in human history are particular and not general. Jesus healed some people, but not every person living during His earthly ministry. In the same way, God saves some people, but not each and every individual.

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Yeah except that doesn’t address all of the implications that the verses I provided imply. It doesn’t address the fact that Jesus was trying to save those people in John 5. It doesn’t address the fact that God was trying to get those people to repent in Romans 2 or that Jesus was expecting Jezebel to repent in Revelation 2 or that Paul and Timothy were capable of being denied by Christ or that some people come to Christ but don’t remain in Him in John 15. Why would they be drawn to Christ by The Father yet allowed to fall away?

Hammster said:

The point being that God accomplishes His purpose. I show you where in scripture that God intervenes, and you dismiss it as irrelevant.

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No I didn’t dismiss it as irrelevant, I provided verses that prove that those examples can’t be used to reach the conclusion that you’re saying it does. If you’d like to discuss those verses and explain how they don’t negate your conclusion that would be more beneficial.

Hammster said:

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.
— Genesis 50:20

The mind of man plans his way,
But the Lord directs his steps.
— Proverbs 16:9

Man’s steps are ordained by the Lord,
How then can man understand his way?
— Proverbs 20:24

The steps of a man are established by the Lord,
And He delights in his way.
— Psalm 37:23

Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’;
— Isaiah 46:10

“I know that You can do all things,
And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.
— Job 42:2

The point being that God accomplishes His purpose. I show you where in scripture that God intervenes, and you dismiss it as irrelevant. Unless you hold to Molinism, there’s no way God can plan without intervening in men’s affairs.

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None of these verses Indicate that God actually planned to save certain individuals. None of them tell us exactly what God’s plan actually is. Suppose His plan was to save only those who would choose to repent and believe and abide in Christ of their own free will?