bsd,
God is the author of logic, so when he gave us the Scriptures in written language, he provided them in a logical order and God expects me to use logic in my mind that is being renewed.
Please understand that I'm not looking for a "logical answer" as you seem to be referring, but to a hermeneutically sound interpretation of Scripture. And I find that God did not decree moral evil. I thought I covered this under #107. How can the God of light, in whom there is no darkness, decree the rape of children by paedophiles, the deaths of people in their thousands in Holocaust prison camps? This is what happens when human free will is muffled or cancelled. Secondary causes thus become, in your system, primary cause for God, the one who foreordains, for example, paedophilia.
Don't you understand the inconsistencies in your position, based on hermeneutics (biblical interpretation) that makes God into a monster who decreed the Sandy Hook massacre? Who would want to become a Christian with that kind of God?
Oz
Clearly, I find your position to be inconsistent and mine consistent, and that's why we're in different camps. Since you find mine to be inconsistent with the way you understand God.
To answer your question as to who would want to become a Christian with that kind of God, I understand that this kind of omnipotent and completely sovereign (when I say sovereign I mean in control of everything) God is
not something the man who is lost in sin wants. the man who is saved will want God no matter what He appears to be, since He merely wants the truth.
I admit, that it is offensive to the natural man. When I first heard of Calvinism I thought Calvinists were heretics. But I'm not going to appeal to emotion in this post. I just wanted to say that I understand where you are coming from.
This doesn't make God into a monster, though. It merely describes that everything that happens, He has a purpose for.
Let me discuss a little bit of where I'm coming from so that you can get a good idea of what I am saying. If God is not in control of everything (including the human will), then there is not a purpose for the events within history, nor can God guarantee that certain people will do certain things in accordance with His plan. He can only hope that they will. Where God's foreknowledge (in the sense of God looking down the corridors of time) comes in, we can see the dilemma: God either must God know the future
or humans have free-will, but both cannot be true. We see this dilemma being adopted by many within the Arminian camp lately.
Open Theism is what I refer to, and this type of theology is starting to come to the forefront of many Wesleyan/Arminian theologies. I find it only appropriate (from the perspective of an Arminian) that in order to solve the problem of a fixed universe and humans still having free will, Arminians have brought into the debate the concept of omniscience being redefined as something along the lines of "knowing all that can be known" and then claiming that the future cannot be known, for if it could be known, God could have made people in such a way that He would know that they would choose Him and righteousness. So, in order to solve this dilemma (which is truly a dilemma where both cannot be true), we remove the aspect of God's knowledge of the future in order to keep human autonomy.
Instead of going down that route (which I believe is a heretical route) I have decided to just believe that God has His good purposes for everything that happens in the universe. I trust Him since He is God and who am I to answer Him? Will the thing molded say to the molder, "Why have you made me this way?"
You know, there is a purpose in why people reject God. And it's not just some secondary purpose. It's because God chooses who will be the recipients of His love (without regard for anything in them) and who would be the recipients of his wrath.
When speaking of his doctrine of election, Paul anticipates peoples' objections to it when he states clearly that there is no injustice with God, even though he hates some and loves others per His own will and purposes.
And you know what? This is the only way to understand that "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to
His purpose." The things that happen in the world (all things) happen for the good of those who love God. So God has a good purpose for all of these things. But a consistent Arminian cannot honestly say that, since to say that God has a purpose in it implies that the very events themselves are a part of God's plan, but that would do damage to the will of man.
I would never say that Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery was a good thing as far as we see Joseph's brothers actions and motives; but God had a good reason for decreeing this specific thing, namely to save a lot of people according to the account in Genesis.
I'd rather have a God who has a good purpose for all things that happens in the world, as opposed to a God who cannot offer me hope, nor any meaning to the actions of men. And this is what the Wesleyan/Arminian theology inevitably leads to. Open theism (denying a fundamental attribute of God), hopelessness (inability to console victims of crimes and accidents), injustice (by the Arminian consistency of thought concerning how God creates people in such a way that He knew they would reject Him and choose evil and He did not do anything to change it), the prosperity gospel (because God only wants good for all men), etc.. I could go on.
Again, I reiterate, God is not the author of evil. He decrees the events of history for His own purposes which are good. Men, produce evil from within their own hearts based upon their rebellion to Him. He tempts no one. Each man is drawn away by his own lusts.
James talks about trials producing patience and that we are to count the trials as joy since the testing of our faith produces patience. If God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to
His purpose, and this includes trails of our faith which could be starvation, rape, and all other sorts of evil (as James refers to all sorts of trials), then why are you so upset with it? If men are merely getting what they deserve because they don't love God, again, why do you care so much? They are merely getting what they deserve.
James 1:13-15 - Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.
Therefore, God, while he decrees the events of history with a purpose, does so without tempting man. Temptations themselves come from man's heart, not from God. God may decree that they occur, but He certainly isn't the one who does the tempting. That's what the hearts of men produce constantly.
Again, you might object to me saying, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” But we need to remember that we cannot question God on His decisions. His ways are far above ours. Whatever he does is good.
Our hermeneutics don't turn God into a monster. I firmly believe that your objections are not interpretational in nature. They seem to be mostly philosophical in nature. For instance, you think that God decreeing evil makes God the author of evil. Well, duh, you don't think most of us Calvinists thought of that response when we first heard of the doctrines of grace?
We just understand that while no one can resist His will, He is still good because in our flesh nothing good dwells and we all deserve His wrath, even children. Since we all deserve it, why should we accuse God of being unjust when it happens? When bad things happen to those who are saved, we know that God is working in those situations for the good of His people.
There is no inconsistency. There is a mystery, but we have faith that God's entire plan will come to pass and will prove His character to be good.
PS - I disagree with you on the logic aspect, too. God is not the author of logic. Logic itself is merely a reflection of how God thinks, since if logic were a created thing, there could be a time when logic was not. And then God's pre-existence to logic, by definition, would be logically unintelligible/inconceivable. But that's not exactly what this thread is about. Yet, logic cannot be above God, since logic would then
be God and God a lesser deity.
Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
