I have tried to explain in detail because I thought you were really interested in finding what I believe and why and perhaps correcting any misrepresentation you have made over time. But it seems that a lot of my writing has been wasted on you and you haven’t even tried to understand what I am saying.
So I’m going to dialog with you in shorter posts hoping they we don’t just end up spouting one liners and get nowhere – in which case I’ll call it a day.
Nice horse story.
Of course, in your example, violence was done of the will of the creature. That is to say that he was coerced to drink. The WCF statement doesn’t allow for that.
“Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom, and power to will and to do that which was good and well pleasing to God; but yet, mutably, so that he might fall from it.” And “nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established”
You are saying that God manipulated the circumstances in the Garden of Eden to cause Adam to sin. Isn't that just a bit deceptive?
There you go again. God did not “
cause Adam to sin”. The choice Adam made out of his unimpeded free will was the vehicle for Adams sin.
Deceptive is not a word I would choose to use. But – as you yourself have said previously – it was a bit of a “set up”, crudely speaking. What observant reader could say that it wasn’t?
I am saying that the innumerable activities of the Word of God created certain circumstances wherein Adam was known to be going to make certain choices. (God’s omniscience comes into play here.)
I hope you're not saying that God didn't create the circumstances surrounding the fall and or that God didn't know exactly what would happen under those circumstances?
Let’s not have any silliness here about God’s omniscience being controlled by or coming from His sovereignty according to Calvinism – as what’s his name would put it. All we know is that God knew exactly what would happen if He acted in certain ways before He acted in those certain ways.
The simple biblical fact is that the activities of God’s Word created and sustained the circumstances in which Adam would sin – just as God always knew that he would under exactly those circumstances (what I have been calling the “paradigm” in which Adam made choices).
God’s Word is what the WCF calls His decree that which is sent forth to accomplish everything He intends that He accomplish. It will not return to Him having done otherwise. That goes for His spoken Word, His written Word, or His living Word.
Speaking of that Word, In the most massive understatement in history, John tells us:
“And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books which were written.” John 21:25
No kidding – since everything in the universe has it’s being in the Word of God – including you and me, Adam, Satan, the serpent, the tree, and the fruit.
There are those who, like yourself, see the God of the scriptures as being reduced to just kind of a passive observer in the affairs of men. He issues decrees from time to time. But, like a Caesar, He is powerless to be absolutely sure they actually happen – He will just execute vengeance on those He catches up with after finding that they disobeyed one of His decrees.
But they are wrong. The Word of God is living and active in His creation in ways almost unimaginable and there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
The WCF statement covers all the bases and has it correct when it tells us that He has decreed whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
Now, if you choose to, you can reject part of that statement and leave it out of your representation of what we believe so as to misrepresent the teachings of your brothers and sister.
Or you can settle in and think through these subjects in a clear and fair way. If you do that – you will end up with the same statement or something equivalent to it.