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My mother's death was by the will of God. . .and a heart attack.
Actually he was never saved, as scripture states, except one believes on the Lord Jesus Christ they are never saved and once someone is converted to a saint they are sealed with the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption, Eph 1: 13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
I hope I am replying to TedT, if I understand you correctly, are you saying that God is not omniscience? He really does not know everything?
1) First of all, we are agreed that it is about his works, and not the works of man.
Sorry, that "blasphemy" cannot be escaped if God is both omniscient and Creator, which he is.
Agreed. . .however, we must understand it correctly.
However, Acts 15:18, is not about his omniscience of all things, but is about his foreknowledge of his works, which foreknowledge is not a matter of observation, but a matter of God's decreed action, per Isaiah 48:3.
Not at all. . .his foreknowledge regarding the universe is of all his actions, to the end of time, not just of creation.
Acts 15:18 is not about "full knowledge;" i.e., omniscience, it's about divine foreknowledge, two different things, the former a matter of observation, the latter a matter of decree and action.
God is not omniscient if he does not know all things, past, present and future.
Your God is too small, and his arm is too short.
Yep. Paul wrote under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit the teaching that he received directly from the risen and glorified Jesus during the three years he spent in isolation in Asia (somewhere in modern Turkey). Jesus gave him the same three year training He gave to His other 12 disciples.
The parts about Calvinism that are about Jesus are reliable, while teaching in any theology that departs from Him is less reliable and should always be tested with written Scripture (which always points to Jesus, either as the Messiah to come, or the risen, glorified Jesus at the right hand of the majesty on high).
If the reprobate have no choice about their destiny then they can't be judged at the Judgement because they were made reprobate under duress, having their personal choice taken from them. In the same way, being elect would mean nothing because they weren't given any choice, and anything that is not done through personal choice has no moral value with God at all. He did not design mankind to be programmable robots.
The reality is that there is no "free will" at all. Unconverted sinners are slaves to sin. They don't have free will. They can't choose anything else but sin. It is only the Holy Spirit who can free them from the bondage to, and the power of sin when they believe the Gospel. When they believe the Gospel, the Holy Spirit gives them the ability to repent of their sin and receive Christ. The converted Christian still has no free choice, because he is bonded to the commands of Christ (love one another) and the will of God (even your sanctification). He is not forced to live by the will of God, but chooses to be bonded into Christ and to say, "Not my will, but Yours be done".
We have to understand that Calvin was a man of his time. He lived at a time when to be Reformed was illegal in many parts of the known world dominated by Roman Catholicism. Even to have a copy of a non-Latin Bible was a capital offence, and many were burned at the stake, not by the Church, but by the civil authorities who enforced the statutes of the law of the time. A lot of what Calvin wrote was therefore in response to what he saw was unsound doctrine in the Established Church, and his Institutes were his attempt to give what he believed was sound doctrine. But the Institutes are not the Bible and with any teaching of doctrine, the inspired written Scriptures has to be the moderating standard.
This is in accordance with the Scripture, "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you", and "Many are called, but few are chosen". But we have to delve deeper into the Scriptures to see what constitutes the basis of God's choice of those He predestines to be saved and who He leaves to be lost. We use the principle that Scripture interprets Scripture to provide the balance between God choosing some to be saved, and seekers believing the Gospel and choosing to repent of their sin and receive Christ. The idea that if a person came to Christ and God telling them, "You can't be saved because I didn't choose you" would be non-Biblical and deny Christ's promise, "He who comes to me, I will in no way cast out" as well as other promises about coming to Christ.
The promises of God in the written Scriptures always take precedence over any theology of man, no matter how "good" and "sound" we think that theology is.
It is interesting that when someone (not meaning you) runs out of answers they start kicking the player instead of the ball.
We all have our own theological opinion, and because no one is born again better than anyone else (except those who effluent doesn't stink), then no-one's opinion is better than anyone else's. This is why we have forums so that we can give our opinions and learn from the opinions of others. What causes conflict and argument is when something thinks their opinion is superior to others.
I see you have read Gordon Olson's book "The Foreknowledge of God", because that was exactly what he taught.
You've been a busy little bee out here. . .
Contraire. . .
Exegesis is determining the author's intention, and how he understood the things that he wrote, as well as how his readers understood his writing in the light of their historical and cultural environment. It is using the who, what, where, how, when and why approach. It is not interpretation. It is getting ourselves into the author's and readers' shoes. The basis is seeing what the author actually wrote and not what we think he wrote. We also need to see whether the text is historical narrative which is mainly descriptive, but no necessary prescriptive for instructing people. For example, Elijah called fire down from heaven on the altar at Mt Carmel, which is descriptive historical narrative, but not prescriptive in the sense that any believer can do the same. Some other references are prescriptive, involving instructions that God's people are to follow. The elements of the Law in Deuteronomy were prescriptive for Old Covenant folk, but descriptive for New Covenant believers, because we are no longer obligated to the Mosaic Law.
