We choose. We chose. You choose. You chose. You will choose.

Find those in the Bible somewhere. I checked 3 translations (NIV, NKJV, ESV) and those phrases are nowhere to be found with respect to election or salvation.

On the other hand, "The Lord chose", "The Lord will choose", "God chose", "God will choose" shows up with respect to election and salvation in many places. The closest I could find was "choose this day" which implies "you". But the choice was between God and other gods.

Luk 6:32 For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.
Luk 6:33 And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.
Luk 6:34 And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
Luk 6:35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.
Luk 6:36 Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.

God doesn't need us. He has never needed us. What He does for us is exactly for us. To please us, He must please Himself. The Character of God demands it.

Within this context, we can clearly see that God doesn't love to be loved. God doesn't lend to get money in return.

Yet that is what the absence of choice creates. A God that is solely self serving.
 
Quote one. I don't mean a quote where God ordained evil to occur, but actually created evil.

I can go find a reference but from memory.... I don't know the times I've had

Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Quoted to me from the KJV by a Calvinist seeking to prove the point at hand.
 
Quote one. I don't mean a quote where God ordained evil to occur, but actually created evil.


The analogy of God as an author is helpful in explaining how God’s sovereignty and human responsibility relate, as Joe Rigney summarizes, “God is an Author. The World is his story. We are his characters” (“Confronting the Problem(s) of Evil”).

The description above should actually say "puppets". Not characters.
 
It is ordained, not determined. There's a difference. You can choose something of your own will only if God ordains it to be so, but God didn't make you do it. Joseph's brothers sold Joseph into slavery of their own (fallen) free will. But God meant it to happen. It says so right in the text.
playing the semantics game here is RC below:

God wills all things that come to pass…God desired for man to fall into sin. I am not accusing God of sinning; I am suggesting that God created sin.”

Calvin:

“The hand of God rules the interior affections no less than it superintends external actions; nor would God have effected by the hand of man what he decreed, unless he worked in their hearts to make them will before they acted.”

AW Pink below :

“Plainly it was God’s will that sin should enter this world, otherwise it would not have entered, for nothing happens except what God has eternally decreed. Moreover, there was more than a simple permission, for God only permits things that fulfill his purpose.”

And Piper :

“God brings about all things in accordance with his will. It isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those that love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects… This includes God’s having even brought about the Nazi’s brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Rader and even the sexual abuse of a young child.”

And Cheung :

“God controls everything that is and everything that happens. There is not one thing that happens that he has not actively decreed – not even a single thought in the mind of man. Since this is true, it follows that God has decreed the existence of evil, he has not merely permitted it, as if anything can originate and happen apart from his will and power. Since we have shown that no creature can make completely independent decisions, evil could never have started without God’s active decree, and it cannot continue for one moment longer apart from God’s will. God decreed evil ultimately for his own glory, although it is not necessary to know or to state this reason to defend Christianity from the problem evil.”

“Those who see that it is impossible to altogether disassociate God from the origination and continuation of evil nevertheless try to distance God from evil by saying that God merely “permits” evil, and that he does not cause any of it. However, since Scripture itself states that God actively decrees everything, and that nothing can happen apart from his will and power, it makes no sense to say that he merely permits something – nothing happens by God’s mere permission.
 
Last edited:
Irresistible Grace?

It amazes me how Calvinists talk of self will and then abandon it so quickly when it benefits them.
I just learned this today, right from this very thread. This view is known as "compatibilism" and it's an attempt to reconcile free will and determinism. That's how they get around the obvious dilemma of all encompassing determinism. they reinterpret free will to be the ability to choose what we want. Except when it comes to God. The "T" gets the way of that.
 
playing the semantics game here is RC below:

God wills all things that come to pass…God desired for man to fall into sin. I am not accusing God of sinning; I am suggesting that God created sin.”

Where is that quote from? The only time I've heard RC address the issue, he said, "I don't know."

AW Pink below :

“Plainly it was God’s will that sin should enter this world, otherwise it would not have entered, for nothing happens except what God has eternally decreed. Moreover, there was more than a simple permission, for God only permits things that fulfill his purpose.”

And Piper :

“God brings about all things in accordance with his will. It isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those that love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects… This includes God’s having even brought about the Nazi’s brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Rader and even the sexual abuse of a young child.”

This is what I said. God ordains it according to his will and good pleasure. And it is Scriptural. I was quoted above quoting this:

Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

English at that time defined "evil" as calamity, or foul things. But what Piper is talking about is just that.

And Cheung :

“God controls everything that is and everything that happens. There is not one thing that happens that he has not actively decreed – not even a single thought in the mind of man. Since this is true, it follows that God has decreed the existence of evil, he has not merely permitted it, as if anything can originate and happen apart from his will and power. Since we have shown that no creature can make completely independent decisions, evil could never have started without God’s active decree, and it cannot continue for one moment longer apart from God’s will. God decreed evil ultimately for his own glory, although it is not necessary to know or to state this reason to defend Christianity from the problem evil.”

“Those who see that it is impossible to altogether disassociate God from the origination and continuation of evil nevertheless try to distance God from evil by saying that God merely “permits” evil, and that he does not cause any of it. However, since Scripture itself states that God actively decrees everything, and that nothing can happen apart from his will and power, it makes no sense to say that he merely permits something – nothing happens by God’s mere permission.

I don't know who Cheung is, but I'll back up my view with scripture:

Matthew 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.
 
Where is that quote from? The only time I've heard RC address the issue, he said, "I don't know."



This is what I said. God ordains it according to his will and good pleasure. And it is Scriptural. I was quoted above quoting this:

Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

English at that time defined "evil" as calamity, or foul things. But what Piper is talking about is just that.



I don't know who Cheung is, but I'll back up my view with scripture:

Matthew 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.
So God takes pleasure in evil?
There is nothing good or pleasurable about evil.
This reflects poorly upon the Good Character of God.
 
Back
Top Bottom