God does love everybody

[David Sklansky]

"This won't work because we Christians believe that God created us in His own image, which is not true of the animals over whom He gave us dominion, and thus all men in fact have eternal souls, whether their eternal fate is salvation or damnation."

But even Not Ready says it might work. If some humans cannot be saved it seems reasonable to assume they have the same fate as animals even if they are in a different category. (I can't believe I'm doing this.)

[NotReady]

[ QUOTE ]

God created everything that has a beginning, Everything God does is good and just, Evil exists, only God has existed from eternity


[/ QUOTE ]

If you want to get technical evil is not a thing.

Your post is a good example of what happens when we try to rationalize that which is above our understanding and not revealed by God. Good and necessary consequence run amok. When you say God forced Adam to sin and then holds the entire human race guilty you are effectively redefining any intelligible concept of justice. Perhaps this is the real situation. In that case, I frankly don't have a clue what justice means.

[David Sklansky]

"I said it isn't necessary to believe for salvation. But it's in the Bible. If the Bible is the infallible word of God, if predestination is in the Bible, how can I deny predestination? I effectively deny the divinity of the Bible."

Thank you for that very good question. Father David will now explain. Remember when talking about dying with no afterlife you said, "but the Bible seems to say otherwise"? With such a statement comes the admission that there are parts of the Bible that are not crystal clear. Perhaps that is due to faulty translations. Perhaps it is due to reading comprehension issues. Whatever. Just because the Bible is infallible, doesn't mean your interpretation of it is. Do you really think that those Christians who interpret the predesination issue differently than you are all blatently lying to themselves about absolutely clear cut passages? Surely there is some legitimate ways to come to different conclusions about those passages.

Its like a contract bridge problem. Sometimes there is much to gain and nothing to lose by assuming the unlikely possibility that an opponent has, for instance, no hearts. It s OK to profess your doubts my son. But realize that if you don't make that assumption, you marginalize yourself and lose much of your power to persuade others of the more important aspects of Christianity. Do you think God wants you to waste your talents that way? Now you are lumped in the same boat as udon'tknowmickey. Do you want that? It's not like I am suggesting you become Catholic or something equally terrible.

[NotReady]

[ QUOTE ]

Do you really think that those Christians who interpret the predesination issue differently than you are all blatently lying to themselves about absolutely clear cut passages?


[/ QUOTE ]

I have no idea why you say this. I thought I made it very clear that predestination is a difficult concept and that I don't know what it means in its entirety and that I can't reconcile predestination and man's responsibility. Nevertheless the Bible is clear that God predestines and that man is guilty. So am I supposed to say those passages are not part of God's word?

[udontknowmickey]

It sounds like you're running through Romans 9 again.

Justice is defined by who God is and what He does. We have no claim to question God in saying that we think His actions are injust.

~~~

Replace evil with anything else that is a "thing."

The creation of tornadoes is good
the creation of Hitler is good
the creation of Pilate is good.
the creation of a fallen human race is good.

You're avoiding the point.

If you can claim that there exist contradictory (to us) things in the Bible that we can affirm at the same time, why aren't we justified by faith alone AND faith and works? Why can't we say Jesus is the only way AND Buddah can get you to heaven too... The possibilities are endless.

The instant you deny the right application of logic to Christianity, you deny all the foundational truths you stand for.

Even the WCF, which you said you hold on to (with some reservations) says it clearly 1:6

"1:6 The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture"

emphasis added. If you deny that we can apply logic to all of Scripture, why not deny the trinity, after all, it isn't explicit in the Bible. Why not deny Scripture's infallibility? It isn't explicitly in the Bible.

By the way, "human responsibility" isn't in the Bible either.

NotReady, my beef isn't with you. I will still affirm that you are a brother in Christ, and I admire your willingness to continue to dialogue with the 2+2 community, especially on such a volitile topic, but I do take issue when I feel like God is being poorly represented, and I feel the claims of "mystery" and "paradox" applied to God are exactly that.

I do hope that God would convict you that it is absolutely necessary to use logic in application to everything Scripture says. There is nothing wrong with God being the author of sin.

[NotReady]

[ QUOTE ]

I do hope that God would convict you that it is absolutely necessary to use logic


[/ QUOTE ]

I don't deny that logic should be applied to Scripture. But logic is to be judged by Scripture, not the reverse.

[ QUOTE ]

If you can claim that there exist contradictory (to us) things in the Bible that we can affirm at the same time, why aren't we justified by faith alone AND faith and works?


[/ QUOTE ]

Because the Bible doesn't say that. And I don't say there is any contradiction in the Bible. There is paradox, the appearance of contradiction - "now we see in a mirror darlky", "there are some things in Paul hard to understand".

About a month ago I was at a point in my thinking concerning a doctrine of the Bible that has been giving me fits for several years. I finally decided to ask John Frame about it and was pretty sure what he would say (for those of you who don't know Dr. Frame is a well known theologian in Reformed circles, professor and author of some outstanding books). At the same time I had a feeling we would be getting into the predestiantion issue on this forum and I asked him how he discussed this doctrine with non-Christians. He has given me permission to quote him, so this is what he said:

[ QUOTE ]

In presenting this to intelligent non-Christians, I would emphasize that we have to be honest and admit what we don't know. If the Bible is true,we should expect to find some questions unanswered and unanswerable. If we could understand everything about God, he would not be the
incomprehensible God of Scripture. So the existence of mystery actually verifies the truth of Christianity. In any case, some non-Christians will appreciate the intellectual humility and honesty of this approach. Others will not. But that's the way it is in apologetics.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was pretty sure this would be his response because it's pretty close to what Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Luther and many others would say.

[spaminator101]

Yeh, I thought one between me and udon'tknowmickey would be possible over our differences in free will but this, this. I really didn't expect this.

[udontknowmickey]

Alright then, I've said all that I wanted to say. Thanks for this dialogue

[NotReady]

I want to give one example from Scripture just by way of illustration. I'm not saying the following applies exactly the same to predestination of the saved and lost, but simply as food for thought.

Acts 2:23
this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.
John 10
17The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."

The first passage states that the crucifixion is predestined. The second passage is in the words of Christ and he states that no one takes His life from Him, but that He does it of His own accord. Anyone familiar with His struggle in the Garden knows that His decision was not an easy one.

Notice that Jesus goes to the cross voluntarily. The ones who put Him there He could have easily defeated. He could have even avoided going to Jerusalem. God does not force Him to go or to submit to the soldiers. Yet that He would do so was fixed in eternity by God's counsel. Also note that in the Garden He said "Let this cup pass from Me. Yet not My will, but Thine be done." He was unwilling and willing at the same time. Also notice that the men who put Him to death are not excused by the fact that their actions were predetermined. Nor is there any indication they were forced.

I give this as an example of predestination and foreknowledge from the Bible. There are other examples which are similar. The teaching I get from this is that God plans and controls everything but sin and unbelief are not by this excused. I think that this much is plain. How this is possible is difficult and obscure. God tells us what we need to know, which as I've said a few times before, God is sovereign and man is responsible.

[udontknowmickey]

a few points, and then this really will be my last post.

1) I agree with you in all that you've said about predestination and and human responsibility, I was merely pointing out that the term "human responsibility" is not to be found in the Bible.

2) I had already previously pointed out that there is no feeling of 'being forced' like it's unwilling in the context I was speaking about. If it is God's will that an apple would fall from this tree, the apple has no choice in the matter. Likewise, if it is God's will hat Pharoah will harden his heart and not let the hebrews go, then Pharaoh has no sense that "no, I want to let them go." If it's God's will that David takes a census and chooses to incite satan to do so, there is no thinking on David's part "I feel like God is making me take a census, but I don't want to". If it's God's will, then it will be done, no feelings of being force.

3) If we deny that God is sovereign and active over every aspect of our life (and the universe for that matter), we're left with the question: then how does the universe run?

Do we have a watchmaker God now?

4) I have already given a reason for how divine sovereignty and human responsibility are logically compatible. The inconsistancy lies within our false presupposition that: responsibilty presupposes freedom.

Instead, responsibility presupposes a judge who will hold us accountable. An omnipotent, omniscent judge and a system of rules we will be held accountable to.

If we were under no one's control, but no one would hold us accountable for what we did, we would no longer be responsible.

And before I am accused of equivocating, notice the wording used in the passage of Romans 9:

19You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" (ESV)

19One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" (NIV)

19(AK)You will say to me then, "(AL)Why does He still find fault? For (AM)who resists His will?" (NASB)

Notice the wording across the board is God judging us. Not us "having" human responsibility. We are responsible because God judges us.

My point throughout this series of posts was not to put the blame of sin on God, but to point out that it is illogical to say that God isn't the author of sin of we do in fact preach predestination. It's not like it's a sin to be the author of sin anyways. We are too quick to run away from terminology that should not scare us.

Ok, that's my last post then. Notready, you may have the last word.