God’s Sovereign Choice to Involve Man’s Will

What an absolute mockery of God’s character, to suggest that God is responsible for our choices, when our choices according to many are sinful everyday in thought word and deed. We are told that all are liars, making God out to be the father of lies. What in the name of sanity have we swallowed in the name of theology??? God help us!

 

HP: Possibly you might tell us then who is responsible for sin. If not God, who? If I am created by God to sin and that continually, the fate of every sinner not redeemed we are told, and even the fate of believers if you listen to those on this list, coupled with the notion that God is in control of our choices, man being without a free will and in bondage as Luther proclaims, how can God not be responsible for our sin? Are you suggesting, contrary to Luther’s theology, that man is able to thwart the predestined plan of God of those predestined to damnation?? Are you suggesting that man is able, yea, 'REQUIRED' by God upon pain of eternal torment, to do that which even God Himself cannot do, i.e., act in direct opposition to necessitated fate?

If one does not like the logical ends Calvinism genders, I would suggest changing ones theology to something more palatable to truth and sanity.

 

HP: Sad but often true, yet another leaves knee deep in the maelstrom of confusion Calvinism breeds.

 

HP: Salvation will not be accomplished for the sake of any works we can do, nor is works that we do thought of in any way as meritorious. With that in mind, I agree that salvation encompasses righteous behavior, without which no man shall see the Lord. If you are in agreement with the senses in which works are involved in salvation and the sense in which they are not, I believe I would agree that there in no contradiction in what you are saying. Salvation encompasses not only our entering in by faith, but our walk with the Lord as well, which indeed will be judged as to its real worth. If ones works are not righteous, no hope of eternal life can be consistently held.
Lu 6:46 And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Mt 7:21 ¶ Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

 

HP: You cannot use an analogy that is purely physical as in comparison to that which is spiritual, moral, and eternal. In Adam, all die, i.e., all are born into a finite world of a specific numbers of days or years until they will see physical death. You are right in that such a death sentence does not necessitate moral accountability. One has to reach the age of accountability in order to become morally accountable. When you say that man is born with an “irresistible urge to sin” you are in effect saying that it is impossible for one born into this world that reaches the age of accountability to do anything other than sin. If that is the case they are programmed by sheer necessity to sin. The age of accountability becomes a chimera, for if sin is necessitated, nothing else could be required for them to do but sin. If that is true, there is absolutely no grounds for accountability at all. Freedom of the will is destroyed, for the will, under the scenario you paint, has no ability to do anything other than it does. Accountability and choice only exist when one is able to do something other than what one does under the same set of circumstances.

 

HP: I do not believe for a minute that physical death is a punishment for sin.

HP:I fully agree that physical death is not punishement for sin. It is an appointment we all will face, not because we are sinners or not, but rather because we are the physical offspring of a mortal named Adam. In spite of our agreement on that issue, you still destroy any and all accountability when you say that we are ‘programmed to sin.’ If sin is necessitated in any way, man cannot be held accountable for that which he could not avoid.

HP: Again I agree.

HP: That is where you are wrtong. Sin is not the product of a genetic link or the necessitated results of being human. Sin is a voluntary intent formed by the will in direct opposition to a known commandment of God. Nothing necessitated is moral. Morality, sin, and or righteousness, are all the results of the formed intents of the will and cannot be the necessitated results of ones nature or anything outside of the will itself. It is the will, the chooser of man, that initiates sin. Sin would not be sin if in fact it was unavoidable.

HP: I disagree. Sin cannot be programmed, for if it was programmed, it would not be sin. In order to anything praiseworthy or blameworthy, man must have a choice. Sin, if the product of programming, would be something of necessity which is at direct antipodes with the nature of sin. Sin at its heart is purely voluntary, not coerced or programmed. Morality denotes choice, and there is no choice if one is programmed with only one possible consequent for an antecedent.

 

HP: You agree that you destroy accountability. Do you believe God holds man accountable for his sins? Upon what basis is man accountable for sin? Is sin blameworthy? If so, why is it if in fact it is unavoidable?