Is it the will of God...

I would ask, was it God's will that Christ be murdered?

 

As a Calvinist, I would say it is permitted by God just as all sin is permitted by God. But it is not God's expressed will for us to follow. Abortion is an result of man's sin nature that we inherited from Adam's Fall in the Garden of Eden.

 

All of our days are numbered by God. I thought you might be trying to get into the idea that if God decreed that someone was murdered that a Calvinist would relieve the murderer of responsibility for it.

You will find that there are a great many differing beliefs and opinions on certain subjects among Calvinists just as there are among non-Calvinists on certain subjects.

[ December 25, 2002, 10:11 PM: Message edited by: Ken H ]

 

God decides when and how our days end - either in His expressed will(i.e., Jesus being crucified) or in His permissive will(i.e., someone being murdered).

But we are still the responsible parties in the crucifixion of Jesus and a murderer is still the responsible party in the death of the murdered person.

[ December 25, 2002, 10:38 PM: Message edited by: Ken H ]

 

The example of Christ's murder is on point here. If God ordained the greatest sin that man ever committed, why would it be difficult to accept that God has ordained lesser sins?

 

God ORDAINS sin?????

 

At the risk of being really pedantic and stating what should be obvious, Acts 2:23 says, "this Man, delievered 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." So the biblical answer is yes. That does not make him the author of sin for that would violate his revealed nature.

The question that started this thread is an attempt to understand the infinite. It is answered by Paul in Romans 3. His point is that even though our sin brings glory to God, that does not excuse our sin or justify our participation in it. Neither is God unfair for judging it. Paul anticipated the essence of your question and answered it. Let us rest with the truth of Scripture rather than the ability of our own minds to try to reconcile it.

 

Did God from eternity have complete foreknowledge of all events that would take place? Unless one denies the foreknowledge of God and accepts open theism, we are all (Calvinist, Arminian, and in-betweeners alike) faced with the obvious conclusion that God had knowledge of all sinful events and acts that would take place (such as abortion and other murders) and chose to let them stand, even if He did not actively foreordain them. Either way, there is no avoidance of the fact, that if He allows these to take place, they are in some sense His will. The only other options seem to be that either He did not know they would happen or had no power to keep them from happening.

 

I have no clue Joseph, apart from that God told us to stand against evil. There's a lot of things about this faith I don't understand, but that's part of faith, obedience to what we are commanded to do even if we don't understand why. What is those who have been faithful in little being trusted with much? Perhaps that's part of an explanation. If we can simply do what we're told now without making the reasoning fit into our small amount of understanding on how God works maybe there's more things we are to be trusted to do in the next world.
Gina

 

Good question Joseph,
This is a good example why I reject Calvinism.
It seems like the Calvinist speak out of both sides of their mouth.

On the one hand, they claim God is sovereign. This would indicate that God is responsible for everything that takes place.

(Please don't confuse the issue by saying that it is only in God's permissive will. This is a mute point because everything that happens is , obviously, in God's permissive will or it would never take place.)

On the other hand, Calvinist claim that man is responsible for his sin. In this case, man is operating, often directly in opposition to God's will. How can one act be both in accordance with God's will and at the same time contrary to it.

I'm not saying that God is sinning. I'm saying that God allows man to have free will and in this free will man has decided to sin.

 

Terry, who's will is it if a man doesn't sin?
Gina

 

Terry,

How do you handle this?

Acts 4:27-28(NASB)
27 “For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,
28 to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.

Was it God's will for Jesus to be crucified? And are not all of us responsible for Jesus being crucified?

 

Answer my question, Terry.

But please, don't proffer the lame excuse that Christ was not murdered. Acts 7:52 clearly sets forth that He was.

 

Aaron, if Christ was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, then who murdered Him?

Perhaps it is, instead, the view from which one looks at it. Murder was certainly in the hearts of the Romans and Jews, and perhaps that is what counts in terms of relating the story to others, but the actual fact of the matter is that Jesus gave up His life on His own authority, as he stated.