Origin of Sin, Part Deux

Luke, did you see my reply to you at post 65

 

Yes, I do believe this is exactly what Luke is saying. God is impersonal to him. He is just a tyrant who controls every little event in the universe to please himself. I sense no love here whatsoever. He doesn't care about us at all, we are simply instruments or tools that he uses for his pleasure.

This is very different from my conception of God.

 

I completely agree with your sentiment. God desires me to glorify him, by my choosing to do so. He does not NEED me to, nor NEED me to sin so that He can be even further glorified. This questions the asiety of God.

 

That is why some time ago on another thread I asked him what the difference was between his view of the nature of God, and Islam. Both believe in fatalism.

If God determines or ordains evil, terrorism, abortion, etc. then "it is the will of God." That is fatalism.
The Muslim believes that when a terrorist act occurs, an abortion occurs, a murder occurs, as abhorrent it may even to them, then it must be the will of Allah. He decreed it to be so. It is a basic tenet of Islam called "Kismet" or "fatalism."

I realize that there is a great difference between our respective "Gods," but the way of how we view this doctrine (if this is the way it is viewed), is basically the same, is it not?

 

It does not matter what you agree with or disagree with. It does not matter what you think or what you feel or what you believe or what comforts you or what disturbs you. All that matters is what is true.

Jesus told us by these words to his Father what is true- "Thy word is truth".

And the Word of God is clear:

Romans 11:36 "For of him and through Him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever and ever Amen!"

Scripture says of Christ: "He is before all things and by Him all things consist."

Proverbs 16:4 "God made all things for himself; yea even the wicked for the day of judgment."

That is what is true.

 

Yes, and I've answered it in several posts.

 

It most certainly does matter what we believe. It will determine where we will spend eternity. It will determine what kind of lives as believers we live, whether one pleasing to God or one of rebellion.

 

This is what I mean by "you do not understand".

You do not even understand that rather simple remark.

Sure it matters in the sense that you mean to use it.

That is OBVIOUSLY not the sense that I was using it.

What you believe has no impact on what is true; that is the obvious meaning.

 

Yes, it is fatalism. I cannot imagine how different my own viewpoint would be if I believed this, nothing would really matter. In fact, I can only imagine that a person would soon surrender to complete apathy. Does it matter if I am good or not? What is the difference? It is not really me doing it anyway, it is God moving me, whatever it is. If he wants me to do good I will despite myself, if he wants me to do evil it is the same. There is nothing I should be ashamed of, whatever I do was decreed, it was meant to be. Likewise, there is nothing to joy about, does someone love you? No, they are simply moved to appear so. We are all simply being moved about, shuffled about, not knowing why, not being allowed to ask, but if we do, that too was decided for me long before I was born. I am just a fleck of dust blowing here and there, all is randomness to me.

 

That is because you lack the capacity to think past your own caricature of the DoG.

God is a personal God.

God is intimately involved in the lives of his people, calling upon them to cast their cares upon him and to pray unto him and he answers those prayers.

He loves his people.

Only someone totally ignorant of church history and the DoG would argue that Calvinism leads to fatalism or an impersonal god.

This is why I continue to implore you to get some decent training before you deal with these issues which are right now too great for you.

 

If I lack the capacity to reason, it was decreed. Why fight fate? Does God love me? Then why does he not trust me to make my own decisions? Why should I call upon him to save a loved one, it was decided long ago, and nothing can alter his decree. If he answers a prayer, it is only because he moved me to pray for that which he had already decided to grant. If I pray and he does not answer me, it was decided before as well. And why think on prayer? If he has decreed I will, I will. I will wait to see what happens, that is all that is left to me.

 

The personal insult concerning intelligence is not needed.
That God is a personal God, we all agree.

That is the position that every non-cal takes. You have yet to demonstrate how a God that determines and ordains evil is personally involved to the extent that he answers prayer when those prayers and the answers are already determined and ordained before the creation of the world.

We agree.

Do away with the insults please, lest you find all of your posts edited.
Most of us are not ignorant of church history.
Even the many of the Calvinists on this board do not agree with your view on Calvinism. God is not the author of evil.

You have been quoted portions from a well-known Calvinist, and yet disagree. Your come back is for others to get a decent training. What about yourself? Your arrogance is unbecoming of this board. If you can't answer a post then say so, but at least say it politely.

 

Even a freshman in bible college knows the difference between Fate and Predestination.

Fate is an impersonal, unintelligent force. You need to get this right.

You keep regurgitating the same tired old mess that has already been shown to be false.

Every man makes his own decisions.

God does not force people against their will.
God does not force people against their will.
God does not force people against their will.
God does not force people against their will.
God does not force people against their will.
God does not force people against their will.
God does not force people against their will.
God does not force people against their will.

Maybe one day you'll get this.

You see, we Calvinists get frustrated with you because you never debate us. You don't have the slightest idea what Calvinism is as is clear yet again from the words of this very post. So you are forever debating some straw man constructed from a total ignorance of theology which you possess and your condition seems incurable.

Even in this weird nameless theology you espouse, even in this strange theology which you invented for yourself, God decided long ago who would be saved.

So what is your point?

Yea, it would be unthinkable that God would have to move your depraved self to do something. Oh, NO! You do not need GOD to move you to pray!!!! You can do it yourself!! Who needs God??

And it is your denial of omniscience that drives you to keep indicating that perhaps God has NOT already in eternity past decided to grant or not grant your prayers.

Of course he HAS!

:laugh:

 

It's alright Luke. If you hate the way I think, that was decreed. Your anger and frustration was decreed. I do not understand why God has chosen me to anger and frustrate you, but it must be so. I am just doing what I do, that is all I CAN do. And you are just doing what you do, that is all you can do as well.

 

fate   
[feyt]
noun, verb, fat·ed, fat·ing.
–noun
1. something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune; lot: It is always his fate to be left behind.
2. the universal principle or ultimate agency by which the order of things is presumably prescribed; the decreed cause of events; time: Fate decreed that they would never meet again.
3. that which is inevitably predetermined; destiny: Death is our ineluctable fate.
4. a prophetic declaration of what must be: The oracle pronounced their fate.
5. death, destruction, or ruin.
6. the Fates, Classical Mythology . the three goddesses of destiny, known to the Greeks as the Moerae and to the Romans as the Parcae.

–verb (used with object)

7. to predetermine, as by the decree of fate; destine (used in the passive): a person who was fated to be the savior of the country.

 

Exactly, thanks.

 

The Merriam-Webster makes it even clearer than dictionary.com:

And so we see that no reputable theologian would compare Fate to even the most hyper version of the DoG.

Fate is the force doing the determining where, in ALL Christian theology, GOD, who is all wise and perfect and holy, is doing the determining.

 

That is your problem- you have made a god in your own image.

Isaiah 55:8-9
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. "

We cannot deduce who God is and what he does based on who we are and what we would do.

Even before the fall his ways were higher than ours as high as the heavens are from the earth. God is not a man. You must have more than the fact that we are made in his image to demand that he must do things like we would do them.

He is infinite God- infinite in wisdom and power. Man at his best would never do things the way God would do them.

This is something you desperately, desperately need to learn.

 

Yea, you ignored the Word of God that I posted and responded with a verse that has nothing to do with what you are purporting.

The Bible is clear on this matter but you do not care what the Bible says, obviously.

 

These are the second and third definitions of the ones given for fate.
The universal principle or agency (God) by which the order of things is prescribed....
This is the way that you describe your theology. Look at the rest: "the decreed cause of events. Fate decreed that they would never meet again. However, in this example it is God decreed... Thus fate remains fate. Everything is decreed beforehand. Substitute God for fate. Substitute God for agency. The definition fits.

You have rightly said that God is love, personal, answers prayer, etc. But you have not defined him as such when you define God as being borderline fatalistic, or attribute all things to him both good and evil. How is God personal to you if all things are ordained or decreed from the beginning.

Would it not make better sense to say that God is totally sovereign. He knows the end from the beginning. Time is no issue with God. In the realm of God's omnipotence or power God has given free will to man without compromising either his power or his omniscience. He is still sovereign. He still has rule and control over the world, but in that sovereignty allows or permits evil to take its place, to continue. He does not decree evil, but allows it. Thus he is not the author of evil, he merely allows it. Man has the free will to choose to do evil. God is still sovereign, but in God's sovereign will he allows man to make his own choices and be responsible to God.