What "eternity" is in the hearts of the reprobate?

OK, using your own definition of the passage, why would God put a "concept of eternity" into the hearts of the reprobate if they were created for damnation? What exact "concept of eternity" do they have...suffering forever? This would make the "god" of calvinism a monster. </font>[/QUOTE]''

The text answers this question for you:

has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

What is so difficult about this? You say it is because God wants them to find out about Him and give him the ability to believe. The text denies that assertion with a universal negative. It denies men's ability. It refers to common grace.

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, for what is known about God is evident within them for God made it evident to them, for since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen so that they are without excuse.

This sense of eternity reveals that men have no excuse, because they reject common grace. This renders them guilty for sin. Isn’t the Arminian doctrine of the will designed to say that God is only justified if he acts according to men’s free will decisions? Since rejection of Christ is the de facto position of all men apart from grace (John 3:18) electing and calling them, then how can the you object to reprobation or hardening, since God is giving men what they already desire and honoring their “free will” decision?

Your picture of hell owes more to Dante than Scripture. I see hell as less a torture chamber than fantasy island, but with a twist. If you strip away the figurative imagery of fire and outer darkness, what you’re left with is that hell is Arminian heaven, for there is where sinners have utter license to sin, to sin to their heart’s content, to sin without inhibition or intermission. So God punishes sin with sin by adding iniquity end-to-end without end—which strikes me not as a miscarriage of justice, but justice perfected.

 

True Doctrine. A. What Scripture says that all men without exception have a chance to be saved, receive one, or deserve one?

B. Election, in the Arminian scheme, unless you believe in a post mortem encounter, is only for those who God knows ahead of time will believe. Tell me, did all the persons living in Japan in 55 ad have a chance to believe in Jesus and be saved? No. What about the pagan nations in the Old Testament? What about the Germanic tribes of Europe? Then how were they saved apart from the gospel, if there is no other name under heaven whereby men must be saved. No man can be saved apart from Christ. Why do men deserve a chance to hear the gospel. Why does God create people knowing they will reject Him and without ever having a chance to believe, hearing the gospel, etc.?

C. These men are not condemned to hell apart from their sins, sir. The decree to pass them over is a degree to leave them in their sins, which they commit freely and without compunction. Are you seriously suggesting that men who reject common grace and suppress the truth could actually believe in Christ and be saved if God gave them a chance to believe? If a man is careless with a little grace and utterly squanders that much, then why should God give him more?

D. This objection overlooks the reason why people are condemned and confounds the difference between a necessary and a sufficient condition. People are condemned on account of their sins, no and for this reason, they are lost, and for this reason, they are, apart from Christ, sent to hell. If they did not sin, even the decree to pass them over would not be effective. Calvinism teaches that men sin as a product of their natures, according to their own evil desires. They can contribute no good to their salvation. You keep talking about getting a choice...Pardon me, sir, but men make a choice every time they sin. Men have made their choice already.

Election renders a thing certain. However, election alone is insufficient to render a person justified and make him heaven bound. Reprobation as preterition (passing over) of a sinner is a necessary, but alone an insufficient condition to result in condemnation.

Faith in Christ is both necessary and sufficient to guarantee justification. Sin is both necessary and sufficient to guarantee condemnation.

All men are sinners, and all men without exception are unable to believe in Christ and repent of their sins. This inability is moral, not natural. They “can’t” because they “won’t.” Apart from grace, this is their natural condition. Therefore, men are lost because they are sinners, not because they are not elected to salvation or passed over. The only reason men reject the gospel is their love of evil. The reason they reject common grace is their love of evi. Not all sinners are elected, but then, apart from election, no man would desire to not be a sinner.

Your objection ultimately tries to center itself on the notion that it is wrong for God to “violate” men’s free wills. Since Calvinism maintains that men’s “free will” decision apart from effectual grace and uncondiitional election is, in fact, to be lost, why is the Arminian objecting? Find me a Calvinist that says that men that want into the kingdom are kept out.

Absolutely False. This is a canard of the highest order. Arbitrary means that there is no condition at all and no purpose at all, not that the purpose and criterion is hidden.

a. Calvinism does not teach there is “no condition to be met” for election at all. This is a straw man. It teaches that criterion exists, but the condition/s in the criterion met in God alone. The criterion is His. It is UNDISCLOSED, not without conditions of any kind.

“Unconditional” means “unmerited, not grounded in man." In contrast, you have God playing favorites. All persons believe for different reasons. Election is grounded in foreseen faith, outside of grace. All men believe for different reasons, so you have God looking through time to find out who will believe and who will not and electing based on an intrinsic characteristic in them. This is exactly the kind of favoritism forbidden in James and the beginning of salvation by merit, and makes salvation about justice, not mercy. Salvation is about mercy, not justice.

b. Calvinism teaches the following criterion is involved. See Eph.1
• to be holy and blameless in his sight (v.4)
• to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ (v.5)
• in accordance with his pleasure and will (v.5)
• to the praise of his glorious grace (v.6)
• in accordance with the riches of God’s grace (v.7)
• according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ (v.9)
• according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will (v.11)

“Unconditional” means “grounded in God,” not “grounded in man.” What is less arbitrary than God’s mercy? Are you seriously suggesting that because God does something for reasons of His own without telling you, that He is “arbitrary.”

"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law." Deuteronomy 29: 29

1. Election is grounded in God's moral character (i.e., goodness, compassion, empathy, integrity, non-duplicity, non-favoritism, justice, etc.)

2. God does have "causes and reasons" for His choices, though these are "internal" to God (i.e., not found in the creature). We know He is good and therefore can trust that He would make a better choice than we would.

3. He 'does NOTHING without reason' --- He 'does NOTHING rashly’. He has simply not revealed these reasons and causes to us--although they certainly exist. Since they haven’t been revealed, we cannot try to figure them out but since we know the trustworthiness of God we can rejoice in His wisdom. God does not 'lack just reasons’ for His actions. These 'just reasons' are merely hidden from us.

4. Salvation is not conditioned upon anything that God sees in us that makes us worthy of His choosing us. NONE of His decrees were done except justly and wisely.”

5. You’re saying, therefore, you can’t trust God to do the right thing and that the individual would make a better choice than God.

c. No person elected is elected apart from calling and faith in Christ. God supplies the condition for justification. Arminianism confuses justification with election in the order of salvation. God elects those who elect themselves.

d. Your position, sir, is the arbitrary one. Let’s look at the inconsistent logic. While some portray "foreseen faith" as giving great liberty to every man's free choice, upon greater reflection, this idea turns out to give no real freedom to man at all. If God can look into the future and see that a person #1 will come to Christ and that person #2 will not come to faith in Christ, then those facts are already fixed, they are already determined. God's foresight of believers' faith and repentance implies the certainty, or "moral necessity " of these acts, just as much as a sovereign decree. "For that which is certainly foreseen must be certain." (R.L.Dabney) If we assume that God’s knowledge of the future is true (which evangelicals all agree upon), then it is absolutely certain that person #1 will believe and person #2 will not. There is no way their lives could turn out differently than this. Therefore it is more than fair to say that their destinies are still determined, for they could not be otherwise. The question is, by what are their destinies determined? If God Himself determines them then we no longer have election based on foreseen faith, but rather on God's sovereign will. But if God does not determine their destinies then who or what determines them? Of course no Christian would say that there is some powerful being other than God controlling people’s destinies. Therefore the only possible alternative is to say they are determined by some impersonal force, some kind of fate, operative in the universe, making things turn out as they do. But of what benefit is this? We have then sacrificed election in love by a personal and compassionate God for a kind of determinism by an impersonal force and God is no longer to be given the ultimate credit for our salvation. (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology) This is the very definition of arbitrary, particularly when you consider your definition of “free will,” it is “indeterminate,” thus chance could be the reason one person believes and not another according to the free will view.

Furthermore, no one could then consistently hold that God foreknew who would believe and be saved and then also preach that God is trying to save every man. If God knows who will be saved, then it would be absurd for Him to reason within Himself that more persons might be saved than the original persons He knew would choose Him. It would be inconsistent to assert that God is trying to do something which He already knew could never be accomplished. Likewise no one could consistently say that God foreknew who would be saved and then turn around and teach that the Holy Spirit does all He can do to save every man in the world. In this scheme, The Holy Spirit would be wasting time and effort to endeavor to convert a man who He knew from the beginning would not choose Him. The unbiblical system collapses in on itself. (John Hendryx)

Oh really? “For this purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the earth."-God to Pharaoh. Pharaoh died and went where?

The Arminian view also teaches very clearly that hell is prepared for the devil and his angels and the guilty, and this includes those who God knew beforehand would not believe and those who God never gave a chance to believe. Do you not know your own theology?

The sentence of hell is given at Jesus’ return (2 Thessalonians 1:7, also Matthew 25:31). The guilty “will be tormented in burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever” (Revelation 14:10-11). The Lamb in Revelation is Jesus. Hell is not so much eternal separation from God as it is the eternal presence of God in unmitigated wrath and fury. Hell is separation from God in the sense of being separated from his blessings and fellowship (2 Thessalonians 1:9). Hell is where we must “drink the wine of God’s fury which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath” (Revelation 14:10).

[ November 27, 2005, 11:35 PM: Message edited by: GeneMBridges ]

 

Actually it says explicitly otherwise.

John 12:40 (KJV) He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.

Jude 1:4 (KJV) For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Proverbs 16:4 (KJV) The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Does God give everybody a chance to believe? I think not; in fact, He has been known to harden hearts...and, no, this isn't "against their wills" this is perfectly in accordance with their wills.

Isa 6:

Isaiah 6:8-13 (KJV)8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. 9 And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. 10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. 11 Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, 12 And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. 13 But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.

Then again in John 12:37-40 (KJV)37 But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him: 38 That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? 39 Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, 40 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.

 

[Post edited: Non-Baptist posting in a Baptist only section.]

[ November 29, 2005, 05:02 AM: Message edited by: Bible-boy ]

 

Why are you posting on a debate board (note the words "Baptisst DEBATE Forums" above) if you don't want debate?

I don't think anything here has been "acerbic." You should have been around when we had the Calvinism-Arminian forum! They closed it down and I see that it's cropping up here. But so far, this is mild compared to the other one.

You might prefer the Baptist Fellowship forums if you don't like debate. This debate here is pretty typical of what you will find.