Jeremiah, I have heard the argument, Why did God create men whom he knew would not believe?
Well, if you believe God determined they would not believe, this would be cruel and monstrous. And this is exactly what many here believe. Actually, they believe God determined they CANNOT believe, they are UNABLE to be willing to trust Jesus.
But if every man is ABLE to choose God of his own free will and trust him, then it is completely just that God created them. Those that perish have no one to blame but themselves, they made their own choice.
If Calvinism is true, every lost sinner has the perfect excuse. He can argue he was born a sinner through no fault or choice of his own, that he was created UNABLE to be willing to believe God. He can claim (rightfully) that he was created with a sinful nature that compels him to sin, and that he was unable to do anything but sin.
Now, if that is not the perfect excuse, I don't know what is.
You see, in reality this doctrine makes excuse for man, and blames God for sin. That is all it is really about. Don't be fooled by all the high talk.
Armenian Baptists?
Discussion in 'Baptist Theology & Bible Study' started by Jeremiah2911, Sep 19, 2011.
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John 17:12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
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is it based upon His causing/determining the sinners to be saints?
that He effectually apllies the grace of the Cross to us directly, His work, or bases it upon our responding by faith to His offer of Christ?
Either its causal based/determined by God, or is indirect, when we accept jesus with our faith! -
Have you ever studied the view of “Hard Determinism” and its relationship to the “Problem of Evil” and asked yourself if the Calvinist/Determinist view aligns with the other Divine attributes of God that we know from the scriptures? If not, couldn't the finite view of Divine foreknowledge must = Determinism be mistaken and God's Divine knowledge of all things not limit Him to allow for His grace to be genuinely offered to all men through them being created with the free will to choose and thereby His righteous judgment for all His creatures on this issue accordingly? -
2 Timothy 3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
So since there are evil men, they must be doing evil--Since I trust God is Sovereign however, I trust evil happens only according to the plan and design of God. [He hates evil [sin], doesn't enter into His mind] IOW Satan is not Sovereign. I guess I would ask you a question--did Job have anything evil happen to him? What part did God have in that situation? [He allowed it] If God didn't have control, how would evil not win out period? How would anyone be saved at all? I'm not trying to dodge your question, I'm just wondering how you can ask it and believe God is in control. Reality is, there is evil in the world, the devil is the devil, but he's God's devil [borrowed a line from Luther there :)]
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So in the story of Job had God pre-determined every response of Job and not only planned every evil thing that happened to him but how he would respond, or not??? When the Devil checked in, being all proud and all from going about the destruction of man and God challenges him when saying, “Have you considered my man Job?” what God “really” meant was “Have you considered this man which I specially selected out and pre-determined that he never give in against his faith in Me?” ? I don’t think so, and I’ll tell you why.
First, let’s look at this inspirational message about the great faith of “a man” in the Good and Righteousness of God (Deut 32:4) is going when even the devil begins to answer God’s challenge by alluding that if God has determined that Job is always blessed and protected then how sincere is such challenge saying, “Yeah riiight, God, haven’t You built a hedge around this man? Take down the protection barrier and I’ll wager Job will curse You to Your face!” IOW’s what the Devil is asking is is this about me overcoming You (pre-determining all things concerning this man) or is it about me overcoming the faith the of Job on his own?!?
Second, agreed, God is “Sovereign”, yet other Divine attributes not to be ignored of Him is that God is “Truth” along with Him being Only “Good”. SO, at this point in the challenge was God still maintaining your (the Calvinist/Determinist view of Divine Sovereignty you adopted about control of the will of the man) form of control (having pre-determined every response Job will make) of the will of the man Job or was Job “truly” on his own? Did God lie about this situation and the test was really against Him controlling the actions of Job or does this show that the evil was coming from Satan, the challenge was against the free will of Job, and God was indeed standing on Job’s free will abilities to hold on to his "own" faith in the goodness and righteousness of God in the face of adversity?
Finally, to answer your questions here:
I say because God has put forth Truth, Love, and Light in the world for "all" the creatures He created (genuinely) and those who freely stand on that Rock, have love of the Truth, will know the Truth and love will win out over evil. Knowing God is knowing Love; He is Love.
Hope you can understand why I would never assign evil to God through holding a particular view of what His Sovereignty must consist of all for the sake of supporting some systematic theological view, in which logically all it points necessarily must hinge on Deterministic Sovereignty, according to them, for Him to be in control. I find it very problematic when others discard other important Divine attributes such as God being Only Good and without moral evil at all costs to maintain such a theological system .
Well, all I have time to say about that is "free will" is not bad word like Calvinist dogma attempts teach and that I did. ;) I truly responded to His influences of my own free will. God is Great! -
To understand Job, you need to read Psalm 91, especially verses 11-12. These are the verses Satan misquoted to Jesus when he tempted him to leap off the temple.
There are many other verses, especially in the Psalms, but Psalm 91 is in particular a promise by God to protect those who trust in him and faithfully obey him. There is no promise to the disobedient.
When Satan accused God of putting a hedge about Job and his house, and about all he had, this was actually true. Because Job was a very good man and obeyed God, he did enjoy God's protection.
Satan was in fact accusing God of buying Job's affection. If God were to remove his protection and allow him to be afflicted, Satan claimed Job would curse God to his face. (Job 1:9-11)
Satan was also accusing Job's love of God as being superficial, that Job only loved God because he was blessed.
This is why God removed his protection of Job and allowed Satan to afflict him. It was to prove he was not buying Job's love, but that also Job's love was sincere.
And in the grand scheme, this was not evil. Job received exactly twice what he had lost, except only he again received seven sons and three daughters.
Why did Job only receive seven sons and three daughters? Because his original children were all saved, he lost none of them.
But you cannot take the story of Job and apply it to all men, or even all Christians. God's promise of protection is only to those who are obedient. Satan has free reign to deal with unbelievers as he wishes. (2 Tim 2:26) -
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As far as practicality, the story of Job shows whatever situations we go through in life, God has His design and purpose in it....I consider what happened to Job to be evil, but it was still God's design.... -
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