Featured Calvinism presents Absurdity

Of course I know what "Ordain" means and, it is clear what it means when reading the Westminster Confession. It does not mean "Determinism." The WCF clearly states that God ordains all things that come to pass and then, as you and yours so clearly gloss over, it says clearly that He is not the author of sin.

So, "ordaining" is not intended by the Westminster Divines to be "determinism." They give no hint as to the "mechanism" of separation between ordinance and determination, but it's clear they do not use the words synonymously.

Furthermore, "ordaining" is intended to include the free and even sinful choices of mankind. Even those things, though un-authored by God, are all part of His plan as He super-intends all things for the good of believers and His glory.

No, it isn't ad hominem. I'm not trying to win an argument by attacking Van. I'm simply stating that he and his ilk, including, don't engage with us honestly because you (all) don't listen to what we say about ourselves. Instead, you have an a priori caricature about us and what we believe and then you pigeon hole us into your schema rather than take us for what we say we are. You interact with a strawman built upon your own illusions. And, what is more, <laughing> you try to tell us what we must believe.

You yourself get particularly ugly when anyone, such as myself, says that your beliefs are Pelagian. Yet, you insist on labeling us as "Determinists" or "Fatalists" when we clearly are not. You yourself insist that we take you at your word that you are not a Pelagian, yet you refuse to return to us the same courtesy.

The whole debate (and there are Calvinists guilty of the caricature/strawman problem too) is worthless because most people talk past each other in irrational, indoctrinated hatred. There are only a few here who can have worthwhile, edifying discussions with each other.

The Archangel

 

I never claimed to be defending anyone elses veiws or any particular system of Calvinism. I only claimed to defend my own views. I presented my views and you have been consistently perverting and reinterpreting my views. There is no sense to carry on any discussion with a person that does that.

Deuteronomy 29:29 states explictily what I said concerning a revealed versus a Sovereign concealed will of God.

Isiah 46:10 within the counsel of God there is the will of His good pleasure - "I will do all my PLEASURE" and God carries this out through His children as well - Philip. 2:13b

Psalm 76:10 states explicitly that God controls evil, prevents whatever evil that will not utimately glorify Him and thus purposely permits evil for His own glory.

 

...which is absurd, the entire premise of the op. To say that God decrees all things...yet not sin...means he either doesn't decree ALL things, or decrees sin as it is encompassed in "all".

no, what it is amounts to nothing more than having your cake and eating it too. For God to decree / order all things IS determinism.

This is absurd. To decree something to come to pass removes any freedom from the equation. No way for it to be un-authored by God.

What caricature? You yourself posted what the confessions said. Van merely pointed out how absurd the deterministic approach to decreeing everything that comes to pass...and then say out of the other side of their mouths...but sin. This is as honest of an engagement in facts as there is.

Considering most views of Pelagius are not his own words, but view attributed to him by others, it is meant merely as a pejorative. Determinist is a description.

I see no talking past each other on this thread.

 

This is an example of someone (and others, too) who want something to mean that which it does not. You and the others are tilting at windmills with this.

Awww...how cute.

According to the WCF?" Not at all.

The WCF clearly states:

"God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass"

Again, the word "ordain" is used and the intention of that word is clear: It is not fatalistic, deterministic causation in all things.

Note, then, the WCF continues and limits the first statement:

• yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin
• nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures
• nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away

So we see that God's "ordination" of all things does not include a "decree" of sin. We see that man also has and exercises his own free will. And, we see that man is able to choose between A and B.

What the Westminster Divines have written tells what they think "Ordain" means--and it isn't fatalism or determinism, contrary to you might think.

The only silly thing here is the absurdity of what you are trying to do. You want the WCF to say and affirm things that it clearly does not. At this point, this is no longer a theological discussion...this is a matter of defining what "is" is.

The Archangel

 

"Ordain" is one of those clever words Calvinism uses to say that God simply allows men to do the evil they willingly choose to do.

Try asking them if the man can do otherwise. :thumbs:

 

Deuteronomy 29:29 clearly teaches a revealed will in contrast to a non-revealed will:

29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

1. The "revealed" things are identified as "all the words of this law" or the Scriptures. - The Revealed will of God for us to do.

2. The "secret things" are defined by contrast. The revealed things are contained in the Scriptures and are thus the revealed will of God to us. In contrast the "secret things" is not the revealed will of God.

Before a Jew would go to work in the fields he would gather up his robe and gird himself about in order to keep the rob from tripping him up. So the idea of girding up himself is the idea of taking the remainder of man's wrath and keeping it from tripping up God's purposes. That is why other versions correctly give the meaning rather than the literal definition which is to "restrain" the evil that the wicked would do to hinder God's will.

 

When Calvin said God allows evil, he really means that God commands evil;

http://www.biblestudytools.com/history/calvin-institutes-christianity/book1/chapter-17.html

Calvin said the devil nor any evil sinner can conceive of any sin, plan that sin, nor move a finger to commit that sin unless God permits, nay COMMANDS that they do so, they are FORCED to do him service.

This is the Calvinist concept of permission.

 

The Archangel

Yes exactly...you beat me to this....just got home..lolThey have to twist this and they do:wavey:



The WCF clearly states that God ordains all things that come to pass and then, as you and yours so clearly gloss over, it says clearly that He is not the author of sin.

They ignore this to make the strawman:thumbs:




They give no hint as to the "mechanism" of separation between ordinance and determination, but it's clear they do not use the words synonymously.

well said...

No, it isn't ad hominem. I'm not trying to win an argument by attacking Van. I'm simply stating that he and his ilk, including, don't engage with us honestly because you (all) don't listen to what we say about ourselves. Instead, you have an a priori caricature about us and what we believe and then you pigeon hole us into your schema rather than take us for what we say we are. You interact with a strawman built upon your own illusions. And, what is more, <laughing> you try to tell us what we must believe.

You yourself get particularly ugly when anyone, such as myself, says that your beliefs are Pelagian. Yet, you insist on labeling us as "Determinists" or "Fatalists" when we clearly are not. You yourself insist that we take you at your word that you are not a Pelagian, yet you refuse to return to us the same courtesy.

The whole debate (and there are Calvinists guilty of the caricature/strawman problem too) is worthless because most people talk past each other in irrational, indoctrinated hatred. There are only a few here who can have worthwhile, edifying discussions with each other.

The Archangel


Thanks again brother:thumbs:

 

Yes....you have caught and isolated the virus of Van's thread, which ignores the terms carefully selected by those who wrote the WCF....godly men.
They of course will quibble about the words...

Van does not understand :biblically
ordain, predestine,foreknow, he conflates them and the truth remains hidden from him:thumbs::thumbs: