I don't see what practical difference it makes within a Reformed theology framework if one says "God actually chooses the non-elect to reprobation, or simple passes over them."
Either way, in a Reformed framework, God could have saved them, but did not. Not only that, but God created a world where He knew the non-elect would have no ability not to sin AND also no ability or opportunity for salvation. Yet, He judges them with a terrible judgment for something they had no ability to avoid or escape.
Predestination and Foreknowledge
Discussion in 'Calvinism & Arminianism Debate' started by Mark Corbett, Sep 12, 2017.
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You demand that God be consistent with His goodness and love according to your standard of goodness and love and thus disallow Him His Sovereignty over His creation.
You have exactly the same problem you claim the Calvinist has. He could save everybody but doesn't. -
As far as Reformed Christians who hold to annihilationism, please provide a few names. Something tells me these "theologians" do not express orthodox Reformed thought. -
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SovereignGrace Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
@Mark Corbett
I truly appreciate the way you debate us in a civil manner. Kudos Brother. -
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Romans 9:6-24 6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; 7 nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: “THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED.” 8 That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. 9 For this is the word of promise: “AT THIS TIME I WILL COME, AND SARAH SHALL HAVE A SON.” 10 And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; 11 for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, 12 it was said to her, “THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.” 13 Just as it is written, “JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.”
14 What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! 15 For He says to Moses, “I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND IWILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.” 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THEWHOLE EARTH.” 18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” 20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? 21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? 22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.
Mark, let me ask you some questions. Is God beholding to His creation for anything? Does God owe salvation to anyone? Would God be justified in condemning all to hell? Is God unjust in choosing (eklektos - same Greek word in the NT, Eph. 1:4) to save some? If you believe God is unjust in saving some, how is that view not a refutation of Romans 9:14, 15, 20?
I believe a brief exposition of Ephesians will help reveal Reformed thought in this discussion. Ephesians 1 lays the groundwork in stating:
Ephesians 1:3-5 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,
Before the physical universe was created, God chose (eklektos = elected) His elect. He chose them for a purpose, "that we would be holy and blameless before Him". This was due to "the kind intention of His will".
In chapter two we read:
Ephesians 2:1-2 1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
Paul presents a condition. Sinners are spiritually dead. The word for dead in Ephesians 2:1 is the Greek work nekros. It means dead as in a corpse. Spiritually speaking, sinners, while alive phyiscally, are dead spiritually. They are incapable of any positive response towards God. Paul augments the Ephesians passage by what he wrote in Romans 8:
Romans 8:6-8 6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Not only is the sinner spiritually dead, he is hostile toward God, and cannot subject himself to the law of God because he is incapable of doing so. 1 Corinthians 2:14 offers additional support for the inability of the sinner:
1 Corinthians 2:14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
This inability on the part of the sinner creates a real problem for the Synergist (someone who believes man cooperates with God in salvation, aka Arminianism and semi-Pelagianism). If the sinner has free will, that will is under the bondage of sin. He cannot believe. It does not even want to. The soul of the sinner is dead as a corpse in a casket. Something from outside of the sinner must change this condition. Thankfully, the Apostle Paul provides the remedy:
Ephesians 2:4-9 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
The key words in the above passage are "But God". We do not read anything about "But man". God first makes the sinner alive through regeneration. He illumines the heart of the sinner to his sin, and the hope of the gospel. In Reformed theology, this is called the effectual call. Once God calls a sinner that sinner always responds by repentance and faith; each and every time and without fail. It is not about God condemning all by not giving them a chance. It is about God saving some even though none deserve it. -
Call me a heretic, but I believe that Reformed theology includes both Calvinism and Arminianism. Their disagreements are really intramural and they agree on much more than they disagree.
Modern Southern Baptist soteriology, in many cases, is semi-Pelagianism. Both Calvinists and Arminians should stand shoulder to shoulder against it. They have much more in common than they differ. -
Chris Date
Chris is a leader and founding member of the Rethinking Hell ministry. You may read about him and get in touch with him here.
Terrance Tiessen, a professor at Providence Theological Seminary, as you can see here.
James Spiegel, a professor at Taylor University, as you can see here.
Adam Murrel, a member of Redeeming Grace Ministries, as seen here.
I know there are others, but I think this is a decent sample. They are, of course, a small minority in the Reformed community, at least for now. -
So you do not consider yourself as a member of the Reformed community?
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I am neither of the major divisions and when I teach or witness and this subject comes up I present it thusly:
As does my first Pastor, I have labeled myself a a Biblicist because my view is "If the Bible says it, I believe it! God inspired/wrote the entire book and in Deuteronomy 4:2 and at the end of chapter 22 of The Revelation we find God promising that not a single word will ever be added to nor subtracted from His Written Word. Oh, and there are no conflicting passages in the Bible to any man filled with the Holy Spirit for the Spirit teaches us how to reconcile them to one another.
So, in verses Jer. 23:24, Prov 15:3, 1Kings 8:27 we learn that God is Omnipresent. He is literally everywhere but wait a second, I really mean everywhere. The LORD is right this moment everywhere there is on the planet and He is still seated in the Throne Room. Where am I going? God created, out of nothing but His will, this Time/Space Continuum and every person, bird, animal, lake, just everything you see or touch is a product from the hand of God.
We find that a day in Heaven is like unto a thousand years of our time. So there is nothing here like God or Heaven. Our minds put our Omnipotent. Omniscient, and Omnipresent God all over the Earth and on the in Heaven at this moment but we must learn to cease putting God in some sort of container, there is not one He fits into anyway. No, God is, right now, in the past, in the present, and He is in the future right now!
In Rev. 17:8 and in thirteen we learn that the Book of Life is not being written but is finished and closed. How could men made like unto the image of God do that because they, like God, have a free will? God was there before it happened, He is Omnipotent and with no limits, He is Omnipresent! -
With regard to your questions above, no I do not believe God owes us anything, including salvation. Yes, He would be justified in condemning all to hell, including me. I do not believe that God is unjust in choosing to save some, but in the setting of Reformed theology God does appear to be unjust. This is a new issue (I did not argue that Reformed theology unintentionally implies God is unjust, I argued it unintentionally implies He is not good and loving, which are related, but not identical, concepts.)
In terms of justice, I do believe a person has to have some ability to not sin to be morally responsible for sin. I'm not saying the unsaved have the ability to have consistent victory over sin. But I am saying that they have the ability to not commit any particular sin. However, in Reformed theology, I don't see how they have the ability to not commit any particular sin.
I see evidence in the Bible that the ability to not commit a sin is necessary to be morally responsible. Consider this passage:
Deuteronomy 22: 23 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her,
24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death-- the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man's wife. You must purge the evil from among you.
25 But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die.
26 Do nothing to the woman; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor,
27 for the man found the young woman out in the country, and though the betrothed woman screamed, there was no one to rescue her.
If a man and an engaged woman sleep together, the normal penalty for both is death. But if he raped her somewhere where she could not get help, even though she has sex with him, she is not held guilty at all because she had no ability to not have sex with the man (at least that should be assumed).
I understand that in Reformed theology the unsaved sin because they want to sin. In that sense they are not forced to sin. But they have absolutely no ability to not want to sin and absolutely no ability to not commit any given sin they commit, because all their desires and all actions have been preordained by God. The point is, they have NO free will (at least no libertarian free will, which is the type of free will that would enable them to choose not to commit any given sin). At least the woman in the woods has a small chance of escaping, even if the man is stronger. But a sinner preordained to sin has much less ability than she does to "get away", in fact they have no ability at all. So, no, I do not believe it is just to hold people accountable in this framework, whereas I think it is just to hold them accountable in the type of Arminian leaning framework which I think is correct.
But you have not addressed the more difficult problem. Even if it were just for God to not choose to save some people in the Reformed system, how is it good and loving?
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