The Ways of God. Ridiculed or accepted?

I did not say God was bound by time.

Pay attention please.

Not the author of sin, the ultimate cause of ALL THINGS.

Please try to represent me honestly and fairly. That is the Christian thing to do.

I do not mind if you rip my position to shreds. I appreciate it. But let it be MY position, not some straw man mess, please.

 

So God is not the "author" of sin, but the "cause" of sin, correct?

 

He is the ultimate cause of ALL THINGS.

He is the prime mover and exhaustively sovereign over and in and through all.

Those two truths DEMAND that he is the ultimate cause of all things.

Regardless of how unpalatable our depraved, man centered nature finds this, it is the CLEAR teaching of the Word of God.

It is the consistently held position of orthodox believers all the way back to Augustine- for that matter, all the way back to Paul.

 

Luke,

I know you have before, please explain the "distinction" between being the "cause" of all things, but not the "author" of sin.

On the surface I can I agree that God is the first cause of creation, but it just seems to me if he "causes" sin, that sure seems to me to be synonymous with being the author of it.

How can he be the "cause" without being the "author"?

 

Semantics.

Author,cause...same thing.


You are saying God causes sin. God caused Satan to be filled with pride and rebel. God caused Adam to sin and fall. God caused me to type this post.

 

Actually, we should be nice to and respect Luke, he is one of very few truly honest and consistent Calvinists here. He really believes it and is carrying it to it's logical conclusions.

Yes, if he could take over he would burn all us non-Cals at the stake, but that doesn't mean he isn't a nice guy, he is simply defending what he believes the truth.

I respect your convictions Luke, but if you ever take over I'm going to catch the first flight to some Muslim country, I will be far safer there.

 

First of all, Quantum, let me thank you for the tone of this post. It is so refreshing to be asked to clarify rather than accosted by someone who does not understand what we believe.

I illustrated this probably 20 posts back.

I spoke about my son and my efforts to teach him to focus.

I have to get ready for church now but I am sure if you peruse my posts you will not have much trouble finding it.

 

Yea, this is why I complimented Quantum, right here.

 

That's funny.

I would not burn anybody at the stake. I do not think you really know much about the historical context in which Calvin's actions took place.

The problem with what you believe is that it drives you to question the infinity of the attributes of God and causes you to shrink him to little more than Zeus and causes you to think that he built the universe for man and the whole thing revolves around him.

 

Dang. Brother Luke is passionate about his beliefs, but I don't think he'd toast anybody at the stake for not agreeing with his Calvinistic views.

 

Total bunk. You do not understand our position.

The truth is that not you or me or any human being that ever lived can understand the complexity of the Creator of the universe. Calvinism and all other ism's try to put God in a neat little package and say..here! We've figured out God!

There is a fine line between God "causing" and God allowing. I cannot define that line completely, simply because His ways are higher than my ways and His thoughts are higher than mine and I will never attain the heights of God.

But I will also never attribute sin to Him in any way, shape or form.

 

I'm glad you can take a little ribbing.

But I have to disagree with you on those historical times. Burning people alive is not the way Christians are to act. Calvin knew the scriptures and they tell us not to fellowship with heretics after one or two admonitions, not to roast them like a side of beef. Doesn't matter what the times were, he knew the word of God pertaining heretics.

 

God caused those people to be burned at the stake. It pleased God for them to be burned....or so my brother Luke has taught me.

 

For the life of me I cannot understand how God is pleased with sin! My Bible says that we grieve the Holy Spirit when we sin. Maybe I need a new translation?

 

All you need to do is sit under Luke's teaching for awhile. God, through Luke, will make it all clear to you. God is the cause of all things, sin included. God does all things to please Himself. If people have burned at the stake, they did so because God caused it and it pleased Him. Luke has talked on these subjects for quite awhile. It may help if you peruse his older postings.

 

Actually, under Luke's system sin glorifies God, because God gets glory by casting sinners in the lake of fire.

But wait, I forgot, we do not go to hell because of our sins, because election is unconditional, the only real reason a man goes to hell is because God chose to pass him by before he was born and could commit any sin. So sin cannot be the reason any man goes to hell.

For a logical system, this stuff sure is confusing!

At least the unelect have this, while they are tormented forever in the lake of fire they can know they are giving glory to God. That ought to make them feel a little better about being chosen (I'm sorry, passed by) for damnation before they were even born.

 

Nevermind Luke,

As a teacher, I often have to explain myself multiple times, differently on the same topic to assist my students to understand a difficult but important concept. I think that same attitude and spirit should be present in a "pastor/teacher". From the above response, it really makes me wonder.

 

No Amy, I think your translation is just fine. God is grieved with your sin and my sin, and all the sin of humanity. Sin does not "please" God in any way, He most certainly can "use" the sin and consequences it brings to open our eyes and hearts to him, and when we freely give our love, devotion and worship to Him, then He is glorified and also quite proud of the children He loves when we learn to live our lives as he commands us to.

 

Amy, I have 8 kids, so I think I know a little bit about them. When they became teenagers, they all started wanting to go out with their friends. Crazy kids. Now, we brought them up right, they went to church and all know right from wrong. Nevertheless, we knew there was a real possibility, even a likelihood that they might do some things we wouldn't approve of. We knew this because we were raised right, but did a lot of stupid stuff anyway when we were teens.

We could have locked them in their room, but they tend to throw stuff around. If you let them out they glare at you and make all kinds of sarcastic remarks. So, you've got to let them go before you lose your sanity, or assault them and go to jail. It's not like when we were kids, they teach them to call the cops on their parents in school now.

Anyway, letting them go out is not allowing them to do wrong, it is simply trying to prevent yourself from bursting a vein in your head. You just have to hope they will remember what they were taught, or at least be clever enough not to get caught.