God sovereignly determines all things which come to pass by

[Guest]

The Reformed position is that God is not the cause of unbelief or any other sin nor bearer of such guilt. Rather man's unbelief and wicknedness are in and of himself. And yet God is in control and there is nothing outside the confines of His eternal decree.

God sovereignly determines all things which come to pass by His almighty
providence. Scripture one: Isaiah 45:7

Isaiah 45:7 (ESV)
I form light and create darkness,
I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the Lord, who does all these things.

Here there is good and here there is evil.

==================

God sovereignly determines all things which come to pass by His almighty
providence. Scripture two: Proverbs 21:1

Proverbs 21:1 (ESV)
The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord;
he turns it wherever he will.

What man is beyond the all pervasive power of God?

==========================

God sovereignly determines all things which come to pass by His almighty
providence. Scripture three: Acts 2:23

Acts 2:23 (ESV)
this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

The greatest sin committed in the universe was according to God’s plan.

==================

God sovereignly determines all things which come to pass by His almighty
providence. Scripture four: Acts 2:27-28

Acts 4:27-28 (ESV)
for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy
servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along
with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, [28] to do whatever your hand
and your plan had predestined to take place.

Holy Jesus was delivered up according to the predestined plan and hand of the Almighty.

===============

God sovereignly determines all things which come to pass by His almighty
providence. Scripture five: John 12:39-40

John 12:39-40 (ESV)
Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,
[40] "He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their heart,
lest they see with their eyes,
and understand with their heart, and turn,
and I would heal them."

When God blinds eyes and hardens hearts they cannot believe and will
perish in their sin.

==================

[Guest]

John 12:39-40 (ESV)
Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,
[40] "He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their heart,
lest they see with their eyes,
and understand with their heart, and turn,
and I would heal them."

When God blinds eyes and hardens hearts they cannot believe and will
perish in their sin.

Of course this is a judgement for Israel's past and present rebellion. But I have to ask a couple of questions Jude:

1. Did God create Adam to sin or not to sin?

2. Why would God need to pro-actively blind and harden the Totally Depraved so that they would not believe in Christ? A bit redundant - don't you think?

[Guest]

Adam was created good, with no evil in him. He had the ability to sin, and the ability to resist sin.

God had ordained from all eternity that Adam would sin, and so God is the prime cause of Adam's sin. However, Adam was under no external compulsion to sin, but freely decided to sin.

This is the difficult concept of confluence. God is ultimately the cause and ordainer of all that comes to pass, but the secondary causes of the events - men & angels, seem to themselves to be making real moral choices. And when they choose to do evil, then they are morally responsible for that evil.

So why is it that we cannot charge God with murder, since He has ordained the murder, and it could not possibly happen differently than God ordained?

The only strong answer to this is that this is what the scriptures teach, but we differ in our understanding fo that point. So I'll cover a couple of the "weak" arguments...

Moral Authority:
I do not have the moral authority to order the extermination of a people, but God does. Thus Pol Pot is guilty for killing millions, but God is not guilty for ordaining the deaths of (almost) every human to date, or for ordering Israel to commit genocide. Why? Because God has the right to take the life that He gave to anyone.

Ends & Means
God has promised that in all tings, He is working for the good of the elect. That means that all of the suffereng that comes to to me is from God. But is God doing evil to me? We tend to equate suffering with evil, but that is not the case. Peter makes it clear that out suffering, which comes from God, is a tool that God is using to bless us, by turning us into people that are more like Him.

[Guest]

God had ordained from all eternity that Adam would sin, and so God is the prime cause of Adam's sin. However, Adam was under no external compulsion to sin, but freely decided to sin.

That is the big question. Did God create Adam to sin or not to sin? Claiming no "external compulsion" does not wash. If God created Adam with a nature that insured that he would sin, then God is the author of that nature and sin. If I create a computer worm that causes harm, I, not the worm, is responsible.

[_Steve]

Dear Brother Jude,
Thank you for presenting actual scriptures in favor of your position. I always look forward to the opportunity to discuss specific texts.

First, I would like to respond to your opening comment:

“The Reformed position is that God is not the cause of unbelief or any other sin nor bearer of such guilt. Rather man's unbelief and wickenedness are in and of himself. And yet God is in control and there is nothing outside the confines of His eternal decree.”

This is an accurate representation of the Reformed position, but it does not include the specific Calvinist claim to which I would object. As it stands, your statement really does not affirm anything an Arminian would deny.

Some Reformed advocates would put a finer point on it, bringing out the specific matter of controversy between Calvinists and Arminians.

Calvin himself wrote:

“If what I teach is true, that those who perish are destined to death by the eternal good pleasure of God, though the reason does not appear, then they are not found but made worthy of destruction...The eternal predestination of God, by which before the fall of Adam he decreed what should take place concerning the whole human race and every individual, was fixed and determined...God chose out of the condemned race of Adam those whom he pleased and reprobated whom he willed.” (The Eternal Predestination of God, 8:5)

Since this definitely gives the impression that every act and every sin of man has been decreed by God, it has always been a concern of non-Calvinists that Calvin has made God "the author of sin."

Calvinists, of course, anticipate this objection and so they usually try to write in some form of disclaimer, saying that, even though, by the irresistible decree of God, men must sin, nonetheless, God is not responsible for their sins. Thus the Westminster Confession of faith resorts to these verbal gymnastics:

"God, from all eternity, did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, neither is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established..." (III:1)

Likewise, Christopher Ness, an 18th century Calvinist, wrote:

"...that it could not be but that Adam would sin is equally true, considering Adam was subordinate to the decrees of God, determining what Adam would do out of the freedom of his own will." (An Antidote Against Arminianism, 1700, p.54)

R. C. Sproul, a modern Calvinist spokesman, has written:

"We know that God is sovereign because we know that God is God. Therefore we must conclude that God foreordained sin. What else can we conclude? (Chosen by God, 1986, p.31)

It is clear that Calvinism teaches the following: “God eternally decreed every sin that men would commit (as He eternally decreed all other things). Whatever God has decreed must inevitably occur, but God is not responsible for the sins that men commit. Man is responsible for his own sin, although he had no power whatsoever to resist the sovereign decree and therefore had no choice in the matter.” This is a statement that only a Calvinist could love. The rest of us have difficulty seeing sense in it. Those committed to Calvinism do not seem to hold their theology to a high standard of logical self-consistency.

I suppose we all may be inclined to overlook such difficulties in doctrines that we are convinced are true (e.g., our acceptance of the “Trinity” doctrine), but there is a difference between belief in a thing like the Trinity and belief in God’s ordaining all things, including man’s sinning. That difference is that the former doctrine seems to be necessitated by the actual statements of Holy Scripture, whereas the latter is merely an assertion of Augustine and his followers, lacking in even one scriptural passage in its support. I am willing, where the scriptures require it, to be “a fool for Christ,” and to affirm what seems logically nonsensical. “Let God be true, and every man a liar!” But I will not willing to take that bullet for a man’s opinion.

To your credit, you provided scriptures for us to examine, which you believe teach this Augustinian idea. I respect this. I also hope that we may look again at the same scriptures in their context, and see whether they are making Augustine/Calvin’s point.

Isaiah 45:7 (ESV)
I form light and create darkness,
I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the Lord, who does all these things.

This verse affirms what every Arminian gladly affirms. It speaks of God’s over-arching rule of the universe and of history. Blessing and disaster befall nations at His command. However, there is nothing here that says that personal sins of men are ordained by His decree to be committed. Though the calamities that God brings upon nations and individuals may involve the acts of invaders and criminals, who obviously may commit individual sins in their campaigns of conquest, there is nothing here to say that God required any individual to sin who would not have freely chosen to do so himself. God can prevent sinners from carrying out their sinful intentions, or He can stand aside and deliver their victims into their hands. In the first instance, He creates peace. In the second, He creates calamity.

In any case, the choice to sin was made by those who sin, not by God. In the present passage, it is calamity upon Babylon at the hands of Cyrus that is predicted. It is not known whether Cyrus’ actions were regarded by God to be sins. God referred to Cyrus as His “anointed” in carrying out a holy mission (Isaiah 45:1). Therefore, this verse does not tell us that God determines everything, including all men’s sins.

Even if we concluded that God determined a certain sin of a certain sinner (as when he hardened Pharaoh’s heart, preventing his repentance and guaranteeing his further sinning) this was a special case of judgment upon a particular sinner—not a proof of universal divine ordination of every sin of every man.

Second scripture:

Proverbs 21:1 (ESV)
The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord;
he turns it wherever he will.

We might also understand in this verse that God turns the king’s heart “wherever AND whenever he will.” That is, God has the power to direct a king’s decisions whenever He may choose to do so. This does not tell us that God directs every decision of a king, though He has the power to do so at any time it may suit His purposes to do so. Not only are we not told that God directs every decision of the king, but even if it were so, it would not follow that every decision of every peasant would be so important or impacting on the course of history as to require God’s similar micromanagement.

There is a similar affirmation of God’s sovereignty over kings in Daniel’s statement, “He removes kings and raises up kings” (Daniel 2:21). We might be inclined to conclude from this statement that EVERY king that rises or falls does so by God’s direct decree—if not for the fact that we are told the opposite in Hosea 8:4—“They set up kings, but not by Me; they made princes, but I did not acknowledge it.” Apparently, some kings are raised up by God, and others are raised up in rebellion against God (fortunately, He has the power to take them all out, if He sees fit!).

That God has the supreme power over kings, to remove or bring them to power, and to direct their decisions once they are in power, does not tell us how often He may choose to exercise this option. We all believe He can do this, but we need a different kind of statement in scripture if we want to establish universal divine decrees determining every decision of every man all the time.

Third and fourth scriptures:

Acts 2:23 (ESV)
this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

Acts 4:27-28 (ESV)
for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy
servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along
with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, [28] to do whatever your hand
and your plan had predestined to take place.

These two passages can be treated as one, since they both affirm the same thing about the same event, namely, that the crimes committed against Jesus at His crucifixion conformed to God’s predetermined purposes. What we are not told is that God put it into the hearts of Christ’s enemies to do what they did. They had their own malicious reasons to want Jesus dead, and we are specifically told that the devil had some influence in the matter (Luke 22:3, 53).

That God did not choose to protect Jesus from these sinners means that the carrying out of their evil purposes was a certainty, and was part of God’s purpose. However, this was an event of unusual significance. Even if we were told that God had directly inspired these men to sin against Christ, we could not be sure that God does this same thing in less-important situations with every sinner’s choices.

Fifth scripture:

John 12:39-40 (ESV)
Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,
[40] "He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their heart,
lest they see with their eyes,
and understand with their heart, and turn,
and I would heal them."


The judicial blinding of apostate Israel is, in principle, similar to the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. In both cases, evil rebels against God are subjected to a special judgment, which amounts to simply depriving them of any ability to repent (this does not mean that God had never wished for them to repent, nor that they had never previously had opportunity, but that this expedient was a deserved redress for continuous, obstinate rejection of God’s appeals—Matt.23:37).

This does not tell us that God has ordained every sin of every man since Adam. It speaks of a special case of judgment. And (as James has pointed out above) the very need to specially blind the eyes or to harden the heart as an expedient to prevent repentance speaks of a prior (and normal) state wherein a man is, in fact, capable of repentance (a fact denied by Calvinism). If natural man cannot repent without God’s direct intervention, then there would be no need for God’s direct intervention to prevent a man from repenting.

You did not mention a sixth scripture of the same type, which would be Joseph’s statement to his sinful brothers:

Genesis 50:20

“But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good.”

Here, as in some of the previous examples, we see that it was God’s intention that Joseph be sold into Egypt, although the accomplishment of it involved sinful actions on his brothers’ part. Did God ordain their sin?

As with the case of those who killed Jesus, Joseph’s brothers needed no inducement from God to entertain murderous intentions against Joseph. It was simply a question of whether or not God would deliver Joseph into their hands to carry out their intentions or not. Since God did have use for Joseph in Egypt, God did not prevent his brothers, on this occasion, from carrying out their evil designs.

There is a fine line that many do not discern when discussing whether God ordained that a certain sinful act would occur or not. That line is between the birthing of the sinful plot in the sinner’s heart on the one hand, and the successful carrying out of that plot, on the other. Man controls the first, and God the second (Prov.16:1). Thus, whenever God does not prevent the sinner from committing his sin, we may conclude that the event somehow was able to be exploited by God in obtaining some higher result. In such a case, we might justly say that God purposed to allow the event (including the sin involved) to occur without His interference. But this does not mean that the sinners made their particular choices because God had inevitably decreed that they should. In most cases, if the particular sinners involved had chosen to behave more uprightly, God could have easily found other wicked men to press into service, or even accomplished the thing without human intervention at all.

Thanks again, Brother Jude, for your input to this discussion. I welcome further dialogue.

[Guest]

Adam was created good, with no evil in him. He had the ability to sin, and the ability to resist sin.

God had ordained from all eternity that Adam would sin, and so God is the prime cause of Adam's sin. However, Adam was under no external compulsion to sin, but freely decided to sin.

Not logical. You said Adam was under no external compulsion to sin and even had the ability to resist sin, but God ordained it and so logically Adam had no choice. If Adam really did have a choice, then he could have not sinned and defeated God's will/decree.

You can't have it both ways. Either Adam chose of his free will or God did by decree. You need to use this kind of non-sensical logic to make calvinism work. If you really believe this then I can solve our differences right now:

We all "believe" ultimately of our own will, whether or not we accept or reject the Gospel. We either respond to God's calling or we do not, with God giving the oportunity to "all men" to respond. However, this does not affect what God has ordained from before the foundations of the earth.

[Guest]

The Reformed position is that God is not the cause of unbelief or any other sin nor bearer of such guilt. Rather man's unbelief and wicknedness are in and of himself. And yet God is in control and there is nothing outside the confines of His eternal decree.

God sovereignly determines all things which come to pass by His almighty
providence. Scripture one: Isaiah 45:7

Isaiah 45:7 (ESV)
I form light and create darkness,
I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the Lord, who does all these things.

Here there is good and here there is evil.

==================

God sovereignly determines all things which come to pass by His almighty
providence. Scripture two: Proverbs 21:1

Proverbs 21:1 (ESV)
The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord;
he turns it wherever he will.

What man is beyond the all pervasive power of God?

==========================

God sovereignly determines all things which come to pass by His almighty
providence. Scripture three: Acts 2:23

Acts 2:23 (ESV)
this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

The greatest sin committed in the universe was according to God’s plan.

==================

God sovereignly determines all things which come to pass by His almighty
providence. Scripture four: Acts 2:27-28

Acts 4:27-28 (ESV)
for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy
servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along
with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, [28] to do whatever your hand
and your plan had predestined to take place.

Holy Jesus was delivered up according to the predestined plan and hand of the Almighty.

===============

God sovereignly determines all things which come to pass by His almighty
providence. Scripture five: John 12:39-40

John 12:39-40 (ESV)
Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,
[40] "He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their heart,
lest they see with their eyes,
and understand with their heart, and turn,
and I would heal them."

When God blinds eyes and hardens hearts they cannot believe and will
perish in their sin.

==================

Of course God's sovereignty is the root cause of everything. That includes freewill....

[Guest]

[quote="Steve"]Dear Brother Jude,
Thank you for presenting actual scriptures in favor of your position. I always look forward to the opportunity to discuss specific texts.

I can only smile when an Arminian begins by thanking a Calvinist for providing "actual Scriptural support" for his position. As anyone familiar with this age old debate must smart from, whenever thanks of this kind is found it is usually the other way around. But this is good rhetoric and adds to the persuasive power of one's argument, so I won't fault Arminians for it. Not at this level at least. Besides, I am only to thrilled to find an Arminian who agrees at the outset to let the matter be decided by Scripture.

First, I would like to respond to your opening comment:

“The Reformed position is that God is not the cause of unbelief or any other sin nor bearer of such guilt. Rather man's unbelief and wickenedness are in and of himself. And yet God is in control and there is nothing outside the confines of His eternal decree.”

This is an accurate representation of the Reformed position, but it does not include the specific Calvinist claim to which I would object. As it stands, your statement really does not affirm anything an Arminian would deny.

As long as Arminians are still employing a Reformed, grammattico-historical, hermeneutic, and as long as they are acting in accord with their own presuppositions, they should have a problem with the given description of the Reformed position. Just the statement that "nothing is outside the confines of His eternal decree," kicks against the goads of Arminianism. The two propositions

(1) There is "nothing" outside the confines of God's eternal decree (i.e., Calvinism)
and
(2) There is "something" outside the confines of God's eternal decree (i.e., Arminiansim)

are two propositions that simply do not comport with one another. Not exactly an example of the kind of "logical conistency" we should expect from those who claim others are guilty of poor reasoning.

Let me just list some of the ways or things that that Mr. Gregg has said, in so many words, are outside the decree and control of God. Since space and time won't allow for as many as could be given, I will confine myself only to the following mentioned in this post:

1. God has not ordained "every act and every sin of man"
2. "there is nothing here that says that personal sins of men are ordained by His decree to be committed"
3. "Therefore, this verse does not tell us that God determines everything, including all men’s sins."
4. Pharaoh's hardening is "not a proof of universal divine ordination of every sin of every man," a conclusion that would be contrary to Arminianism.
5. God has only decreed and only controls/directs some decisions of Kings, i.e., "wherever AND whenever He wills."
6. As for everyone else, their choices are not "so important or impacting on the course of history as to require God’s similar micromanagement." [Interesting to find a term coined by heretical Open-Theists used by a classical Arminian.]
7. "We all believe He can do this (decree everything kings do), but we need a different kind of statement in scripture if we want to establish universal divine decrees determining every decision of every man all the time."

The examples could be multiplied. The simple fact is, the only way for an Arminian to affirm the description given above of Reformed theology is to engage in the kind of "verbal gymnastics" they accuse Calvinists of engaging in. Whenever you hear someone loudly accusing somebody of something, it is always good to see if it is not just a diversion, a tactic to make people look away from the real culprit.


To be continued...

Tony

[_Steve]

Hi Tony,

It's great to have your input here. I look forward to the continuation that you have promised.

I guess the burden is now upon me to show that my positions stated in one place are not inconsistent with my positions stated in another. I do not see the inconsistency, but I can see why a Calvinist does: Calvinists cannot understand the difference between saying (on the one hand) that "everything lies within the realm of God's control," and (on the other) that "God does not ordain or author everything that happens."

The Arminian believes that God's sovereign control is unlimited—that is, there is nothing that God cannot do, if He wishes to do it, and thus nothing is beyond the range of His control. This simply means that God has not lost control of His universe, and is quite capable of interfering in any way and at any time that He chooses. It does not tell us how often or in what way He may choose to intervene or to refrain from intervention.

For example, God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart demonstrates that God can even manipulate the will of man, if He feels that His purposes warrant such intervention, but it does not tell us whether God's purposes require such intervention very commonly or not.

For all we know, there may be higher purposes in God's plan which move Him to refrain from such intervention and to let human will operate freely most of the time. I believe this is so, but this doesn't place man's choices into a category of things out of reach or beyond God's potential control. If God has the power and the freedom to do whatever He wants to do, then no one can say that God has lost control. Everything lies within the range of His control.

If I give my children a choice as to which of two available breakfast cereals they would like to have, and I do nothing to intervene in their decision, this means I am not controling their decision, but it does not mean that I have lost control of my household.

What it means is that I am in control, and am secure enough in that fact to allow some measure of limited freedom to members of my household. I am still limiting their range of choices, which means I am still in control, though I am not controlling or determining which choice they will make. So long as it would be in my power, if I wished, to make them eat the Cheerios, but I simply choose not to exercise that prerogative, I am still in charge.

As for the statement concerning God's "decrees," I find no scriptural warrant to postulate the existence of any such "decrees" as those of which Calvinism speaks. A "decree" is technically a command or a mandate. There are many commands (or decrees) of God in scripture (e.g., the ten commandments can rightly be numbered among the decrees of God), but you will search the scriptures in vain for any mandate (or decree) that any man should sin.

In fact, in the matter of Christians sinning, we are clearly told that God always provides a way of escape (1 Cor.10:13), if we would choose it, so as never to make our sinning inevitable or necessary. If we sin (which we sometimes do), we are doing something that could have been avoided. Why would God go to the trouble of providing a means of escape, in a case where He had sovereignly decreed that we must succumb to the temptation?

Thus to say that God decreed that Adam, or any other person, would sin is to speak unscripturally. I only find decrees from God that forbid man to sin.

It is the Calvinist that has the consistency problem. Calvin, and his followers, for example, tell us that God ordained all things—and yet, He is not the author of sin. Since the word "ordained" means, to the Calvinist, the divine determination that a thing will inevitably come to pass, and since Calvinists include every sin of mankind among the things God decreed, it is clear that their claim that God is "not the author of sin" is merely a game played with words.

If Adam sinned because of some irresistible decree of God, and could not have done otherwise, because God ordained it to happen, then there is no sensible way to make anyone but God the author of that sin. The "author" is not the actor, but the one who writes the script—if such a script indeed exists.

On the other hand, if God simply created the potential for man to either sin or not, and man chose freely to do what is wrong, then man is the author of his own sins.

My expression of relief at Jude's providing some scriptures in his post was no rhetorical ploy. I am truly delighted whenever a Calbvinist gives us the opportunity to actually discuss and exegete biblical passages, rather than making statements that cannot be attached to any particular biblical passages (like references to "divine decrees"). Biblical passages are capable of being dealt with in an objective and exegetical fashion. It is from such a treatment of actual biblical material that a proper understanding of doctrine can arise. It is only when we are dealing with the BIble itself that I feel I am in my element, so it is always a relief to find that someone has opened that avenue for discussion.

Like Paul, I prefer for theological truth to be expressed, "not in words which man's wisdom teaches" but in words "which the Holy Spirit teaches." This can be done when we use actual inspired scripture to explain and support our statements. There cannot be too much scripture in a discussion, for my tastes. But there can be way too little.

[Guest]

Man was created in the image of God.

One of the attributes of God is the possession of free will.

Thus those created in the image of God possess free will.

God never forces the will of anyone. He may very strongly influence it.
But He never forces it.

"Whosoever will may come and drink of the water of life freely."