What is the deal with this stuff. John Piper writes of two wills of God. Is this true? I don't see how it is but, in His article he writes the following:
The Death of Christ
The most compelling example of God's willing for sin to come to pass while at the same time disapproving the sin is his willing the death of his perfect, divine Son. The betrayal of Jesus by Judas was a morally evil act inspired immediately by Satan (Luke 22:3). Yet in Acts 2:23 Luke says, "This Jesus [was] delivered up according to the definite plan (boule) and foreknowledge of God." The betrayal was sin, and it involved the instrumentality of Satan; but it was part of God's ordained plan. That is, there is a sense in which God willed the delivering up of his Son, even though the act was sin.
Moreover Herod's contempt for Jesus (Luke 23:11) and Pilate's spineless expediency (Luke 23:24) and the Jews' "Crucify! Crucify him!" (Luke 23:21) and the Gentile soldiers' mockery (Luke 23:36) were also sinful attitudes and deeds. Yet in Acts 4:27-28 Luke expresses his understanding of the sovereignty of God in these acts by recording the prayer of the Jerusalem saints:
Truly in this city there were gathered together against thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever thy hand and thy plan (boule) had predestined to take place.
Herod, Pilate, the soldiers and Jewish crowds lifted their hand to rebel against the Most High only to find that their rebellion was unwitting (sinful) service in the inscrutable designs of God.
The appalling death of Christ was the will and work of God the Father. Isaiah wrote, "We esteemed him stricken, smitten by God . . . It was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief" (Isaiah 53:4,10). God's will was very much engaged in the events that brought his Son to death on the cross. God considered it "fitting to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings" (Hebrews 2:10). Yet, as Jonathan Edwards points out, Christ's suffering "could not come to pass but by sin. For contempt and disgrace was one thing he was to suffer."
It goes almost without saying that God wills obedience to his moral law, and that he wills this in a way that can be rejected by many. This is evident from numerous texts: "Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will (thelema) of my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 7:21). "Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother" (Matthew 12:50). "The one who does the will of God abides forever" (1 John 2:17). The "will of God" in these texts is the revealed, moral instruction of the Old and New Testaments, which proscribes sin.
Therefore we know it was not the "will of God" that Judas and Pilate and Herod and the Gentile soldiers and the Jewish crowds disobey the moral law of God by sinning in delivering Jesus up to be crucified. But we also know that it was the will of God that this come to pass. Therefore we know that God in some sense wills what he does not will in another sense.
So what can we make of this? Can anyone help me out? Thanks everyone. SoaringEagle
Two wills of God? What is this?
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Two wills of God? What is this?
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Reason:
Reason:
Piper's more complete treatment of this subject can be read at http://www.desiringgod.org/library/topi ... wills.html
I believe his argument is flawed. Here is my critique:
John Piper’s essay, “Are There Two Will in God,” written as a chapter for the book, “Still Sovereign: Contemporary Perspectives on Election, Foreknowledge and Grace,” is an attempt to show that the Calvinistic doctrine of unconditional election can be harmonized with those texts of scripture which seem to teach the “Arminian” idea that God really wants all men to be saved, and none to be lost.
Calvinism teaches that there are secret “decrees” of God which determine the ultimate destiny of every person, and that, before the onset of human history, every person was thus predetermined by God’s decree either to be eternally saved or eternally lost. It is a corollary of this teaching, jealously defended, that God’s choice in the matter was not affected in any way by the decision that men make, nor of God’s foreknowledge of any such decisions. The sovereign grace of God, who could, if He had wished, have chosen to save every person for salvation, instead chose only some (“the elect”) for salvation, and either passed-over (as modern Calvinists say) or positively reprobated (as John Calvin taught) those whom He did not desire to save.
The fate of every man, woman and child is said to be determined by these sovereign decrees alone. A man can do nothing to change the destiny that was determined by God for him before he was born. He can simply live out the scripted routine of his existence, experiencing the illusion of free choice, but really just fulfilling the secret will of God for him, whether by his life of piety or his life of reprobation.
The Arminians (and the primitive Christians prior to Augustine) have always felt that this is a misrepresentation both of God’s policies and of His desire. They believe that God really desires that every person should be saved and live righteously, and that any failure to do so on the part of a man is owing to that man’s will to reject God’s will, and not a result of God’s willing the man to be reprobate.
The scriptures most often cited to prove that God desires all men to be saved, and that He sent Christ to reconcile the world to Himself are II Pet.3:9/Ezek.33:11/ I John 2:2/I Tim.2:4, 6; 4:10. There are others besides. In fact, every passage in which God complains about man’s sin or unbelief bears further biblical testimony that God has not decreed that men should sin or that they should be in unbelief. These passages number in the hundreds in scripture.
The fact that God wants all men to be saved, set in juxtaposition with the fact that not all men end up saved, suggests that there is not only one will in the universe, but at least two. Arminians say that there is the will of God and the will of man—two wills at odds in the universe. Calvinists say the two wills that are at odds are both in God. That is, in one sense, God wishes all men would be saved; in another sense, He really wants millions of people to burn in hell for all eternity. Piper opens his essay with this ambitious statement of purpose:
“My aim in this chapter is to show from Scripture that the simultaneous existence of God's will for ‘all persons to be saved’ (1 Tim. 2:4) and his will to elect unconditionally those who will actually be saved is not a sign of divine schizophrenia or exegetical confusion.”
I have been surprised to see how many readers seem to think that he accomplished this goal. He does make about as good a case as can be made for such a doomed postulate, but he does so by tricking the mind of the inattentive reader (I don’t suggest that John Piper intends to “trick” anybody. I am sure that he is very convinced of the validity of the case he makes, but Calvinists have in many ways allowed themselves to be “tricked” by a faulty logic which they would never accept if used by their theological opponents. It manifests the phenomenon of how intense desire to believe a thing to be true will lead a man to accept uncritically the flimsiest case in its defense).
Like any good polemicist, Piper begins by explaining the perceived problem and presenting a few of the scriptures that support the objections to his view. He presents the conundrum: God wills that all men would be saved (it’s scriptural); but God has willed to damn a large percentage of men who He could as easily have saved (it’s Calvinism). There must, then, be two wills in God that are contrary to each other.
The bottom line in Piper’s argument is that a rational being may indeed will a thing at a certain level, but choose not to implement that thing out of deference to a higher purpose. I may want to sit around today and play my guitar, but there is work to be done, so I type. On one hand, I want to relax and play music, but some things are more important to me than that, so I really don’t want to relax as much as I want to accomplish something that precludes my relaxation. Two wills. It’s that simple. Or is it?
What if I were capable of doing both? If I could play the guitar and type at the same time, without sacrificing the quality of either activity, but I chose not to play the guitar? Could it really be argued, in such a case, that I truly wanted to play? The only reason that I don’t do everything I want to do is that I can’t do some things without sacrificing other things that I want even more. To say that God wants to save all men, and could do so, but chooses not to do so suggests that there is a higher compelling interest that God has in mind which would be compromised by His saving everyone. Piper acknowledges this, but says that the Arminians are in essentially the same position as are the Calvinists, in this respect:
“…God wills not to save all, even though he is willing to save all, because there is something else that he wills more, which would be lost if he exerted his sovereign power to save all. This is the solution that I as a Calvinist affirm along with Arminians…”
Piper says that the Arminians view man’s free will as that higher priority, which God refuses to compromise, while Calvinists identify that highest priority as “the manifestation of the full range of God's glory in wrath and mercy (Romans 9:22-23) and the humbling of man so that he enjoys giving all credit to God for his salvation (1 Corinthians 1:29).”
This line plays well for Calvinists, but non-Calvinists do not think that God derives more benefit or glory from His judging the wicked than He would derive from saving them (nor do we believe that the Calvinist explanation is the only one that preserves man's humilty and God's glory in salvation). Given the choice between showing mercy and judging sin, on an even playing field, God would prefer showing mercy every time (Ezekiel 33:11). In God’s list of priorities, mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2:13).
Let’s face it, Calvinism has always presented a God of a different character than that which Arminianism and primitive Christianity embraced. The God revealed in Christ must judge sin, when it is persisted in, but is really like a father longing for the restoration of his estranged children. If a single sinner repents, God and His angels rejoice. Calvinism’s God, on the other hand, rejoices to cast the children who disappoint Him into flames of eternal torment.
This is how He chooses to glorify Himself, even though He could as easily have saved them all with the same sovereign grace that He exercised toward the relatively few whom He actually chooses to save. Though He is said to be the perfection of fatherhood, Calvinism’s God is not like any loving father known among men. Even evil fathers, Jesus said, delight to give good things to their children. This is not in contrast to the way God is. It is a dim reflection of that greater compassion in God. “How much more shall your Father who is in heaven…”
The non-Calvinist view does not believe that consigning billions of people, made in God’s image, to eternal damnation was ever “Plan A” with God. The eternal fire was “prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41)—not for men. The only reason that men ever go there, against God’s stated will, is that (dare I say it?) God cannot prevent them!
Yes, I said it. There are some things that God cannot do. The Bible says so.
For example, He cannot lie (Titus 1:2). If He tells a sinner that he is capable of repenting and doing good (Gen.4:7), but in fact that man was predestined by the good pleasure of God to be irredeemably evil and to go to hell, then God is lying, because He isn’t telling the truth. If God says that He had desired to save the lost, but was unable to do so because they “were not willing” (Matt.23:37), but in fact the reason they never came to Him was because He had secretly decreed that they should not and could not, then, again, He is lying. This is impossible for God to do.
Another thing God cannot do is deny Himself (2 Tim.2:13). He cannot violate His own character and values. Arminians believe that God’s decision to make man in His own image was not very unlike the decision of a human couple to start a family, rather than simply to breed Labrador retrievers. The dogs will never turn on their masters, but most people think that children hold more potential and can be much more satisfying, in the long run.
It is in the nature of children to be morally free and responsible, though the good parent attempts to educate, civilize and influence a child’s will through proper nuture. No parent wants to see a child go astray, but every couple, in choosing to bring a human being into their home (rather than a puppy), knows that it is in the nature of free moral beings to make choices and to live with the consequences. Many parents have known the grief of their children’s rebellion, but have been unable to control the will of another independent human soul. God apparently knew this frustration as well:
“I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me; the ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not consider…What more could have been done…that I have not done? “ (Isa.1:2-3; 5:4).
We might think that God should have been satisfied with oxen and donkeys, who know their master and give no cause of heartache—but, then, He wouldn’t have any children at all, would He? I think that the teaching of scripture about this matter is that God’s highest priority in creation was that He have children, not pets; a family, not a menagerie.
He was under no external compulsion to create people, but He sovereignly chose to do so. He really desired that every one of His children be saved and in relationship with Him, but He wanted them to have that relationship with Him upon a different basis than that of the birds and the bunnies He had already created—all of whom relate to Him just as He wished they would, but without much depth or intimacy.
To have real people means having real choices, which animals don’t have. It means taking the risk of being disappointed. But if it was God’s choice to create such beings, who can fault him? The point is, once such beings are in existence, they make their own choices. That is what they were made to do. Does God wish for them only to make right choices? Of course He does. But it is in the nature of the case that one free will can only wish that another free will should do a certain thing. It is not possible to dictate and determine what another free being will choose.
In God’s case, as sovereign judge of a universe that contains free and responsible agents, He is not at liberty to save those who refuse to be saved, and must, of necessity, punish those whose choices incur righteous judgment. Thus, no one ultimately wins against the sovereign God, though the scriptures bear abundant testimony that many truly disappoint Him.
In the course of making his case, John Piper drifts into a lengthy, and irrelevant, discourse that gives the inattentive reader the impression that the case for his basic point is supported by a wide range of examples and arguments. Piper shows that the crucifixion of Christ, which was the will of God, involved the sinful acts of many participants—Judas, Caiaphas, Pilate, et al—who were doing things that God says are not His will for men to do. The same is true of Joseph’s brothers accomplishing God’s will through their selling Joseph into slavery.
Also God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, and the hearts of other wicked men, as an act of judgment against them, resulted in those hardened sinners performing sinful acts that God elsewhere declares to be contrary to His will. These examples are given to demonstrate that God “in one sense” wills righteousness, but “in another sense” wills evil. Strange as this may seem, Piper tells us, “God's emotional life is infinitely complex beyond our ability to fully comprehend.”
This may be true, but there is nothing very complex or mysterious about the cases Piper gives. Those who killed Jesus and those who betrayed Joseph were already very evil men, by their own choices. God permitted them to carry out their evil designs, just as He allows all men to choose sin, if they insist. God was not obligated to allow them to carry out their evil purposes. He prevented them from doing so on many previous occasions. But, when allowing them to do what they wished proved to be expedient for God’s purposes, Jesus was “delivered [into their hands] according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). There is nothing complex about this. It is the simple principle, as enunciated by Napoleon Bonaparte: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
There is nothing here that says that God put it in the hearts of these men to choose the evil of their ways, nor that these particular men were predestined to be evil. If they had been better men, God could easily have delivered Jesus (and Joseph) into the hands of other evil characters. There have always been plenty around.
Then there are the cases of God's hardening Pharaoh’s (and certain other people’s) heart, of His giving the unbelieving Jews “a spirit of stupor” (Rom.11) and of His giving certain people up to reprobation (Rom.1).
The hardening of the heart of a man so as to prevent him from repenting—and the turning of a man over to the bondage of his own sinful choices—is simply God’s way of saying, “You have exercised your freedom of choice very poorly hitherto, and you are now under my judgment for your sins. Your judgment will be a moral blindness amounting to the suspension of your opportunity to repent.” It is God’s prerogative to judge a man however He sees fit, and to exploit that judgment for the higher good of His kingdom. There is nothing complex or mysterious in this fact.
What Calvinists fail to recognize is that the whole enterprise of God hardening the hearts of certain sinners, so as to prevent their repentance, implies that, had He not taken this special action, they might have repented. Yet Calvinists believe that it takes special election and action on God’s part to make a man repent. If their doctrine were true, God would never have to do anything special to keep a man from repenting. Calvinists would embarrass themselves less by concealing this phenomenon of God's hardening certain men's hearts in scripture, rather than continually bringing it up to their own undoing.
In fact, Piper’s bottom line is very simple and unrelated to the lengthy case He makes for God making use of sinners to accomplish certain important purposes (e.g., the crucifixion of Christ and the transporting of Joseph to Egypt in order to save his family from famine). His real position is that there are some priorities in the mind of God (as in all rational beings) which cause Him to sacrifice certain desires for others—and that the damnation of certain men was so essential to His highest goals, that He had to predestine certain persons, as yet unborn, to that fate, in order to guarantee that He would be glorified in this manner, while He still loved them and wished they had been saved.
What he fails to show is that there is any scriptural support for the notion that God’s highest desire (or His desire at any level, for that matter) was to create any human beings strictly for the purpose of their damnation, to whom He would never grant the genuine opportunity for salvation, because it pleases Him just to know that He is glorified in their eternal torment.
He thinks Arminians are wrong because they appeal to man's "free will" as the factor that overturns God's desire for all to be saved. Yet, "free will," Piper asserts, is not a concept found in the Bible. In commenting on 1 Timothy 2:4, Piper writes:
"There is no mention here of free will. Nor is there mention of sovereign, prevenient, efficacious grace. If all we had was this text we could only guess what restrains God from saving all. When free will is found in this verse it is a philosophical, metaphysical assumption not an exegetical conclusion."
While the term “free will” (like the term “Trinity”) is not found in scripture, it is everywhere illustrated in scripture as well as history and personal experience. The Calvinistic terms “decrees of election” and “decrees of reprobation,” on the other hand, are neither found in scripture, nor illustrated there.
If reason be sought why certain things—like the salvation of all men—are declared to be "the will of God" in scripture, but those things do not come to pass, Piper is correct in recognizing the involvement of “two wills” at odds with each other. His mistake is in seeing both of these wills as being “in God,” rather than recognizing there is the divine will and the will of man. Is man’s will, then, greater than God’s? Only to the degree that "God wills" it to be.
I believe his argument is flawed. Here is my critique:
John Piper’s essay, “Are There Two Will in God,” written as a chapter for the book, “Still Sovereign: Contemporary Perspectives on Election, Foreknowledge and Grace,” is an attempt to show that the Calvinistic doctrine of unconditional election can be harmonized with those texts of scripture which seem to teach the “Arminian” idea that God really wants all men to be saved, and none to be lost.
Calvinism teaches that there are secret “decrees” of God which determine the ultimate destiny of every person, and that, before the onset of human history, every person was thus predetermined by God’s decree either to be eternally saved or eternally lost. It is a corollary of this teaching, jealously defended, that God’s choice in the matter was not affected in any way by the decision that men make, nor of God’s foreknowledge of any such decisions. The sovereign grace of God, who could, if He had wished, have chosen to save every person for salvation, instead chose only some (“the elect”) for salvation, and either passed-over (as modern Calvinists say) or positively reprobated (as John Calvin taught) those whom He did not desire to save.
The fate of every man, woman and child is said to be determined by these sovereign decrees alone. A man can do nothing to change the destiny that was determined by God for him before he was born. He can simply live out the scripted routine of his existence, experiencing the illusion of free choice, but really just fulfilling the secret will of God for him, whether by his life of piety or his life of reprobation.
The Arminians (and the primitive Christians prior to Augustine) have always felt that this is a misrepresentation both of God’s policies and of His desire. They believe that God really desires that every person should be saved and live righteously, and that any failure to do so on the part of a man is owing to that man’s will to reject God’s will, and not a result of God’s willing the man to be reprobate.
The scriptures most often cited to prove that God desires all men to be saved, and that He sent Christ to reconcile the world to Himself are II Pet.3:9/Ezek.33:11/ I John 2:2/I Tim.2:4, 6; 4:10. There are others besides. In fact, every passage in which God complains about man’s sin or unbelief bears further biblical testimony that God has not decreed that men should sin or that they should be in unbelief. These passages number in the hundreds in scripture.
The fact that God wants all men to be saved, set in juxtaposition with the fact that not all men end up saved, suggests that there is not only one will in the universe, but at least two. Arminians say that there is the will of God and the will of man—two wills at odds in the universe. Calvinists say the two wills that are at odds are both in God. That is, in one sense, God wishes all men would be saved; in another sense, He really wants millions of people to burn in hell for all eternity. Piper opens his essay with this ambitious statement of purpose:
“My aim in this chapter is to show from Scripture that the simultaneous existence of God's will for ‘all persons to be saved’ (1 Tim. 2:4) and his will to elect unconditionally those who will actually be saved is not a sign of divine schizophrenia or exegetical confusion.”
I have been surprised to see how many readers seem to think that he accomplished this goal. He does make about as good a case as can be made for such a doomed postulate, but he does so by tricking the mind of the inattentive reader (I don’t suggest that John Piper intends to “trick” anybody. I am sure that he is very convinced of the validity of the case he makes, but Calvinists have in many ways allowed themselves to be “tricked” by a faulty logic which they would never accept if used by their theological opponents. It manifests the phenomenon of how intense desire to believe a thing to be true will lead a man to accept uncritically the flimsiest case in its defense).
Like any good polemicist, Piper begins by explaining the perceived problem and presenting a few of the scriptures that support the objections to his view. He presents the conundrum: God wills that all men would be saved (it’s scriptural); but God has willed to damn a large percentage of men who He could as easily have saved (it’s Calvinism). There must, then, be two wills in God that are contrary to each other.
The bottom line in Piper’s argument is that a rational being may indeed will a thing at a certain level, but choose not to implement that thing out of deference to a higher purpose. I may want to sit around today and play my guitar, but there is work to be done, so I type. On one hand, I want to relax and play music, but some things are more important to me than that, so I really don’t want to relax as much as I want to accomplish something that precludes my relaxation. Two wills. It’s that simple. Or is it?
What if I were capable of doing both? If I could play the guitar and type at the same time, without sacrificing the quality of either activity, but I chose not to play the guitar? Could it really be argued, in such a case, that I truly wanted to play? The only reason that I don’t do everything I want to do is that I can’t do some things without sacrificing other things that I want even more. To say that God wants to save all men, and could do so, but chooses not to do so suggests that there is a higher compelling interest that God has in mind which would be compromised by His saving everyone. Piper acknowledges this, but says that the Arminians are in essentially the same position as are the Calvinists, in this respect:
“…God wills not to save all, even though he is willing to save all, because there is something else that he wills more, which would be lost if he exerted his sovereign power to save all. This is the solution that I as a Calvinist affirm along with Arminians…”
Piper says that the Arminians view man’s free will as that higher priority, which God refuses to compromise, while Calvinists identify that highest priority as “the manifestation of the full range of God's glory in wrath and mercy (Romans 9:22-23) and the humbling of man so that he enjoys giving all credit to God for his salvation (1 Corinthians 1:29).”
This line plays well for Calvinists, but non-Calvinists do not think that God derives more benefit or glory from His judging the wicked than He would derive from saving them (nor do we believe that the Calvinist explanation is the only one that preserves man's humilty and God's glory in salvation). Given the choice between showing mercy and judging sin, on an even playing field, God would prefer showing mercy every time (Ezekiel 33:11). In God’s list of priorities, mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2:13).
Let’s face it, Calvinism has always presented a God of a different character than that which Arminianism and primitive Christianity embraced. The God revealed in Christ must judge sin, when it is persisted in, but is really like a father longing for the restoration of his estranged children. If a single sinner repents, God and His angels rejoice. Calvinism’s God, on the other hand, rejoices to cast the children who disappoint Him into flames of eternal torment.
This is how He chooses to glorify Himself, even though He could as easily have saved them all with the same sovereign grace that He exercised toward the relatively few whom He actually chooses to save. Though He is said to be the perfection of fatherhood, Calvinism’s God is not like any loving father known among men. Even evil fathers, Jesus said, delight to give good things to their children. This is not in contrast to the way God is. It is a dim reflection of that greater compassion in God. “How much more shall your Father who is in heaven…”
The non-Calvinist view does not believe that consigning billions of people, made in God’s image, to eternal damnation was ever “Plan A” with God. The eternal fire was “prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41)—not for men. The only reason that men ever go there, against God’s stated will, is that (dare I say it?) God cannot prevent them!
Yes, I said it. There are some things that God cannot do. The Bible says so.
For example, He cannot lie (Titus 1:2). If He tells a sinner that he is capable of repenting and doing good (Gen.4:7), but in fact that man was predestined by the good pleasure of God to be irredeemably evil and to go to hell, then God is lying, because He isn’t telling the truth. If God says that He had desired to save the lost, but was unable to do so because they “were not willing” (Matt.23:37), but in fact the reason they never came to Him was because He had secretly decreed that they should not and could not, then, again, He is lying. This is impossible for God to do.
Another thing God cannot do is deny Himself (2 Tim.2:13). He cannot violate His own character and values. Arminians believe that God’s decision to make man in His own image was not very unlike the decision of a human couple to start a family, rather than simply to breed Labrador retrievers. The dogs will never turn on their masters, but most people think that children hold more potential and can be much more satisfying, in the long run.
It is in the nature of children to be morally free and responsible, though the good parent attempts to educate, civilize and influence a child’s will through proper nuture. No parent wants to see a child go astray, but every couple, in choosing to bring a human being into their home (rather than a puppy), knows that it is in the nature of free moral beings to make choices and to live with the consequences. Many parents have known the grief of their children’s rebellion, but have been unable to control the will of another independent human soul. God apparently knew this frustration as well:
“I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me; the ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not consider…What more could have been done…that I have not done? “ (Isa.1:2-3; 5:4).
We might think that God should have been satisfied with oxen and donkeys, who know their master and give no cause of heartache—but, then, He wouldn’t have any children at all, would He? I think that the teaching of scripture about this matter is that God’s highest priority in creation was that He have children, not pets; a family, not a menagerie.
He was under no external compulsion to create people, but He sovereignly chose to do so. He really desired that every one of His children be saved and in relationship with Him, but He wanted them to have that relationship with Him upon a different basis than that of the birds and the bunnies He had already created—all of whom relate to Him just as He wished they would, but without much depth or intimacy.
To have real people means having real choices, which animals don’t have. It means taking the risk of being disappointed. But if it was God’s choice to create such beings, who can fault him? The point is, once such beings are in existence, they make their own choices. That is what they were made to do. Does God wish for them only to make right choices? Of course He does. But it is in the nature of the case that one free will can only wish that another free will should do a certain thing. It is not possible to dictate and determine what another free being will choose.
In God’s case, as sovereign judge of a universe that contains free and responsible agents, He is not at liberty to save those who refuse to be saved, and must, of necessity, punish those whose choices incur righteous judgment. Thus, no one ultimately wins against the sovereign God, though the scriptures bear abundant testimony that many truly disappoint Him.
In the course of making his case, John Piper drifts into a lengthy, and irrelevant, discourse that gives the inattentive reader the impression that the case for his basic point is supported by a wide range of examples and arguments. Piper shows that the crucifixion of Christ, which was the will of God, involved the sinful acts of many participants—Judas, Caiaphas, Pilate, et al—who were doing things that God says are not His will for men to do. The same is true of Joseph’s brothers accomplishing God’s will through their selling Joseph into slavery.
Also God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, and the hearts of other wicked men, as an act of judgment against them, resulted in those hardened sinners performing sinful acts that God elsewhere declares to be contrary to His will. These examples are given to demonstrate that God “in one sense” wills righteousness, but “in another sense” wills evil. Strange as this may seem, Piper tells us, “God's emotional life is infinitely complex beyond our ability to fully comprehend.”
This may be true, but there is nothing very complex or mysterious about the cases Piper gives. Those who killed Jesus and those who betrayed Joseph were already very evil men, by their own choices. God permitted them to carry out their evil designs, just as He allows all men to choose sin, if they insist. God was not obligated to allow them to carry out their evil purposes. He prevented them from doing so on many previous occasions. But, when allowing them to do what they wished proved to be expedient for God’s purposes, Jesus was “delivered [into their hands] according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). There is nothing complex about this. It is the simple principle, as enunciated by Napoleon Bonaparte: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
There is nothing here that says that God put it in the hearts of these men to choose the evil of their ways, nor that these particular men were predestined to be evil. If they had been better men, God could easily have delivered Jesus (and Joseph) into the hands of other evil characters. There have always been plenty around.
Then there are the cases of God's hardening Pharaoh’s (and certain other people’s) heart, of His giving the unbelieving Jews “a spirit of stupor” (Rom.11) and of His giving certain people up to reprobation (Rom.1).
The hardening of the heart of a man so as to prevent him from repenting—and the turning of a man over to the bondage of his own sinful choices—is simply God’s way of saying, “You have exercised your freedom of choice very poorly hitherto, and you are now under my judgment for your sins. Your judgment will be a moral blindness amounting to the suspension of your opportunity to repent.” It is God’s prerogative to judge a man however He sees fit, and to exploit that judgment for the higher good of His kingdom. There is nothing complex or mysterious in this fact.
What Calvinists fail to recognize is that the whole enterprise of God hardening the hearts of certain sinners, so as to prevent their repentance, implies that, had He not taken this special action, they might have repented. Yet Calvinists believe that it takes special election and action on God’s part to make a man repent. If their doctrine were true, God would never have to do anything special to keep a man from repenting. Calvinists would embarrass themselves less by concealing this phenomenon of God's hardening certain men's hearts in scripture, rather than continually bringing it up to their own undoing.
In fact, Piper’s bottom line is very simple and unrelated to the lengthy case He makes for God making use of sinners to accomplish certain important purposes (e.g., the crucifixion of Christ and the transporting of Joseph to Egypt in order to save his family from famine). His real position is that there are some priorities in the mind of God (as in all rational beings) which cause Him to sacrifice certain desires for others—and that the damnation of certain men was so essential to His highest goals, that He had to predestine certain persons, as yet unborn, to that fate, in order to guarantee that He would be glorified in this manner, while He still loved them and wished they had been saved.
What he fails to show is that there is any scriptural support for the notion that God’s highest desire (or His desire at any level, for that matter) was to create any human beings strictly for the purpose of their damnation, to whom He would never grant the genuine opportunity for salvation, because it pleases Him just to know that He is glorified in their eternal torment.
He thinks Arminians are wrong because they appeal to man's "free will" as the factor that overturns God's desire for all to be saved. Yet, "free will," Piper asserts, is not a concept found in the Bible. In commenting on 1 Timothy 2:4, Piper writes:
"There is no mention here of free will. Nor is there mention of sovereign, prevenient, efficacious grace. If all we had was this text we could only guess what restrains God from saving all. When free will is found in this verse it is a philosophical, metaphysical assumption not an exegetical conclusion."
While the term “free will” (like the term “Trinity”) is not found in scripture, it is everywhere illustrated in scripture as well as history and personal experience. The Calvinistic terms “decrees of election” and “decrees of reprobation,” on the other hand, are neither found in scripture, nor illustrated there.
If reason be sought why certain things—like the salvation of all men—are declared to be "the will of God" in scripture, but those things do not come to pass, Piper is correct in recognizing the involvement of “two wills” at odds with each other. His mistake is in seeing both of these wills as being “in God,” rather than recognizing there is the divine will and the will of man. Is man’s will, then, greater than God’s? Only to the degree that "God wills" it to be.
Last edited by FAST WebCrawler [Crawler] on Wed Nov 09, 2005 2:39 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
In Jesus,
Steve
Steve
Yes, the reformed elder I talked to also believed in two wills of God. This is how they get around any passage that refutes their doctrine. Like God not desiring any to perish but all to come to repentance. No problem for them because that's will #2. Will #1 would be that He's already made up His mind before the foundation of the world who would repent and believe by causing it to be so.
Last edited by W3C [Linkcheck] on Thu May 04, 2006 4:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Reason:
By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)
The desire of God for none to perish has nothing to do with the two wills of God.
Look at the whole passage:
2Peter 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you,[a] not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 10But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.[c]
Who is 2 Peter addressed to? The pronoun "you" that I embolded refers back to whom? It is basic rules of grammar, really.
Look at the whole passage:
2Peter 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you,[a] not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 10But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.[c]
Who is 2 Peter addressed to? The pronoun "you" that I embolded refers back to whom? It is basic rules of grammar, really.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
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Reason:
Aole Opala No
As to the OP, does the bible not say this:
Genesis 50:19But Joseph said to them, "Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? 20As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people[a] should be kept alive, as they are today. 21So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones." Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
Genesis 50:19But Joseph said to them, "Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? 20As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people[a] should be kept alive, as they are today. 21So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones." Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
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JJB said
"The desire of God for none to perish has nothing to do with the two wills of God."
Well good. That means no one can use the two wills of God to support that He unconditionally elected some to eternal damnation. Which Scriptures are clear that He didn't, withouth the passages that deal with "every creature" "world" "all men".
JJB said
"Look at the whole passage:"
Yes, let's do that.
2Peter 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you,[a] not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 10But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.[c]
First, it must be noted that none of them are recorded to be in a backslidden state correct? Second, if they are believers, they've already came to repentance.
Pr 28:13 -He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.
Acts 5:31 Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.
As one repents, they recieve forgiveness of sins.
Acts 11:18- When they heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, "Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life." As one repents, they recieve the life of God, and is made alive. Not recieve life them repent. Repentance brings life, or leads to life.
Acts 3:19- Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Repentance hinges with forgiveness, yet repentance comes first.
Without repentance, there is no salvation, forgivness of sins, or eternal life. Repentance and faith is the condition for recieving those things from the Lord.
2 Cor. 7:10 - For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.
Luke 13:3 unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
So it's clear that repentance is nessecary in order to not perish.
Acts 26:18- to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance...
Jesus told Paul that He was sending him to open their eyes. How would Paul do so? By the preaching of the gospel. It would take that to turn them from darkness to light, which is talking of repentance, and repentance is necessary in order to receive forgiveness of sins, and the inheritance believers recieve and inherit in the one new man, the corporate body of Christ. That is, everything inherited IN CHRIST.
So does God want all to come to repentance, and none to perish?
Acts 17:30 Truly these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. So does this mean
Mark 16:15 ..."Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." No do a comparison. all the world/everywhere couple together, and every creature/all men do so as well. So it's clear these verses aren't talking of all classes of men, but all men in every class of men.
Now as for 2 Pet. 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is longsuffering toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
God is telling the believers through the epistle of Peter that He is patient and longsuffering toward His creatures, not wanting any of them to perish but all to reach repentance. Since they (the believers) are called beloved and Jesus is the Beloved, they share with Christ and partake of God's love towards the Son In Christ. They are dearly loved by by God just as Jesus was dearly loved by God. Yet God is longsuffering towards all and wants all to come to repentance. In fact, in Rom. 9:22, God even endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. It is true that any individual in this "catagory" of vessel can repent and enter into the vessel of mercy "catagory". If they don't, they will be fit for destruction and will perish. God is longsuffering toward all. Even Jezebel in Revelations.
Revelation 2:20-22
20 Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. 21 And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent. 22 Indeed I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds.
Jesus is so holy and loving. Look how He expresses His love towards someone that's not the even elect and someone who winds up in hell. He gave ever her time to repent. He says He will cast her into a sickbed, and those who basically share in her sins, "unless" they repent of their deeds.
Consider His words, "I gave her time to repent... and she did not.
Robert Shank says the following in His excellent book called "elect in the Son" "Now if Calvinism's monergism is correct, if repentance hinges on the decision of God alone, if man repents only as a consequence of a special immediate act of God, we are left to wonder why Christ gave Jezebel opportunity to repent without giving her repentance. If her failure to repent was the consequence of His own decision, in what sense did He give her opportunity to repent? If He did not choose for her to repent, why did He do something directed toward repentance? If He did something directed toward repentance, why did He not do everything needed? If the repentance of Jezebel and His servants hinged on His own decision rather than theirs, where is the sincerity in His warning of dire consequences to come "except they repent"? No logic, no reason, no sensible meaning can be found in the text if it be denied that there is latitude in the will of God and that man's agency and response ability to repent are authentic rather than artificial, imaginary and symbolic, as monergism insists."
JJB said
"Who is 2 Peter addressed to? The pronoun "you" that I embolded refers back to whom? It is basic rules of grammar, really."
Call it whatever you want, and in the mean time, I'll take the "whole counsel of God" and interperet Scripture with Scripture. Even if 2 Pet is unclear on who Peter was talking of, the rest of the bible is not.
Romans 2:4 Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? 5 But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,
May you be sensitive to the Holy Spirit in Jesus Name.
SoaringEagle
God bless you.
"The desire of God for none to perish has nothing to do with the two wills of God."
Well good. That means no one can use the two wills of God to support that He unconditionally elected some to eternal damnation. Which Scriptures are clear that He didn't, withouth the passages that deal with "every creature" "world" "all men".
JJB said
"Look at the whole passage:"
Yes, let's do that.
2Peter 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you,[a] not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 10But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.[c]
First, it must be noted that none of them are recorded to be in a backslidden state correct? Second, if they are believers, they've already came to repentance.
Pr 28:13 -He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.
Acts 5:31 Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.
As one repents, they recieve forgiveness of sins.
Acts 11:18- When they heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, "Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life." As one repents, they recieve the life of God, and is made alive. Not recieve life them repent. Repentance brings life, or leads to life.
Acts 3:19- Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Repentance hinges with forgiveness, yet repentance comes first.
Without repentance, there is no salvation, forgivness of sins, or eternal life. Repentance and faith is the condition for recieving those things from the Lord.
2 Cor. 7:10 - For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.
Luke 13:3 unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
So it's clear that repentance is nessecary in order to not perish.
Acts 26:18- to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance...
Jesus told Paul that He was sending him to open their eyes. How would Paul do so? By the preaching of the gospel. It would take that to turn them from darkness to light, which is talking of repentance, and repentance is necessary in order to receive forgiveness of sins, and the inheritance believers recieve and inherit in the one new man, the corporate body of Christ. That is, everything inherited IN CHRIST.
So does God want all to come to repentance, and none to perish?
Acts 17:30 Truly these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. So does this mean
Mark 16:15 ..."Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." No do a comparison. all the world/everywhere couple together, and every creature/all men do so as well. So it's clear these verses aren't talking of all classes of men, but all men in every class of men.
Now as for 2 Pet. 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is longsuffering toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
God is telling the believers through the epistle of Peter that He is patient and longsuffering toward His creatures, not wanting any of them to perish but all to reach repentance. Since they (the believers) are called beloved and Jesus is the Beloved, they share with Christ and partake of God's love towards the Son In Christ. They are dearly loved by by God just as Jesus was dearly loved by God. Yet God is longsuffering towards all and wants all to come to repentance. In fact, in Rom. 9:22, God even endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. It is true that any individual in this "catagory" of vessel can repent and enter into the vessel of mercy "catagory". If they don't, they will be fit for destruction and will perish. God is longsuffering toward all. Even Jezebel in Revelations.
Revelation 2:20-22
20 Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. 21 And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent. 22 Indeed I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds.
Jesus is so holy and loving. Look how He expresses His love towards someone that's not the even elect and someone who winds up in hell. He gave ever her time to repent. He says He will cast her into a sickbed, and those who basically share in her sins, "unless" they repent of their deeds.
Consider His words, "I gave her time to repent... and she did not.
Robert Shank says the following in His excellent book called "elect in the Son" "Now if Calvinism's monergism is correct, if repentance hinges on the decision of God alone, if man repents only as a consequence of a special immediate act of God, we are left to wonder why Christ gave Jezebel opportunity to repent without giving her repentance. If her failure to repent was the consequence of His own decision, in what sense did He give her opportunity to repent? If He did not choose for her to repent, why did He do something directed toward repentance? If He did something directed toward repentance, why did He not do everything needed? If the repentance of Jezebel and His servants hinged on His own decision rather than theirs, where is the sincerity in His warning of dire consequences to come "except they repent"? No logic, no reason, no sensible meaning can be found in the text if it be denied that there is latitude in the will of God and that man's agency and response ability to repent are authentic rather than artificial, imaginary and symbolic, as monergism insists."
JJB said
"Who is 2 Peter addressed to? The pronoun "you" that I embolded refers back to whom? It is basic rules of grammar, really."
Call it whatever you want, and in the mean time, I'll take the "whole counsel of God" and interperet Scripture with Scripture. Even if 2 Pet is unclear on who Peter was talking of, the rest of the bible is not.
Romans 2:4 Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? 5 But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,
May you be sensitive to the Holy Spirit in Jesus Name.
SoaringEagle
God bless you.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
Soaring Eagle wrote:
Romans 2:5 But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,
Was your underlined bit meant for me, Soaring Eagle? Why do you think I have a hard and impenitent heart? How can you make such a rash judgment upon me? These were my first two posts and this is the reaction I receive? hmmmmmm
If God desires none to perish, then why are there unbelievers? Why are there vessels of wrath?
Romans 9: 21Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? 22What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory--
The message of the gospel is to be preached to all men. God commands all men everywhere to repent. But is the call heard and obeyed by all? Why or why not? Can our will overturn God's desire? Is God's will so easily thwarted by man's apparent all-powerful will?
Romans 2:5 But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,
Was your underlined bit meant for me, Soaring Eagle? Why do you think I have a hard and impenitent heart? How can you make such a rash judgment upon me? These were my first two posts and this is the reaction I receive? hmmmmmm
If God desires none to perish, then why are there unbelievers? Why are there vessels of wrath?
Romans 9: 21Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? 22What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory--
The message of the gospel is to be preached to all men. God commands all men everywhere to repent. But is the call heard and obeyed by all? Why or why not? Can our will overturn God's desire? Is God's will so easily thwarted by man's apparent all-powerful will?
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
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Reason:
Aole Opala No
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No my friend, my underlined bit wasn't meant for you, I wasn't thinking of you when writing that. I was talking about everyone in the catagory of the wicked. I don't know if you have a hard or impenitent heart. If your in Christ, I'd think you've recieved a new heart and a new spirit. That is if you responded in repentance and faith to the initial calling of God through the gospel of salvation that is to be preached to every creature. I wasn't making judgments on you, and am sorry if that's how it appeared.
If God desires none to perish, then why are there unbelievers? Why are there vessels of wrath? Scripture says that men love darkness rather than light and that this is why they finally end up in hell. It was what they chose. If you think God has chosen to save some in the sense that you think He does (irresistable grace, effectual calling) then why doesn't He do that to all? What makes Him hold back so to speak and not intervene with those finally damned? Why does He not show them the love He expresses on those He elected for heaven?
Romans 9: 21Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? 22What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory--
In order to fully understand verse 19, lets go back to old testament talk of potter-clay usage. Jeremiah 18:5 Then the LORD gave me this message: 6 "O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand. 7 If I announce that a certain nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed, 8 but then that nation renounces its evil ways, I will not destroy it as I had planned.
It seems as if man plays a part in whether or not to be in the vessel of honor/mercy catagory or to be in the vessel of dishonor/wrath catagory. These are two catagories just as Jeremiah 18 implys with the nation of Israel. Next, we see that the vessels of wrath were not said to be predestined, and also weren't said to be prepared beforehand as were the vessels of mercy. Plus, if it were God's eternal decree that they would be condemned, why does it say that He endured with MUCH longsuffering. If it was what He unconditionally determined before time, why is he showing emotional sorrow over them. Is he pretending when He does so, or is He sincerely expressing how He feels? If He is sincere, then why doesn't he bestow His irresistable grace on them?
JJB wrote
The message of the gospel is to be preached to all men. God commands all men everywhere to repent. But is the call heard and obeyed by all? Why or why not? Can our will overturn God's desire? Is God's will so easily thwarted by man's apparent all-powerful will?
The reason why some obey and some dont has to do with substance. That is, the condition of the heart. The parable of the sower shows 4 conditions of the heart of man or four catagories of heart conditions that man can be in. Only one has a true, long lasting reception. Can our will overturn God's desire? Well, in what way does the Spirit of God strive with man? In Genesis, God says my Spirit will not always strive with man. What does this mean? Explain this, and you might find an answer. I don't think you undertand how God has chosen to for the most part deal with man.
Luke 7:30-But the Pharisees and experts in religious law had rejected God's plan for them, for they had refused John's baptism. (NLT)
Mans will isn't all-powerful, and most non-calvinists teach and believe we are to depend on Him for everything. Yet I believe you and many Calvinists are mistaken when it comes to how God expresses His Sovereignty and Omnipotence. He is in control, but is not a control freak. He doesn't actively determine every single decision by every single person, fish, sea creature, animal, insect, whether, tree, plant, and for that matter human.
In Love,
SoaringEagle
If God desires none to perish, then why are there unbelievers? Why are there vessels of wrath? Scripture says that men love darkness rather than light and that this is why they finally end up in hell. It was what they chose. If you think God has chosen to save some in the sense that you think He does (irresistable grace, effectual calling) then why doesn't He do that to all? What makes Him hold back so to speak and not intervene with those finally damned? Why does He not show them the love He expresses on those He elected for heaven?
Romans 9: 21Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? 22What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory--
In order to fully understand verse 19, lets go back to old testament talk of potter-clay usage. Jeremiah 18:5 Then the LORD gave me this message: 6 "O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand. 7 If I announce that a certain nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed, 8 but then that nation renounces its evil ways, I will not destroy it as I had planned.
It seems as if man plays a part in whether or not to be in the vessel of honor/mercy catagory or to be in the vessel of dishonor/wrath catagory. These are two catagories just as Jeremiah 18 implys with the nation of Israel. Next, we see that the vessels of wrath were not said to be predestined, and also weren't said to be prepared beforehand as were the vessels of mercy. Plus, if it were God's eternal decree that they would be condemned, why does it say that He endured with MUCH longsuffering. If it was what He unconditionally determined before time, why is he showing emotional sorrow over them. Is he pretending when He does so, or is He sincerely expressing how He feels? If He is sincere, then why doesn't he bestow His irresistable grace on them?
JJB wrote
The message of the gospel is to be preached to all men. God commands all men everywhere to repent. But is the call heard and obeyed by all? Why or why not? Can our will overturn God's desire? Is God's will so easily thwarted by man's apparent all-powerful will?
The reason why some obey and some dont has to do with substance. That is, the condition of the heart. The parable of the sower shows 4 conditions of the heart of man or four catagories of heart conditions that man can be in. Only one has a true, long lasting reception. Can our will overturn God's desire? Well, in what way does the Spirit of God strive with man? In Genesis, God says my Spirit will not always strive with man. What does this mean? Explain this, and you might find an answer. I don't think you undertand how God has chosen to for the most part deal with man.
Luke 7:30-But the Pharisees and experts in religious law had rejected God's plan for them, for they had refused John's baptism. (NLT)
Mans will isn't all-powerful, and most non-calvinists teach and believe we are to depend on Him for everything. Yet I believe you and many Calvinists are mistaken when it comes to how God expresses His Sovereignty and Omnipotence. He is in control, but is not a control freak. He doesn't actively determine every single decision by every single person, fish, sea creature, animal, insect, whether, tree, plant, and for that matter human.
In Love,
SoaringEagle
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
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Steve, you are right that Piper's essay is full of mostly irrelevant discussion, or 'verbal-smog' as Shank might term it.
There's something he says which I find interesting:
"What does God will more than saving all? The answer given by Arminians is that human self-determination and the possible resulting love relationship with God are more valuable than saving all people by sovereign, efficacious grace. The answer given by Calvinists is that the greater value is the manifestation of the full range of God's glory in wrath and mercy (Romans 9:22-23) and the humbling of man so that he enjoys giving all credit to God for his salvation (1 Corinthians 1:29)."
I can't work out why Piper thinks that God cannot will both "human self-determination and the possible resulting love relationship with God" and "the manifestation of the full range of God's glory in wrath and mercy... and the humbling of man so that he enjoys giving all credit to God for his salvation".
It seems to me that throughout history both have been in operation. Since the fall, Cration has manifested both God's wrath and His mercy (Romans 5:12-14, 8:18-22, Psalm 104 etc) but simultaneously, God has also given man the freedom to chose whether to respond to His wrath and mercy and be saved, or perish.
I don't see the need for an "either..or" scenario here.
There's something he says which I find interesting:
"What does God will more than saving all? The answer given by Arminians is that human self-determination and the possible resulting love relationship with God are more valuable than saving all people by sovereign, efficacious grace. The answer given by Calvinists is that the greater value is the manifestation of the full range of God's glory in wrath and mercy (Romans 9:22-23) and the humbling of man so that he enjoys giving all credit to God for his salvation (1 Corinthians 1:29)."
I can't work out why Piper thinks that God cannot will both "human self-determination and the possible resulting love relationship with God" and "the manifestation of the full range of God's glory in wrath and mercy... and the humbling of man so that he enjoys giving all credit to God for his salvation".
It seems to me that throughout history both have been in operation. Since the fall, Cration has manifested both God's wrath and His mercy (Romans 5:12-14, 8:18-22, Psalm 104 etc) but simultaneously, God has also given man the freedom to chose whether to respond to His wrath and mercy and be saved, or perish.
I don't see the need for an "either..or" scenario here.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
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"Looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Christ Jesus" Titus 2:13
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_SoaringEagle
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Does anyone ever wonder that if God wants people to come to Him so badly, why does He allow such a lot of ignorance? Why not give people gentle, non-coercive pushes toward understanding the Bible and becoming Christian? After all, God is still in control of a person's life, isn't He?
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
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