Carbon
Well-known member
@brightfame52
it seems the majority of your dialog is by cut and paste. Is that why you find it difficult to recall what you previously posted? Or to answer any questions?
just curious
Covenant of grace
- Thread starter Carbon
- Start date
it seems the majority of your dialog is by cut and paste. Is that why you find it difficult to recall what you previously posted? Or to answer any questions?
just curious
brightfame52
Well-known member
When were the sins of the elect charged to them considering the covenant of grace setup before the foundation ?
Carbon
Well-known member
Like I said, and like you say.
Read all my previous posts, you’ll find my answer.
brightfame52
Well-known member
Okay I will let you off the hook. Next time you start a thread please be ready to intelligently discuss it.
Carbon
Well-known member
Like I said, and like you say.
Read all my previous posts, you’ll find my answer.
brightfame52
Well-known member
When were the sins of the elect charged to them considering the covenant of grace setup before the foundation ?
Carbon
Well-known member
Like I said, and like you say.
Read all my previous posts, you’ll find my answer.
I am not sure what the issue is here. I’m trying to communicate with you in the way you understand. But your still not getting it, so how do you expect other to read all your posts to find your answers?
Come on now bright, I just don’t get it, please explain - how does that work for you but not for others?
Ken Hamrick
Active member
I agree with much of Calvinism… and some of Arminianism. I don’t think it’s a fair assessment to blame a worship of free will for the Arminian view. The reason they object to how Calvinists portray it is foremost because of the freedom by which they know they came to Christ. As systems go, Calvinism is stronger scripturally and logically. But the undying tenacity of the Arminian view is due to their holding a corner of truth that Calvinism has no room for—the irrepressible, innate knowledge of every man that his decisions are his own to make. Their real objection is not to God causing the good choices, but that He would cause the bad ones too. In Calvinism, He seems to cause it all. The root of their objection is not that God would save men against their will, but that He would damn them irrelevant to their will. And saddling them with a sin nature that they cannot overcome would be a condemnation prior to their will. Arminians can’t see a loving God doing this; and so their other arguments flow out of this. Calvinists neglect the love of God—some even denying His love for the nonelect; and they deny the freedom by which men reject God. Calvinists like a tidy system with clean lines, “locked” at every point. But it is not possible for men to systematize God’s word in such a tightly organized fashion without neglecting those parts of the truth that don’t fit so well with the system we’re trying to fit it all into. Calvin painted himself into a corner here and there, and those corners have been driving the opposition for centuries. Calvinists & Arminians have the same problem: neither will give up the truth he knows for the truth he denies, and neither can seem to understand that both truths fit together if not for the additional man-made logic that each uses to organize their system.
ReverendRV
Well-known member
I often say that if Calvinism would relax on Free Will a little, then a lot more people would like Calvinism. The WCF says violence from God is not offered to the Will, and the Liberty of Second Causes is established. After that, the Will could be discussed further...
As Calvinists, why don't we use that to our advantage?
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Theo1689
Well-known member
But that is nothing but an illusion.
We don't have "freedom" over our will.
Even ignoring the fact that Scripture teaches that we're ALWAYS enslaved, either slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness (Rom. 6:16-22), but our personal experience should tell us that while we can (and do) act according to our will, we cannot CONTROL what our will wants in the first place. I love chocolate, I can't "will" myself not to like it. I can's stand peas. I can't "will" myself to like them. Our will is simply not under our control.
And yes, the is a "freedom" by which everyone "can" come to Christ, but the problem is that unless they're regenerated, they will never WANT to come to Him. I can put a bottle of poison on the dining room table, and it is "free" for you to access, and you "can" access it, but I'm pretty sure that you're not going to consume it for any of your meals.
But again, they're not, are they?
They SEEM to be ours to make, because we act according to our will, and so we ASSUME that we have control. But we don't.
Well, I'm not sure you get that from, but in my 30 years of experience, their main objection is PRECISELY that "God would save men against their will".
And not only have I NEVER heard an Arminian voice the objection, "I don't like that He would damn them irrelevant to their will", but in point of fact God is NOT damning them "irrelevant to their will". He is damning them based on their WILLFUL choice to sin, and their WILLFUL choice to deny the Lord.
But why do they have any expectation for anything different? What inalienable "right" do people think they have, to be created in some "advantageous" way? But I think you're onto something, as I have realized for many years now that (IMO) the difference between Calvinism and Arminianism is that Calvinism simply accepts what Scripture teaches, while Arminianism depends on rationalizations on how (sinful) people think God SHOULD be, and how salvation SHOULD be.
They go, "It's not fair to be under a sin nature when it's not our fault."
Yet Paul writes:
Rom. 9:20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?
Exactly.
They begin with false premises, based on rationalization, instead of Scripture.
Ken Hamrick
Active member
You're correct. But this aspect is a little harder to grasp for most, and I think it causes difficulties on both sides. While I cannot will myself to not love chocolate (or to like cilantro), I can will myself to not partake of chocolate (or to eat cilantro) in spite of my desires to the contrary. There is an aspect of our will that remains under judgment regardless of inclination, precisely because of the power that it does have to act against inclination. I'm not speaking of power in the moral sense, but in the natural sense. Morally, we stand powerless as sinners to do as we ought. But we also stand without excuse--not because God demands of us what we cannot do, but because nothing stands in our way if we were but willing to do as we ought--and if we are not willing, then that is our own fault. The reason for our moral powerlessness is because we have a heart that is wicked and completely lacking in will to do the good. But that is the only thing keeping us from doing the good: the complete lack of will for it. The fact that we will never have the will for it outside of God causing that within us is what makes us slaves. But the analogy is not complete, in that a literal slave may want to be free but may never break the chains, while a moral slave has chains made out of his own will, so that he never really wants to be free. The literal slave is not permitted to do what his master does not allow; while a moral slave never wants to do what his master does not want. If the moral slave willed to do the right, he could do the right. But his slavery is such that he will never will such a thing. And if he claims to have tried to will it, but to no avail against the chains holding his inclinations, it would be the same as saying that he had a whim to do the right but his true desires did not find it a thing that he really wanted.
Calvinists tend to lose sight of this difference between an inability consisting only in lack of will and an inability that would remain no matter how much a man might will otherwise. The former is just as determining as the latter, but only the latter offers an excuse--and only the latter justifies the objection that a sinner "had no choice in the matter." Too often, Calvinists emphasize the inability of sinners so much that one would think that sinners could not even will the right if they wanted to with their whole heart. Why, after all, they're just dead corpses, dead in sin, and are absolutely incapable of responding to the gospel--right? But the biblical view is that sinners are more depraved than that, because they are so depraved that even though they could respond if they really wanted to, they just don't want to--and that is far more depraved than a man who might have come if he hadn't been totally unable to respond.
I applaud you for understanding the truth on this point. They will never WANT to. Amen! But had they only wanted to, nothing stands in their way--so they are without excuse and without any ground for objecting that they could not come no matter how much they might have been willing otherwise.
From cover to cover, God in the Bible condemns men for making sinful decisions (and, yes, He rewards men for making righteous decisions). No one reading such passages needs to wrestle with why this is so. It is clear that in God's eyes, a man who chooses sinfully should have and could have chosen righteously--and every man's conscience tells him the same thing. With every temptation God provides a way of escape. The temptation could not come except through inclination. We're not responsible for our inclinations--only for our chosen actions. Merely because we refuse to act against our inclinations does not establish that we do not have enough control over our will to do so. Merely because no man will act against his inclinations does not establish the excuse that he really couldn't do it even if he wanted to.
Yes, they object to the idea of God saving men against their will. But this is not the root, if you will, or the real objection at the base of this thinking. Such an objection would lose steam, I think, if God saved ALL men by force, rather than some. You see, the Arminian is driven to this objection only because it is presupposed that God does not save all. The root objection is to God reprobating men who had no real choice in the matter, and this is what drives them to make arguments about the need for freedom of will.
But you just said that it's not really their choice. Given Calvinist doctrine, their willfulness to sin and reject God is a willfulness that was given to them by God. It is not really theirs if they did not choose it. Sin in that case is not their shame but their misfortune, and hell is only a calamity and not a punishment.
A right is simply what IS right. It IS right that God be just and not merely sovereign. Might does not make right. God is just--and not merely because whatever He does is to be called just because it is He who does it, but because He always does what is indeed right. And God Himself tells us that it is not right for the innocent to be held guilty. And such a scheme is not needed. There is no need to take men's inability to such extremes as to say that they could not come to Christ even if they wanted to, or they could not will to do so no matter how much they might want to. Therefore, if they don't want to, that's their fault, since they should have and could have wanted to (if all their natural abilities are taken into account). When Paul mentions the objection, "Why have you made me like this?" to what does "like this" refer? It refers to the fact that the man will never WANT to come to Christ--not that he could not want to no matter what. So the sinner with a heart that will never want Christ cannot object, "Why have you made me like this?" And neither can he object, "Why are you punishing me when I had no choice in the matter?" He did have a choice, and he did have enough ability to come to Christ had he really wanted to. He didn't want to so he made his choice.
Our Lord's God
Well-known member
Bunk. God is not a pretender.