I do not see how they can escape it
or how they cannot see how determinism impacts negatively on the love, justice and the holiness of God
Yes it does impact negatively on the love, justice and the holiness of God.
Imagine a little girl being kidnapped by a vile sex maniac who places her in his car and drives from her neighborhood to an isolated forest alongside a river. In spite of her crying and protesting, he takes her down to the riverbank where he rapes her, strangles her, and throws her body in the river. This is not merely imaginary; it is based on a true story.
Calvin offers us the case of a merchant who foolishly wanders away from his companions and comes upon a thieves’ den and is robbed and murdered. As earlier quoted, he says this event, like all events, was not only foreseen and allowed by God but actually caused and governed by God’s secret plan. Nowhere does he suggest or allow that this is an exception to God’s sovereignty; rather, he makes clear it is an illustration of how God works all things that are always being “directed by God’s ever-present hand.”
We read about the foolish merchant or a similar event today and shake our heads and say, “Yup; I can see God foreordaining that. What a stupid man. And God could easily have a good reason for causing that to happen.” But if Calvin is right it is not only the foolish merchant whose death is rendered certain by God; it is also the kidnap, rape, and murder of the little girl that was “directed by God’s ever-present hand.” Notice that this event was not a freak disaster of nature or the result of someone’s stupidity. It was pure evil. But whether we take Calvin’s illustration of the murdered merchant or the very real illustration of the little girl, according to Calvinism’s view of God’s sovereignty both are identical in that God planned, ordained, governed, and rendered them certain. That makes God and his
secret counsel “the determined architect of evil.”
INSTITUTES of THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION BY JOHN CALVIN
CHAPTER XVI the world, created by God, still cherished and protected by him. each and all of its parts governed by his providence
2. That this distinction may be the more manifest, we must consider that the Providence of God, as taught in Scripture, is opposed to fortune and fortuitous causes. By an erroneous opinion prevailing in all ages, an opinion almost universally prevailing in our own day, viz., that all things happen fortuitously, the true doctrine of Providence has not only been obscured, but almost buried.
If one falls among robbers, or ravenous beasts; if a sudden gust of wind at sea causes shipwreck; if one is struck down by the fall of a house or a tree; if another, when wandering through desert paths, meets with deliverance; or, after being tossed by the waves, arrives in port, and makes some wondrous hair-breadth escape from death—all these occurrences, prosperous as well as adverse, carnal sense will attribute to fortune. But whoso has learned from the mouth of Christ that all the hairs of his head are numbered, (Matth. 10:30,) will look farther for the cause, and hold that
all events whatsoever are governed by the secret counsel of God. With regard to inanimate objects, again, we must hold that though each is possessed of its peculiar properties, yet all of them exert their force only in so far as directed by the immediate hand of God. Hence they are merely instruments, into which God constantly infuses what energy he sees meet, and turns and converts to any purpose at his pleasure