When
- Thread starter TomFL
- Start date
Theo1689
Well-known member
First of all, if you don't know the answers to these questions, you should CERTAINLY not hold any kind of position "teaching" in a church.
Secondly, this is the Arminianism and Calvinism forum, and you haven't demonstrated how your bizarre questions relate to either of those topics.
Finally, your questions seem to assume the non-existence of man, and I don't know ANYONE who believes that, so exactly who are you expecting to answer?
So is there a reason you addressed neither ?
it most certainly is relevant to this board and if you cannot see that perhaps it is you who should not hold any teaching position in a church
and certainly i stated nothing at all about the non existence of man so it becomes double clear you should not be allowed near a teaching position
What specificallyWhatever He wants with both questions
When God restrains something a man would do
What is he restraining ?
When he allows something a man would do
What is he allowing ?
civic
Well-known member
Ok
The man's free will
restraint presupposes a will to restrain
permission presupposes a will to permit
The alternative is God
is restraining or permitting his own determinations
which makes no sense
civic
Well-known member
My position is there is no free will to restrain.
So the alternative God is restraining his own determination
I do not see that as making much sense
Logically God should be seen a restraining something he did not determine to be done
God does not make mistakes or need to provide correction to what he has determined
and in that sense it was free - the man decided on a course of action to be done without being determined
God intervened and restrained it
civic
Well-known member
God restrains evil and that is clearly spelled out in those exact words in scripture so that is not debatable. I would have to do a quick word study on Gods restraining in Scripture for a list.
Do you have a list ?
A list of all that God has restrained ?
No
It was just logical argument
I see no sense in God acting to restrain a course of action he had determined
and if he did not detemine the course of action the man did
as We are not naturalistic determinists
civic
Well-known member
So an example of restraining would be the waters of the Red Sea, would you agree ?
TibiasDad
Active member
If the will is restrained, it is not free. The only will that can be restrained is a will yet unrestrained, ie, a free will.
Doug
TibiasDad
Active member
Sketo
Well-known member
Fallen man's, or Satan's, sinful desires so that they are not as evil as they could be so as to not allow them to act outside of God's set limit!
Fallen man's, or Satan's, sinful desires so that they are as evil as they want to be but not able to act outside of God's set limit!
The alternative is to have an uncontrolled devil running roughshod over God’s creation. But, the Bible is full of examples of God limiting and binding Satan. Consider Job. Or Satan’s desire to sift Peter, but Christ intervened. Even Legion could not take the herd of swine without Jesus’ consent.
Or, to look at it another way, we know that in the book of Revelation Satan is bound and put into an abyss for 1000 years. Afterward he is released, vanquished, and placed in the Lake of Fire. Now, since we know that God has the power to do that, why has He not done it yet? The only rational answer is: Satan plays a part in God’s economy. When God is done with him, He will judge him and seclude him eternally.
Theologically, God does not have to be evil in order to create evil in His universe. Just as darkness is the natural state of all unlit matter and energy is necessary to produce light, God can produce evil in His creatures simply by withholding His goodness. He does not have to be positively evil to do this. He merely has to withhold Himself and allow the natural darkness to have its way.
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And if I believe Calvinism i would have to believe God determined those sinful desires
So God would be restraining his own determinations
Does thast make sense to you ?
Nowhere does the bible suggust God is the cause of all of man's sin.
The idea is patently unbiblical.
God is holy separate from sin not the cause, author or planner of it.
zerinus
Well-known member
Here is an example of God “restraining” a man from (innocently) committing a sin:
Genesis 20:
5 Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this.
6 And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.
7 Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that are thine.
zerinus
Well-known member
Not quite. It depends on how it is restrained and by whom it is restrained. If a criminal is put in jail to prevent him from committing his crimes, his “freewill” is not restrained, but his ability carry out his freewill choices and decisions is restrained. The intentionality of his freewill decisions have not been removed, but only his ability to carry them out has been. In Calvinism, however, it is a different situation entirely. Your intentions, motivations, and desires that underlie your choices, decisions, and actions are not yours, but predetermined by God, which means that you have no freewill at all. To say that you “freely choose what you want,” but that your “want” is predetermined by God is a very dishonest an hypocritical theology. If your “want” has been predetermined, then you have no freewill at all.