The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum MJM, 5-Point Calvinism and the Bible

(fred) Could you be a little more specific as to your questions? If by influencing and wooing you mean to say does God act directly upon the will of sinners so that they are freed from the blinding aspect of sin and have the ability to come to Christ and most certainly will, then I guess I would have to say yes.


(Fred) God did not force them in the sense that he put a "spiritual" gun to their head and the terrorist, with shaking hands and weepy hearts, killed Leigh against all their moral fiber because they had no other choice. It is better to stay with biblical examples here. Back to Isaiah 10. Did God "force" the Assyrians to attack Israel against their will, or did they freely go? Yet, at the same time, God states emphatically through the prophet Isaiah that He is the one bringing them against Israel. What about Joshua 11:20? God is said to have "hardened the hearts" hearts of the Canaanites to go out against Israel in battle that He might utterly destroy them and that they might receive no mercy. Did God put these Canaanites in a long cattle car train in some Nazi-esque manner where they had no choice, or did they go freely out to battle Israel? On the other hand, did God "force" Abimelech against his will to not have sex with Sarah when God told him, "Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart. For I also withheld you from sinning against me; therefore, I did not let you touch her" (Gen. 20:6). Abimelech's integrity is directly established by the fact God would not allow him to touch her. Essentially, God "forced" him against his will. All of that to say that man's free decisions, whether evil or good, are made in accordance to God's foreordained purposes.


(Fred) Calvinist could never admit to this, because the Bible never admits to this. The Arminian places an artifical distinction between foreordination and foreknowledge. But an omniscience God cannot foreordain anything that he does not foreknow. I would also say that God cannot foreknow anything that he hasn't foreordained. In other words, there is no corner of knowledge any where in God's creation that He cannot know because God has created all things. The Arminians seem to suggest a couple of things:

a) God looks a head in time to see what will happen and then ordains according to the knowledge he gathers. But God is all knowing. How could he even begin to look a head in time to see what will happen? Is there a time continuum that has events playing themselves out apart from God that God, because he has the advantage of being eternal and outside that continuum, can look ahead into so as to establish his decrees?

b) God has granted his creatures some measure of libertarian freedom, including the ability to exercise the choice to determine their spiritual fate. That libertarian freedom can result in a variety of possible contingencies. However, once again, such a position cuts against what we have revealed to us in scripture of who God is. There is no contingency that he could not know, and this position cannot meaningfully explain why the exercise of a libertarian freedom that can result in a variety of possible contingencies will always result in God's will being done anyway. Arminian prof., Dr. Picirrili, concocts this notion of necessary events that some how keep the contingent events in check, so that God's decrees are not thwarted, so to speak. But, the thought of any necessary event overriding a contingent event stabs at the heart of the Arminian's core value of freewill. At some point, man's will has to be "forced," to use your terminology, or prophecy can't even exist in a meaningful manner.


(Fred) It is "contradictory and illogical" because the Arminian is bringing to bear upon the discussion pagan philosophy and loading the definitions of words with unbiblical terminology. Like I stated above, having no ability to chose otherwise does not equate being forced to do something. The men who killed Leigh were not acting against what they wanted to do, hence they were not being forced. Moreover, accountability has nothing to do with ability. This was Pelagius's dilemma. Biblically, accountability/responsibility simply means answerability. In other words, man is held accountable because he is answerable to his creator. A good discussion on this subject can be found in another discussion thread here at the Highway. Some of us engaged a fellow named Mike aka, "koreahog," who raised many of the same objections and problems you have. To save time with not repeating myself, I will direct you to those discussions here: Fred's response to KH. Scroll down to the 12th entry on that page and you will find my fuller discussion on the nature of answerability.


(Fred) No I didn't. Foreknowledge can be translated as "ordained purposes." I would be interested in your definition of foreknowledge, because I think you are mistakenly defining "foreknowledge" as we human's would define foreknowledge, meaning, looking forward in to time. The Bible never uses the word in this manner, especially in decribing the acts of an omniscient God. In a similar cross reference to Acts 2:23, Peter states in Acts 4:27,28, For truly against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do, whatever Your hand and Your purposes determined before to be done. Here, predetermined is a synonym for "foreknow." Like I stated above, God foreknows because he foreordains. He is not some being sitting aloft a skyscrapper able to see the parade from the beginning to the end and is able to see what will happen as the parade rounds a corner. He know what will happen, because he is the creator of the parade and the determiner of its course.


(Fred) Then please explain what you mean. I believe I am basing my definition and understanding of the word foreknowledge upon biblical exegesis. Please show me why my definition is wrong. By the way, if Pilate could have chosen to free Christ, what other way do you think God would have provided to have Jesus crucified as our substitute? Christ had to die in order to save sinners and atone for sin, and I can't see Jesus committing divine suicide.



(Fred) I would agree with you that God did not cause the sinful actions of Joseph's brothers. They sinned against Joseph freely and willingly. The problem with your answer is multifaceted, but the most troubling for me is that your philosophy suggests that there were a variety of options open to God, but somehow willing chose not to intervene to help Joseph or was powerless to do so. It is as if we have God sitting in heaven sighing to himself and saying, "Well, this is not the way I would have preserved my people, but I can't override the freewills of Joseph's brothers, let me see how I can make lemonaide out this big mess of lemons." It implies that God was surprised by what happened and had to move to plan "B." However, in Genesis 45:1-8, Joseph is quite clear that it was God actively sending him into Egypt. All of the contingencies were necessary for Joseph to come to the place of authority that he came for him to act as the preserver of his family and God's people. Those contingencies were unique in what they were and how that played out to raise Joseph through the political ranks of Egypt.

Fred