The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Double predestination

CovenantInBlood said:

"Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?" (Rom. 9:21).
Looks to me like Paul is saying that God makes another vessel for dishonor.

CovenantInBlood opinesI don't disagree that Adam sinned and, as a result, all men are condemned. Yet this condemnation was imposed by God Himself. It's not as though the condemnation is some bare natural consequence.

CovenantInBlood opinesI don't disagree
What do you make of God hardening Pharaoh's heart? For this God most certainly did, and not unjustly since Pharaoh was a sinner deserving only condemnation.

Bondage of the Will
LET no one think, therefore, that God, where He is said to harden, or to work evil in us (for to harden is to do evil), so does the evil as though He created evil in us anew, in the same way as a malignant liquor-seller, being himself bad, would pour poison into, or mix it up in, a vessel that was not bad, where the vessel itself did nothing but receive, or passively accomplish the purpose of the malignity of the poison-mixer. For when people hear it said by us, that God works in us both good and evil, and that we from mere necessity passively submit to the working of God, they seem to imagine, that a man who is good, or not evil himself, is passive while God works evil in him: not rightly considering that God, is far from being inactive in all His creatures, and never suffers any one of them to keep holiday.
But whoever wishes to understand these things let him think thus:—that God works evil in us, that is, by us, not from the fault of God, but from the fault of evil in us:—that is, as we are evil by nature, God, who is truly good, carrying us along by His own action, according to the nature of His Omnipotence, cannot do otherwise than do evil by us, as instruments, though He Himself be good; though by His wisdom, He overrules that evil well, to His own glory and to our salvation.
Thus God, finding the will of Satan evil, not creating it so, but leaving it while Satan sinningly commits the evil, carries it along by His working, and moves it which way He will; though that will ceases not to be evil by this motion of God.

CovenantInBlood queries
Do fallen men have any will to do evil?