The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Double predestination

Here is a great article. Joe, Pilgrim, I am not promoting Particular Baptists as a rule, but I find CC Morris spot on in this article, refuting Darryls claim

http://www.the-remnant.com/backissue6.htm


some snippets.

My observation, such as it might be, is that those who believe God is the author of sin are an extreme minority, disfavored by the overwhelming majority of Old School Baptists, regardless of the factionalism which divides them on other issues. You have not seen anything about this subject in The Remnant because it has not been brought up before, at least under my watch. You did not misunderstand me. I believe saying God is the author of sin is an ugly heresy, and I hope to continue saying it as the Lord gives me life and breath.



I have found no Bible text that told us “He causes evil” in the sense of moral evil or sin. If there is one, I ask your forgiveness, and I ask you to produce it.

Before you say Isaiah 45.7, see the Jerome Zanchius and John Gill quotes, below. If you say Amos 3.6, the same principle applies. Most commentators on these and like texts say that the evil under consideration is calamitous evil and adversity, such as wars, famines, and storms (Compare Job 1.13-19 with Job 2.10), and not moral evil. Saying “God causes calamitous evil” is a far cry from saying “God approves of and causes unrighteousness.”



You seem to equate the noun “Author” (as in “God is the author of sin,” which I do not concede) with the verb “Authorize,” which, if possible, would be worse yet:



JOHN GILL

Do not err, my beloved brethren. “For to make God the author of sin, or to charge him with being concerned in temptation to sin, is a very great error, a fundamental one, which strikes at the nature and being of God, and at the perfection of his holiness: it is a denying of him, and is one of those damnable errors and heresies, which bring upon men swift destruction; and therefore to be guarded against, rejected, and abhorred by all that profess any regard unto him, his name and glory.” (John Gill’s Commentary on James 1.16)


ELDER H. B. JONES

“We believe that God’s eternal and Holy purpose embraces all things whatsoever comes to pass, as ‘The Lord of hosts hath sworn saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed so shall it stand.’ That God has purposed that all righteousness shall come to pass by His authority and influence, and that all unrighteousness shall come to pass without His authority and influence; as is most explicitly set forth in the London Confession of Faith of the Baptist of 1689, and reaffirmed by them in the Philadelphia Confession of 1742, upon the authority of the Holy Scriptures. We do not believe that the predestination of God is the cause which moves men to action either in righteousness or unrighteousness; but that all righteous acts are the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and that all unrighteous acts are the works of the flesh under the influence of Satan. Therefore we do not believe that God is or can be either the author or approver of sin, as we have been unjustly accused.”