7400	Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit	on: May 28, 2007, 08:59:57 PM
Quote In Romans when Paul is talking about the holiness of God and His eternal righteousness, he says that it is revealed by nature itself and men suppress the truth in unrighteousness by ignoring that there is Creator and in doing so declare their enmity to God. The problem that I have with the double-predestination model is that, while it has a neat bow on everything, it does away with Paul's assertion that God is revealed in creation. God is storing wrath against men, Paul says, not because of their sins, although that fact would be obvious from elsewhere in the Bible, but because they ignore God and refuse to worship Him as God. Paul is saying that all men are called in a general way. MBG, I don't know where you stand on double predestination so this is not really meant at you but reading your post brought it to mind because I think this a radical departure of Calvinists from Calvin, Luther and Augustine where these ideas were first given doctrinal shape. Because there is a general call, which men ignore, God must in  some way reach men so He quickens them, says Paul, but it is in men's free will that the battleground is fought. I didn't in past times think this way, but study has changed my mind somewhat. While Paul says that faith is gift from God and we are quickened by God, nowhere does the text say God compels us to believe. The Bible says Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith, but it does not say that Jesus interrupts free will to save us, but it does say that once we hear His voice and acknowledge Him as Lord He will never lose us or forsake us. If DP is correct, and God controls every thought word and deed, then it is illogical to assume that anyone should be found guilty for their sins because sinning would be an action predetermined by God's foreknowledge and therefore inescapable and thus nonpunishable. There is also the problem of prayer. If God has already made up His mind about who will and will not be saved then why should we pray? It makes no sense. We should just as well pray to the idols of stone and wood for all the good it would do us were God absolutely unchangeable. I know the Calvinist will say, "Well we pray according to God's foreknowledge," but upon what is that foreknowledge based. Augustine said that while we have free will, our every desire is for evil, which the Bible confirms, and therefore we, being evil and children of wrath by nature, through our free will are self-determined beings. It is because of this self-determination that it is unnecessary to assert that God has a perfect and controlling knowledge of the future. Rather, if we are completely predictable because of our nature, there is no need for God to bend and shape us according to His plan for our lives because we will, through natural revelation (the creation), and general revelation (the hearing of the word) walk ourselves into the place where we will experience specific revelation (the stirring of the heart by the Holy Spirit). I think the notion that God has decided before hand who will and will not be saved is not true because it adds a level of orthodoxy which is unnecessary given the free will of men and the nature of revelation. In the end, those who will not hear the call will have doomed themselves without any help from God at all. "   But what about Paul, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, didn't God interfere in their lives and cause them to do things according to His plan? Well, yes, but remember as surely as we are free will beings so God is also a free will Being, but His will supersedes ours because He is the Potter and we are the clay, so if God chooses to use His omnipotence to jump into human history from time to time it is His prerogative, after all He's God. All the reformed confessions are from the double predestination side. If God is sovereign then He must will whatever comes to pass. No will can thwart His divine decrees. If you would read my Edwards thread, this is about the most thorough going over of the difference between the armianist view of the self determined will and the choosing according to the strongest desire theology. The basic difference is that the armianist believe that in order for the will to be free, there must be no coheres ion. There must not be any thing that precedes the choice, but the will is in a perfect equilibrium. But to will is to choose an object. For no will can be unless there is an action done. To say that the will is alive in a state of equilibrium is to say that there is no will at all. If you have two equal objects with the will in between those objects you have no act at all . If you divide the life of a person in a line of choices, and you say that the will determines the choices, what you are saying is that the prior act or will determines the next act or will. Because there is no will unless there is a choice of one object over another. But then you count the choices back to the first choice , the question would be what caused the first choice. In the model , a person who moves a body part is an act of the choice. And so if there is no movement then we say that the person last choice is to not move. So that to choose is to move toward the most desired object. Placing one foot in front of another. Self determination in the armianist view places the will as the initial response faculty of the soul. But we know that there are prior faculties that are in use before the will responds. The mind and the understanding of which is the center of desire. The mind does not just take in facts and then make a choice, but the mind is the center of pleasure, or the spiritual sight, touch , feeling in which the divine knowledge transforms so that we could say that choice is the mind choosing by what it is pleased with most. So that we could say that desire precedes choice, which is the will under cohesion from the mind or desire. We could say that free will, is the ability to choose what one desires the most for oneself.