Predetermination and God's Sovereignty

reply to post by HarryTZ


you assume wrong. just because god may know what could happen in the future doesnt meant he has "set it in stone". he gave man free will, you can choose to be for god or you could choose to be against him. or whatever you want. as far as saying sin was predestined i would say is incorrect, again free will comes into play here. man didnt have to bring on sin but chose to.

Originally posted by korathin

Originally posted by borntowatch

Originally posted by HarryTZ

How can only 'some things' be predestined and others not? Does God only have partial control of the universe?

No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. - John 6:44

God has partial control of man, it seems He has created us in His image with the power of choice.
Love, if God is love, does not violate choice.

John 6.44 is such a small part of scripture to base systematic theology on

www.examiningcalvinism.com...

No. You remember Jonah right? The man who tried to ignore God and was swallowed by a whale, and then spat up near where God told him he had a task to do.

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If that isn't the biggest red flag that say's YOU HAVE FREE WILL, I don't know what to say. You can't get more obvious. Here you have man who God asks him to do something. He say's no, and God chooses to use external coercion to compel him to do something.

www.biblegateway.com...

edit on 26-6-2013 by korathin because: (no reason given)

But that's just a story in a book. I kinda doubt that actually happened.

Originally posted by veritasmortis
reply to post by HarryTZ

 

you assume wrong. just because god may know what could happen in the future doesnt meant he has "set it in stone". he gave man free will, you can choose to be for god or you could choose to be against him. or whatever you want. as far as saying sin was predestined i would say is incorrect, again free will comes into play here. man didnt have to bring on sin but chose to.

So I'm either for him or against him? What if I just don't want anything to do with that belief system because I'm not religious? It's not always black and white, you know.

God IS the author of sin.....he brags about creating it in the bible.....

Originally posted by korathin

Originally posted by borntowatch

Originally posted by HarryTZ

How can only 'some things' be predestined and others not? Does God only have partial control of the universe?

No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. - John 6:44

God has partial control of man, it seems He has created us in His image with the power of choice.
Love, if God is love, does not violate choice.

John 6.44 is such a small part of scripture to base systematic theology on

www.examiningcalvinism.com...

No. You remember Jonah right? The man who tried to ignore God and was swallowed by a whale, and then spat up near where God told him he had a task to do.

-
If that isn't the biggest red flag that say's YOU HAVE FREE WILL, I don't know what to say. You can't get more obvious. Here you have man who God asks him to do something. He say's no, and God chooses to use external coercion to compel him to do something.

www.biblegateway.com...

edit on 26-6-2013 by korathin because: (no reason given)

Good call but...I am sure a Calvinist would say God made Jonah choose to not go to Ninavah so Go could then change Jonahs mind as a lesson...or something logically Calvinistic like that.

I am not a Calvinist

Originally posted by HarryTZ

Originally posted by korathin

Originally posted by borntowatch

Originally posted by HarryTZ

How can only 'some things' be predestined and others not? Does God only have partial control of the universe?

No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. - John 6:44

God has partial control of man, it seems He has created us in His image with the power of choice.
Love, if God is love, does not violate choice.

John 6.44 is such a small part of scripture to base systematic theology on

www.examiningcalvinism.com...

No. You remember Jonah right? The man who tried to ignore God and was swallowed by a whale, and then spat up near where God told him he had a task to do.

-
If that isn't the biggest red flag that say's YOU HAVE FREE WILL, I don't know what to say. You can't get more obvious. Here you have man who God asks him to do something. He say's no, and God chooses to use external coercion to compel him to do something.

www.biblegateway.com...

edit on 26-6-2013 by korathin because: (no reason given)

But that's just a story in a book. I kinda doubt that actually happened.

Even if the book of Jonah is a parable, and it may be, it still tells a relevant story. It still teaches.

Originally posted by HarryTZ

Originally posted by veritasmortis
reply to post by HarryTZ

 

you assume wrong. just because god may know what could happen in the future doesnt meant he has "set it in stone". he gave man free will, you can choose to be for god or you could choose to be against him. or whatever you want. as far as saying sin was predestined i would say is incorrect, again free will comes into play here. man didnt have to bring on sin but chose to.

So I'm either for him or against him? What if I just don't want anything to do with that belief system because I'm not religious? It's not always black and white, you know.

Revelations '"So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth."

reply to post by HarryTZ

But that's just a story in a book. I kinda doubt that actually happened.

Then look at the state of Israel. Completely surrounded by their enemies because they rejected what Jesus told them. It's all works the same way.

Originally posted by stirling

God IS the author of sin.....he brags about creating it in the bible.....

Well, if you want to say that God authored sin because he created Satan and gave him free will, so be it.

The point is that he'll let everyone decide for themselves which one they want to follow. Even the angels were given free will to fall if they chose to.

Free will is what leads people to sin. Would some of you rather that God gave no one free will? Serious question.

Hey, I would have given up my free will in a heart beat if it meant only knowing the good and perfection, but most people want to condemn me for saying that.

reply to post by Deetermined

Free will is what leads people to sin.

Paul wrote that 'through one man, sin entered into the world.'
He seems to be referring to Adam and his eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge.
If you look closely at the story, he was forbidden to even touch the tree so he stayed away from it.
Eve had to get right up to the tree in order to get a good look at the fruit and determine that it was good and something desirable to eat.
Considering that, if Adam was not there with her at the time, and it was just her and the serpent, then it could be assumed that Adan didn't even know what that fruit even looked like exactly.
The story goes on to say that she took some of the fruit with her and later gave it to the man.
It does not record him making some sort of deliberation on whether it was right for him to eat it or if he even asked her where she got the fruit from, it just says that he ate it.
So, if Adam there sinned, we don't know if it was by his own free will or not.
"Free will" is not ever even mentioned in the Bible as such.

Even the angels were given free will to fall if they chose to.

I don't think that the Bible mentions angels falling in a literal sense other than in 2 Peter, which is a later writing, apparently a forgery and therefore not a reliable source, not being of Apostolic origin.
Ezekiel makes a metaphor of the king of Tyre being once a "covering cherub" but I don't think that it is sufficient foundation to create a whole mythology of fallen angels.
The Book of Enoch gets into that sort of thing but that is something that I regard as pure fiction.
So my point is that there does not seem to be evidence from a reliable source that angels have, or ever had, free will.

reply to post by Deetermined

Then look at the state of Israel. Completely surrounded by their enemies because they rejected what Jesus told them.

The zionist regime illegally occupying the country of Palestine made their own enemies through their criminal activity of taking the land to push the rightful inhabitants of it out so they could bring in their fellow conspirators from foreign countries.

reply to post by borntowatch

Revelations '"So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth."

Are you saying then that you agree with the earlier statement:

" . . . he gave man free will, you can choose to be for god or you could choose to be against him."

What would you consider being "for" God?
Is it building a shrine to Him, and calling Him by a name of your choosing, and then bowing down to it?

reply to post by jmdewey60


Who do you think the principalities of darkness are? You think God created them evil from the get go?

By the way, the Bible says that Adam WAS WITH Eve when the entire incident took place. When Adam told God that Eve gave him the fruit, he acknowledged that he knew it came from the tree.

And what's with all of the "forgery" talk? You think you understand what's written better than the people who put the Bible together? Come on!

reply to post by jmdewey60


You know what using the word "Zionist" makes you sound like don't you?

What would you care if you knew the Bible well enough to know that God's going to take care of the situation himself?

reply to post by Deetermined

Who do you think the principalities of darkness are? You think God created them evil from the get go?

Something cooked up in the mind of the writer who forged a letter purporting to be by Paul, called Ephesians, which is a later work which may be going off the same myths that the forger of 2 Thessalonians was going off of, with his "falling away" and his "man of sin".

By the way, the Bible says that Adam WAS WITH Eve when the entire incident took place.

The Masoretic is ambiguous but the Septuagint makes it clear that Adam was not with Eve when she collected the fruit from the tree of knowledge.

When Adam told God that Eve gave him the fruit, he acknowledged that he knew it came from the tree.

That doesn't mean that he knew the source of the fruit before he ate it.
Now, it does say that The Lord gave as His reason for cursing Adam that he heeded the voice of the woman, but it could be as simple as her saying, "eat", without his quizzing her on what it was exactly that she was handing him. His sin, at that point, seems to have been going along with whatever she said.
There seems to be two punishments going on, one being prophylactic, removing them from the garden so as to not be able to access the tree of life, and the other, cursing his very existence outside the garden thanks to his relationship with the woman.
The first had to be done no matter what the circumstances, by the reality that a certain threshold had been crossed that could only be dealt with in a specific way. The second had to do with another situation that was actually spelled out by Adam in his answer to The Lord, that He had given him the woman, so at this point, neither Adam or The Lord had any free will to create an outcome other than what came about according to the story.

And what's with all of the "forgery" talk? You think you understand what's written better than the people who put the Bible together? Come on!

I trust in modern scholarship, over what passed for scolarship on the Christian writings that went on in the fourth century.

Originally posted by HarryTZ
I assume that the Christians in this section believe that every event in the universe, including each and every person's actions, thoughts and feelings (and the consumption of the Forbidden Fruit which allowed for sin to exist), has been predestined by God. This would have to include every sin, every wrongdoing, and every moral infraction of each person. And we know that if you sin and don't repent, you go to Hell.
But if God predetermined every sin that each human will perform, why is it fair to condemn him to everlasting torment? If I have absolutely no choice over anything that I do, than I cannot have ever done anything that would justify my going to Hell. That would mean that every man and woman is innocent, because they had no choice in anything that they ever did, thought, or felt. And none of us deserve eternal punishment (not that we would in any case anyway).

Just something to think about.

It's something I think everyone has thought about since they were old enough to question the Bible. Possibly the most cliched contradiction in Christianity, a subject that has been argues over for centuries actually, God's omnipotence vs. Free Will.

I major in philosophy, and we had a discussion about this last semester actually. In short, it went like this;

God has been described as being Omnipotent (All Powerful), Omniscient (All Knowing), and Omnibenevolent (All Good).

This is a simple introduction problem to basic philosophy actually.
It's called "the problem of Evil."

The problem with the All Powerful, All Knowing, and All Good God is the fact that evil does exist.

So, logically, we are left with a problem.

If God is All Knowing, then he obviously knows of the evils that go on in the darkest corners of the world
If God is All Powerful, then he obviously has the means of preventing evil, or "solving" evil, if you will.
If God is All Good, then he obviously is against all evil, and is the enemy of evil.

So, if God is all three of these, then evil should not even exist.

But, the problem is, evil does exist.

So we are left to conclude that only TWO of the THREE characteristics of God described above can be true simultaneously.

Either God is All Powerful and All Knowing, but not All Good, (which is what I believe, meaning, the concept of God should include evil within the definition because God is supposedly the source of Everything, so he is not more good than evil, nor more evil than good, but a single concept containing both Yin and Yang inside, a Yin-Yang!)

Or, God is All Good and All Powerful, but not all knowing. (this one doesn't make sense to me, so it can't be true. If a being is all powerful, then he is also all knowing in my opinion.)

Or lastly, God is All Knowing, and All Good, but not All Powerful. (Again, this makes less sense to me than the first possibility of 2 out of 3 characteristics. If God supposedly is the source of all things, how could "he" not be all powerful? especially if you hold the opinion that God is everything)

Which is another philosophical lesson. God is sometimes referred to as "NGC" in the Ontological argument for his existence. NGC roughly stands for "that which none greater can be conceived". So basically, God, by definition, is that which cannot be surpassed in thought. Or, the highest and most perfect thing that any human can conceive of, God is one step ahead of that at all times. So, if God is that which none greater can be conceived of, then what is greater than the entire universe itself? I mean, that's the greatest thing that I can conceive of, the whole universe. So, God must be greater than the whole universe itself, right? To me, it only makes sense to derive from this logic, that God is All Powerful, and All Knowing, but not All Good. Because the universe is not all good, and it's ok to have a God that is not all Good. We are not all good. Baphomet in occult philosophy represents a God that is a mixture of both good and evil, forfeiting the dualistic concept, and polytheistic for that matter, that there exists a Satan and a God. Bill Hicks said it best, "What can oppose God's will? NOTHING! NOTHING can oppose God's will!" So there cannot be a second evil God named Satan who controls everything evil. No, God is the one lone pilot who controls both good and evil.

reply to post by Deetermined

You know what using the word "Zionist" makes you sound like don't you?

Someone who sees things for what they are, rather than living in a delusional bubble created by dispensationalist propaganda.

What would you care if you knew the Bible well enough to know that God's going to take care of the situation himself?

It's my obligation to point out when a crime is occurring and to call out for justice to be done.
The situation caused by the modern, self-styled "Israel" is common criminality and is to be dealt with by the established mechanisms of justice, just like any other common crime.
If you saw your neighbor being robbed and murdered, would you just sit there and do nothing or would you be on the phone calling 911? It is the same sort of thing, and labeling themselves with a "holy" name does not make them immune.

reply to post by jmdewey60


You can cry out all you want, but in case you haven't noticed, this isn't an issue that's going to be resolved by human hands.

reply to post by Deetermined

You can cry out all you want, but in case you haven't noticed, this isn't an issue that's going to be resolved by human hands.

The situation was caused by human doings and it will be resolved by human doings.
It is only a modern cult invention that makes it out as any of it being the result of divine intervention.
The so-called "miracle of Israel" of their own generated propaganda is a lie to cover what was really the theft of the land that the Palestinian people had worked hard to make prosperous. There wasn't a wasteland that suddenly bloomed once the Jews came on the land. That is a myth for public consumption by the credulous.

reply to post by jmdewey60


You really should get to know your Bible better.