Hi Rob,
Thanks for your questions.
Rob asked previously:
Why is God not responsible for sin if God planned the men and their resultant sinful actions?
Hilston replied:
Who will hold Him responsible? You? Me? There must exist a greater authority than God if He is to be responsible for anything. The Scriptures affirm that there is no higher authority, and therefore God does whatever He has decreed arbitrarily (according to the basic definition of that word) and with complete freedom.
RobE said:
I'm not sure this answers the question. God does what He desires. Part of righteousness is being responsible for your own actions though. Jesus Christ was the response.
There's an equivocation of terms here. It's the same error that Jeremy Finkenbinder was making. When we're speaking in theological terms, we have to be careful. If by "being responsible for" you simply mean "performing," then of course God performed the act of authoring sin. But the meaning of responsible in theological terms is more than merely performing an act. It is being held culpable. No one does that with God and lives to tell about it.
RobE wrote previously:
Lee and I discussed this on another thread. My current position would say that God can't lie because His immutable essence won't lie; not because He is incapacitated in some way by His structure or function.
Hilston wrote:
You make an error by viewing God's inability to lie as an "incapacity." Unlike man, there is no incongruity between God's ability and His will. They are perfectly and inextricably aligned. God cannot do what is against His own decreed will. He does not have the ability to oppose Himself, unlike man, who does it all the time.
If you would further consider what I've offered above, I think things will begin to make more sense to you. It isn't a limit upon God to say that He cannot lie. It is the limit upon reality that is governed by God's immutable essence.
RobE said:
How is my position contrary to yours?
If I understand you correctly, you're trying to answer the so-called "Can-God-create-a-rock-too-big-to-lift?" conundrum. You're allowing yourself to get tangled up in a false disparity between ability (e.g. is God able to utter untrue statements) and God's will (e.g. is God able to lie). It's a false dichotomy as it applies to God. It is true of men, i.e., they have the ability to oppose themselves, but not true of God. Open Theists
must believe, contrary to scripture, in a God who lies because they are existential dualists, and believe that genuine truthfulness requires the ability to be untruthful.
RobE said:
... I'm saying that God's will makes Him unable to lie ...
You'd have to unpack that more for me. As stated, I'm ok with your meaning, although it's not biblical to describe God as being "made" to do (or not do) anything, except perhaps figuratively.
RobE said:
... unable to do other(wise) than what God has foreseen.
Foresight and foreknowledge are biblical figures of speech. They refer to His exhaustive and meticulous plans from the beginning to the end.
RobE said:
In both cases the will is free to do as it pleases and in both cases the performer is capable of doing otherwise in structure(disregarding the will). Thus foreknowledge exists without destroying free will even though the actor is incapable of doing otherwise!
This is the hoop-jumping I mentioned earlier. It's not necessary, neither logically, nor scripturally.
RobE said:
... willingness makes a free will agent unable to ever do other than what their own essence decrees despite the structural ability which still exists in reality.
This is exactly what I was talking about earlier regarding God's ability and will be perfectly aligned. The distinction between ability and capacity doesn't exist with God. With man, there is an ever present gap between ability and capacity.
RobE said:
Therefore, at judgement a man is unable to honestly proclaim any inability to do other than what he actually did; and, the responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the actor in every situation because His will(essence) did exactly as it desired even though he was structurally capable of doing otherwise.
Although I might quibble with a few details, I would agree generally with what you're saying.
RobE said:
Jesus' will was to do the will of the Father which is what made Him worthy. Jesus was unable to sin or give into temptation because of unwillingness, not because He wasn't fully man.
I would agree with that.
RobE said:
Lee spoke to me about the Greek word used in the scripture where it says that God can't lie; and after I looked into it, I agree that the Greek word means incapable.
Excellent work. This is something that Open Theists cannot abide.
RobE said:
... What I had to ask myself is "Why was God incapable if He is in reality able to do anything which is possible?".
It's the same old "Can God Create A Rock Too Big To Move?" ruse that atheists like to use. Open Theists are much closer to atheists than they are willing to admit.
To answer your question about what I disagree with Calvinists about, it would include, but not be limited to their claims concerning the following doctrines:
Calvinist Kingdomism
Calvinist Reconstructionism
Calvinist nomialism
Calvinist soteriology
Calvinist harmartiology
Calvinist ecclesiology
Calvinist eschatology
Calvinist covenantalism
Calvinist sacerdotalism/sacramentalism
Calvinist hermeneutics
Calvinist anthropology
Calvinist theology
Calvinist Christology
Calvinist angelology
Those who think Calvinism is limited to the 5 points of TULIP betray their ignorance of the 700+ pages Calvin wrote in his Institutes, not to mention other massive volumes written by him and others. Lots of people are unaware that the 5 points were drafted as an answer to the 5 points of Arminianism, and only a small percentage of Calvinist writings actually concerns the so-called 5 points. The fact remains that Calvinists can't stand my doctrine. If I were standing in a room full of Calvinists who knew all of my beliefs, and an Open Theist walked in, pointed at me and declared "Hilston is a Calvinist!," they would laugh the Open Theist out of the room. I would join them. I would probably throw pretzels at him, too.
Thanks for your questions, Rob.
All according to God's decrees, of course.
Jim