And Calvinists think God does not have the ability to elect sinners whom He can see in advance will believe and receive the word of God preached to his heart by the Holy Spirit.
Doctrine of Unconditional Election
- Thread starter beloved57
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No question, there are indeed groups of people who are "elect".
The Calvinist interpretation of this would make God unjust and is therefore clearly false and simply ridiculous really.
Well, yes, but not in the way the Calvinists mean it.
One becomes one of the elect if and when you believe. The Calvinist wants you to think it happens the other way around; that you believe as a result of having been elected by God before time began.
The operative phrase in this passage is made up of the two words that Calvinists ignore. I often wonder whether they secretly wish that those two words weren't in this passage and whether they could get away with quoting the passage without them and, in fact, I have, on more than one occasion, heard them omit these two words when they quote the passage verbally. The two words are "in Him". Ephesians 1 is full of the phrase and intentionally so because that phrase conveys the point Paul is making. Lets read all of it, shall we....
Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, 9 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, 10 that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. 11 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 12 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.
13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
Verse 3 sets the stage and defines clearly Who is it we are talking about, that being Christ. And, notice the emphasis on the phrase "in Him", particularly in verse 10 where its very clearly emphasized. The only way to miss it is intentionally.
It is the Body of Christ that was predestined, not any one individual person. If you become a member of the Body of Christ then you become one of the elect by virtue of the fact that the group you've joined has been elected by God as those who will be adopted as sons, in Him.
He foreknew Jesus Christ, His Son, the second person of the Trinity and He foreknew that there would be a body of believers identified in Him, the group referred to today as "The Body of Christ". (Not the same group that Peter is referring to in 1 Pet 1:2, by the way.)
Again, it's talking here about a group, not individuals who didn't even exist before the Earth was created. Believers are elect because they are believers, not the other way around. It is for the sake of those who have put their trust in Him that He will shorten the days of the Tribulation. The passage very simply does not teach that God arbitrarily picked certain individuals in advance as the Calvinist uses these verses as a pretext to try to trick you into believing. The easiest, most profound and most important proof of this is that God is not arbitrary, He is just. That single fact, that not even Calvinists will overtly deny, is all you need to know in order to reject nearly everything the Calvinist says.
Clete
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I don't think God has the ability to do that either.
Does God see the future and did He hate Esau before he was born because He simply unilaterally chose to or was His hatred based on His foreknowledge?
No.
Neither. He did not hate Esau. And it's not even Esau He's referring to, but more on that below...
Rather "love and hate" is a Hebrew idiom that means "to love more and to love."
It's saying you love someone so much that it's as if you hate someone else.
Jesus used this figure of speech here:
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. - Luke 14:26 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke14:26&version=NKJV
Love Christ so much that it's as if you hate your family and your own life.
As for the other part:
It's not Esau he's talking about. It's the nations Edom and Israel.
God loved Edom (the nation), but He loved Israel so much more that it's as if He hated Edom!
Literally every person who uses this passage to say that God knows the future, or to say that God predestines some to go to hell, they all COMPLETELY IGNORE the passage it's referring to!
Speaking about Jacob and Esau:
And the Lord said to her: “Two nations are in your womb, Two peoples shall be separated from your body; One people shall be stronger than the other, And the older shall serve the younger.” - Genesis 25:23 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis25:23&version=NKJV
In other words: God predestines GROUPS, NOT INDIVIDUALS!
Which is exactly what Clete just got done saying in post 142!
No. The future does not exist for Him to see.
God knows everything He wants to know of that information which is knowable. He is also optimally intelligent, wise, skilled and powerful and so it isn't difficult for God to not only predict future events but also to decide what He wants to accomplish and then set about working with, through, around or in spite of whomever is involved in achieving His goals. God does not, however, always get what He wants (See Isaiah 5:1-7), and sometimes people do things that never occurred to Him that they would do (See Jeremiah 32:26-35).
He did not hate Esau any more than Isaac hated Leah (Gen. 29:31). In the post immediately prior to this one, JR did an excellent job of explaining the idiomatic expression being used in the passage you're referencing so I won't go through all that again. I'll just add that the thing you should let run through your mind when dealing with passages that say such things is the question, "Would a just God do that?". This is especially true when dealing with any verse that you've ever seen a Calvinist quote. In fact, keeping God's character foremost in your thoughts is a great idea no matter what part of the bible you're reading. There's a reason that they call the study of God's attributes and character, "Theology Proper". It is both the foundation and fountainhead of every other doctrine.
The answer to the question, "Would a just God hate an unborn baby?" is "No, He wouldn't! There's no reason for Him to hate an unborn baby. God does not hate unborn babies." and once you've gotten that far, you've already gone half way toward understanding what's really being said.
Lastly, I'll point out that the solid proof that the passage is Genesis 25 is talking about the nations that would come from the two boys and not about the two boys themselves is not only that it explicitly says so in verse 23, as JR quoted above, but also the fact that the older boy never served the younger boy.
Clete
If God hated Esau before he was born then God knew something about Esau before he was born.
There's tons of things that God can know about someone before they are born. For one thing He knows every detail of a child's DNA, which determines so much about what sort of person the child will be. DNA determines much more than just physical characteristics like hair and eye color but also how a person thinks and how they interact with others. DNA affects what a person's talents and skills will likely be and probably all sorts of things we know nothing about today. God also knows everything there is to know about the child's parents, neighbors and society. He also knows what plans He has for that child and how He intends to work in and through that child. And there's probably ten thousand other aspects of a child's life that can be known by God that I wouldn't have the slightest inkling of.
So, yes, God knew all kinds of things about Esau and none of it had anything to do taking a seek peek into the future and it certainly didn't have anything to do with hating him in the sense we use the word "hate" today. God does NOT hate unborn babies.
Again, God DID NOT HATE ESAU. The passage IS NOT talking about babies in the womb, but about two nations, one which God loved, and one which God loved so much it's as if He hated the first.
As for God knowing things about people before they are born, see Clete's post.
Derf
Well-known member
Calvinists are right to question the idea that God "looks down the corridors of time" to determine whom Jesus should die for. If the corridors of time are all settled before the people they reflect exist, then someone else must have determined what those people would do with the gospel. Since God is merely looking at the events, but not causing the events He's looking at (and the people involved aren't causing the events, since they don't yet exist), there must be a different causal agent, who knows something God doesn't know. This would lead one to logically move toward the Calvinist position, if one believes all events were determined before God created anyone else. I hope you can see the additional option that all events were NOT determined ahead of time, and that God gets to find out some of those events as they happen--because He created us to be causal agents.
Not only does God know the future but so do I. I know the antichrist will set himself up as God in the temple and offer the abominable sacrifice on the altar. And more.
When I say God hated Esau I simply mean in the context that God meant it.
Romans 9
11 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth
12 It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
No, you don't. You can certainly predict the future, based on evidence, but you do not know the future.
The same with God. The difference is that God is capable of bringing about the future He wants.
Because that's what God's plan is. In other words, you know what God's plans are, but not the future, because He is omnicompetent.
No, you don't, and the fact that you practically ignored everything Clete and I have said about this so far proves it.
Romans 9
11 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth
12 It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
Go back and read posts 142, 145, 146, 148, 149, again.
So, nothing anyone says, no matter how reasonable or rational or substantive moves you an inch off of any doctrine you happen to believe. What makes you any better than b57?
If you're not convinced, that's one thing. Blowing off everything that's been said as though we didn't say anything is insulting and stupid. Don't be stupid or insulting! Engage! Be better than b57! Make an argument! You started great! You asked directly relevant questions that any reasonable person might ask, especially if they had spent their whole lives being taught Augustinian (i.e. Ancient Greek) ideas about God and His relationship to time. Don't stop being rational just because you can't figure out a rebuttal. Just say that you can't figure out a rebuttal and that you'll have to give this new idea some thought. That would be reasonable, especially if you actually intended to give it some thought. But, don't just turn off your mind and dig in your heels. There isn't anything biblical about God knowing the future (in the sense you mean it) and there sure as Hell isn't anything biblical about God hating unborn babies, for crying out loud.
That is one prophesy that will almost certainly happen but. generally speaking, prophesy is not prewritten history. There are several prophesies in the bible that did not come to pass.
Further, even if we say that the events related to the Tribulation will definitely happen as predicted in Revelation (and elsewhere), the things that are certain to happen are the things that God controls directly. God can know what He intends to do and He can certainly know His enemies well enough to know their plans as well, not to mention the fact that God is masterful as manipulating His enemies into doing things they might not otherwise do, but that does not mean that the future already exists and that God has to look into the future to know such things.
Clete
The elder never served the younger, Marke!When I say God hated Esau I simply mean in the context that God meant it.
Romans 9
11 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth
12 It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
The elder (Esau) never ever served the younger (Jacob). It just never happened.
So was God wrong or are you?
Further, Romans 9 is not about those two boys and its not about predestination. It's about Israel and why it was cut off. I establish what Romans 9 is about here....
One on One: Romans 9
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I don't know what really happened. I just know what God really said.
You're basically admitting that you don't know what the Bible says happened.
No, you clearly don't, as per the above.
That's not an answer.
The record in the bible is clear. Esau never once served his brother Isaac. It flatly did not happen.
So, I ask you again, was God wrong or are you?
God said the elder shall serve the younger so that means he already has or will.
Then the burden is on you to show where the older Esau served the younger Jacob.
More evidence that you have no idea what the Bible actually says happened. Yes, past tense.