This is the difference between prescriptive and decretive. Decretive: toward all creation "It was good." He made everything good. Prescriptive: He has the Son save mankind. Did He 'want' man to Fall? Of course not. It means simply God is able both to make things happen that are good, and able to prescribe a remedy when man Fell, hence decretive and prescriptive will. The wheat tares analogy give us a clear sense of both: Decretive: wheat Prescriptive: How to handle tares with the wheat.
It's meaningless double talk, Lon! Things happen AGAINST God's will all the time. We call it "sin".
Can you explain 'if'' Adam and Eve loved God? Were they incapable until after sin?
Of course they loved God.
Okay let me entertain your thoughts? Decretive and Prescriptive make the best sense to me currently.
They don't make sense to anyone, Lon. It's irrational drivel. The degree to which you think it makes sense is the degree to which you haven't thought it through and/or have faulty premises.
That's great! Prescriptive will. Let me go back to the wheat/tares analogy: Wheat growing -> Decretive enter an enemy planting weeds: "Let them grow together lest even one wheat is lost." -> Prescriptive.
Nonsense! The weeds were not God's will to begin with. It's nothing but a goofy way of saying that things happen that God doesn't want but has to deal with. It's the Calvinist stealing my worldview while using words that trick his own mind into thinking he's made sense of his nonsensical doctrine.
I don't believe, if for clarity, the issue is over will itself, but how it differs between plan vs. a bug in the plan and how to handle it. Declarative vs Prescriptive. 1) Is the difference noticeable? Understood? 2) Is it the terms that are the problem?
Why is it that the actual text of scripture, even in the original language, never seems to move you an inch off of your preferred doctrine?
I agree. Only Israel belongs to God? Paul is writing to Romans. The Potter/Clay statement must be universal in scope? Psalm 24:1 The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
His audience was not purely uneducated heathen Romans who had been converted to Christianity and who had never been exposed to the Jewish scriptures and even if it were, the book of Romans is in the bible. In other words, Romans isn't this completely disconnected letter that has no relationship with the rest of God's word. God Himself is the ultimate author of the whole collection of 66 books. Paul was DEFINITELY referencing Jeremiah 18. There isn't ANY question about it. There isn't even any reason to question it unless this obvious fact means that you don't get to hold on to a favored doctrine.
Having said that, I don't have a problem with someone making a limited application of the principle to their lives because molding you like a piece of clay is certainly something God is capable of doing, but the problem, especially within the context of a theological discussion on a website like this, is that you have to start off making the very clear distinction that the scripture in question is NOT talking about individual people but the nations and the nation of Israel in particular. In other words, you have to know that you are taking the passage out of context to make any such personal application.
There were a number of ideas in that paragraph: 1) Analogy from a song 2) Only one translation has 'expected.' Translators 'try' to convey an idea but at any given point, if a word doesn't quite work, it is fitting to look up the original word and see if the problem is wholly caused by translation. 3) Isaiah lists in three chapters "I am God, there are no others" and not contenders. 4) God did have good grapes which is why the song is a song. God always had a remnant.
You REALLY REALLY REALLY need to look up the word "rationalization"!
I don't care what language you read that passage in. The idea it is expressing is IMPOSSIBLE to miss except on purpose! God wanted for Israel to produce good fruit. He wanted justice, He got the opposite and so tore it down.
I love hearing you champion Him. Help: Was the cross justice or mercy? Both?
The cross was the JUST price for mercy. If God need not be just, then there was no need at all for Christ to die. God bought our lives with His own. A trade He was willing to make.
We had to be justified but isn't it Love et al that gave us justification?
It was justice that justified you! It was love that motivated God to pay the price justice demanded.
I was intimating all God's qualities come to our salvation. AMR always said God's characteristics do not override any one of them. Is that also what you are getting at? Thanks for disussion.
No. I have no respect at all for a single syllable of anything AMR ever said. I wouldn't bet my house that he was even saved. He had no understanding whatsoever of what justice is and believed that God was arbitrary. Perhaps he believed just enough to make it by the skin of his teeth but I sort of doubt it. He fully understood Calvinist doctrine and swallowed it all, hook, line and sinker. That's sufficient reason to seriously doubt his salvation. You simply don't get to believe God is an unjust tyrant and expect to get saved because you call him "Jesus".
Good!
I may be tracking: God 'can't' because of His own character? It isn't 'thwarted' but ever before that is what I was hearing. I believe I'd always missed what you and other's were trying to say. I'd greatly appreciate your input expiation:
Well, I'm not sure I understand what's so difficult to understand here.
You have children, right? Do they ever do things that you don't want them to do? Why must it be so dramatically different for God? What possible profit is there to accepting the idea that every evil action that has ever happened is somehow God's will? It isn't His will! That's what makes the actions evil!! That's what them word evil means, right?
Calvinists get accused of making God the author of evil because that's exactly what they do! And for what reason?
(The answer to that question is so that they can preserve the notion that God is immutable, by the way.)
NO! It was not God's will for Israel to be evil - period!
Seriously! WHY do you have any desire or emotional need to equate the existence of evil to some form, to ANY form, of God's will? It is not His will! It's AGAINST His will. That's why it's called "evil". That's why it's called "rebellion".
A little too open, what do you mean? Appreciate your input. -Lon
You said they didn't take the Dr.'s orders. If the doctor is God then the Dr.'s orders would be His prescriptive will, right? And following the idiot logic of Calvin, their not taking the Dr.'s orders would have be his decretive will. (Actually, I may have those backwards - it makes no sense so I can't ever keep track of which is which.) So, which did God want and which did He not want? If He wanted the orders followed then why call the failure to follow order His will? If He wanted the orders to not be followed then why give the order in the first place? It would seem the option one is left with is deciding whether God is a nut job or a liar.
For clarity and posterity I'm glad we agree. 
In the next few posts I'll watch and learn. This is a meaningful conversation. I'm not neglecting your former, I just want to gather thoughts productively. Please don't think I'm ignoring the former, it is just that I wouldn't be able to forward the conversation and I want it to keep going, even if I'm not an active participant briefly, I'm listening. -Lon