First, I am sure you have not been exposed to many Reformed churches and/or seminaries; certainly not all, so there is no basis for you to make such a claim. And thinking that these different terms are synonymous is why you wrongly define them.
I'd just about be willing to bet that I've read more about Calvinism than you have both for and against.
I absolutely do have basis for my claim. Not only have I read I don't even remember how many books on the topic but I've been debating this for well over a decade, if not two full decades. Calvinists use the terms preordained and predestine interchangeably as there is no practical difference between the two concepts. The only difference is purely semantic in nature.
Perhaps they are to those who prefer to dumb down language, in order to further their view, but for those who desire to plumb the depths of the truths of God, learning to distinguish them reveals many important things. Such as the difference between incommunicable attributes of God and communicable attributes from God. For it is His attributes we are really discussing.
What I'm discussing is the fact that everything that happens was set in stone before anyone did anything. There is no choice, there is no volition. You're complaints about whether someone does this or that (e.g. taking forgiveness as a license to sin) is meaningless double talk that directly contradicts your most core doctrines.
A claim that you have yet to deny, by the way.
It is a lazy use of the word "predestined" to so use it when speaking of "ordained" or "decreed."
It isn't lazy, it accurate. What event that has been preordained or decreed is not predestined?
Name one single event.
God has decreed all in His kosmos, including determining the fate of all persons . . but there remains distinction between the two. The decrees cover all of creation, including the fall of man and God's ordained remedy (saving grace) and predestination has to do with Judgment.
Calvinism makes NO SUCH DISTINCTION!!!
What is preordained is predestined by virtue of the fact that is has been ordained by the immutable god of Calvinism.
This is the second reason for your wrong thinking. God's attribute of immutability is Scriptural. James 1:17, Numbers 23:19
Calvinism's immutability is nowhere at all in the bible.
God's character is immutable, He is not.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
So you deny all evidences of cause and effect? How brilliant you are! (not)
I deny no such thing. You're stupid.
What you are demanding here, is that the will of man be allowed to work alternative effects, from what God has decreed . . . WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE.
What are you talking about, "WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE"?
You need to go take your meds.
Without alternative possibilities, there is no choice. Without choice, there is no moral implication to any action. Without the ability to choose we're just a collection of chemicals going through the motions.
Such an attitude and argument against God's sovereignty, is the original sin Adam committed in the garden.
This was a stupid thing to say. Genesis says nothing at all about denying the notion that God controls everything (i.e. your definition of "sovereign". Further, according to Calvinism, Adam's sin was predestined to happen by God's decree before creation even began and he could not have done otherwise.
All Adam did was ordained (decreed) by God to happen,
And therefore unchangeably predestined.
due to Adam possessing secondary causal agency. And the awful consequences produced Judgment (predestination).
"Secondary causal agency" is a meaningless phrase. Adam did it because he had no choice. He had no choice because God degree what would happen in advance before Adam ever had a thought in his head.
God ordained the fall, caused by Adam, and righteously judges the effects (predestination).
God caused Adam to "cause" it. Adam could not have done otherwise. His action was not volitional, by definition. (According to your own doctrinal source documents.)
There is no contradiction. I fear you simply have not spent time studying the attributes of God.
Saying it doesn't make it so, Nang.
No, I stand by these words. You only see contradiction, because your teachers and mentors contradict the historical Truths of God, and deny the attributes of God.
Everyone can see that there is a contradiction there, including you! That's why you said it the way you did! Every Calvinist theologian that has ever published anything has gone on at length about the "mystery of the gospel" and making that phrase synonymous with the contradictory nature of the "doctrines of grace" vs. man's will. They go on and on about antinomy this and antinomy that. Everything in your whole theological system that cannot be explained rationally is tossed directly into the antinomy bin. It's what you Calvinists consider to be faith!
IOW's, you have been hoodwinked with the errors of Open Theology . . .
Thank God for that!
Resting in Him,
Clete