Truster is not a liar
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nikolai_42
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I had another thought on a rather extended commute home this evening. We pin the blame on Adam (rightly) for introducing sin into the world (Romans 5:12). But even the consequences are of God. God told Adam right away what the upshot would be if he ate of the one tree. And I think people tend to look at that as a law that was in place that God was merely warning Adam about (sort of like a mother warning her child not to touch the hot stove or she will burn herself). But who set those laws in place in the beginning? And who superintends them? And who revokes them at His pleasure? And if you are grimacing at the little child analogy since that sounds like a mother who is not taking care of her child by simply saying "don't do that or else" (rather than keeping her away from the burner to being with), then how much more is God "responsible" as that Father of all men? So God wrote the Law to begin with and He enforces it. He dictates it, not it Him.
And then, as a result, who determined what the curses would be upon Adam, Eve and the serpent in Genesis 3:14-19? God. He declared them and He conveyed them. God makes peace and creates evil. So even if the world we live in is cursed because of sin, who cursed it? Technically, God did! So the responsibility for sin is Adam's but the accountability for how things "play out" in time is God's.
Not sure how you think that is different from what I said.
If it is impossible for you to be allowed to do anything other than what GOD wills to take place, then everything you do is what GOD wanted to happen.
That might sound confusing, so let me just ask this question ....
Could you choose to do anything other than what GOD allows you to choose?
glorydaz
Well-known member
God sure didn't "allow" you to be a genius....you prove that every time you post. :chuckle:
glorydaz
Well-known member
Not exactly how it sounds, however.
Ask Mr. Religion
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A nit to pick at here. God is not accountable to another, else He is not God. Responsibility presupposes accountability. We are responsible for our actions, for God hold us accountable. That said, it is also important to grasp that being held accountable in no way presupposes ability or freedom. We need only look to our government as a simple metaphor, wherein we hold our representatives accountable irrespective of their freedom or abilities.
The whole business of seeking ways to let God off the hook, as it were, leads to odious views like open theism.
No doubt it may then be asked, If there are two efficient causes of Adam’s eating the apple, why is the primary efficient cause (God) not responsible for the sin, while the secondary efficient cause (Adam) is responsible for the sin?
The proper answer follows:
The motive which God has in actively permitting (ordaining) sin and the motive which man has in committing sin are radically different. Many are deceived in these issues because they fail to consider that God wills righteously those things which men do wickedly.
But we must always remind ourselves that God contracts no defilement or criminality from such agency. God is just in all His ways, and holy in all His works. While everything that occurs in God’s universe finds its account in God's positive ordering and active concurrence, yet the moral quality of the deed, considered in itself, is rooted in the moral character of the subordinate agent (Adam), acting in the circumstances and under the motives operative in each instance. God is not the author (the doer) of sin. Sin is embraced in His ordaining; it is accomplished in His providence. Yet Adam's sin and all sin is embraced in His decree and effected in His providence in such a way as to ensure that blame and guilt attach to the perpetrators of wrong and to them alone.
Blame attaches to actions, and actions are characterized by intentions. The truth of propositions 1 and 2 above includes the fact that Adam and God perform quite different actions:
1. Adam intentionally eats a fruit; God does not eat a fruit.
2. Adam knowingly breaks a divine command; God does not break one of His own commands.
3. God commanded that Adam should not eat the fruit; God did not command that He should not ordain (decree) that Adam should eat the fruit.
A clear biblical locus classicus for this sort of dual agency is the story of Joseph in Genesis... where Joseph says, “you intended it for evil, but God intended it for good."
Even if it cannot be shown how it is that God and man can be the cause of free actions, despite His ordaining that our actions are not coerced, but the product of our greatest inclinations that arise from our nature (fallen or redeemed), it does not follow that it is a contradiction. Moreso, per God's decree to establish the liberty of spontaneity (free will as I have just described), God is required to cause free actions. God does not simply cause the existence of free will apart from the actions of free will. God’s causing (necessarily, freely, or contingently) the acts of free will is God’s providential sustaining of human free will (liberty of spontaneity). This is what it means by man’s free will piggybacks on God’s free will.
Nor is it the case that God’s free will overrides man’s free will. God does not overpower or compete with man’s free will. Again, the very existence of human free will depends on God’s establishing not just the fact of free will, but the acts of free will. That is how God sustains free will. For if God did not do so, humans would not be free creatures.
At this point I can hear the canards in the TOL aisles. “God is a despot!” Instead of emotionalism and appeals to the crowd for effect, let’s think a wee bit more about this. While God’s sovereignty is universal and absolute, it is not the sovereignty of blind power, instead that power is coupled with God’s infinite wisdom, love, and holiness. When this doctrine is understood properly, it is reassuring and comforting. Would we prefer to have our affairs in the infinite power, love, and holiness of God’s hands or have our lives left to chance, fate, irrevocable natural law, or our own short-sighted and perverted selves? "We ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead," (2 Corinthians 1:9).
Persons who reject God's sovereignty should seriously consider what alternatives they have left.
The anti-Calvinist's idea which assumes that the serious intentions of God in some way and in some cases can at least be defeated, and that man, who is not only a creature but a sinful creature, can exercise veto power over the plans of Almighty God, is in striking contrast with the Scriptural idea of His immeasurable exaltation by which God is removed from all the weaknesses of humanity. Per this view, that the plans of men are not always executed is due to a lack of power, or a lack of wisdom; but rather are so since God is unlimited in these and all other resources, no unforeseen emergencies can arise, and to Him the causes for change have no existence. To suppose that God’s plans fail and that God strives to no effect, is to reduce God to the level of His creatures. Power with out knowledge is dangerous. Knowledge without power is weak. God is neither dangerous nor weak.
Since God's knowledge of all actualities is infallibly complete, God knows the destiny of every person, not merely before the person has made his choice in this life, but from eternity. And since God knows their destiny equally vividly to His creating, and He proceeds to create, it is clear that both the saved and the lost fulfill God’s plan for them; for if He did not plan that any particular ones should be lost, God could have at least refrained from creating the irrevocably lost.
I conclude, then, that the Christian doctrine of the foreknowing of God also proves His predestination. Since these events are known to God, they are fixed and settled; and nothing can have fixed and settled them except the good pleasure of God, freely and unchangeably ordaining whatever comes to pass. The whole difficulty lies in the acts of free agents being certain; yet certainty is required for foreknowing and is rooted in the ordaining. The Arminian, Romanist, and openist arguments, if they were valid, would disprove both God's foreknowing and ordaining. And since they prove too much I must conclude that they prove nothing at all.
AMR
Epoisses
New member
Some things God allows or does not allow to happen. Examples being when he allowed Satan to torture Job or when he allowed Paul to persecute the church. Other times he will personally make things happen like the flood or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. If the woman gets raped in the street or the baby dies from cancer or the little old lady gets run over by a bus these are things that God allowed to happen but did not make to happen. We live in a world of sin and bad things happen here.
Epoisses
New member
Just look up the definition of the word and you may gain some insight.
I understand what you are saying.
But does the logic really pan out?
Take the example of Job you mention.
Satan was already itching to attack Job and was even taunting GOD to give him permission to attack Job.
God allowed Satan to attack Job.
Make no mistake, 'allowed' to do so' in this context means 'gave permission to do so'.
God gave Satan permission to attack Job.
Does that same rule apply to man?
Franklin is itching to molest his little daughter.
Does Franklin have to get express permission from GOD to molest his daughter to be capable of molesting his daughter?
Or can Franklin molest his daughter without permission to do so from GOD?
Truster was banned?
Now you sound like Truster.
I wonder who willed that. :noid:
glorydaz
Well-known member
The saints on TOL. :thumb:
glorydaz
Well-known member
I'm sure glad I don't have to take your word for that. :chuckle:
marhig
Well-known member
This world is full of sin, because satan is here, but God doesn't cause sin, he has nothing to do with sin or wickedness this world belongs to the Prince of this world and we all suffer at his hands in one way or another, but it's not God that causes evil. Everyone who commits evil, or has an evil thought doesn't know God and they are listening to the devil. And they fall because of their own lusts.
Now God does allow evil, because this flesh is where satan lives, it is the dust that satan feeds on, and the works of the flesh are the bad fruits we produce when we listen to him and do his will. All wickedness done at the hands of man comes from the devil and all goodness in this world comes from God.
3 John 1:11
Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.
You mentioned Job. Why did God ask satan if he had considered Job? Because he knew Job was strong enough to endure it, and he knew Job had great faith in him, and that through that faith, Job could bare what was set before him. God will not give those who belong to him more temptation than they can endure, Job could bare so much because he was a strong man of God.
And look at what happened because of the suffering that Job went through, his friends saw the glory of God, and turned to Job to ask him to pray for them, and God listened to the prayers of Job, not of the friends because they were wrong before God, but he listened to Jobs prayer for his friends, and God blessed Job greatly once he had endured the suffering, kept his faith and kept his forgiving heart, even after all his friends did to him.
So those who belong to God should pray for others, even those who are against us, keeping our hearts soft and we're not to listen to satan, but turn from sin and not let satan into our hearts to corrupt us, but pray and keep our faith in God no matter what we go through in this life and live by the will of God, never forget God and pray always from the heart, and when we suffer, God will strengthen us to bare it. and we have Jesus Christ as our perfect example to follow, and those who truly follow him, God will bless with the Spirit who will help them to overcome as Job did.
My husband said a good thing, he said that many suffered through hurricane irma, they all faced the same storm, but those who survived and had their houses in tact, did so because their houses were built on strong foundations and they were built to withstand the storms. And those of us who have Christ as our cornerstone and have our house built by the hand of God, will go through the suffering as others do, but we will remain standing, because through faith God will strengthen us. But we must be prepared, the house must be built strong, and we do this by truly following Jesus obeying his commandments and teachings and living by the will of God, and we will have a house, cleaned, prepared and furnished by the Holy Spirit that nothing of this world can pull down as long as we remain in Gods goodness.
Also there's this
And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him. And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village
We shouldn't gloat at the suffering of others, but pray that God has mercy on them and pray that Christ through his people can save as many as possible. We will all suffer trials and judgement, but we are not to say aha to others, yes we should be truthful with each other, but we are also to be there for one another and bring the love of God to all.
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Straw man may be lurking here. It appears the unstated assumption is that God is somehow the primary cause versus the actual secondary cause that brings about the calamity (disasters) or moral evil: man's willing and doing, or God's established order of nature that has been corrupted by man's sin in the Garden.
We are never to think of God as wishing or striving to do what He knows He will not do. God has no unfulfilled desires. For God to do otherwise would be for Him to act foolishly. Since Scripture tells us that some men are going to be lost, 2 Peter 3:9, the verse of 1 Tim. 2:4 cannot mean that God is earnestly wishing or striving to save each and every person. For if it were God's will that every individual of mankind should be saved, then not one soul could be lost, "For who hath resisted his will?" (Rom. 9:19).
Rather, verses such as these teach us that God does not delight in the sufferings of His creatures any more than a human father delights in the punishment that he sometimes must inflict upon his son.
Some of my further thoughts on the will of God:
Spoiler
Hurricanes take place because God has established natural laws. Unless God intervenes to operate above these natural laws (a miracle), they will play out as they have been so established to do, as in functions of weather patterns, and whatnot. God's decree encompasses things ordained necessarily (like natural laws, planetary orbits, etc), freely (God's ordaining and thusly establishing free will governed by man's greatest inclinations when they so choose), and contingently. That last one, contingently is not a simple topic.
For instance, for Hitler to do what he did was contingent upon a vast number of second causes. First, he had to be born. 2nd, he had to have the upbringing he did. 3rd, he had to gain power. 4th, he had to have others who did not oppose him but were willing themselves to carry it out. And these are very simplistic second causes. So many things are contingent upon the simplest of events. And from our perspective, it would seem like God had to see how things would work together in order to infallibly and immutably bring all things to pass, from the greatest even to the least.
Yet we are told from Scripture that all things come to pass not because God foresaw them as future, but because He wills them to be in the first place. But just because He wills or decrees them in the first place does not do away with the nature of second causes. His ordaining decree (God's willing) establishes and includes those things that accomplish His will by the nature of those second causes.
I get that it is difficult to understand. And I would say that no one has this understanding nailed down, especially me. But there are two things to uphold: 1) everything that happens is because God wills it (will being properly understood), and 2) God is not the author of sin. Whatever explanation we use to help it make sense to us needs to start with those two premises.
AMR
nikolai_42
Well-known member
Thank you! A whole lot of food for thought.
I guess it's hard to simplify something you don't fully understand to begin with...but this is clear (and Joseph's declaration is eminently helpful). The same act is framed differently by intent. God's nature being holy and righteous (not to mention having liberty over His creation) works all things after the counsel of His will. As creatures, however, it's hard to separate the act from the motive because we see both (sinful act and sinful intent) in ourselves as inextricably tied together. So if we have to make the decision that God is somehow involved in our sinful acts, we can't help but see that as imputing sin to Him. So we either tend to distance Him from it altogether (diminishing His sovereignty) or say He simply allowed it. If Sovereign, His allowance carries great weight.
I'm glad you only had a mere nit to pick...I can't imagine what this would have looked like if you outright disagreed
(one of the few times I find these emoticons/emojis helpful)
So if two men do evil at the same on opposite sides of the world, then Satan made both of them sin? In other words, you're saying Satan is omnipresent?
Unfortunately, your analogy doesn't work. Even the buildings with the strongest foundations (physical, not spiritual) can be moved. Remember back in 2011 the huge tornado that hit Joplin, MO? The main hospital there (several floors, many tons of steel, wood, and other materials) had one of its towers rotated 4 inches on it's foundation, rendering the entire structure in need of demolition.
That's not what the Bible says...
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.So then death is working in us, but life in you.And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore speak,knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you.For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God. - 2 Corinthians 4:7-15 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2Corinthians4:7-15&version=NKJV
We WILL be knocked down.
By loving God and loving others.
Marhig, what is God's will?
Obeying God's commandments and teachings means nothing if one does not love his neighbor.
It seems like you're ignoring the context of that passage. Christ's mission was to die, not to bring fire from heaven. He rebuked them because they expected fire, and not salvation.
Is this a spiel about pacifism? If so, this is not the place for it.
nikolai_42
Well-known member
The short answer is that you are correct. Nor did I intend it that way (and as AMR so ably pointed out, intent is very important). But when I first started to think about this verse in more than a superficial way - and I still haven't plumbed its depths - I realized that the context was God taking responsibility for things man didn't want to impute to Him. We see disasters on a regular basis (and seemingly more often now) and tragedies galore - and one of the first questions asked is "Where is God?". But when you really start to look at it closely, the Lord must be in the tragedy...in the devastation...in the loss - for it to be meaningful. When you are suffering, that is hard to process and takes a while to come to grips with (just ask Job!). But the result is still that God is either in evil in some way or He isn't. Evil in the sense of wickedness has to be contextual. Evil in the sense of calamity is readily apparent without imputing motive. Disaster is disaster no matter why it happened. But a gun in the hand of a trustworthy policeman is far different from a gun in the hands of a deranged madman. If the policeman shoots 6 gang members who are inciting violence, he is doing his job and is maintaining justice. If the madman shoots up the first 6 people he meets on the street, he is wicked and needs to be put away (or executed). If the first 6 people he executes are those same gang members, do we give him a pass because he saved us more violence? No, it isn't who is killed that determines what is morally evil, it's why they were killed that determines if it is morally evil. Since God is eternal, His view is eternal where ours is infinitely limited. And if He is good, then He is not guilty of any evil. That sounds like circular reasoning, but we believe He is good - He has shown Himself to be good - and so if we believe He works all things according to the counsel of His will, then what appears (momentarily) to be inexcusable and without any ultimate meaning or purpose will eventually be shown to be rather redounding to God's glory and fulfilling His will. We simply can't see it since we only glimpse an infinitesmally small sliver of the "big picture" that is God's plan.
Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.
Psalm 76:10
If you want a more thorough-going (and probably more accurate) treatment, I would say see AMR.