Hi Troy, I'm Charles. I thought I'd respond briefly to your post.
Calvinists don’t argue that free will is illusory, but that the sinner’s will is not free to begin with; it is enslaved to sin.So the question is, is free will real or illusory? If it is illusory, it is explained by determinism and therefore, Calvinism would be true.
You’re describing fatalism, which is not the same as theistic determinism. Calvinists deny the former but affirm the latter.And furthermore, it really wouldn't matter what you or I do (whether Atheism Naturalism or Calvinism Charades), because it is all precaused anyway. Whether you jump out of a plane tomorrow or feed millions of starving children in the next year, it wouldn't matter. It's all forced to happen anyway. There was nothing you could do about it anyway. You would not be any more guilty for being a mass murderer than you would be if you were the most spiritual Christian that ever lived.
No we wouldn’t. Have you read any Reformed authors on the subject?A Calvinist will respond by saying free will is not real
and even say that God does not plead with sinners (to avoid the contradictory two wills of having a secret will and a revealed will since God can't contradict Himself).
God does have a secret will – that which he has not revealed to us, but it does not contradict his revealed will which is found in the pages of Scripture. "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law." (Deut. 29:29)
A contradictory will to reveal (say, in the Bible, by misreading it) that God wants to save all, but has a secret will not wanting to save all, He would be contradicting Himself and lying.
God does not wish to save all men without exception. If he did, all men without exception would be saved. That is universalism, which both Arminians and Calvinists deny.
Is it reasonable for an evil creator to get his way to not provide sufficient grace to save (by passing over), irresistibly saving others, and damning billions to Hell without recourse or opportunity for salvation, all while God the ultimate Creator does want to save all? No!
It may not be reasonable, for there is a way which seems right to a man, but it leads to death. The better question is, is it scriptural? God saves those whom he chooses to save, the elect.
Others try to make Jesus to have two wills like the Coptics or versions of. His godly will is to want to save all, but his human will does not. The Coptics give Jesus two wills. But not wanting to save all by providing sufficient grace to all to give us the choice under any circumstance is evil. Besides Jesus is not schizo. He has one will and one will only. He always does the will of the Father. His human nature and divine nature are always willing the same thing in perfect accord and obedience to the Father.
And Christ did not die for all men without exception. If he was the substitutionary sacrifice for all men without exception, then all men without exception would be saved.
Finally, there is the problem with, how can there be a secret other will if you believe it is revealed God doesn't want to save all? It's not a secret then.
The fact that God does not wish to save all men without exception is part of his revealed will, not his secret will.
Are all Calvinists evil? Ettiquette Rule 10. Be Cordial.So such attempts of Calvinists are completely absurd and evil to say the least.
Who know how corrupted man's heart really is! But we do know it is not Totally depraved. Otherwise, nobody sufficiently could receive what Jesus did for us by the grace of God.
This is true. Without the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, no sinner can repent and trust Christ for his salvation. Praise be to God that the Holy Spirit sovereignly regenerates those who God elected in eternity past and those for whom Christ died.
By the way, I believe, like many Calvinists, that the elect constitute the large majority of the human race. Most Arminians believe that the elect are a small remnant of the human race. So who presents the more loving picture of God: the One who saves the large majority of mankind, or the One who saves a small remnant?
The Calvinist shuts his mind down to the verses of Scripture that show God is pleading with man.
No, there are plenty of Reformed exegetical treatments of all the passages you have in mind, if you would consult with the standard Reformed commentaries.
So that is how a Calvinist deals with the contradiction between pleading with men and no alleged free will, by denying Scripture; that is, by denying free will to exist or is real, and by denying God is pleading with men.
Calvinists affirm that man is a morally free agent, but his will is bound by sin, until he is saved.
It sounds like you are confused as to what Calvinists teach and what we do not teach.
Of course, their very choice to assume this is itself a fact of their free will which some choose and others choose not to believe. Test this out. You can change your mind if you like. The truly sad part in such a view is that to assume you cant repent and believe in Christ to be regenerated, then you will never repent and believe in Christ to be regenerated. You have put up a wall between yourself and God.
And the only person who can break through this wall of sin is the Holy Spirit. The sinner cannot do it himself, only a heart that has been regenerated (given new life) by the Holy Spirit can flee to Christ in faith.
If God pleads with men, free will must be true. If free will is true then God must plead with men. But if God pleads not with men, free will must not be true. If free will is not true, then God is not allowed to plead with men, otherwise it would be a pretentious charade.
God does not beg sinners to repent, he COMMANDS them to repent. “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). Whether they are willing to or not is besides the point. The divine Lawgiver’s holiness requires repentance of lawbreakers.
If free will is true, which seems more reasonable in light of the above evidenced facts, because God does plead with us, thus giving us the choice, then would determinism have to be false? But if determinism is false, then how can God foresee all things like all the hairs on our head (and the hairs you choose to pluck out or graft back in at any given moment)? Moreover, how can God truly create a person with free will for doesn't the person's choices have to be created, provisioned for, and caused for any given situation?
I, like most Calvinists, am a compatibilist. Both human freedom and divine determinism are compatible with each other. That would be a good topic for a new thread. Are you familiar with compatibilism?
Therefore, we must accept, no matter how much it hurts our brain to think about it (and is best not to think about that which you don't have enough information yet to resolve), that both free will (somehow, someway) is true and determinism is true: that is, there is a cause and effect to everything at the same time, free will is true. Nothing, though, is truly random. So accept free will is real and determinism is real even though you don't know how God reconciles them.
These two assertions prove no difficulty for the compatibilist, but they are flatly contradictory for you since you affirm libertarian freewill. Which will you jettison, man’s libertarian freewill, or God’s sovereignty?
God is proven by nature and Jesus is proven to be God, so these are not the issues. Moreover, the issue wondering if you are saved by assuming regeneration before repentance and faith, for God will never save you that way. God only saves one way. You would have to repent and believe in Christ to be regenerated. The issue is trying to understand how God reconciles His infinite foreknowledge with free will and accepting true salvation.
The Calvinist affirms that regeneration precedes conversion (repentance and faith). The Arminian reverses the order. Another topic for a new thread.
Perhaps God has not given you the capacity to understand since no human being has ever been able to reconcile free will with His infinite foreknowledge, but since we know they both exist, we hold the course.
No one has ever been able to reconcile them because they are mutually exclusive. Is it reasonable to affirm mutually exclusive assertions?
The best you can say is this: God works outside of time so He can see all things. He created the world we live in, all its provisions: all its laws, functions, and cause and effects. He knows all our options in any given scenario or situation and environment. Yet free will is true. You can go choose to do something in the next 30 seconds you have never done before in your life. That option is afforded to you. So free will is really true.
Not according to Scripture. The sinner is spiritually dead and enslaved to sin. If he were not, why would he need to be born again? Do the living need to be born again, or the dead?
The best explanation I have ever seen to attempt to reconcile free will with God's infinite all-knowing foreknowledge is called Molinism. Though its author in the 16th century was a non-OSASer, I believe you can apply it to OSAS Arminians.
Indeed, Luis de Molina was a Jesuit priest. The Arminians are running to Rome for their theology! :)
The way to apply it is simply to say God has all His programs (like in the movie Matrix),
I love that trilogy, but the first one was the best. There’re a lot of biblical undertones in it, along with a lot of pagan ones as well.
so He knows what any person will do in any given situation based on antecedent causes, and free-will is really free, because God saves to the uttermost; that is, He saves the most and damns the least.
Do you believe the majority of mankind will be saved?
This point is what establishes free will: when God saves the most and damns the least.
You’re saying God could not have actualized a world where all people without exception were saved? If not, his omnipotence is called into question. If so, why didn’t he actualize the world wherein all would be saved? That calls into question his omnibenevolence.
You’re straddling the horns of a dilemma.
Except create a world wherein all are saved . . .He does everything He can to save a person.
He is never unrighteous. He is always righteous and holy in all His dealings. Whereas in Calvinism, God does not save the most and damn the least, but passes over many or even double predestines them to Hell, and irresistibly imposes salvation on others without giving them the free will choice either. Very sad.
You mischaracterize your opponent. You're burning a strawman.
Calvinism is the evil that the body of Christ, the Church faces.
I think the Church’s number one enemy is theological liberalism, not evangelical Arminianism or evangelical Calvinism. But ask yourself this question: are liberals Arminian in their soteriology, or Reformed in their soteriology? Answer: they are Arminian in their soteriology. Something to ponder.
The Antichrist died 2000 years ago. But that’s another topic as well.It is what Satan will get the Antichrist to use against us.
Good website, Troy, thanks.





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