Open theism and Jesus's prediction of Judas's betrayal

[Rdr. Arsenios]

He doesn't hate them and torment them for being created,
but for their sins and stubbornness in rebellion.

He created them to be sinful and rebellious - They have no say in the matter whatsoever according to evil Calvinist doctrines that proclaim God's sovereignty over their evil deeds... And having created them evil, he then puts them into eternal unbearable torments for eternity because they ARE as He CREATED them...

This depraved Calvinist understanding slanders God
and drives people away from His Grace and Mercy...

Arsenios

[RBerman]

God creates some beings that He hates and allows them to continue to exist, so He can torment them for eternity for being created.

I hope you don't think this is a good summary of Calvinism.

[OmniSkeptical]

I think those statements sum it up. If God hates some to predestinate some permanently to hell, he must enjoy it. That and humanity has no free will other than to be depraved, because a persons deeds within the law justify no one. The deeds of a law are what a law does, not what people do under it. Without faith, there is no obedience to the law.

This was Paul's point.

[yxboom]

I hope you don't think this is a good summary of Calvinism.

I was responding to Micah719, I didn't know I was summarizing Calvinism.

[RBerman]

I was responding to Micah719, I didn't know I was summarizing Calvinism.

I'll leave it to Micah to comment whether you fairly summarized his viewpoint. I didn't see Micah suggest that God damns men because they were created, but rather because they are sinners.

[Rdr. Arsenios]

I didn't see Micah suggest that God damns men because they were created, but rather because they are sinners.

"For ALL have sinned..."

Calvinist doctrine, in order to affirm its mistaken idea of God's sovereignty, thinks that men sin because of God... If not, then God would not be in control... And His sovereignty would be lost... Making God the author of sin, and the enemy of man, for all have sinned...

God is fully in control, and man has free will, and God allows man to sin or not, according to the man, and God knows the destiny of every man ever, and His Providence is by man's freely chosen destiny...

Foreknowledge is not pre-destination violating free will in this fallen world...

In the age to come, we will not need free will...

For then evil will no longer be an option as it now is...

In this world of both good and evil, each of us freely chooses his or her destiny...

And God already knows what it will be...

Our choices and actions matter for our salvation...

Our election relies on them...

And God knows what they will be...


Arsenios

[micah719]

Mr Blaisdell, please refer to the canons of Dordrecht, a summation of the "Calvinist" refutation of the arminian heresy.

Men do not sin because God made them, they sin because they are sinners by nature, spiritually dead....because Adam wilfully chose to sin, and all his offspring are born spiritually DEAD.

The Lord was not surprised by all this..He knew before He created everything how it would all turn out. He doesn't answer to anyone, nobody can stop Him, nobody can accuse Him without grave sin and certain defeat of the accusation. He is completely good, and He does not change.

A sinner does not escape accountability because his nature is sinful. The attempt to weasel out was already nixed when Paul wrote this, under inspiration:

Rom 9:20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Rom 9:21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
Rom 9:22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
Rom 9:23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
Rom 9:24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
Rom 9:25 As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
Rom 9:26 And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.
Rom 9:27 Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:
Rom 9:28 For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.
Rom 9:29 And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha.
Rom 9:30 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith.
Rom 9:31 But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness.
Rom 9:32 Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;
Rom 9:33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

Sovereign grace is offensive to the fallen man. I'm not ashamed of preaching it. My sins are a constant black stain, and the only remedy is The Lord's mercy....which He can only exercise because Someone stepped in and paid my awful debt. I was dead, but now I live. I didn't make myself alive, because I was too dead to do anything. Same as when I was born of my earthly parents....I couldn't influence the proceedings at all. Salvation is of The Lord.

[Rdr. Arsenios]

Sovereign grace is offensive to the fallen man.

On the contrary, my brother, God's sovereign Grace is fallen man's joy...
For it bequeaths salvation in his fallen soul...

I'm not ashamed of preaching it.

You preach the sovereign Grace, but you do not preach the taking of the Kingdom of Heaven by the violence of the violent, by self-denial, by taking up one's cross, by following Christ, in order that in watchfulness one might persevere to the end and be saved...

You preach that this Grace is given to those who have done nothing in its pursuit...
Yet it is God Who requires that we SEEK, that we ASK, that we BECKON... These are GOD's requirements of us that He GIVE us what we cannot earn... You preach the lie that God GIVES us salvation and THEN we repay Him with our willingness to follow and obey Him...

You cannot preach the Cross of Christ without preaching self-denial first, then the taking up of one's OWN cross, and THEN following Christ... God's Grace is Sovereign, and there is NOTHING we can DO to EARN it, yet it is God Himself Who SET the economy of our salvation, and that requires of man great labors of self-denial that his heart be purified, and the labors increase once there is illumination of the purified heart in man, and that they then increase even more unto the glorification of God in His Saints, who as Paul describes them in himself:

1Co_4:9-12
For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last,
as it were appointed to death:
for we are made a spectacle unto the world,
and to angels, and to men.
We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ;
we are weak, but ye are strong;
ye are honourable, but we are despised.
Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst,
and are naked, and are buffeted,
and have no certain dwelling place;
And labour, working with our own hands:
being reviled, we bless;
being persecuted, we suffer it:
Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.
I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you.
For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.
Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me.


You see, you preach cheap Grace, given by preselection to some but not others, having nothing to do with a person's willingness to follow Christ...

And Christians have been preaching from the beginnings to this very hour that ALL who are drawn to Christ by repentance are admitted into the choir of His friends... God is faithful to ALL those who are willing to deny themselves, take up their own cross, and follow Him... And ANYONE CAN, and most do not, and God will judge, the living and the dead...

My sins are a constant black stain, and the only remedy is The Lord's mercy....which He can only exercise because Someone stepped in and paid my awful debt. I was dead, but now I live. I didn't make myself alive, because I was too dead to do anything. Same as when I was born of my earthly parents....I couldn't influence the proceedings at all. Salvation is of The Lord.

Then you can thank God for preselecting YOU and for not preselecting someone ELSE instead of YOU... Most Calvinist believe they are the pre-selected ones receiving God's Grace instead of the next guy equally deserving of death, and the one's who don't are not Calvinists for long...

I am glad that God has found you, and that you are a faithful servant, but this doctrine of human helplessness in repentance is a lie - There is ALWAYS abundant grace for repentance, until such time as God withdraws it from us because we do not avail ourselves of it... We always have enough grace to repent from self... We are not born dead to repentance... Instead, we deaden ourselves either to it, or in it... The first unto sin, the second unto virtue...

Arsenios

[lee_merrill]

"For ALL have sinned..."

Calvinist doctrine, in order to affirm its mistaken idea of God's sovereignty, thinks that men sin because of God...

Or because of Scripture telling us this is true: "For God has bound everyone over to disobedience..." (Rom 11:32)

Indeed, all have sinned, and that by God's plan and his binding them over to it. "So that he may have mercy on them all."

Blessings,
Lee

[Rdr. Arsenios]

Or because of Scripture telling us this is true: "For God has bound everyone over to disobedience..." (Rom 11:32)

Indeed, all have sinned, and that by God's plan and his binding them over to it. "So that he may have mercy on them all."

Blessings,
Lee

That is your INTERPRETATION of Holy Writ...

The binding over is death...

Satan is the source of sin, and man in Adam's death under Satan...

God is the source of freedom...

Man in God's Image...

You don't think so...


Arsenios

[micah719]

Grace is not earnable. I can't make points with God to keep in His good books...He either loves me or hates me, and nothing I do can make Him love me less or more, and conversely the hate thing. I admit I am quite hateable, and the thought that God loves me is wonderful beyond description. How else do I know the blackness and amount of my sin? The Holy Spirit's task is to convict and reprove, so this is one evidence. Not many people admit sin these days...not fashionable, more convenient to blame environment, genes, the devil made me do it etc etc. Another significant pointer is how precious The Lord Jesus Christ is to me. Not many these days admit and confess He is verily God and Man, virgin born, crucified and resurrected. Those things are already offensive enough to most of the world...but it goes further. Even within the shrinking subset of professing Christianity, I am in a minority...the "calvinists". I wouldn't be seeking God unless He had first drawn me. I couldn't understand saving grace, vicarious atonement, sovereign election and the Scripture unless He had made me understand. Unless He had regenerated my spirit I wouldn't even see the Kingdom of God, let alone want to be in it. Most folks would love to go to heaven....they just don't want the Biblical God to be there when they get there. But they whinge and mock and revile when informed that salvation is monergistic, that the unregenerate cannot regenerate themselves, that God actually does hate sinners as well as their sins.

On the contrary, my brother, God's sovereign Grace is fallen man's joy...
For it bequeaths salvation in his fallen soul...

Unless the fallen man is helped up, he won't like grace....but he loves "decisional regeneration", "prevenient grace", "inviting Jesus into his heart". The fallen heart loves to preen before God, as though a dead sinner could please God in any way at all. That is works, and no man will be justified by works. Now, real faith, given by God, will produce works.....but works won't produce faith.

God knows how to handle his wayward children. He does spank them very hard for their sins, but He does not disown them.

Then you can thank God for preselecting YOU and for not preselecting someone ELSE instead of YOU

I am ecstatic that The Lord chose me from before He created the world....before He got a good look at me! Read Romans 9, look at Jacob and Esau. I am not ecstatic that my neighbour may not be elect. It is grievious to me that two men I work with are not regenerate, redeemed sheep. One of them claims to be Christian but the fruit say otherwise. I know the congregation he visits...no surprise that it is a goat petting zoo but certainly not a sheepfold. This does not please me, it is horrible, and I pray for these men and that congregation, even as I wonder at how deceived the congregation is...I don't pray for the deceivers, now that I have been so patient and careful to examine diligently and have concluded there is death in the pot. There is a lot of death in most of the pots nowadays, the great apostacy prophesied is upon us. I thank God daily for His grace, His mercy, for every breath of air He allows me, for I know I earn hell with every sin...and I look forward to when sin is wholly gone from me, and I can praise Him and adore Him from a completely pure heart and mind, in a place and time where there is no evil, no sin. You won't find a calvinist not believing election....otherwise, they aren't calvinists! Sure, there will be ex-calvinists....just as there are lots od "ex-christians". They were never what they claimed to be.

Eph 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Eph 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
Eph 2:6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
Eph 2:7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Eph 2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Eph 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

[lee_merrill]

That is your INTERPRETATION of Holy Writ...

I think it's quite plain, God has bound all men over to disobedience.

The binding over is death...

Satan is the source of sin, and man in Adam's death under Satan...

Well, let's stick with Scripture please! Adam is the source of human sin, not Satan, and Adam's death is due to his own sin.

And the binding over is to disobedience.

God is the source of freedom...

Amen! "That he may have mercy on them all."

Blessings,
Lee

[Rdr. Arsenios]

You won't find a Calvinist not believing in election....
otherwise, they aren't Calvinists!

Oh I knew one, on line, about 6 years back...

He was in his mid-20s, his Dad was a Hell-Fire Calvinist preacher, who spent most of his time describing the torments of hell for the unregenerate, and he would point out just which ones around town he meant... And his son heard and believed his dad, and he KNEW for a fact growing up that with his chaotic inner life with all its sinful desires that he was for sure NOT one of the elect, and he lived in worldly torment in this knowledge, utterly scared to death at the prospect of his death, for he knew that as long as he was alive, he was not in the unbearable agony of the eternal fires of hell... And in this fear, he began drinking as a young teen, and just kept himself drunk, awaiting the day he would die and go to hell... Drinking was his only relief from this preoccupation with eternal torments that were unbearable... And he could not hold a job, or attract a wife, or have a family, or anything...

He told me all this by way of his background until one day a man who knew him pretty well asked him WHY did he drink all the time? And when he told him, the man said that what he believed was not true, that we ALL have such sinfulness, and that if he was willing to enter into repentance, God would meet him more than half way, and he could find eternal life, and overcome the sins that were ruling him... That man was an Orthodox Priest, and he prayed for this man, and God lifted his burden, and he was baptized, and has a wife and children... I do not know if he yet has a very good relationship with his dad... I hope so... But IF you are a Calvinist, you had BETTER believe you are one of the elect, because if you don't, then you will live in terror your entire life...

So go on ahead, and thank God He preselected YOU and NOT your neighbor to cause to have eternal life, and that he did NOT cause you to commit sins so he could torment you for eternity in torments unbearable... For there is no difference between you and your neighbor in terms of sinfulness - The ONLY factor that matters is God: Will he command you to sin? Or will He command you to not sin? You have no say in the matter at all - You cannot call upon God to save you, or to help you, or anything else that will be of any avail at all - It has all been pre-programmed by God from the beginning, and you are helpless before His sovereign will to make you sin and torture you for eternity, unless, of course, you are ONE OF THE ELECT... In which case, you can look on your neighbor, as you just did in your post, and condemn him for doing the sins God has commanded him to do that he is helpless to not do...

It is an evil doctrine, my brother...

Lord have mercy!

Arsenios

[Rdr. Arsenios]

Adam is the source of human sin,
not Satan,
and Adam's death is due to his own sin.

I thought you said GOD is the Source of human sin...
Bible says it was the Serpent who deceived the Woman...
Now YOU say it was Adam...

Adam did not dream up the idea that eating the fruit of the forbidden tree would make him as God...
And God did not plant that idea in him...
Are you seriously saying it was NOT the serpent who originated that sin?

Arsenios

[yxboom]

Oh I knew one, on line, about 6 years back...

He was in his mid-20s, his Dad was a Hell-Fire Calvinist preacher, who spent most of his time describing the torments of hell for the unregenerate, and he would point out just which ones around town he meant... And his son heard and believed his dad, and he KNEW for a fact growing up that with his chaotic inner life with all its sinful desires that he was for sure NOT one of the elect, and he lived in worldly torment in this knowledge, utterly scared to death at the prospect of his death, for he knew that as long as he was alive, he was not in the unbearable agony of the eternal fires of hell... And in this fear, he began drinking as a young teen, and just kept himself drunk, awaiting the day he would die and go to hell... Drinking was his only relief from this preoccupation with eternal torments that were unbearable... And he could not hold a job, or attract a wife, or have a family, or anything...

He told me all this by way of his background until one day a man who knew him pretty well asked him WHY did he drink all the time? And when he told him, the man said that what he believed was not true, that we ALL have such sinfulness, and that if he was willing to enter into repentance, God would meet him more than half way, and he could find eternal life, and overcome the sins that were ruling him... That man was an Orthodox Priest, and he prayed for this man, and God lifted his burden, and he was baptized, and has a wife and children... I do not know if he yet has a very good relationship with his dad... I hope so... But IF you are a Calvinist, you had BETTER believe you are one of the elect, because if you don't, then you will live in terror your entire life...

So go on ahead, and thank God He preselected YOU and NOT your neighbor to cause to have eternal life, and that he did NOT cause you to commit sins so he could torment you for eternity in torments unbearable... For there is no difference between you and your neighbor in terms of sinfulness - The ONLY factor that matters is God: Will he command you to sin? Or will He command you to not sin? You have no say in the matter at all - You cannot call upon God to save you, or to help you, or anything else that will be of any avail at all - It has all been pre-programmed by God from the beginning, and you are helpless before His sovereign will to make you sin and torture you for eternity, unless, of course, you are ONE OF THE ELECT... In which case, you can look on your neighbor, as you just did in your post, and condemn him for doing the sins God has commanded him to do that he is helpless to not do...

It is an evil doctrine, my brother...

Lord have mercy!

Arsenios

That is extraordinarily heart breaking.