Predestination: the whole view

[Solly]

General Predestination

Scripture Verse:

Dan 4.35 ...he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and [among] the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?

The idea of determination is in fact much more influential and pervasive throughout the Scriptures that the infrequent occurence of the terms [decree, reprobate, elect, ordained, providence, choose, know, foreknow) might suggest...The thought that God really is the sovereign disposer of all that is belongs so essentially to the OT that its explicit expression is neither frequent nor required.

Art. Determinate, in Theological Word Book of the Bible, Alan Richardson, (ed.) SCM, (1950), p65, 66

Dr Abraham Kuyper: "The determination of the existence of all things to be created, or what is to be a camellia or buttercup, nightingale or crow, hart or swine, and equally among men, the determination of our own persons, whether one is to be born as a boy or girl, rich or poor, dull or clever, white or coloured or even as Abel and Cain, is the most tremendous predestination conceivable in heaven or on earth; and still we see it taking place before our eyes every day, and we ourselves are subject to it in our entire personality; our entire existence, our very nature, our position in life being entirely dependant on it. This all-embracing predestination, the Calvinist places, not in the hands of man, and still less in the hand of blind natural force, but in the hand of Almighty God, soveriegn Creator and Possessor of heaven and earth; and it is in the figure of the potter and the clay that Scripture has from the time of the prophets expounded to us this all-dominating election. Election in creation, election in providence, and so election also to eternal life; election in the realm of grace as well as in the realm of nature."

Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism; quoted in Lorraine Boettner, Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, P&R (1932), p 17

Bayne: [Of the Reformed Faith] its grand principle is the contemplation of the universe of God revealed in Christ. In all places, in all times, from eternity to eternity, Calvinism sees God."
Our age, with its emphasis on democracy, doesn't like this view, and perhaps no other age has liked it less. The tendency today is to exalt man and to give God only a very limited part in the affairs of the world.

Quote and comment in, Lorraine Boettner, Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, p 17, 18

God's Sovereign power: Gen 18:14 Job 42:2 Psa 29:10 Psa 115:3 Isa 46:9-11 Jer 32.17
In men's lives Gen 45.8 Isa 45.1
Over the nations Isa 40.22-24 Isa 14.24, 27; 45.7 Jer 18.1-10
In nature Psa 89.9 Isa 45.7

General Predestination
His will to do Isa 55.11
His doing as he will Dan 4.35
In creation Job 36.32 Job 38-42
--Persons (creation and lifespan) Psa 139.16 Job 14.5 Rom 9.20, 21
--Their callings and occupations Deut 7.6-8 Jer 1.5 Luke 1.13-17 John 15.16
--Their actions Prov 16.33 Mt 20.18, 19
--Their chances 1 Kings 22.28, 34
--Their evils Gen 45.8, 50.20 Amos 3.6 Rom 11.7
--Their fortunes Jos 2.14 John 9.3

Questions

Do you accept that God is sovereign in making the choices about the way you are:
race - that you were born of this or that race
gender - male or female
creed - that you had this or that advantage/disadvantage in religion
colour - black, white, red, yellow, brown
nation; town - where you were born; which side of the road
time - now, rather than then, or later
parentage - these particular parents, good or bad
lifespan - does he number our days; can you change it
disposition - sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic; depressed, carefree; brave or coward
abilities - cripple or athlete; mentally disabled or genius
health - physically or mentally disabled, or never a days sickness
financial - child of a CEO or child of a factory worker
Existence - that you even exist at all - did God have the right to create or not create you.
Sin - that you were not separated from the sinfulness of humanity, but born into it, with all its deformations of the image of God, and the power given to ungodly dispositions and inclinations?
Do you believe you have the right to murmur and question any of these things?
Do you believe any of them are matters of mere chance or fortune, outside of God's sovereign control and determination?

Special Predestination

Scripture Verse:

Rev 17:8 ... whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world ...

It is however, indisputable that the chief concern of scripture is to set forth the divine determination as it applies to man. God's determination is fundamentally a soteriological determination...

[Of the coming of Christ] It would be unthinkable that the execution of this determined programme should be left to chance, or committed to the charge of fortuitous agents and means...

[Of election unto salvation] It is by no means an accident that in the NT, ie after the advent of Christ, the determination of the individual sudddenly flares up into a prominence which is does not achieve in the OT.

Art. Determinate, in Theological Word Book of the Bible, Alan Richardson, (ed.) p65, 66

The bible is emphatic that the choice is with God rather than with man. this is the Biblical doctrine of election, John 15.16
It is tempting to say that he calls all men, but few respond to his call. But this is not sound NT teaching, which insists that the choice is with God and not with man. In Paul their is no distinction between the two words. Men are "chosen out" from the world and are "called" in Christ.

Art. Chosen, in Theological Word Book of the Bible, Alan Richardson, (ed.) p44

[Election is] a particular application of the general doctrine of predestination or foreordination as it relates to the salvation of sinners.

Lorraine Boettner, Reformed Doctrine of Predestination

Salvation events Matt 1.21 Acts 2.23; 4.27, 28

Believers and their salvation John 6.37, 39, 65 Acts 13.48 1 Thess 1.4, 5 2 Thess 2.13 1 Pet 1.2 Rev 13.8, 17.8
Of particular note in Paul Rom 8.29, 30 Assurance in troubles Rom 9-11 Not of ourselves, whatever our background Eph 1.1-12 In Christ, for a purpose

Christian experience

The whole problem is one of freedom, and our difficulty arises from the fact that we persist in thinking of freedom as an absolute. Actually there is no such thing as absolute freedom in this world; it is always relative. If we begin by assuming an absolute freedom for God, we find it difficult to ascribe any freedom to man. Conversely, if we begin by assuming freedom for man, we find it difficult to secure a proper freedom for God.
The solution is to be found in Christian experience rather than in intellectual and logical terms. The idea that man chooses belongs to the "first principles of Christ"; the extent to which a man knows that God chooses is the measure of his progress towards perfection. At conversion a man is very sensible of the fact that he has a choice between Christ and not-Christ, between life and death. He is certain of nothing more than this. He is right, for it is a real and true choice. But afterwards that same man grows more and more conscious that even those very first stirrings in his own heart which led him to choose Christ were the work of the Holy Spirit. He becomes growingly sure that he was chosen rather than that he chose. He becomes more and more sure also that this choice of God's depended upon God's love and not upon his own deserving of it. It was because "he had a favour unto me". Further, this same man is not prepared to follow the logic of his statement along normal human lines to its conclusion, for then he will find himself saying that God has not chosen certain others, from which it is a small step to say that he has elected some to damnation. He therefore stops short in his logic when he comes to the end of his own experience, because, since he is dealing with an action of God rather than with an action of man, he knows that he is in a realm too deep for human thought. We say, therfore, that the idea of human choice is the language of the newly converted, but that the certainty of the divine choice is the language of the sanctified.

Art. Chosen [N H Snaith], in Theological Word Book of the Bible, Alan Richardson, (ed.) p44 [emphasis added]

Note, the TWBB is not an Evangelical work, but produced by "liberal" academics and ministers, mostly British, including Matthew Black, CEB Cranfield, and RH Fuller, and the catholics AG Hebert and AM Ramsey.

This is why I believe in predestination to salvation. I do not see it as a doctrine that can be excised from scripture just because it does not sit well with my human sentiments (the kind of sentiments that one finds throughout the Western world when they speak about such and such being "in heaven" regardless of a life lived without acknowledgment of God) because to do so would be to cut the essential warp and weft of the fabric of Scripture. God's Sovereign Will, esp in the predestination and foreordination of the fate of sinners, are part of the primary colours of Scripture, along with his loving kindness and mercy as expressed towards sinners, and his holiness and righteousness in dealing with sinners.
I was particularly surprised to find that quote from Snaith, not a Calvinist in the slightest. Though I would not endorse every word, yet it is to be noted that Calvin voiced similar thoughts to his final conclusion; Snaith has seen his way through the matter as far as our experience is concerned.

Feel free to criticise what I have posted here; though it will mostly be of no avail; there are only two posters on TWeb who have the capacity to make a reasoned case against Calvinism - Arminian and Jaltus.

[Jaltus]

Solly,

My shoot-from-the-hip response would be that the major problem I see is your assumption that predestination = foreordination.

In no way is that something you argued for, but it is the basis of your post (you actually essentially say that when you say "God's Sovereign Will, esp in the predestination and foreordination of the fate of sinners..."). I think it is your Achilles' heel. None of the verses you listed, none of the arguments made, not one portion of your post points toward foreordination.

In other words, I would feel slightly uncomfortable with the language you used and would need to take out one sentence, but otherwise I think I could hold to most of what you said. The differences between our alleged understandings of God (not that they do not exist, but alleged in that I doubt any system we come up with could ever truly describe God) is that we hold to foreknowledge logically prior to predestination, whereas you hold to foreordination logically prior to predestination. THat is the true rub. Once you address this point I think the conversation can move on much more quickly and fruitfully.

[Solly]

Thanks for the reply Jaltus

[greek]proorizow[/greek] Foreordination Acts 4.28 Rom 8.29,30 1 Cor 2.7 Eph 1.5,11
The word has simply the sense of determining beforehand.
It is thus kindred in meaning with a number of other New Testament words expressing the idea of Divine purpose, as “foreknow” (in pregnant sense, Act_2:23; Rom_8:29, etc.); “determine” (Act_17:26); “appoint” (1Pe_2:8). Foreordination, in the widest sense, is coextensive with the sphere of God's universal providence, being but another name for that Divine plan, purpose or counsel which embraces all things, great and small (Mat_10:29, Mat_10:30), that happen in Nature, or fall out in human life.
Foreordination in the sphere of grace has respect to the choice, calling and blessing of those who, through faith, are made partakers of eternal life (Rom_8:29, Rom_8:30; Eph_1:5, Eph_1:11). In this, its soteriological aspect, the subject is considered in special articles.

[greek]proorismoV[/greek] Predestination
Predestination is that aspect of foreordination whereby the salvation of the believer is taken to be effected in accordance with the will of God, who has called and elected him, in Christ, unto life eternal. The divine plan of salvation must certainly be conceived under this aspect of individual reference

Thayer Definition:
1) to predetermine, decide beforehand
2) in the NT of God decreeing from eternity
3) to foreordain, appoint beforehand

You will have to humour me and tell me wherein lies the difference.
Predestination is that aspect of foreordination just as special predestination is an aspect of general predestination.

We probably disagree on the notion of foreknowledge:

The word “foreknowledge” has two meanings. It is a term used in theology to denote the prescience or foresight of God, that is, His knowledge of the entire course of events which are future from the human point of view; and it is also used in the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) to translate the Greek words [greek]proginowskein[/greek] and [greek]prognowsiV[/greek] in the New Testament, in which instances the word “fore-knowledge” approaches closely the idea of fore-ordination.

God's foreknowledge, according to the Scripture teaching, is based upon His plan or eternal purpose, which embraces everything that comes to pass. God is never represented as a mere onlooker seeing the future course of events, but having no part in it.

While, therefore, the foreknowledge of God in the sense of prescience is asserted in the New Testament, this is not the meaning of the term when used to translate the Greek words. These words which are translated in the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) by the word “foreknowledge,” and once by the word “foreordain” (1Pe_1:20 the King James Version), mean much more than mere intellectual foresight or prescience.

All quotes from the ISBE James Orr btw.

This reflects my view:
Foreknowledge first of all means God's prescience; but not just that
As in the article, it reflects God's full knowledge of events because his is the source of those events.
Thirdly, reflecting what I am told is the Hebraic usage, it is a knowledge of persons, not just proposed events. Our names where written in the book of life, or not, before the foundation of the world (I know, I know, ANE hyperbole, Greco Roman Rhetoric...)

[mickiel]

but now why should mankind believe in something so great, costing nothing. The natural reaction of religon is to factor in a cost.


Repentance, submission, obedience, human performance, faith, belief, baptism, all are what we figure to be a payment for eternal life; after all, it just CANNOT BE FREE! Jesus is the annointed payment IN FULL. We just can't accept that as true.

[Zagnut]

Feel free to criticise what I have posted here; though it will mostly be of no avail;

Feel free not to read my post.

[Solly]

Jaltus, further on foreknowledge, foreordination, and predestination:

[greek]proginwskw[/greek] Knowledge before.
Approaches:
1--Divine foreknowledge as prescience, and therefore foresight of faith.

Objection to 1 by John Murray: God knows persons not events - "whom he foreknew", not "whose faith response he foreknew".

-2-Divine foreknowledge as Election
Knowing, inclinging towards someone; relational knowledge.
Hebrew yada to know Deut 9.24 Amos 3.2 Hos 13.5 Jer 1.5
Special relationship of God and Israel Ex 33.12, 17 Gen 18.19 Dt 34.10
Greek: to recognize someone Gal 4.9 1 Cor 8.3
imp. God's knowing someone prior to; God's eternal loving election 1 Pet 1.20

"While foreknowledge denotes the exercise of God's will to establish a special relationship with those whom God graciously elects before all time, predestination expreses God's appoointing of them to a specific goal before all time Rom 8.29,30", involved with his eternal purpose [greek]prothesiV[/greek] Rom 8.28.

Gundry-Volf in Dictionary of Paul and his Letters.

So you see, this is why I hold the link between foreknowledge and foreordination and predestination.

What strikes me most is that in your own thread, despite the fact that we are all supposed to be ridding ourselves of Greek categories of thought with reference to God, yet your idea of foreknowledge seems to rely on the idea of God as pure intellection, leading to the very deism you have mentioned elsewhere. The universe is created and just happens, and God sits by with his time telescope, marks some names in his book of characters who give the appropriate response, and then wraps it all up. Even his own interventions are factored in, though without necessarily changing anything, since free will must be left to its own devices. Truly we are masters of the universe, and all God can do is pull the plug when he wants to see what is on the other channel - probably Possible Worlds II.

[TedO]

Today @ 02:38 AM post located here
mickiel:

but now why should mankind believe in something so great, costing nothing. The natural reaction of religon is to factor in a cost.


Repentance, submission, obedience, human performance, faith, belief, baptism, all are what we figure to be a payment for eternal life; after all, it just CANNOT BE FREE! Jesus is the annointed payment IN FULL. We just can't accept that as true.

This is a huge non-sequitir.

How is repentance a work or payment?

How is submission a work?

How does accepting the truth = adding to the truth?

If my friend buys me lunch and I eat it - did I now pay for part of it by eating it? Does my friend have to force feed me for it to be monergistic.

Don't even bother responding, I know what's coming - dead men don't eat.

[Solly]

I think he is addressing the natural turn we all have, that lunch, even free lunches, should be paid for. The Free Grace Gospel has been an offense even to some in the Evangelical world. We all have a natural self righteous streak, and think we can put God in our debt, even, as Lewis wrote, doing God a favour in being converted.

Look at the religions around the world, and even the deformations of subChristian sects: works based; what we do. Sometimes we might even come to believe that our repentance etc has somehow earned us something; as much as our labours as Christians now can somehow makes us better in the sight of God, or make him more pleased than he could be, since we are in Christ and accepted in the beloved as fully as Christ himself is.

Free Grace is so stupendous a thing, like looking into the sun, that we often favour other views, and lose the benefits on looking at the Sun of righteousnes with healing in his wings.

[TedO]

Today @ 02:09 PM post located here
Solly:Free Grace is so stupendous a thing, like looking into the sun, that we often favour other views, and lose the benefits on looking at the Sun of righteousnes with healing in his wings.

Whoa Solly, very eloquent. Are you British/Canadian (favour)?

[Solly]

British.

I meant to say in the bit about the free lunch, that often we don't like being paid for, because we think we have to do something in return, we feel obliged to; whereas we would rather have others obliged to us, even God. But what can you give the God who has everything?

[mickiel]

Yesterday @ 01:57 PM post located here
TedO:



This is a huge non-sequitir.

How is repentance a work or payment?

How is submission a work?

How does accepting the truth = adding to the truth?

If my friend buys me lunch and I eat it - did I now pay for part of it by eating it? Does my friend have to force feed me for it to be monergistic.

Don't even bother responding, I know what's coming - dead men don't eat.

Wny would God create life, only to test it and develop a society of the survival of the fittest? Here we have angels and humans who are bad natured. Why is that? Where did bad nature come from? Here is a perfect powerful being creating things, why are they not perfect? Why is repentance even in the picture of life? Where did evil and sin just pop into reality? Why is it that me myself, a good man by others descriptions, want to do bad things at times? All these things are thought of as we understand the gift of eternal life. Christianity teaches that this gift must be paid for by belief, by obedience, by living right. If you cannot see your religon is teaching this, perhaps your better off than i thought.

[Pereynol of Sheer Dread]

Yesterday @ 04:36 AM post located here
Solly:



Feel free to criticise what I have posted here; though it will mostly be of no avail; there are only two posters on TWeb who have the capacity to make a reasoned case against Calvinism - Arminian and Jaltus.[/b]

Really interesting thread, but---

If a "reasoned case against Calvinism" can be made, that in itself is significant, no matter who is capable of offering it. I respect Jaltus and Arminian a good deal, but I suspect that the ability to reason contra Calvinism doesn't reside exclusively with them. In any event, and to repeat: the issue here is whether a viable case can be made against Calvinism, not who is able to make it. Despite my light tone, I don't mean any disrespect at all to you Solly. I'd wager that you yourself could offer a reasonable critique of Calvinism if you liked---if only under a guise of devilish advocacy....





(I wish you had joined our wrestlemania discussion.)

[Solly]

pereynol; I knew that those who resally has something to contribute would do so; there are others who are just uninformed and whose argument basically boils down to "Calvinism is bad because I don't like it".

Re the wrestlemania, I'm just not equipped for it; I had a spare hour in which to do this, but they don't come around often.

[TedO]

Come on now...you can't possibly be talking about me are you? I may not be polished, but I do have some arguments.

To me, it all starts with 2 Pet 3:9 and 1 Tim 2:4 taking the wheels off of the L. Once the gate is opened (I know I am mixing metaphors) you can see the whole ball of wax go out the window.

Rom 7:16 takes the bite out of T, Acts 17:31 takes a shot at U, Acts 7:51 hits at I being a stretch, and Rev 2-3 bring P into question.

Of course these are just the tip of the ice-berg and not proof-texts. I just wanted to make a point...

[Solly]

No not you Ted, just some chaps.

I might get to those verses if I have time; trying to prepare for tonight at the moment (Imputed Righteousness)