The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum The Suicide Bomber

That's a fallacy of logic to suggest that God cannot know everything without controlling everything, even man whom he made in his own image.

I never liked the "corriders of time" analogy either. I rather like the image of God looking at a sphere that contains all of time and creation; seeing the beginning from the end. The fact that God created this sphere, in every exhaustive detail, in accordance with his perfect will, with every event conducted by people of entirely unhindered free will, is astounding.

Incorrect. A person can be wholly opposed to capital punishment having never been exposed to a perpective that would change his mind. By the same token, Saul was wholeheartely committed to pursuing and prosecuting Christians and driving the movement out of existence...until he had an experience that changed his view. To suggest that Paul, all that time, contained the nature to persecute Christians until he had the nature to not persecute Christians is to misunderstand what nature is.

Salvation is a result of the perfect, unaugmented death and resurrection of Christ as a propitiation for sins. The responsibility to receive forgiveness and eternal life is man's. The all-or-nothing thinking that if man chooses salvation over perdition it means he is saving himself is absurd. But then, the thought process of Calvinism as a whole is incontinent once one thinks outside of it.

Perhaps you're not looking for it in Scripture, having already made up your mind. When Agrippa told Paul, "thou almost persuadest me to become a Christian," there is a keen example of one nearly being convinced but turning away at the last moment. To suggest that God was not pursuing Agrippa is to suggest, contrary to reason, that God had not sent Paul to him in the first place. This is a simple matter of not seeking out any evidence that might confound your theological system. The reason I know that a person can come close to believing, being cut to the heart with the gospel message, is because I've seen it myself in some people I tried to bring to Christ. To say that God was not pursuing them (in sync with the Agrippa example) is to suggest that God had not prevailed upon me to try to reach them. Multiply this by the testamony of many other Christians who have similarly been turned down after trying to save someone. Maybe even yourself! Did you conclude that God not send you with the gospel to try to save someone just because they turned you down? Do you see the fallacy of logic here? If God did not die for someone and did not predestine them to life, then it follows that there would be no effort to prosecute them and would never send someone to bring the gospel to them. The very fact that the Hound of Heaven pursues all men flies right in face of Calvinistic thought.

So Jesus made Peter deny him 3 times? Or is it more likely that Jesus knew what state of mind Peter would be in and what conduct would follow it? Why is it so hard to understand that Jesus could know Peter's future choices without making those choices for him?

No, Calvinism is a man beside himself. While it proposes that man has free will, it juxtaposes that man can only make one choice. This way, Calvinism can deny man's free will while insisting it never denies man's free will. This is patent lunacy in my view.

While we're discussing what scripture does not say, it also does not say God made them do it. Quite the opposite. In that Joseph says, "you meant evil" their guilt is highlighted. They chose to commit their crime and God used their crime to bring about His purposes. Not implied here is that the crime was necessary for God's plan.