The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum One Arminian on Predestination

Great answer Pilgrim

When ygk said:

Something that always puzzles me about Arminians who believe that God looks down the corridors of time and elects on that basis is Arminians claim that they are monergistic rather than synergistic.
Isn't it logical that this view is stating that salvation equals God + Man's choice equals salvation? How is that monergistic?

Tom

I think it would be more accurate to say that his/their view is: Man's choice + God's acknowledgment of it equals salvation. For in truth, according to classic Arminianism and semi-Pelagianism, God simply ordains what He observes what man allegedly does in some distant place called "the future". It can be summed up in one word, POSTDESTINATION.

For me a long time ago it boiled down to this perhaps overly-simplistic point:

One view exalts God as all-knowing and all-sovereign. The other paints Him as a frustrated diety who must pace heaven's floors, wringing His hands, hoping that someone on Earth will let Him have His way.

Any doctrine which fails to acknowledge God as God just cannot be true.

Simplistic? Okay. I'm a simple boy anyway, and I'm in good company according to 1st Corinthians 1:26-31.

Robin,

That may seem overly-simplistic, but I believe it is biblical and true wisdom. I also have a very simplistic approach which is very similar to yours.

ANY doctrine espoused by ANYONE which distorts, diminishes or denies any or all of the three big "OMNI's"; Omnipotence - Omnipresence - Omniscience is wrong.

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2. Yes, I agree with Scripture that all those and only those whom God has set His eternal electing love upon and predestinated in Christ will be saved. How else could anyone be saved, since all men by nature hate God, none seek Him, and none can come to Christ due to their being "darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart;". (cf. Mk 13:20; Jh 10:26-29; Acts 13:48; Eph 1:4; 2:1-10; 4:17-19; Rom 3:10-12; 8:29,30; 2Tim 2:10)
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I agree with the fallen state of man. But we do not know on what basis GOD elects people to save.

Timothy( 1:2 - 4) Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. 3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Now do you think that all here refers to elect. 'All' means
all men. If not Paul would have said only those who are elected.

The answer is both; Eve ate the fruit by her own choice AND God had ordained the Fall. It is not an either/or situation. God is not culpable for Adam & Eve's sin but when they did it wasn't any surprise to God for He had foreordained it. As you yourself have stated "He controls each and every event in this universe." (Is 43:13; 46:9,10; Dan 4:35; Psa 33:11; 135:6; Prov 19:21; 21:30; Acts 2:23; 3:18; 4:27,28; Eph 1:9-11)

What do you mean by both. Do you mean that GOD did not intervene in the act of eating the forbidden fruit. If so
what made them do so. Now if its evil, why GOD did not rescue
them.

Secondly, you are ignoring the vast difference between the nature of man in his prelapsarian state (before the Fall) and the nature of man in his postlapsarian state (after the Fall), in other words, you are discounting the noetic affects of the Fall. When Adam sin ALL died because all sinned (Rom 5:12; 1Cor 15:21; Eph 2:1-5). This death being physical, spiritual and eternal was God's just punishment upon the human race. Man's spiritual death, aka: Original Sin consisted of an a) imputed guilt and b) inherited corruption of nature. Thus, man was rendered incapable of loving God and obeying Him. His mind was darkened, his heart filled with hatred of God and all that is righteous and his will subject to his sinful understanding and desires. This is clearly illustrated in Christ's words, "No man CAN come to me, except the Father that sent me draw him: and I will raise him up in the last day." (Jh 6:44)



2. God did indeed elect some and not elect others according to the good pleasure of His eternal perfect will for His own glory. AND, man naturally and most willingly rejects God and His Christ due to his hatred of God. Thus man's unbelief is his own doing. Remember, man is under the wrath and judgment of God from his conception because he is at enmity with God due to his native depravity and the guilt of Adam imputed to Him. God causes no one's unbelief. Man is born an unbeliever. (Jh 3:18,19; Eph 2:3; Rom 3:9; Gal 3:10)

You have said that "man naturally and most willingly rejects God". So there is a choice which has to be made by man.
That means he has will of his own.


3. This notion that God knows what man will do in the future is a logical fallacy, i.e., it is utterly impossible that God can "look into the future" if He hasn't first ordained all things and then created that which He has ordained. What possible "future" could exist outside of Himself? Secondly, IF God has to look into the future in order to "know" what will be, then this not only denies His inscrutable sovereignty but also His Omniscience. For, this whole idea asserts that God was lacking in the knowledge of all things UNTIL He observed what man would do. Much more could be said to refute this notion which is nowhere to be found in Scripture.

By future, I don't mean it from man's perspective.


Does GOD love only some men and hate others. If this is true, then it contradicts HIS loving nature. Because HE loves us,

HE wants all to believe in HIS son JESUS to have eternal life. (John 3:16)

In HIS love
In His grace, [/quote]

But, oh we DO know the basis of God's electing love of some and His withholding it from others.

Romans 8:29 (ASV) "For whom he foreknew [fore-loved], he also foreordained [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren:"

Romans 9:11-13 (ASV) "for [the children] being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. Even as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.

Romans 9:22-23 (ASV) "What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory,"

Ephesians 1:4-6 (ASV) "even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love: having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved:"

1 Peter 1:1-2 (ASV) "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect who are sojourners of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge [eternal love] of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied."

So, we can plainly see the "basis" upon which God chose some to salvation and some to damnation.

The "all" refers to the elect is true as the CONTEXT proves. See here: Exegetical Study of 1Tim 2:4.

Yes, it is both... God sovereignly ordained the Fall and every detail of it AND Adam and Eve ate of the fruit freely by their own choice. They were not compelled against their will to do so. This truth is most clearly seen in the crucifixion of the Lord Christ, to which I have already referred to, but here it is again:

Acts 2:23 (ASV) "him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless men did crucify and slay:"

Acts 3:18 (ASV) "But the things which God foreshowed by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ should suffer, he thus fulfilled."

Acts 4:26-28 (ASV) "The kings of the earth set themselves in array, And the rulers were gathered together, Against the Lord, and against his Anointed: for of a truth in this city against thy holy Servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together, to do whatsoever thy hand and thy council foreordained to come to pass."

As you can again plainly see, God by His eternal determinate council ordained that His Christ would be crucified by evil men, even down to the very nails which they used to affix Him to the cross. This they did most freely and willingly without compulsion.

The question, however, which btw is unanswerable, is HOW is it that Adam and Eve sinned when they had no propensity to sin??? Even more so, HOW did Satan and myriad holy angels rebel against God when they too had no prior inclination toward sin since sin was non-existent at that time?? The question of the ORIGIN of sin has not been revealed. However, what has been revealed is that both the angels of heaven, Adam and Eve all sinned against God freely AND that God had ordained that they would do so for His own glory.

Yes, there is a choice that must be made, i.e., to repent of sin and to believe upon Christ. But the requirement does not necessitate that man has the ABILITY to do so. God also requires all men to keep the law perfectly, but he doesn't have that ability. Fallen man is morally bankrupt and has no desire to live in holiness and righteousness, nor to love God with all his heart, mind, soul and strength,... nor to love his neighbor as himself. God requires that all men be perfect (Matt 5:48) and holy (1Pet 1:15,16). God has the absolute right to demand of man which he ought to do and be. The inability to conform to God's revealed will is no excuse. Mankind was tested and failed in Adam and the consequential judgment fell upon him and all his progeny. (Rom 5:12-21; 1Cor 15:21; cf. also Jh 5:40; 6:44, 68)

Man's will is "free" within the bounds of his nature. If he possesses a wicked and corrupt nature and is spiritually dead, then all that a man can freely will to do is to sin. Another way of saying this is that man is Morally Unable to do what God requires, i.e., to do good and to do it perfectly.

It doesn't make any difference what "perspective" one wants to view "future", since there is no future with God. What "future" could God possibly see which He didn't eternally ordain and create? And since nothing can exist in the mind of God except that which He wills, then whatever God would see is exactly that which He had ordained and it is thus fixed in time. There is no possibility of pre-existent creatures acting according to an alleged 'free-will' which in time could change their mind about which was allegedly perceived them doing. The entire idea is preposterous. And, as I explained, 1) Such a view denies God's Omniscience, Omnipotence and Omnipresence; consequentially a denial of God. 2) IF, for the sake of argument, God did perceive what each individual would do according to the exercise of his alleged free-will, then that which God perceived and then foreordained (post-destination), those individuals would have no free-will in their respective histories, i.e., they could not choose otherwise. For, God would have decreed what He saw. 3) IF, however, you want to maintain that man has a 'free-will' that is free from God's decree, then it is absolutely impossible that God could know anything. For, if the will is totally free to do as it wills at any time under any circumstance, then nothing could be known for certain until after it has occurred. This is the logical end of the Arminian view and which some have admittedly recognized and even asserted, aka: Middle Knowledge/Open Theism.

No, it doesn't contradict His loving nature. If God is not free to love as you want to maintain is true with man, then it cannot be said to be love. If one is under obligation to love, then it is obedience to law and thus not free. You can't have it both ways.

Secondly, the Scriptures are perspicuous concerning God loving some and hating others. How do you deal with such passages as:

Psalms 5:4-6 (ASV) "For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: Evil shall not sojourn with thee. The arrogant shall not stand in thy sight: Thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Thou wilt destroy them that speak lies: Jehovah abhorreth the blood-thirsty and deceitful man."

Psalms 11:5-7 (ASV) "Jehovah trieth the righteous; But the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. Upon the wicked he will rain snares; Fire and brimstone and burning wind shall be the portion of their cup. For Jehovah is righteous; he loveth righteousness: The upright shall behold his face."

Proverbs 6:16-19 (ASV) "There are six things which Jehovah hateth; Yea, seven which are an abomination unto him: Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood; A heart that deviseth wicked purposes, Feet that are swift in running to mischief, A false witness that uttereth lies, And he that soweth discord among brethren."

Romans 9:13 (ASV) "Even as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."

In regard to John 3:16, you are misinterpreting the text and making the word "world" to mean all and every man, woman and child who ever lived, is living or ever will live, without discrimination. However, the CONTEXT and comparing Scripture with Scripture discredits that view. For several rebuttals of the typical Arminian/semi-Pelagian view, the meaning of "world", and the right exegesis of that passage see here:

- An Exposition of John 3:16, by John Owen
- John 3:16 - What does "world" Really Mean?, by David Engelsma
- God's Election in John 3:16, by L.R. Shelton Sr.