Tackling Predestination

[paul_c]

It was neither stated nor implied that pride existed. It was merely advised to humbly seek truth rather than demand God’s explanation; it was furhter advised to beware of the consequence of pride while seeking to learn from God.

I clearly recognise the Accuser because the spirit of my Savior gudies me. He always vindicates me and rescues me from the tongues of slanderers.

I suggest you pray for a little more self awareness…

 

[paul_c]

Hi paul

Correct me if i am wrong: What i think Augustine is saying here is that all men are given
The Grace of God to be saved in the first place: But then it is down to the individual to respond to this Grace.

Yes, this is his position.

But at the same time he is saying> God knows infallibly who will respond and who will not respond>From what i gather God knows before these people are born who will respond and who will not respond.

yes. this is also true and consistent with Catholic Doctrine. God is all knowing and he also lives outside of time, so he knows what will happen. To insure the integrity of the individual man, he allows him to make his own choices, even if they cause that individual to ultimately be condemned.

Could this be down to a persons disposition?

There are lots of things that effect a man’s decisions. His disposition is one, his upbringing is another, The individual situation he finds himself is a third. Those near him who influence him are another.

I have thought about DNA. Esau and Jacob came from the same parents. but they still can have different DNA
Scripture seems to suggest that Esau although he had many descendants they were not the chosen people and were destroyed.
Scriptures seems to suggest that Jacob although he had many descendants who was Israel but then only a remnant of these were saved.
When you look at Cain and his descendants.Then Seth and his descendants.
Seth and his descendants were Sons of God. In Geneses:> What they did was intermingled
With Cains descendants who were Sons of men. Instead of staying with there own kind They took wives from Cains line. This why i think it caused a imbalance of evil to spread throughout the whole world. This is probably why God only saved Noah and his family. then flooded and destroyed the rest.
There is allot of intermingling Going on Now

{Mathew 24:37} As it was in the days of Noah. So it will be at the coming of the son of man.

There certainly is a lot of evil in the world. We need to steer clear of it and create a counterculture of good that is attractive to people. CAF is an instrument of that counterculture.

 

[paul_c]

I suggest you pray for a little more self awareness…

Sorry, Pitcharan, that was uncalled for.

 

[Pitcharan]

Oh really?  Well how about we put here your exact post here. I will number them so you can see exactly how conceited it was.

Point 1 – What else were you saying with this if not: Your explanation (which you hope to publish) is the be all of explanations with regards the matter and equivalent to the guiding of the Holy Spirit. Only you or the Holy Spirit has the answer. Unadulterated conceit if ever I have heard any!

Point 2. You said that pride was neither stated nor implied. A sick mind can pervert anything and derive completely unitended meaning. Even if I have an explanation I can share it only after going through the due process of theological vetting and permission. So what is wrong if I tell someone: “either wait or let tthe Holy Spirit guide you.” The HS does guide everyone who seeks truth with simplicity and humility.

Well take a look at point 2 of your post. **That my dear is saying that Shaky is prideful **

I repeat, Even if I have an explanation I can share it only after going through the due process of theological vetting and permission. So what is wrong if I tell someone: “either wait or let tthe Holy Spirit guide you.”

Someone’s got you stumped, you don’t know the answer and you don’t like that one bit because Pitcharan is so enlightened and inspired that if he doesn’t know the answer then the only other person who would know the answer is the Holy Spirit.

  And again this one. A classic case. Any one who opposes you must be Satan. That kind of thinking is delusional.

If pride goes before a fall then with what you have written before you must have some nasty bruises.

Perverse unkind personal attacks cannot harm those who are protected by God.

 

[Pitcharan]

Sorry, Pitcharan, that was uncalled for.

It’s okay Paul; just take care not to let anyone cause divisions among us.

 

[rtconstant]

Remember, it’s not just Calvin, there are Thomists and Augustinian Catholics on this thread who agree with the doctrine of reprobation. In fact, some Evangelical scholars don’t even want to call the doctrin Calvinistic because it wasn’t originally Calvin’s anyway.

Its of Calvin because his particular spin on the concept of predestination was unique to him. Certainly Augustine and Aquinas had their own views on the subject and those views can be debated on their own merits. However, their views and Calvin’s views are not the same.

 

[benedictus2]

A sick mind can pervert anything and derive completely unitended meaning. Even if I have an explanation I can share it only after going through the due process of theological vetting and permission. So what is wrong if I tell someone: “either wait or let tthe Holy Spirit guide you.” The HS does guide everyone who seeks truth with simplicity and humility.

The post is there for everyone to see.

The bold font words are your own. Are you not ashamed to blatantly falsify my post? It exposes how low you can stoop.

Nope. The bold font words are your own. Go back and check your post 465.
I quote it here exactly as it appears in your post. If you click on the blue arrow next to your name it will take you back to your post.

Either wait till I am able to publish my explanation or let the Holy Spirit teach you. Unless you sincerely seek truth with humility, you will receive nothing. Refrain from demanding explanation. Beware! Pride preceeds fall.

Whoever said that Shaky demanded explanation. I did my sacred duty in forewarning my brother about how to seek truth from the HS.

Which was totally unnecessary because he was not being prideful. So why would you say such a thing unless you are implying that he is being prideful. Had it not occured to you that you need a little forewarning yourself?

You will find such warnings throughout the Bible. It is for all who seek truth and will not make any sense to perverts

If that is the case then I must have a sacred duty too.

So now I will perform my sacred duty. Heed this my brother, Pitcharan. To truly learn the truths about God you need humility. To have that you need to be aware of the movements inside, whether you get angry if you are criticized. Just because you think you are right does not mean you are right so don’t get puffed up with whatever learning you think you posses. Those who you think know less than you probably know more than you do. At all times be humble and if people criticize your work, know that they are criticizing your work not you. Be careful because Pride as you very well know goes before a fall.

So there! I’ve done my sacred duty to you too.

And that is my last word on this subject.

 

[Pitcharan]

At the outset I acknowledge gratefully and appreciate the pains you are taking and am not attaching motives this time.

The post is there for everyone to see.

Nope. The bold font words are your own. Go back and check your post 465.
I quote it here exactly as it appears in your post. If you click on the blue arrow next to your name it will take you back to your post.

Here I reproduce what you alleged (shown in bold font) in your post followed by my post #465;
You wrote:
Well take a look at point 2 of your post. That my dear is saying that Shaky is prideful all because he demands explanations…
I wrote in my post #465:
*Either wait till I am able to publish my explanation or let the Holy Spirit teach you. Unless you sincerely seek truth with humility, you will receive nothing. Refrain from demanding explanation. Beware! Pride preceeds fall.
*
Can you please tell me where in the above reproduced post #465 of mine have I said that Shaky is prideful

So now I will perform my sacred duty. Heed this my brother, Pitcharan. To truly learn the truths about God you need humility. To have that you need to be aware of the movements inside, whether you get angry if you are criticized. Just because you think you are right does not mean you are right so don’t get puffed up with whatever learning you think you posses. Those who you think know less than you probably know more than you do. At all times be humble and if people criticize your work, know that they are criticizing your work not you. Be careful because Pride as you very well know goes before a fall.

So there! I’ve done my sacred duty to you too.

And that is my last word on this subject.I take your word with humility and repentance. A humbled contrite heart you will not spurn I hope.

 

[benedictus2]

Read this chapter at the-highway.com/fall_Sproul.html so that you can understand what I mean. It’s entitled “Adam’s Fall and Mine” from CHOSEN BY GOD by R.C. Sproul.

Take special notice of the Federal or Representative View of the Fall.

Okay, I thought I would indulge you and read this article. So I printed it and made it my Saturday night bedtime reading

I must say I regret not having read it earlier. I could have told you much earlier what an awful document it is.

My over all conclusion – the document is terribly ill thought, illogical and extremely flawed to be almost laughable. I wonder how Sproul managed to become a theologian. It is a very poor exposition of the theology of salvation and predestination.

So here is my critique.

I will be concentrating on the Federalist view since this is the one that Sproul favours even though there were some major errors in his assessment of the myth theory and the realist theory. Sproul is just not a very good thinker. Before he published that he should have asked someone to check it. Maybe joined CAF to vet his theory

So I proceed.
Sproul:

THE FEDERAL OR REPRESENTATIVE VIEW OF THE FALL

For the most part, the federal view of the Fall has been the most popular among advocates of the Reformed view of predestination. This view teaches that Adam acted as a representative of the entire human race. With the test that God set before Adam and Eve, he was testing the whole of mankind. Adam’s name means “man” or “mankind.” Adam was the first human being created. He stands at the head of the human race. He was placed in the garden to act not only for himself but for all of his future descendents. Just as a federal government has a chief spokesman who is the head of the nation, so Adam was the federal head of mankind.

How can we say that Adam is the chief spokesman when there was no people to speak on behalf of then. A federal government has a chief spokesman because there are people to speak on behalf of. So at the outset the error is already there.
Sproul:

1.The chief idea of federalism is that, when Adam sinned, he sinned for all of us. His fall was our fall. When God punished Adam by taking away his original righteousness, we were all likewise punished. The curse of the Fall affects us all. Not only was Adam destined to make his living by the sweat of his brow, but that is true for us as well. Not only was Eve consigned to have pain in childbirth, but that has been true for women of all human generations. The offending serpent in the garden was not the only member of his species who was cursed to crawl on his belly.

God did not punish Adam by taking away his original righteousness. The reason Sproul makes this error because he had a wrong conception of what righteousness.

Sproul like most Protestants believed that righteousness is imputed so therefore at the fall, righteousness must have been taken away. But imputed or forensic righteousness is theological novelty that only started with the reformation. For 1500 years Christianity did not believe in such a doctrine.

Furthermore, there is no “curse of the fall”. Re-read Genesis and notice that God does not curse Adam or Eve. God curses the serpent and the ground but not man. When God declares that there will be pain at child birth and man must toil for food, this is NOT punishment. This is the consequence of disobeying God much like if you stand in front of a speeding train you will be splattered on the train tracks. Dying is not a punishment for standing in front a speeding train.
Sproul:

That we suffer as a result of Adam’s sin is explicitly taught in the New Testament. In Romans 5, for example, Paul makes the following observations:

“Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin” (v. 12).
“By the one man’s offense many died” (v. 15).
“Through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation” (v. 18).
“By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners” (v. 19).

With this one I agree.

continued in next post

 

[benedictus2]

Continuation of post 525 in answer to Bengoshi
Sproul:

1.We are still left with a big question. **If God did in fact judge the entire human race in Adam, how is that fair? **

It seems manifestly unjust of God to allow not only all subsequent human beings but all of creation to suffer because of Adam.

Here again Sproul falls into the error that “God has judged the entire human race in Adam” due to his erroneous understanding that justification and damnation are both forensic.

God did not judge the entire human race unfavourably because of Adam. God did not declare Adam unrighteous because of his disobedience. Rather Adam became unrighteous because of his disobedience.

Think of it this way.

God said do not go into this chamber because there is a huge quantity of hyper active Uranium inside. If you go there you will become contaminated and it will cause all sorts of cancer and cause your genes to be deformed and in the end you will die.

Then the devil comes and says, “not quite”. As a matter of fact if you go into that chamber you will become super charged and you will glow like the gods.

That Adam’s genes are now deformed and that now, he and Eve are sick with cancer is not a punishment for going into the chamber. Rather, it is what is in the chamber itself that caused the cancer.

Their disobedience is a turning away from God. It is a turning away from the Sum of All Goodness. And when you turn away from the Sum of All Goodness then you turn into evil, because evil is nothing more than the absence of good.

So think of it this way. If Adam is the first cell and this cell is cancerous, well guess what, when that splits to form other cells, the other cells will also be cancerous. This is how we end up being “deformed” in the same way as Adam was.
Sproul:

2.It is the question of God’s fairness that federalism seeks to answer. Federalism assumes that we were in fact represented by Adam and that such representation was both fair and accurate. It holds that Adam perfectly represented us.

As I have shown above this view is completely untenable and inapplicable as regards the discussion of the fall.
Sproul:

3.Within our own legal system we have situations that, not perfectly but approximately, parallel this concept of representation. We know that if I hire a man to kill someone and that hired gunman carries out the contract, I can justly be tried for first-degree murder in spite of the fact that I did not actually pull the trigger. I am judged to be guilty for a crime someone else committed because the other person acted in my place.

This is a most stupid analogy. We had no say in what Adam did. The analogy soooo completely does not apply.
Sprou:

4.The obvious protest that arises at this point is, “But we did not hire Adam to sin in our behalf.” That is true. This example merely illustrates that there are some cases in which it is just to punish one person for the crime of another.

Welll helloo, if Sproul realized the weakness of this analogy then why use it at all? And no it is NEVER JUST to punish a person for the crime of another. In the example above about the hired gun man, both persons committed the crime. One carried it out, the other procured it. Both are criminal. No one is being punished for someone else’s crime.

At this point, I wonder how you Bengoshi, as a lawyer, failed to see the very glaring flaw in Sproul’s reasoning.
Sproul:

5.The federal view of the Fall still exudes a faint odor of tyranny. Our cry is, “No damnation without representation!” Just as people in a nation clamor for representatives to insure freedom from despotic tyranny, so we demand representation before God that is fair and just. The federal view states that we are judged guilty for Adam’s sin because he was our fair and just representative.

Yes, the federal view of the Fall more than exudes a faint ordor of tyranny. It is downright irrational and tyrannical.

 

[benedictus2]

Continuation of post 526 in reply to Bengoshi
Sproul:

1.When God chooses our representative, he does so perfectly. His choice is an infallible choice. When I choose my own representatives, I do so fallibly

. Sometimes I select the wrong person and am then inaccurately represented. Adam represented me infallibly, not because he was infallible, but because God is infallible. Given God’s infallibility, I can never argue that Adam was a poor choice to represent me.

Let’s suppose we go with the federalist view – How can we say that Adam was not a poor choice considering that he fell? Isn’t it obvious that going by Sproul’s reasoning his god made a poor choice. This is not something that you can just sweep under the carpet and say Oh God is infallible. Unless of course one posits that god chose Adam because he wanted a representative that would fall. And that my dear Bengoshi portrays a rather nefarious god.
Sproul:

2.We would not have made a decision that would plunge the world into ruin. Such an assumption is just not possible given the character of God. God doesn’t make mistakes. His choice of my representative is greater than my choice of my own

.
Well obviously, this god of Sproul’s does make mistakes consideringg that he chose a representative that would fall. As I have said above, the only way this god could not have made a mistake is if he chose Adam precisely because he new Adam would fall. And if so, then that means he had a very evil plan for mankind from the beginning.
Sproul:

3.Even if we grant that indeed we were perfectly represented by Adam, we still must ask if it is fair to be represented at all with such high stakes. I can only answer that it pleased the Lord to do this. We know that the world fell through Adam. We know that in some sense Adam represented us. We know that we did not choose him to be our representative. We know that God’s selection of Adam was an infallible selection. But was the whole process just?

Sorry but Sproul is wrong. Adam did not represent us, and God did not choose Adam to be our representative.
Sproul:

I can only answer this question ultimately by asking another question — one the Apostle Paul asked. “Is there unrighteousness in God?” The apostolic answer to this rhetorical question is as plain as it is emphatic. “God forbid!”

Well, Sproul’s quoting Paul does not help his case much because he trying to shore up his defence with Paul but what Paul wrote had nothing to do with Adam representing us.

If we know anything at all about the character of God, then we know that he is not a tyrant and that he is never unjust.

Exactly! So therefore the above exposition of Sproul’s completely wrong, (Edited) because it portrays a God who is a tyrant and completely unjust.
Sproul:

Yet we still quarrel. We still contend with the Almighty. We still assume that somehow God did us wrong and that we suffer as innocent victims of God’s judgment.

No we don’t. Catholics never had such an issue because Catholics have a correct theology. Calvinists however can rightly complain so. But not to God but to Calvin and Sproul for giving them deformed theology.

 

[benedictus2]

Continuation of post 527 in reply to Bengoshi
Sproul:

I am persuaded that the federal view of the Fall is substantially correct

.
And I am convinced that Sproul ought to go back to seminary ( a proper one) and perhaps read Chesterton so that he be able to come up with a more rational and logical theory.

Calvinism, along with other views of predestination, teaches that God’s decree was made both before the Fall, and in light of the Fall. Why is this important? Because the Calvinistic view of predestination always accents the gracious character of God’s redemption. When God predestines people to salvation he is predestinating people to be saved whom he knows really need to be saved.

(Edited) God is saving those whom he knows really need to be saved??!!! So there are people who do not really need to be saved??? Why, because they are not fallen?
(Edited)

They need to be saved because they are sinners in Adam,

And pray tell who isn’t?
Sproul:

To be sure, God knew before the Fall that there would most certainly be a Fall **and he took action to redeem some. **

(Edited) if God knew that there would be a fall why would he take action to redeem only some when he created all of them? So now we go back to the psychopath god you have been painting from the beginning. And now I know it is no surprise since you bought this terrible theory hook line and sinker.

He ordained the Fall in the sense that he chose to allow it, but not in the sense that he chose to coerce it. His predestinating grace is gracious precisely because he chooses to save people whom he knows in advance will be spiritually dead.

If he knows in advance that everyone will be spiritually dead, then why give the grace only to some?

So again Bengoshi, remember that question I asked you about giving the Caramel Frapuccino to some of your deformed children and not to the others, you are saying that god is like that? That he will give the life saving Frapuccino to some while he watches his other children die in excruciating pain as he clutches to his chest the rest of the life saving Frapuccino?

So mull that over and see if you are really quite comfortable having that kind of god in your head. I mean how do you know, perhaps it is one of your children that god has decided from the beginning he will send to hell.

Think about that, even before they were born god has decided that he will give you children who will consign to hell. And no amount of pleading from you can change that because it is all in the cards.

• continued -

 

[benedictus2]

Continuation of post 528 in reply to Bengoshi
Sproul:

One final illustration may be helpful here. We bristle at the idea that God calls us to be righteous when we are hampered by original sin. We say, “But God, we can’t be righteous. We are fallen creatures. How can you hold us accountable when you know very well we were born with original sin?”

The illustration is as follows. Suppose God said to a man, “I want you to trim these bushes by three o’clock this afternoon. But be careful. There is a large open pit at the edge of the garden. If you fall into that pit, you will ‘not be able to get yourself out. So whatever you do, stay away from that pit.”

Suppose that as soon as God leaves the garden the man runs over and jumps into the pit. At three o’clock God returns and finds the bushes untrimmed. He calls for the gardener and hears a faint cry from the edge of the garden. He walks to the edge of the pit and sees the gardener helplessly flailing around on the bottom. He says to the gardener, “Why haven’t you trimmed the bushes I told you to trim?” The gardener responds in anger, “How do you expect me to trim these bushes when I am trapped in this pit? If you hadn’t left this empty pit here, I would not be in this predicament.”

And once again Sproul gives an analogy that does not apply.

Let me adjust that analogy to fit his theory better.

This deity knew, even before he put the gardener in the garden and before he dug that pit, that if he created the gardener and he dug that pit, that the gardener will fall into that pit. But he went on anyway and still created the gardener and dug the pit. More than that, he puts a temptress in the pit so that the gardener will be sure to fall. Now the pit is not just any ordinary pit. There are all sorts of vile creatures that attack the gardener.

When this deity comes around, he sees the gardener and takes no notice of him. As time passed the gardener had children in the pit all in the same condition. They are putrid and slimy and smelly and covered in all sorts of sores.

Then this deity decides to go to the pit, does eeny, meeny, miny moe and picks out a few to get out of the pit. He throws a rope to get these few out. The others seeing the rope starts to climb up as well via the same rope. So what this deity does is to kick and stomp his foot with a vengeance at the heads of those who were not part of the group he has chose to make sure that they remain there, mired in misery.

There that fits Sproul’s theory better.

That illustration sure shows that this deity has every right to do as he pleases because after all he is deity and no one can question him.

But is he just ? No.

Is he loving,? No.

Is he the God of the Bible? A big resounding NO!
Sproul:

So it is with original sin. Original sin is both the consequence of Adam’s sin and the punishment for Adam’s sin

.
Wrong again. Original sin is not the punishment for Adam’s sin. Disobedience is not a punishment for disobedience.

So there you are Bengoshi. I have read the article you so desperately wanted me to read. Happy now?

Perhaps not

 

[Pete_Holter]

Pete,
when Paul said he was being all things to all people, he didn’t mean that he would adjust Catholic doctrine to be satisfying to heretics.

Frankly, You are taking Augustine beyond what he says into Calvinism.

While it is good to point out where they agree with us - They afterall believe in grace and good works. throughh Jesus Crhist. -, it does them no good, and in fact harm to ignore where they fall short of the truth.

Greetings in the LORD, brother!

Here are some thoughts about the encyclopedia article concerning Augustine that I think will be helpful…

“It is regarded as incontestable today that the system of Augustine was complete in his mind from the year 397 — that is, from the beginning of his episcopate, when he wrote his answers to the “quæstiones Diversæ” of Simplician. It is to this book that Augustine, in his last years, refers the Semipelagians for the explanation of his real thought. This important fact, to which for a long time no attention was paid”, etc. (Teaching of St. Augustine of Hippo: His System of Grace).

The encyclopedia article also says that “to the monks of Adrumetum who thought that liberty was irreconcilable with [Augustine’s teachings on grace], he addressed a copy of this book De Diversis quæstionibus ad Simplicianum, feeling sure that their doubts would be dissipated. There, in fact, he formulates his thoughts with great clearness.”

Firstly: We have to be careful to differentiate what are the claims of the encyclopedia article and what are the words of Augustine. Augustine’s purpose in referring the “Semi-Pelagian” monks to his work to Simplician was to show them that he had progressed in his understanding from that which he had erroneously held prior to his episcopacy. And had the monks “been as careful to make progress with me in my writings as they were in reading them” (, Ch. 8On the Predestination of the Saints), they would have progressed together with him in his own rejection of what he himself had previously held. The monks were still holding to Augustine’s very own Semi-Pelagian views, which he had corrected in himself even by the time he had written to Simplician before the Pelagian controversy.

Of his work to Simplician, he says that it was here that he “began more fully to apprehend” “the grace by which God delivers us from evil errors and from our habits, without any preceding merits of ours, – doing this according to His gratuitous mercy” (, Ch. 52The Gift of Perseverance). The beginning of fuller apprehension is not the end. And after referring to this work, he goes on to mention his Confessions as well – similarly written before the Pelagian controversy. But then – and this is key – he says that the disputations with the Pelagians took him beyond these earlier works to “more carefully and laboriously” defend the doctrine of predestination (Ch. 53).

So if we want to see Augustine’s understanding more carefully worked out, it is to The Predestination of the Saints and The Gift of Perseverance we must go! These are the works where the specific questions of the “Semi-Pelagian” monks are being answered and their objections overcome. For his work to Simplician to be acclaimed a “complete” expression of his thought and an adequate response formulated “with great clearness,” as the encyclopedia article asserts, is to rob Augustine of a great part of his labor for the LORD.

Secondly, and please correct me if I am wrong, but Augustine never addressed a copy of his Miscellany of Questions in Response to Simplican to the monks of Hadrumetum in Africa. Rather, the appeals to this work were made to Prosper and Hilary concerning certain monks from Gaul.

The monks of Hadrumetum, on the other hand, were the recipients of On Grace and Free Will and On Rebuke and Grace. In the former, Augustine exhorted the monks to “Peruse attentively this treatise” (Ch. 46), i.e., On Grace and Free Will; and in the latter he begins by reinforcing the former so that the reader may “not in any wise suppose that, when once read, it can have become sufficiently well known to you. Therefore if you desire to have it exceedingly productive, do not count it a grievance by re-perusal to make it thoroughly familiar; so that you may most accurately know what and what kind of questions they are, for the solution and satisfaction of which there arises an authority not human but divine, from which we ought not to depart if we desire to attain to the point whither we are tending” (Ch. 1).

In the accompanying letter to Valentine and the monks, Augustine had said of On Grace and Free Will: “I have also written [this] book for you, and if you will read it carefully and apply yourselves vigorously to understand it, I think there will be no further difference among you on this matter” (Letter 215). So if we want to be faithful to Augustine’s very own advice to the monks of Hadrumetum, let us assiduously read and reread this treatise.

 

[Pete_Holter]

as for Augustine: here is the support from the Catholic encyclopedia article on the teaching of Augustine:
But this decree includes also the second element of the Catholic dogma: the very sincere will of God to give to all men the power of saving themselves and the power of damning themselves. According to Augustine, God, in his creative decree, has expressly excluded every order of things in which grace would deprive man of his liberty, every situation in which man would not have the power to resist sin, and thus Augustine brushes aside that predestinationism which has been attributed to him. Listen to him speaking to the Manichæans: “All can be saved if they wish”; and in his “Retractations” (I, x), far from correcting this assertion, he confirms it emphatically: “It is true, entirely true, that all men can, if they wish.” But he always goes back to the providential preparation. In his sermons he says to all: “It depends on you to be elect” (In Ps. cxx, n. 11, etc.); “Who are the elect? You, if you wish it” (In Ps. lxxiii, n. 5). But, you will say, according to Augustine, the lists of the elect and reprobate are closed. Now if the non-elect can gain heaven, if all the elect can be lost, why should not some pass from one list to the other? You forget the celebrated explanation of Augustine: When God made His plan, He knew infallibly, before His choice, what would be the response of the wills of men to His graces. If, then, the lists are definitive, if no one will pass from one series to the other, it is not because anyone cannot (on the contrary, all can), it is because God knew with infallible knowledge that no one would wish to. Thus I cannot effect that God should destine me to another series of graces than that which He has fixed, but, with this grace, if I do not save myself it will not be because I am not able, but because I do not wish to

I find this summary provided by the encyclopedia a little misleading. When Augustine says that “All can be saved if they wish”… of course this is true. But, as the article pointed out, most will not wish. He employs a similar kind of reasoning when he talks about the possibility of someone living a sinless life by the grace of God. He says, Yes, this is possible. It is possible, by the grace of God, to obey all of His commandments. He writes that if he were asked…

“Whether it be possible for a man in this life to be without sin? I should allow the possibility, through the grace of God and the man’s own free will; not doubting that the free will itself is ascribable to God’s grace, in other words, to the gifts of God,— not only as to its existence, but also as to its being good, that is, to its conversion to doing the commandments of God. Thus it is that God’s grace not only shows what ought to be done, but also helps to the possibility of doing what it shows. ‘What indeed have we that we have not received?’( 1 Corinthians 4:7)… I cannot doubt that God has laid no impossible command on man; and that, by God’s aid and help, nothing is impossible, by which is wrought what He commands. In this way may a man, if he pleases, be without sin by the assistance of God” (, Bk. 2, Ch. 7On Merit and the Forgiveness of Sins, and the Baptism of Infants).

“But it is one question, whether he could exist; and another question, whether he does exist” (Ch. 7). And there will never be an example of anyone ever doing this because everyone will choose to sin. For, “If, however, I am asked the second question which I have suggested,— whether there be a sinless man,— I believe there is not” (Ch. 8). And as to whether there is a man who has never sinned his entire life, he says, “it is altogether most certain that such a man neither does now live, nor has lived, nor ever will live, except the one only Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (Ch. 34). We except our Blessed Mother from this, and Augustine was open to this exception as well (cf. , Ch. 42On Nature and Grace), but I hope that this helps to illumine what Augustine means when he says that “All can be saved if they wish.” This is true. But “Men are unwilling to do what is right, either because what is right is unknown to them, or because it is unpleasant to them… But that what was hidden may come to light, and what was unpleasant may be made agreeable, is of the grace of God which helps the wills of men; and that they are not helped by it, has its cause likewise in themselves, not in God, whether they be predestinated to condemnation, on account of the iniquity of their pride, or whether they are to be judged and disciplined contrary to their very pride, if they are children of mercy” (Ch. 26).

For the other quotes about, “It depends on you to be the elect”, “Who are the elect? You if you wish it”… this is Augustine’s way of preaching predestination. He explains this in , Chs. 57 through 61On the Gift of Perseverance. The basic thought here is that the preacher assumes in his preaching that he is preaching to those predestined to glory and he preaches in such a way as to secure their salvation by invigorating them to make their calling and election sure.

 

[Pete_Holter]

The encyclopedia article continues…

“The opposite system, that of the Predestinationists (the Semipelagians falsely ascribed this view to the Doctor of Hippo), affirms not only a privileged choice of the elect by God, but at the same time (a) the predestination of the reprobate to hell and (b) the absolute powerlessness of one or the other to escape from the irresistible impulse which drags them either to good or to evil. This is the system of Calvin.”

The predestination of the reprobate to hell is certainly held by Augustine. We’ve seen it already mentioned on this thread in his , Ch. 100Enchiridion and in the preceding post in , Bk. 2, Ch. 26On Merit and the Forgiveness of Sins, and the Baptism of Infants. In his work, On the Gift of Perseverance, Augustine relates a statement objected to by the Semipelagians: “if any obey, if ye are predestinated to be rejected, the strength to obey shall be withdrawn from you, so that you may cease to obey”; and Augustine says that “these things may be said” (Ch. 38). But he says that “weak brother among the Christian congregation” would not be able to endure such preaching, and yet “the same judgment may be pronounced almost in the same words also of God’s foreknowledge, which certainly they cannot deny, so as to say, ‘And if any of you obey, if you are foreknown to be rejected you shall cease to obey.’ Doubtless this is very true, assuredly it is; but it is very monstrous, very inconsiderate, and very unsuitable, not by its false declaration, but by its declaration not wholesomely applied to the health of human infirmity” (Ch. 61).

This leads us to consider, What is predestination to hell according to the Catholic Church? We know what it is not from the Second Council of Orange and from Trent:

“We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema” (Council of Orange).

“If any one saith, that the grace of Justification is only attained to by those who are predestined unto life; but that all others who are called, are called indeed, but receive not grace, as being, by the divine power, predestined unto evil; let him be anathema” (Council of Trent).

In both statements we see that the anathematized proposition is that it is by the power of God that people are foreordained/predestined to hell/evil. Catholics do not believe this proposition. This is what is condemned by the Church as heresy. A person himself will go to hell if he believes this in obstinacy against the authority of the Church, refusing to be corrected.

But to say that people are predestined to hell is entirely true if the power is left in the free will of man to choose sin. Sin – whether their own personal sin or the corruption from Adam in them – is the cause of their predestination to hell.

Evil “would not be done did He not permit it (and of course His permission is not unwilling, but willing); nor would a Good Being permit evil to be done only that in His omnipotence He can turn evil into good” (, Ch. 100Enchiridion). It is by permission that evil takes place. And although it is by God’s will that such evil actions ensue – for “His permission is not unwilling, but willing” – God’s power is shown in the evil of men by God’s being able to use their moral evils to effect a good purpose: the punishment of sinners, the gratitude of the elect, and the greater glory of God. “Believe that, in the case of him whom He permits to be deceived and hardened, his evil deeds have deserved the judgment… Thus it was that both God hardened him by His just judgment, and Pharaoh by his own free will” (, Ch. 45On Grace and Free Will). “He hardens when He recompenses what is deserved” (, Ch. 14On the Predestination of the Saints). “Therefore, whenever you read in the Scriptures of Truth, that men are led aside, or that their hearts are blunted and hardened by God, never doubt that some ill deserts of their own have first occurred, so that they justly suffer these things” (, Ch. 43On Grace and Free Will). “God does not harden by imparting malice to [sinners], but by not imparting mercy. Those to whom He does not impart mercy are not worthy, nor do they deserve it; rather, they are worthy and do deserve that He should not impart it” (Letter 194).

In truth, Augustine may tend toward seeing the power of God at work in such cases (cf. , Bk. 5, Ch. 3, 13Against Julian). But even here, the “empowerment” of the sinner wrought by God is wrought by the withdrawal of His restraint upon the sinner. It’s not a coercive force but a liberation of the seething impulses of the will of the sinner by the permission of Him Who is able to bring good out of evil.

Whether the article has adequately understood Calvin, I don’t know.

 

[Pete_Holter]

Said again, the power of God is exhibited in the life of the reprobate in at least two ways: He holds the sinner in existence even while he perpetrates his evil, and He uses the perpetrated evil for good.

Helping to underpin this understanding, here is another explanation of the permissive/hidden will of God:

“For there the will of God, who makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flaming fire, presiding among spirits which are joined in perfect peace and friendship, and combined in one will by a kind of spiritual fire of charity, as it were in an elevated and holy and secret seat, as in its own house and in its own temple, thence diffuses itself through all things by certain most perfectly ordered movements of the creature; first spiritual, then corporeal; and uses all according to the unchangeable pleasure of its own purpose, whether incorporeal things or things corporeal, whether rational or irrational spirits, whether good by His grace or evil through their own will. But as the more gross and inferior bodies are governed in due order by the more subtle and powerful ones, so all bodies are governed by the living spirit; and the living spirit devoid of reason, by the reasonable living spirit; and the reasonable living spirit that makes default and sins, by the living and reasonable spirit that is pious and just; and that by God Himself, and so the universal creature by its Creator, from whom and through whom and in whom it is also created and established. And so it comes to pass that the will of God is the first and the highest cause of all corporeal appearances and motions. For nothing is done visibly or sensibly, unless either by command or permission from the interior palace, invisible and intelligible, of the supreme Governor, according to the unspeakable justice of rewards and punishments, of favor and retribution, in that far-reaching and boundless commonwealth of the whole creature” (, Bk. 3, Ch. 4, 9On the Holy Trinity).

And here is another:

“ ‘These are the great works of the Lord, sought out unto all His wills’: through which mercy forsakes none who confesses, no man’s wickedness is unpunished… Let man choose for himself what he lists: the works of the Lord are not so constituted, that the creature, having free discretion allowed him, should transcend the will of the Creator, even though he act contrary to His will. God wills not that you should sin; for He forbids it: yet if you have sinned, imagine not that the man has done what he willed, and that has happened to God which He willed not. For as He would that man would not sin, so would He spare the sinner, that he may return and live; He so wills finally to punish him who persists in his sin, that the rebellious cannot escape the power of justice. Thus whatever choice you have made, the Almighty will not be at a loss to fulfill His will concerning you” (Exposition on Psalm 111).

In terms of causality, “the only cause of evil is the falling away from the unchangeable good of a being made good but changeable, first in the case of an angel, and afterwards in the case of man” (, Ch. 23Enchiridion). And although this takes place through the permissive will of God, it is fully on account of the free will of man turned evil by its own power and choice that His will takes its effect. “No Person becomes evil by the causality of a wise person. For that is no small crime – indeed, it is a great one – and it could not occur in the case of any wise person. But God is superior to every wise person. Much less, then, does a person become evil by God’s causality, for the will of God is far superior to that of a wise person” (Miscellany of Eighty-three Questions, III).

 

[Pete_Holter]

Again, the encyclopedia article continues: “Now… the Divine decree, according to Augustine… includes also the second element of the Catholic dogma: the very sincere will of God to give to all men the power of saving themselves.”

We have already seen from Chapter 103 of the Enchiridion how Augustine interprets 1 Timothy 2:4, that God wills all men to be saved. He does so in various ways in his later engagements with Pelagianism, but it is always restrictive. He offers the same and various other interpretations of this elsewhere, as in Chapters 44 and 47 of On Rebuke and Grace and Chapter 14 of On the Predestination of the Saints. His response to Julian will suffice here for illustration:

“You intend us to understand, by your teaching, that the reason all men are not saved and do not come to the knowledge of the truth is that they do not wish to ask, although God wishes to give; that they do not wish to seek, although God wishes to offer; that they do not wish to knock, although God wishes to open… This is abhorrent to the truth. The Lord knows who are His, and His will is certain about their salvation and entrance into His kingdom. Therefore, the statement, ‘Who wishes all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth’ (1 Timothy 2:4) should be interpreted as we interpret: ‘From the justice of the one, the result is unto justification of life to all men’ (Romans 5:18)” (, Bk. 4, Ch. 8, 42 & 43Against Julian).

Finally, the encyclopedia article asks whether Augustine, “who created and until his dying day maintained this system which is so logically concatenated, be accused of fatalism and Manichæism?”

There will be some who read the encyclopedia article who would want Augustine to respond to the accusation of fatalism by asserting the free will of man. But Augustine was already accused of “fatalism” in his lifetime and he already responded to it – not with the assertion of man’s free will, but with “the will of the Almighty God”:

“We do not say that by the sin of Adam free will perished out of the nature of men; but that it avails for sinning in men subjected to the devil; while it is not of avail for good and pious living, unless the will itself of man should be made free by God’s grace, and assisted to every good movement of action, of speech, of thought… yet that all are born under sin on account of the fault of propagation, and that, therefore, all are under the devil until they are born again in Christ. Nor are we maintaining fate under the name of grace, because we say that the grace of God is preceded by no merits of man. If, however, it is agreeable to any to call the will of the Almighty God by the name of fate, while we indeed shun profane novelties of words, we have no use for contending about words” (, Bk. 2, Ch. 9Against Two Letters of the Pelagians).

Again to Julian:

“You say that, if men are given things without personal merit, then there must be fate. Thus, we must admit merit, you say, for, if there is no merit, there must be fate. Therefore, infants, with no personal merit, are baptized by fate, and enter into the kingdom by fate; again, infants, with no demerit, are by fate not baptized, and by fate do not enter into the kingdom of God. Behold, sucklings unable to talk convict you of asserting fate. By our doctrine of the demerit or desert due to vitiated origin, however, we say one infant enters into the kingdom of God by grace, because God is good; another infant deservedly does not enter, because God is just; there is no question of fate in either case, because God does what He wishes. But, although we know that one is condemned according to the judgment, and another is delivered according to the mercy, of Him whose mercy and judgment we praise with confidence, who are we to ask God why He condemns the one instead of the other?” (, Bk. 4, Ch. 8, 46Against Julian)

Finally, in his letter to Sixtus (future Pope Sixtus III):

“For, when the whole lump of clay is justly doomed to destruction, justice awards it the dishonor it deserves, while grace bestows an undeserved honor, not for any privilege of merit, not through any inevitability of fate, not through any chance stroke of fortune, but through ‘the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God,’ which the Apostle does not reveal to us, but marvels at as something hidden, crying out: ‘O the depth…!’ ” (Letter 194)

Time for another break for me. Please forgive my errors. If I’m not able to make it back to this thread to respond to anything else, the peace of Christ be with you all! He is LORD of all!!!

In Christ,
Pete

 

[shaky]

Said again, the power of God is exhibited in the life of the reprobate in at least two ways: He holds the sinner in existence even while he perpetrates his evil, and He uses the perpetrated evil for good.

Helping to underpin this understanding, here is another explanation of the permissive/hidden will of God:

“For there the will of God, who makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flaming fire, presiding among spirits which are joined in perfect peace and friendship, and combined in one will by a kind of spiritual fire of charity, as it were in an elevated and holy and secret seat, as in its own house and in its own temple, thence diffuses itself through all things by certain most perfectly ordered movements of the creature; first spiritual, then corporeal; and uses all according to the unchangeable pleasure of its own purpose, whether incorporeal things or things corporeal, whether rational or irrational spirits, whether good by His grace or evil through their own will. But as the more gross and inferior bodies are governed in due order by the more subtle and powerful ones, so all bodies are governed by the living spirit; and the living spirit devoid of reason, by the reasonable living spirit; and the reasonable living spirit that makes default and sins, by the living and reasonable spirit that is pious and just; and that by God Himself, and so the universal creature by its Creator, from whom and through whom and in whom it is also created and established. And so it comes to pass that the will of God is the first and the highest cause of all corporeal appearances and motions. For nothing is done visibly or sensibly, unless either by command or permission from the interior palace, invisible and intelligible, of the supreme Governor, according to the unspeakable justice of rewards and punishments, of favor and retribution, in that far-reaching and boundless commonwealth of the whole creature” (On the Holy Trinity, Bk. 3, Ch. 4, 9).

And here is another:

“ ‘These are the great works of the Lord, sought out unto all His wills’: through which mercy forsakes none who confesses, no man’s wickedness is unpunished… Let man choose for himself what he lists: the works of the Lord are not so constituted, that the creature, having free discretion allowed him, should transcend the will of the Creator, even though he act contrary to His will. God wills not that you should sin; for He forbids it: yet if you have sinned, imagine not that the man has done what he willed, and that has happened to God which He willed not. For as He would that man would not sin, so would He spare the sinner, that he may return and live; He so wills finally to punish him who persists in his sin, that the rebellious cannot escape the power of justice. Thus whatever choice you have made, the Almighty will not be at a loss to fulfill His will concerning you” (Exposition on Psalm 111).

In terms of causality, “the only cause of evil is the falling away from the unchangeable good of a being made good but changeable, first in the case of an angel, and afterwards in the case of man” (Enchiridion, Ch. 23). And although this takes place through the permissive will of God, it is fully on account of the free will of man turned evil by its own power and choice that His will takes its effect. “No Person becomes evil by the causality of a wise person. For that is no small crime – indeed, it is a great one – and it could not occur in the case of any wise person. But God is superior to every wise person. Much less, then, does a person become evil by God’s causality, for the will of God is far superior to that of a wise person” (Miscellany of Eighty-three Questions, III).

Hi pete holter

If we focus on Infants what this is saying here: God with his infallible foreknowledge predestines which infant to save and which infant to Condemn. Because if they would have lived a full life. One would have responded by free will to the grace of God. The other would Not have responded by free will to the grace of God for reasons only Known to God.

The Ones that have Lived a full Life or even 1/2 a Life would have to accept things at Judgment being Judged According to there works.

But Infants that have had no concept of life or doing any works. How can this Go with the teachings of Judgement. Judged According to your works?

 

[Bengoshi]

Okay who is dense: the one who did not read the article so understandably cannot explain it or the one who read the article and cannot explain it. I am the former you are the latter.

And if you are too busy to explain your postion then why bother engaging in a debate. That is only an excuse perhaps for your failure to grasp the very thing that you are asking me to read. Maybe you are hoping that once I have read it I can help you to understand it .

You manged to write a fairly lengthy explanation of “born again” and yet when pressed to explain Sproul all you could do was give a link?

I am snowed under with work but I don’t give you a link to defend my position. I actually write it.

If you are fair dinkum with your excuse, in the time that I have been asking you, you would have been able to come up with an explanation by now since you manged to do a few long posts in between.

Sorry but I see through your excuses.

I doubt if it will be goodbye. You won’t be able to resist replying to me in some thread or another . One of my posts will surely irritate you and bang goes Bengoshing pounding at the keyboard to refute Benedictus2

FYI: Those long posts were copied and pasted from GotQuestions, Systematic Theology, etc. I could not copy and paste Sproul’s article because it is too long for the reply box, so I just posted the link.