Hi Brandan

Thanks for your good wishes - we had a wonderful morning with God's people.
May you be blessed likewise.

The weakness of the argument from logic is that God's ways are far above
ours - 'How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!'
Rom.11:33.  A further difficulty  for the single-will theory are the plain
statements of Scripture that show a desire on God's part that is not
fulfilled.  He could have caused the fulfilment, but chose not to.  An
example: Matthew 23:37,
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who
are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a
hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!"  What do
you say about this text?

In Him

Ian



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brandan Kraft" <bkraft@...>
To: <soundofgrace@...>
Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2003 1:53 PM
Subject: Re: [soundofgrace] Arminianism Raises Its ugly head....tonight


> Hi Ian,
>
> In my mind, I cannot imagine a God that does not get what He wants.
Period.  God is not disappointed in His eternal plan.  He is not sitting
back in heaven watching the world events fly by as a mere spectator we can
all agree.  But is He involved with every little detail of every event?  I
believe God has actively decreed everything that comes to pass.  I believe
that He decreed that I would sit here this Sunday morning and type on my
computer this very message.
>
> Two wills of God?  I've read enough from various theologians to see that
there really isn't much agreement on this topic.  One theologian might write
that there is a "revealed" will and a "secretive" will.  Another writes that
God's wills are "permissive" and "decretive".  Another writes that God has
SEVEN wills of God!  Now I don't know about you, but I find all of that to
be pretty confusing.
>
> Since I believe God always gets what He wants, I have to believe that His
will is always decretive.  If God wants to wipe out the religion of Islam in
one day, He will do that.  If God wants to take His elect home to Him in
Glory, He will do that.  If God wants to call His elect out of their sins,
He will do that.  God is not frustrated by any mere human event - but
instead is the active agent in them.  To say that God doesn't get what He
wants is to state that things are left to "chance" and God isn't in complete
control.  The reply to that is that God gets what He wants and what He
doesn't want.  That He has a secret will and His other will is decretive or
revealed.  I don't buy that balogna.
>
> If God's secret will  is that He desires all men without exception to be
saved and His other will is that only the elect will be saved, then God's
wills are in conflict with each other.  God is actively involved in
frustrating Himself!  This is an illogical representation of God.  Will God
remorse when He sends the reprobate to hell?  I don't think so!  I think God
will get exactly what He wants and the saints will gather around his throne
and glorify him shouting, "Alleluia! And her smoke rises up forever and
ever!"
>
> God will be glorified in every single event that comes to pass.  His will
is not frustrated, and God is a perfectly rational, intellectual Sovereign
King who gets what He wants... ALWAYS.
>
> The question that arises is always, well then does God decree sin?  My
answer is shocking.  Yes, I believe God's will is the first cause of all
sin.  God is not the CHARGEABLE cause of sin, but He is indeed the first
cause.  Men are the secondary cause of sin, and are therefore responsible.
God decreed from all of eternity that man would fall into sin, and man's
motivation for sinning is to rob glory from God.  God in causing men to sin
is not guilty of sin because in His decree, His motivation would be to bring
glory to Himself.  However, sin does not take place unless God actively
decrees it, otherwise Scriptures like this not make sense...
>
> Colossians 1:16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven,
and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or
dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and
for him:
>
> John Calvin wrote the following concerning God's will that I think is
appropriate to this topic:  God's will is, and rightly ought to be, the
cause of all things that are. For if it has any cause, something must
precede it, to which it is, as it were, bound; this is unlawful to imagine.
For God's will is so much the highest rule of righteosness that whatever he
wills, by the very fact that he wills it, must be considered righteous.
When, therefore, one asks why God has so done, we must reply: because he has
willed it. But if you proceed further to ask why he so willed, you are
seeking something greater and higher than God's will, which cannot be found.
(Calvin, Institutes, III.xxiii.2)
>
> Warfield wrote: That anything - good or evil - occurs in God's universe
finds its account . . . in His positive ordering and active concurrence;
while the moral quality of the deed, considered in itself, is rooted in the
moral character of the subordinate agent, acting in the circumsatnces and
under the motives operative in each instance . . . . Thus all things find
their unity in His eternal plan; and not their unity merely, but their
justification as well; even the evil, though retaining its quality as evil
and hateful to the holy God, and certain to be dealt with as hateful, yet
does not occur apart from His provision or against His will, but appears in
the world which He has made only as the instrument by which He works for the
highter good. (Benjan B. Warfield, "Predestination," in Biblical and
Theological Studies, pp 283-84.)
>
> Robert Reymond in his book, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian
Faith, wrote: The one living and true God, the Bible says, is the absolutely
sovereign Ruler of the universe (Pss. 103:19; 115:3; 135:6). Beside the fact
that it is God who created the universe according to his eternal purpose in
the first place, the Bible teaches that by his providence he oversees both
it and all things in it. He works all things after the counsel of his will
(Eph. 1:11). He causes all things to work together for good (conformity to
Christ's image) for those who love him, for those who are called according
to his purpose (Rom. 8:28). From him and through him and to him are all
things (Rom 11:36; 1 Cor. 8:6) -- from the raising up and deposing of
earthly kings to the flight and fall of the tiny sparrow (Dan. 4:31-32;
Matt. 10:29), from the determiniation of the times and boundaries of the
earth's nations to the number of hairs on a man's head (Acts 17:26; Matt.
10:30). (p. 356)
> ...I would suggest the following as the only possible direction in which
to look for a biblical and thus a defensible theodicy: The ultimate end
which God decreed he regarded as great enough and glorious enough that it
justified to himself both the divine plan itself and the ordained incidental
evil arising the foreordained path to his plan's great and glorious end. But
is there, indeed, can there be such an end? Yes, indeed there is such an
end. Paul can declare: "I consider that our present suffereings [which are
ordained of God; the reader is referred to 2 Cor. 11:23-33 adn 12:7-10 for a
sampling of Paul's sufferings] are not worth comparing with the glory that
will be revealed in us"; and again: "our light and momentary troubles are
achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all" (Rom 8:16; 2
Cor 4:17; 1 Cor 2:7). And what is that anticipated and destined end for us?
It is this: Someday the elect will be conformed to the image of Christ -- 
our highest good
>  according to Romans 8:28-29. But our conformity to Christ's likeness is
not the "be all and end all" of God's eternal purpose. We have not
penetrated God's purpose sufficiently if we conclude that we are the center
of God's purpose or that his purpose terminates finally upon us by
accomplishing our glorification. Rather, our glorification is only the means
to a higher, indeed, the highest end conceivable - "that God's Son [N.B.:
not Adam] might be the Firstborn [that is, might occupy the place of higest
honor] among many brothers" (Rom. 8:29), and all to the praise of God's
glorious grace (Eph. 1:6,10,12,14; 2:7). (pg. 376-377)
>
> Have a blessed Lord's Day!
> Brandan