Freethought & Rationalism Archive

BadBadBad · 10-20-2004, 01:15 PM

I've never heard of double-predestination, but I'm told by JDLongmire I should be careful not to include predestination to hell along with Calvanistic predestination to heaven. Blt_to_go tells me I'm in for a pradoxical roller coaster ride between free will and predestination. Looks like fun.

Blt_to_go provided this link as a start:see here

post tenebras lux · 10-20-2004, 03:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brettc

I've never heard of double-predestination, but I'm told by JDLongmire I should be careful not to include predestination to hell along with Calvanistic predestination to heaven. Blt_to_go tells me I'm in for a pradoxical roller coaster ride between free will and predestination. Looks like fun.

Blt_to_go provided this link as a start:see here

Glad to see that what jdlongmire calls double predestination is just bog standard 'normal' predestination, although I'm not surprised that certain 'sensitive' types are now claiming they the only believe in the inconsistent idea of partial predestination.

I do hope that someone from the latter group replies to you brettc, and I'm curious as to when the idea of partial predestination first took root in mainstream Calvinism.

Luxie

jdlongmire · 10-20-2004, 03:45 PM

The Double-Predestination Distortion

Quote:

Originally Posted by R.C. Sproul

The distortion of double predestination looks like this: There is a symmetry that exists between election and reprobation. God WORKS in the same way and same manner with respect to the elect and to the reprobate. That is to say, from all eternity God decreed some to election and by divine initiative works faith in their hearts and brings them actively to salvation. By the same token, from all eternity God decrees some to sin and damnation (destinare ad peccatum) and actively intervenes to work sin in their lives, bringing them to damnation by divine initiative. In the case of the elect, regeneration is the monergistic work of God. In the case of the reprobate, sin and degeneration are the monergistic work of God. Stated another way, we can establish a parallelism of foreordination and predestination by means of a positive symmetry. We can call this a positive-positive view of predestination. This is, God positively and actively intervenes in the lives of the elect to bring them to salvation. In the same way God positively and actively intervenes in the life of the reprobate to bring him to sin.
This distortion of positive-positive predestination clearly makes God the author of sin who punishes a person for doing what God monergistically and irresistibly coerces man to do. Such a view is indeed a monstrous assault on the integrity of God. This is not the Reformed view of predestination, but a gross and inexcusable caricature of the doctrine. Such a view may be identified with what is often loosely described as hyper-Calvinism and involves a radical form of supralapsarianism. Such a view of predestination has been virtually universally and monolithically rejected by Reformed thinkers.

funinspace · 10-20-2004, 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdlongmire

The Double-Predestination Distortion

Hey, thanks. I had been meaning look up what it meant, when I read that John Wesley was being accused of harboring such beliefs....weird.

jdlongmire · 10-20-2004, 03:55 PM

Happy to be of assistance.

From the same article:

Quote:

Only in a positive-positive schema of predestination does double-predestination leave us with a capricious deity whose sovereign decrees manifest a divine tyranny. Reformed theology has consistently eschewed such a hyper-supralapsarianism. Opponents of Calvinism, however, persistently caricature the straw man of hyper-supralapsarianism, doing violence to the Reformed faith and assaulting the dignity of God's sovereignty.

blt to go · 10-20-2004, 05:07 PM

jdlongmire - that whole "distortion" of double-predestination is a distortion in RC Sproul's mind only: A great big fat strawman.

He claims that double-predestination includes:

Quote:

Originally Posted by RC Sproul

By the same token, from all eternity God decrees some to sin and damnation (destinare ad peccatum) and actively intervenes to work sin in their lives, bringing them to damnation by divine initiative.

No Calvinist, hyper, Reformed or otherwise would EVER make that statement. No one arguing against Calvinism would claim that Calvinism makes that statement.

One thing Calvin is VERY clear on is the total depravity of man. (Remember the T in TULIP) God would not need to "work" in humanity to have sin. Humanity did it themselves. This is a very basic tenent of Calvinism. This is not the claim of what double-predestination entails.

RC Sproul then spouts on about the "correct" view of Predestination. I will save the others the time to read the article. Basically it goes like this. Everybody is evil, reprobate and the only just thing to do is send them to hell. God, in his mercy, selects a few out to go to heaven. No one knows why, they are just lucky. (and Lucky for Sproul, he happens to be one.) The rest are going to hell. They can't complain, because they are just getting what is coming to them.

Sounds great, yes? Only one itty bitty problem. It makes God a liar.

Quote:

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,
who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 1 Tim 2:3-4

If God desires ALL men to be saved, and clearly has the capablity to do so, then all would be saved. Either 1 Timothy is a Lie, or God can't do that which he desires. In which case he is not God.

Did Christ's blood not pay for ALL sins? (Whoops, sorry. Forgot the L in TULIP!) Apparently God (who allowed sin into the world) could only fix 1/4 of the problem.

He wishes he could fix ALL of the problem, but sorry guys, Christ's death was only good for some.

This analogy best explains double predestination. My taking my two children for ice cream.

I have the ability, the werewithall, the money, the time, and most important, the desire to take my two children for ice cream.

My two children regardless of their desire, do not have the ability to get ice cream. I have the keys to the house, the car (it is too far to walk), keys to the ice cream place, the money, and the ice cream attendant will only sell ice cream to me.

Regardless of what my children do, they will never, never, never get ice cream.

I choose to take Child A for ice cream, KNOWING that Child B will never get ice cream. This is absolutely double predestination in that predestination one was the choosing of Child A and predestination two was the NOT choosing Child B.

Again, note that no matter how much Child B desires ice cream, he will never get it, as a direct consequence of my deliberate choice.

RC Sproul sidesteps this with the claim that neither child deserves ice cream, so Child B should stop crying and suck it up. RC Sproul fails to address the fact that I desire them both to have ice cream but deliberately only choose one.

Sorry, RC. Your strawman and weak argument does not fly here.

Tell me, jdlongmire, YOUR resolution of this sticky problem. Using you and I, assume that God chose you and not me. Isn't it true that regardless how hard I try, no matter the depth of my desire, I am not getting in? Haven't you been "elected?" and I have been predestined by NOT being chosen?

jdlongmire · 10-20-2004, 05:13 PM

Quote:

Tell me, jdlongmire, YOUR resolution of this sticky problem. Using you and I, assume that God chose you and not me. Isn't it true that regardless how hard I try, no matter the depth of my desire, I am not getting in? Haven't you been "elected?" and I have been predestined by NOT being chosen?

How do I know about you? I am not your Judge. It is my desire that you come to know truth.

jdlongmire · 10-20-2004, 05:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RC Sproul
By the same token, from all eternity God decrees some to sin and damnation (destinare ad peccatum) and actively intervenes to work sin in their lives, bringing them to damnation by divine initiative.

No Calvinist, hyper, Reformed or otherwise would EVER make that statement.

No one arguing against Calvinism would claim that Calvinism makes that statement.

Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Emmons, a well known exponent of the "New Light" Calvinism.

Arguments against Calvinism

really?

jdlongmire · 10-20-2004, 05:43 PM

From:

Are There Two Wills in God?

Quote:

Robert L. Dabney in an essay written over a hundred years ago...uses an analogy from the life of George Washington taken from Chief-Justice Marshall's Life of Washington. A certain Major André had jeopardized the safety of the young nation through "rash and unfortunate" treasonous acts. Marshall says of the death warrant, signed by Washington, "Perhaps on no occasion of his life did the commander-in-chief obey with more reluctance the stern mandates of duty and of policy." Dabney observes that Washington's compassion for André was "real and profound". He also had "plenary power to kill or to save alive." Why then did he sign the death warrant? Dabney explains, "Washington's volition to sign the death-warrant of André did not arise from the fact that his compassion was slight or feigned, but from the fact that it was rationally counterpoised by a complex of superior judgments . . . of wisdom, duty, patriotism, and moral indignation [the wide-angle lens]."

Dabney imagines a defender of André, hearing Washington say, "I do this with the deepest reluctance and pity." Then the defender says, "Since you are supreme in this matter, and have full bodily ability to throw down that pen, we shall know by your signing this warrant that your pity is hypocritical." Dabney responds to this by saying, "The petulance of this charge would have been equal to its folly. The pity was real, but was restrained by superior elements of motive. Washington had official and bodily power to discharge the criminal, but he had not the sanctions of his own wisdom and justice." The corresponding point in the case of divine election is that "the absence of volition in God to save does not necessarily imply the absence of compassion." God has "a true compassion, which is yet restrained, in the case of the . . . non-elect, by consistent and holy reasons, from taking the form of a volition to regenerate." God's infinite wisdom regulates his whole will and guides and harmonizes (not suppresses) all its active principles."

I think this speaks a little more eloquently to the matter as opposed to ice cream analogies...

OnTheThirdRail · 10-20-2004, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blt to go

Sounds great, yes? Only one itty bitty problem. It makes God a liar.

If God desires ALL men to be saved, and clearly has the capablity to do so, then all would be saved. Either 1 Timothy is a Lie, or God can't do that which he desires. In which case he is not God.

Hmmm... an agnostic tacking the side of an arminian christian - this is really interesting.

If you look at the word in question - Pas (in greek) - it can denote 'all types' - i.e. not all men without exception, but all men without distinction

Quote:

Originally Posted by blt to go

Did Christ's blood not pay for ALL sins? (Whoops, sorry. Forgot the L in TULIP!) Apparently God (who allowed sin into the world) could only fix 1/4 of the problem.

He wishes he could fix ALL of the problem, but sorry guys, Christ's death was only good for some.

Christ's blood didn't pay for ALL sins - otherwise nobody would be punished. Christs death was for the elect only.

Quote:

Originally Posted by blt to go

This analogy best explains double predestination. My taking my two children for ice cream.

I have the ability, the werewithall, the money, the time, and most important, the desire to take my two children for ice cream.

My two children regardless of their desire, do not have the ability to get ice cream. I have the keys to the house, the car (it is too far to walk), keys to the ice cream place, the money, and the ice cream attendant will only sell ice cream to me.

Regardless of what my children do, they will never, never, never get ice cream.

I choose to take Child A for ice cream, KNOWING that Child B will never get ice cream. This is absolutely double predestination in that predestination one was the choosing of Child A and predestination two was the NOT choosing Child B.

Again, note that no matter how much Child B desires ice cream, he will never get it, as a direct consequence of my deliberate choice.

RC Sproul sidesteps this with the claim that neither child deserves ice cream, so Child B should stop crying and suck it up. RC Sproul fails to address the fact that I desire them both to have ice cream but deliberately only choose one.

Sorry, RC. Your strawman and weak argument does not fly here.

Ummm... but your argument is a strawman... no calvinist would say that there are those who truly desire to be saved but God turns them away. Everyone in a fallen estate is in emnity with God... they hate God and are spiritually discerned. They have absolutely no desire to be saved - God and His salvation are foolishness to them. For an example of this, you can talk any atheist on this board.

Quote:

Originally Posted by blt to go

Tell me, jdlongmire, YOUR resolution of this sticky problem. Using you and I, assume that God chose you and not me. Isn't it true that regardless how hard I try, no matter the depth of my desire, I am not getting in? Haven't you been "elected?" and I have been predestined by NOT being chosen?

If I may answer for jdlongmire... the Bible say believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Humble yourself before Him - acknowledge that you are a sinner in need of a savior and ask for forgiveness.

10-20-2004, 01:15 PM	#1
BadBadBad Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: WHERE GOD IS NOT!!!!! Posts: 4,338	What is double-predestination I've never heard of double-predestination, but I'm told by JDLongmire I should be careful not to include predestination to hell along with Calvanistic predestination to heaven. Blt_to_go tells me I'm in for a pradoxical roller coaster ride between free will and predestination. Looks like fun. Blt_to_go provided this link as a start:see here

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