Well??

I don't necessarily believe that God created evil. But if God predestines individuals, those predestined to do evil are his responsibility, no?

If God in his sovereignty destines Hitler to evil, isn't he then responsible for Hitler's evil?
I don't see how we can glorify God for those that he predestined for good without him also being responsible for the others.

I'm really not just trying to be a $#!t stirrer, I'm really trying to understand this whole predestination thing although at this point I lean toward Arminianism.


UPDATE:  For those of you interested in this topic, here is the best discussion of it that I have found. Between the original and follow up there are 200+ responses, and almost all of them are thoughtful and respectful..

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2014/09/a-question-to-calvinists/#disqus_thread

Thanks to all of you who have added to my understanding of what for me is a difficult subject.

The evil one is satan, was he created by God as a powerful Angel and then fell?  I do not know.

Evil is man being imperfect.

Yeah, I'll have to admit I'm really fuzzy on exactly how evil entered the picture. When God was finished with creation he pronounced it good. Was the serpent there then? or did he slither in later?

But my difficulty is with the acts of evil in the world. If people have free will then the evil they do is on them. But the Calvinists maintain ( as near as I can understand) that God predestined all men for both salvation ( good) and damnation (evil) and that everything that happens was foreordained by God. If that is the case isn't the evil that is perpetrated then foreordained by God?

Like I said before this is an honest inquiry.

God doesn't "predestine" anyone.  He gives free will.  We are born into an evil world as sinners.  Where we go from there is up to us.  He knows what path we will take, but He does not determine it.

I'm inclined toward the idea of free will too, but the Calvinists make a very good case for predestination. I'd really like to hear their take on it.

If God is omnipotent . . . . We cannot actually have free will because God knows each and every situation we are faced with and the decisions we will make.

If God is sovereign dos he not only foreknow our decisions but foreordain them? As I understand it God planned everything out before the foundations of the world and everything happens according to his plan. By that token it seems to me that he planned the fall of man as well.

Was the church shooting in Charleston the ordained by God so that he could showcase the faith of the congregants and their love and forgiveness for the perpetrator; and by that be glorified?

Please forgive me, I'm just a stupid man trying to make sense of it all.

This is the answer.

The answer you seek is here

No.

I'm currently reading "The Case for Faith" by Lee Strobel. This same question is brought up and there's some really good opinions on it. Highly suggest the read.

I am a "reformed" calvinist (pun intended - I am no longer a calvinist) Who has spent quite a few years hung up on this issue.

It is a huge question that you should seek the answer to. My conclusion, after reading theologians and philosophers from different denominations etc. I have decided that I believe God to be good, thus void of all evil. Man is responsible for his actions, and if God causes you to do things you are not the one doing evil. Predestination is real; God does know all things. Predeterminism is a concept that has been created by theologians who assert that God, by necessity, must be in total control of everything that happens. In their attempt to ascribe to him all power and glory they undermine his nature and create a conundrum of epic proportions. "Sovereignty" usually entails total control, but most people use the term without understanding its meaning.

I am not going to get into this too much because its somewhat convoluted but this was one of the most helpful pieces that I read in my search;

“God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can't. If a thing is free to be good it's also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata -of creatures that worked like machines- would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they've got to be free.
Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently, He thought it worth the risk. (...) If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will -that is, for making a real world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings- then we may take it it is worth paying.” C.S Lewis

God works all things according to his will....
Where does the Bible teach that we have free will to be good?
Rom 9:18. " he has mercy on whom He desires and He hardens who He desires"
Rom 3v10-12 " there is none righteous, not even one, thee is none who understands there is NONE who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, thee is not even one.
1 cor 2:14 but a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

Predestination is right there boldly in the Bible.  Does God know everything?  Yes.  To those that say predestination isn't fair... If God knows that you will not choose Him and still creates you anyway, is that fair? The Bible doesn't have to be fair in human terms.  No one gets injustice.  We all deserve hell.  If God elects to save someone, that is LOVE.  He saves us not of anything we have done but because He loves us.

Count the times it says we have free will, then count the times it says predestination or election.  Now I do believe we have free will as far as we can do what is in out nature...but the Bible says we are born in a sin nature.  Up above in Romans it mentions that no one seeks for God.  God let's people follow their own will which is a sin nature.  He also gives some Faith, which is a gift eph 2:8.  For by Grace you have been saved by Faith, and that not of yourselves ; it is a gift of God.

I offer this as an example of our free will...  If you truly have libertarian free will, that is, the ability to do ANYTHING.  Cut off your left arm and post a pic in this thread.  You won't, because it is not in your nature.  So though you say we have free will, you are unable to act on it.  It is the same with God.  We can say all day we have free will to follow him or not, but in the end, we have a sin nature and will ALLWAYS chose to reject Him.  If we act on our own.

Of course God knows all things. Where in the world do you get the idea that omnipotence entails control?

You arent arguing for predestination (defined the way it has been since Jesus' time and the way that the early fathers and theologians use it), you are arguing for predeterminism.

You also cherry picked some verses and took them far, far out of context. Reformers always run to Romans, one of the most theologically complex books in the bible, and fail to even consider Christs own words.

To answer your question about where the bible teaches free will; try most of what Jesus said, James, Galatians, Ephesians . . . the list goes on.

Romans isn't extremely complex...it's blatantly clear. Now I say that with the idea in mind that the Bible is shallow enough for a baby to wade in, but deep enough for an elephant to swim in, in mind.  I don't think it contradicts itself as you get deeper though.  I don't feel those are out of context either, just don't have the time to go through the whole book here verse by verse.  Show me the verses where it says we have free will to chose God.  Not just chapters.

Predestination and election are both Biblical teachings. The English "predestination" is translated from the Greek word proorizo which means 1) to predetermine, decide beforehand; 2) in the NT, of God decreeing from eternity; 3) to foreordain, appoint beforehand.1  Predestination, then, is the biblical teaching that God predestines certain events and people to accomplish what He so desires. The word proorizo occurs six times in the New Testament--each time demonstrating that God is the one who is foreordaining and bringing about certain events:

Acts 4:28, "to do whatever Your hand and purpose predestined to occur."
Rom. 8:29, "For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren;
Rom. 8:30, "and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified."
1 Cor. 2:7, "but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages to our glory."
Eph. 1:5, "He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will."
Eph. 1:11, "also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will."
You must also note that God predestines people as Rom. 8:30 and Eph. 1:5, 11 demonstrate. There is, however, controversy as to the nature of this predestination. In the Reformed (Calvinist) camp, predestination includes individuals. In other words, the Reformed doctrine of predestination is that God predestines whom He wants to be saved and that without this predestination, none would be saved. The non-Reformed camp states that God predestines people to salvation but that these people freely choose to follow God on their own. In other words, in the non-Reformed perspective God is reacting to the will of individuals and predestining them only because they choose God where by contrast the Reformed position states that people choose God only because He has first predestined them.

KD5TXX,

Glad to see you weigh in, I've seen some of your posts before and was looking forward to you posting.

According to the 3rd chapter of the Westminster Confession:

"God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass".

Leaving out for the moment how evil entered the world in the first place. In light of the WC, how then is God not responsible for the evil acts that take place in the world; the genocides, rapes, murders, etc,etc? They were freely and unchangeably ordained by Him, no?

For me this isn't just a theological exercise in theory, but a matter that bears on how I gover my whole life. If God loves and cares for me personally, I must believe that what happens is his will. If as my wife did, I develope cancer, should I pray to be cured? If it's God's best will for me should I want to be? Or should I prayerfully thank him and seek to know what it is he wills for me. By the same token if attacked physically, should I defend myself against something that God ordained to happen, or putmyself in his hands.

I'm not looking at fatalism where I do nothing because nothing matters, but rather I do nothing because EVERYTHING matters.

Like I said, I'm just a stupid man

There are plenty of examples of God either not being omnipotent, or choosing not to know something.  Free will simply can have positive or negative results. It's all volition.

What was the WORST, most Heinous Crime ever committed? I'd say the Murder of Jesus.  Did not God ordain that so that we could be saved? I think the problem most people have is that they look at it from a man centered view.  God owes us NOTHING.  Except damnation in hell for eternity.

Proverbs 16:4. "The Lord made everything for a purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble."

When people see crime or suffering they say" that's not fair"   What's not fair? That we deserve God to give us what we want? That we deserve an easy life? I dislike seeing that stuff just as much as the next person.  God works all things to glorify HIMSELF not to glorify man.  Everything we are given by Him is by GRACE.  The worst time I can remember is when my wife miscarried .  I only got through that by understanding that God is sovereign and in charge.  Looking back in fact that rooted me deeper in my faith.  Though I would never have chosen it.

Please provide reference.  And exegesis of that case in question.

Romans is extremely complex. The context is critical and it leads many people to pick and choose verses (as you have done in two posts) out of context to prove their point.

Does it not bother you at all to approach the bible with an assumption and then attempt to find your assumption? You havent even quoted complete sentences, let alone acknowledged that in the first two chapters of Romans the responsibility of man is clearly explained.

More importantly, you have chosen to completely ignore the necessity that you explain why God is obligated to intervene. There are literally hundreds of instances where terrible things happen and, as pointed out, the Westminster Confession gives a laughable explanation for it, and if you really believe God MUST be the primary cause of all actions (and not the first cause of all things, with the agency of man explaining the problem of evil) then you have to answer for how it is that you can be responsible for your sin and God is truly good and just (as scripture clearly teaches).

Again, determinism and predestination are two completely different things. Gods omnipotence does not entail his interference or mandate his total micro management of every action. If you really believe that you have no reason to be good or live a righteous life, which is commanded many times.

God created His sons and daughters.

God created His law.

His sons and daughters are free to choose to obey or disobey that law. They also receive the consequences of their actions.

That is not an argument against Free Will. Even if he knows what we will do does not mean we don't still have a choice.

God wants us to find Him & choose to love Him with all our heart & soul.... You can not do this without free will.

I never said we do not have free will and are only puppets.  I said we do not have libertarian free will.  

Reformed theology will not send me to hell or heaven.  All we are debating here is if our salvation is based on God or if we have the power to allow God to save us.  I really don't think I have taken anything out of context.  If I have feel free to show me.  I may have posted less than complete sentences but not to trick people, just because I was in a hurry.  I would hope that anyone interested would actually read the whole book, and not decide anything based on what I wrote on an internet board.  Read Romans 9.  There are two choices here.  It either speaks of election dealing with individuals or as a nation.  To me it CLEARLY speaks of individuals.  Again, if I am wrong, show me in scripture.  You haven't given verses yet.  I freely admit I may be wrong.  But I have seen no evidence of it.  

I think we all agree that before we are born God knows whet here we will be saved or not.  So when he lets people whom He KNOWS will reject him and spend eternity in Hell be born anyways, isn't that a form of predestination?

Read your Augustine. Confessions to be exact. Some multidimensional physics helps too. Not kidding, first place I saw this idea was a physics book on "hyperspace" and the good physicists referenced the good doctor of the church.

God created time (it's a property of the universe after all, and is relative). God exists outside of time, and is not bound by it (both by having created it and by being eternal). Now, as with most dimensions, if you (or God, or anybody really) viewed a space with time from outside it you could see all states at once.

So it isn't that God knows everything because he controls you. He knows everything because, from his perspective, you already did it. You had the choice, you made it, but God had already seen you do it.

Think about this too, let's say you get to heaven. You'd expect your dead grandfather (assuming, of course) to meet you there. But your son (again, assuming) who wasn't dead when you died would also be there. And, in one way, you were already there. Because heaven would be eternal. No time. No way to even pick a reference point of "this is when I got here".

And now I'm giving myself a headache.

That's saying that God looks and sees what we will do and actually learns.  That is impossible because God is all Knowing.  He doesn't learn from Humans.

Not really, no.

I'm just trying to use plain language to get across a topic that's borderline impossible to understand.

It's like there's some guy with a white beard floating outside the bubble of the universe going, "Ah, damnit, Bob, not again."

If God created time, what was there before time? Where was God? Why do you assume he needs time in heaven if he was fine without it before?

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/110111.htm (I'd suggest reading it all, of course).

That sure reads like a roller coaster in my mind.

As far as the theosophy theodicy question, the nature of evil, as written on a bathroom stall of a university philosophy dept.:





 

Mine too. It reminds me of someone who just likes to hear themselves talk.

You mean Augustine's Confessions?

It's been a classic for almost as long as the Church has existed.

It's where "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." and "Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient and ever new! Late have I loved you! And, behold, you were within me, and I out of myself, and there I searched for you." come from.

 
Calvinism is, IMO, a two-dimensional answer to a three-dimensional reality. It's an attempt to define God, and put Him into a set of rules that He must abide by. All the while arguing against free will by arguing that He is 'sovereign' and controls everything. Which in of itself begs the question that, if God is truly sovereign as Calvinists say, then why must He abide by Calvin's rules? God has a tendency to break His own "rules". He tolerated polygamy, divorce, the sin of David, and the very sin of man to hang on a cross, just to name a few.






Here's what I mean by three-dimensional reality:






God has no time, therefore, he can see what we will do, not just before we do it, not just in the beginning of time, but always knew what we were going to do at this very moment and each moment after. Thus, he has adjusted accordingly, since the beginning. I look at it this way: if a parent puts two bowls in front of a child, one of a healthy vegetable, say broccoli, beets, or canned spinach (I hate canned spinach...and canned beets), and a bowl of ice cream, knowing the child will always choose the ice cream, does that in anyway remove the free will of the child to make the choice, or his responsibility after making it? No. The child has always had the choice to choose the opposite. Admittedly, in God's case, it isn't just an educated guess, but a direct knowledge of events throughout material time - but that still does not negate personal responsibility.






Free will does not compromise God's sovereignty if God chooses to allow it. Yes He can control us if He chooses, and it is His right to do so; but He does not because it is His will not to.  While He can "choose" whom He wants, He does not compel who He wants, although God can be very persuasive - just ask Paul when you meet him. Remember that Christ called Peter to follow Him three times before he eventually did after witnessing more than one miracle.




























 

I agree with your free Will example.  I do not think that God adjusts anything according to human actions however.  I'm not sure if that is what you meant however.  I don't see it as putting Him in a set of rules...I see it as starting with God is sovereign and working down.  Everything is done to glorify God.  Everything works to the good of His will.  He can do whatever he pleases.  Who are we to question Him? That kind of mentality.  I get that from the Bible.  However if I'm wrong, I think the worst that can be said of my mistaken belief is "You thought to highly of God" and I'm good with that.

Not in the way that His will is subservient to ours, but that He knows how to get things done despite human shortsightedness.

Evil is disobedience to God.

God is perfect. Think about that. Everything about Him is just and holy.

He has given us the ability to choose.

Many choose poorly.

This has nothing to do with God adjusting anything. It has to do with the fact that Gods will will be done in SPITE of evil, not through evil.

God is the one who establishes the rules. You seem to think it makes him more powerful to not acknowledge them but thats not true. It is God who has said he is always the same and scripture that says that he is perfect and good. And here you are saying that something that is good can create evil, or do evil acts by proxy. Finally we are talking about the quintessential issue with Calvinism. God has made promises about himself and you should believe them. Recognizing who he is and then saying, "but who am I to say he cant create evil to get his way" doesnt empower him, it undermines who he is.

A secondary issue that you may want to consider is; What is evil? If you are honest in your approach to the question you will find that it isnt a "thing", rather it is an absence of goodness. Use the analogy of light, since it was used extensively by Jesus; darnkess is the absence of light and is really only recognizable to us because we have been exposed to light, we need light, and we know what its like when we have no light.

You said two things; "Everything works to the good of his will" and "He can do whatever he pleases". A good God is not pleased by evil. A good God does not do evil. The reason why some of us would say he cannot do evil is because we believe in who he is and form our ideas about his nature based upon his promises.

I just remembered that Father Robert Barron had a really good part of the his "Catholicism" series on "The Problem of Evil".

Whole thing is available online at Amazon if anybody wanted to watch. He's got clips on youtube on the subject as well, but the series has been really really good.

I think the question is, is God responsible for evil, not who created it.  If I tied you to a chair and didn't feed you for a few days, did I create hunger? Or am I responsible for your hunger? Is God capable of extinguishing evil? I think we agree that He is.  Has He extinguished it? No.  Therefore since He and only He is capable of ending evil, and He chooses to permit it to exist, He is responsible.  I never said He does evil.

Thats precisely what you ARE saying. You have just contradicted yourself again in back to back sentences.

We need to define responsible.  I am not saying God makes people sin.  

. . . the Lord had declared that "everything that he had made . . . was exceedingly good" [Gen. 1:31]. Whence, then comes this wickedness to man, that he should fall away from his God? Lest we should think it comes from creation, God had put His stamp of approval on what had come forth from himself. By his own evil intention, then, man corrupted the pure nature he had received from the Lord; and by his fall drew all his posterity with him into destruction. Accordingly, we should contemplate the evident cause of condemnation in the corrupt nature of humanity-which is closer to us-rather than seek a hidden and utterly incomprehensible cause in God's predestination. [Institutes, 3:23:8]

That is from Calvin.  He says the sin is on man.  I also think if we look at some verses in the NASB they instead of using evil, like the KJV, use calamity.  My reasoning is sound, in my mind, and we probably are not far off.  I am not articulating my ideas well.  If God creates what is Good, and is the only thing that can stop evil.  And he chooses not to. Then if anything can be said to be ultimately responsible, for allowing evil to exist, it is God.  Not that he is the cause of evil. Or that he does evil.  He chooses to let it exist, and uses it as he will for his glory.  Is that better?

Let me elaborate.. see if this helps.  If I am standing next to your house and lightning strikes it and sets it on fire, am I responsible for the fire? No.  If I am able to extenguish it with a hose and chose not to, am I responsible for letting your hose burn down? Yes.  I did not cause it to burn, but since I chose not to stop it, when I could, I am responsible for you not having a house.

I think what we are debating is a word with different definitions.

God does not claim ownership of evil, but because He allows it to exist, He is responsible for its continued existance.

From Sunday's Scripture readings:
WIS 1:13-15; 2:23-24

God did not make death,
nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.
For he fashioned all things that they might have being;
and the creatures of the world are wholesome,
and there is not a destructive drug among them
nor any domain of the netherworld on earth,
for justice is undying.
For God formed man to be imperishable;
the image of his own nature he made him.
But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world,
and they who belong to his company experience it.

Clarity comes to me in bits and pieces sometimes so let me throw this out...
There are different definitions for responsable. God is not responsable TO anyone for evil.  Evil would not exist if God did not allow it. Therefore God is responsible in that He allows it to exist. And he uses it for good.

Here is a quote you might be familiar with.
Gods permission of evil in the things governed by Him, is not inconsistent with the Devine goodness. It is the concern of divine providence, not to safeguard all beings from evil, but to see that the evil which  arises is ordained to some good.  Thomas Aquinas

If we return to the Westminster Confession...

"God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass".

It sounds to me like God not only sees that the evil which arises is ordained to some good, but actually has ordained that the evil actions should take place.

Wrong...look up the definition of omnipotent.

Wrong...being omnipotent is not the same as us having free will.