Genesis 3:6-7 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. [SUP]7 [/SUP]Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Adam and Eve were given freewill to choose. God did not choose for Adam and Eve to sin.
Adam & Eve were given free will to choose, and they chose to rebel against God.. But once they had chosen to rebel against God they lost free will. Their wills were tainted. Cain and Abel were not born with free will. They inherited Adam's sinful nature. And gradually prejudice, environment etc restricted 'freewill' further. They were free to choose which sins they engaged in but they were not free not to sin. ALL sinned. Full free will was no more.
Man chose. Man was in charge in that particular act, where he and she sinned, God was not in charge of that particular act. Man did it. Not God.
That was true for Adam. But when he sinned his free will was lost. From then on all men sinned. They had inherited Adam's sinful nature.
Can God be in control still? Absolutely. In his foreknowledge, in his middle knowledge (knowledge of all the possibilities), God can create man knowing that man would sin. He is in control because he decided to allow all this by fundamentally allowing man to have freewill
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God was ever 'in control'. He had foreknowledge (pre oida) of what man would do. He allowed man to sacrifice his own freewill. And He had already provided that His Son would die for sin that those whom He chose might eventually become free..
He did not have to create us. He decided to create us knowing all this, knowing the outcomes, and as scripture implies, planning for all this. Being in control does not mean God has to do everything. Otherwise, that would mean that God would have to do evil.
He allowed man to sin, knowing the consequences. He had already provided for the redemption of His chosen. How does this support Arminianism?
God was in control when Adam and Eve existed. And Adam and Eve had free will to choose right or wrong.
But once they had sinned they lost that choice They now only had the will not to do certain things .But they did not have the will to be sinless.
God said Adam and Eve were good, very good. God's sovereignty was intact. Adam and Eve's free will was intact.
But only until Adam sinned,
Both of these conditions happening at the same time are constantly thought of as impossible by Calvinists.
I cannot speak for John Calvin, but it is not impossible to me
And YOU would call me a Calvinist, just as Paul was .
Here is a situation in the bible where that those conditions happened at the same time. It's not impossible for a sovereign God to be sovereign while all of mankind, Adam and Eve, have the free will to choose right or wrong.
Their having freewill did not override God's sovereignty, but once they had lost it sin became their master.
Bare minimum, Calvinists have to acknowledge if God knew well enough to allow Adam and Eve (all of mankind) to have free will at some point then that should at bare minimum open up the plausible idea that God can allow all of mankind to have free will again
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He can, but He did not. Man was no longer free not to sin. ALL sinned.
Armenianism proposes something called prevenient grace. This means that when mankind hears God's word mankind's free-will is restored just as if Adam and Eve's free will was in the Garden of Eden.
There is no evidence of this in Scripture. Man has never had
free will since Adam's fall.
One of the strengths of Armenianism is that it can answer all objections.
But it cannot restore free will Nor can it explain the scripture about God's choosing of His own satisfactorily.
