ELECTION/PREDESTINATION AND THE NEED FOR A THEOLOGICAL BALANCE
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God did not will that selfish men would be offended by the teaching of repentance from sin and submission to a perfect king, and would want to kill him rather that obey him.To demonstrate His omnipotence, God did will to limit to crucifixion the manner by which those men could kill Jesus. It was God's will to prevent them from stoning Him or throwing Him off a cliff because God knew they would resort to crucifixion, if all other options were closed off to them. In this way Jesus was identified as the one fulfilling old testament messianic prophesies so that many would recognise Him as God's predicted Saviour and King promised through Moses and others. But the text does not say God willed men to murderously hate the Messiah
God did will the death of His Son. He did will that death to be on a cross. He did will it the very day it occurred.
I never said He willed evil or violated the will of men. They made choices independently of God, and yet still fulfilled God's will.
The definition you choose...for all that comes to pass...is broad to my understanding. All that comes to pass...deals largely with results, and not so much the inward motivations of those who bring it to pass. And unless the manner is described, it isn't essentially dealing with this either.
By so narrowly interpreting what...comes to pass...means, I think you have done injury to the intended meaning of those who wrote it.
In Acts 2:23, God clearly determined the death of Christ and the Jewish leaders clearly did this of their own volition.
Can you at least imagine a mind that is infinite, and by virtue of direct creation of every individual, is able not only able to foresee every possible outcome, but by virtue of creating every cell and overseeing every circumstance, would know exactly every outcome before it comes to pass? And is that same being able to determine the times and habitations of every single life given so as to know all events that will unfold in every regard?
He already said that wicked men made their own choices. So why are you arguing?
You said
Cameron143 said:
God didn't anticipate anything. We know this because it (i.e. everything) was according to His deliberate counsel. And yet, the will of man was not violated. Wicked men chose to do these things without any compunction of God.
If everything was according to God's deliberate counsel, God willed that men would murderously hate Jesus for His message and actions. I do not believe God willed (desired) men to murderously hate His Son. Exhaustive divine determinists do believe that.
Yes, I can take off my open theist lenses and imagine "a mind that is infinite, and by virtue of direct creation of every individual, is able not only able to foresee every possible outcome, but by virtue of creating every cell and overseeing every circumstance, would know exactly every outcome before it comes to pass? And is that same being able to determine the times and habitations of every single life given so as to know all events that will unfold in every regard?
But I do not see such a God described in the Bible. I see some texts that can be lifted out of their context and press-ganged into possibly describing such a God. But I have subjected those texts to analysis with their context, and I what I see is that what the scriptures actually say, does not conform to the imposition of such a view of God into those alleged proof-texts.
I have presented in context interpretations of some of those proof-texts, but no one seems willing to engage with the actually context. They only want to ad hominem and well-poison and make unsubstantiated claims to the sanctity of the platonist set of divine attributes they are imposing on the text.
I was paraphrasing my understanding of Calvin's position.
God has existed forever. I strongly suspect that this universe is not the only universe God has ever created and that to create a previous world He would have decreed things in the everlasting past before this world. We also see His first decree in regard to this creation must have been before this creation happened: in Genesis "Let there be light." That was technically decreed in "eternity past". But technically, everything in the past is also in "eternity past" or "the infinite past." So his decree concerning Nineveh through Jonah, for instance, was technically a decree in eternity past.