Origin of Sin, Part Deux

1fate
noun \ˈfāt\
Definition of FATE
1
: the will or principle or determining cause by which things in general are believed to come to be as they are or events to happen as they do : destiny

 

I agree with the definition Luke.
But if the principle or determining cause is God himself, then the definition fits, does it not?

 

From Josh McDowell's "A Handbook of Today's Religions," we find this quote concerning Islam:

 

I am going to break my rule for this one post.

Even a cursory glance of English and American history and even a brief Google search of the phrase "Protestant Work Ethic" would be plenty to differentiate the doctrine of predestination from the Muslim Determinism of which you speak concerning the distinct effects of the two on their respective cultures.

The DoG carved out the United States and the Protestant Work Ethic which flows directly from the DoG has been the primary pillar of progress in European history.

Any one who has any decent historical education beyond high school can see that quite easily.

 

Between Satan and mankind, there is an abundance of evil in this world. God does not need to "cause" evil. He has plenty to work with already. He uses the evil of man to bring about His purposes but He does not cause man to sin.


The verse I posted has everything to do with your doctrine Luke.

You say God causes people to sin. Jesus said anyone who causes someone to sin should have a millstone hung around their neck and be thrown into the sea. Clearly Jesus is saying that to cause someone to sin IS sin. Therefore according to your doctrine you have God committing sin by causing someone to sin.

 

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Friend,
Bro. Luke has made a tremendous case for the exhaustive Sovereignty of God in not just allowing evil, but "disposing the state of events" for it's existence.

Your system seems, in a "human" understanding, to at first glance be acceptable, but what is acceptable as opposed to what is True can sometimes be totally at odds.
Therefore, to just dismiss all the scripture offered by Luke; while simultaneously offering an opposite possibility with no scriptural evidence, is unfortunate.

 

It doesn't matter about the differences in culture, work ethic, or even church history for that matter.

What is important to see is that here is a religion where fatalism is a basic tenet of their religion, along with a strong belief in their God. God has determined all things. There is a strong belief in predestination, such a strong belief that it has become fatalism. The basic answer to all things is "It is God's will."

When landing in a Muslim nation once, the pilot asked all to put on their seat belts for we would be landing in about five minutes "insh'allha," which means "The Lord willing." Well I hope the Lord was willing that we were going to land!! I thought. And if we had crashed instead it would have been Allah's will (fatalism).

 

Find a post where I said God "causes people to sin".

Amy, if you would actually debate ME, it would be nice.

I said God willed that sin exist, that he is the ULTIMATE cause of all things, including the existence of evil, and that God decrees all things.

What you have failed to recognize while stubbornly painting only one side of my arguments so that you can make them appear to be something that they are not, or so that they can be something that you can debate since you are not able to debate my arguments as they actually stand, is that I have said repeatedly that man is perfectly free to do what he wants to do at all times and that man makes his own decisions totally free form compulsion.

What you have yet been able to grasp is that the way this universe functions according to the Word of God, which should be the final say for all of us, is that men do exactly what they want to do and that they also do what God wants them to do.

But they do it for evil- God does it for good.

That is the Word of God.

It is ABUNDANTLY clear.

 

13Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"— 14yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." 16As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

 

Yes, that teaches that prayer is necessary before we make decisions. Don't leave God out of your life. And don't take Scripture out of context.

And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: (1 John 5:14)

 

That verse doesn't have a thing to do with prayer. James talks about prayer at the beginning of the chapter and does not talk about it again. Between verses 1-3 and the passage in view there are NUMEROUS independent thoughts that have nothing to do with prayer.

not judging one another
resisting the devil
humbling yourself before God
and more...

This passage has NOTHING at ALL to do with prayer. It has to do with the humility God demands of one so arrogant to presume that he will do as he wills on the morrow. NO! Do not presume you will do what you will tomorrow! You say, "I will do this only if God is willing. It is sin to boast that I will accomplish ANYTHING tomorrow. God is in charge of tomorrow and I must recognize my frailty and his Sovereignty and let my tongue do obeisance before Him and always say- 'IF HE WILLS..."

That is what that passage is about. It has nothing to do with praying.

 

No, you miss this. This is a separate thought independent of the first part of chapter 4. Several different thoughts are being dealt with since verses 1-3 deal with "wrong" praying.

James is saying you have no ideal about tomorrow, therefore 15Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."

 

That is why I gave 1John 5:14. Compare Scripture with Scripture. How do we discern the will of God for our lives. We pray in order to discern his will. We read his Word and allow God to speak to us. Both are important. But most important, the Bible emphasizes prayer over all things when discerning the will of God.
"If the Lord will," How do I know? I must pray.
What is the other option? The only other option is to do what it says not to do, and that would be akin to a fatalistic approach.

 

To ask in prayer for His will, what a blessing for us.

1 Peter 3: 8 Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. 9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 10 For,

“Whoever would love life
and see good days
must keep their tongue from evil
and their lips from deceitful speech.
11 They must turn from evil and do good;
they must seek peace and pursue it.
12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous
and his ears are attentive to their prayer,
but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”[Psalm 34:12-16]

1 Thessalonians 5:
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

 

What is to accept, Brother Willis?

This verse does not do anything for Arminianism or this nameless theology that some espouse on baptistboard.

Evil was found in him. That does not tell us anything.

What the Word of God does CLEARLY tell us is:
Isa 45:5-7 I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides Me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides Me; I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things.

Isa 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all My purpose,’

Acts 4:27-28 For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your plan had predestined to take place.

Proverbs 16:4 "God hath made all things for himself, yea, even the WICKED for the day of judgment."

Now that is clear.

A primary rule in hermeneutics is that you ALWAYS interpret the ambiguous in light of the clear.

The Word of God is clear and repeatedly so.
It is poor hermeneutics to take an ambiguous passage and create some new doctrine from it while ignoring the bulk of the Word of God, especially those clear passages that teach the opposite of what you try to make the unclear passages say.

It does not matter what you agree with, Willis. God's Word is clear that it was more than just permission. Permission is only part of it.

Job said, "The LORD hath taken away." The SCripture then testifies of this remark by Job, "In all this Job did not charge God foolishly."

That's Bible. It's very simple. It ought to be enough. Job did not say, "The Lord PERMITTED Satan to do this to me." To make it say that is to add to the Word of God, which is a dangerous thing. Job said, "The LORD hath taken away..."

Respectfully, you must abuse the Scripture to make it say what you want it to say.

The fact of the matter is this: Satan meant it for evil- God meant it for good.

 

Brother Willis, I know you do not know this, but it is poor hermeneutics to develop a doctrine from one word in a VERY ambiguous passage. The passage is clear on what it does teach, but it does not teach what you want it to teach.

And your illustration of the calamity God has created in the US is EXACTLY what the Reformed believe about how God has ordained that evil be.

God must simply remove his good hand and evil and calamity will come to pass. Evil is the absence of goodness just as cold is the absence of warmth.

Remove goodness and the result will be evil.

That is how Lucifer became evil. God removed from him His divine goodness and evil inevitably followed.

It is the only way that Adam could sin- God had to remove his goodness in order for Adam to be able to sin- and without God's goodness Adam was destined to fall.

Ecclesiastes 7:13 Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked?

Amos 3:6 Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?

Jeremiah 10:23 O LORD, I know that the way of man [is] not in himself: [it is] not in man that walketh to direct his steps.

 

I am neither Calvinistic nor Arminian. I get my theology from the Bible as many others do. I dare say that no two men agree with each other on all things. Having said that let's look at the Scripture you gave.

1. There is no other God but Jehovah.
2. Speaking to Israel he tells them that he is the one that "equips" them.
3. He repeats that there is no other God but him.
4. He forms light and he forms darkness--a reference to creation.
5. He makes things well, and brings about calamity (natural disasters I would presume).
6. Yes, God does all these things. We all agree on these things. None of them attribute evil to God. None of them even hint that God would be the author of evil, or ordain or decree evil. Nothing in that verse comes remotely close to teaching that.

1. God declares all things from the beginning to the end--his omniscience.
2. His counsel shall stand. Of course: He is God. He is sovereign.
3. His purposes will be accomplished. How can it be otherwise?
There is nothing here to suggest that anything evil can be attributed to God; that God decrees evil; that God is the author of evil or ordains it.

All of us agree that Christ is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, which this verse teaches. So we have no argument here.

Young's literal puts it this way:

All things hath Jehovah wrought for Himself, And also the wicked worketh for a day of evil. (Proverbs 16:4)
--Not so cut and dry now is it?

Perhaps the NET Bible puts it best.
The LORD works everything for its own ends
even the wicked for the day of disaster. (NET)

The wicked will indeed face a day of judgment (disaster for them), but why? Because they chose it. The wicked works for a day of evil, instead of choosing Christ. All his works are evil. Their end will certainly be evil, but the NT sheds more light on this truth then the OT gives us. One cannot isolate a verse of poetry like this without gaining truth from other parts of the Bible.

Quite correct. The clear are the truths presented in the NT.

He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:18)

He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. (John 3:36)
--That is what is clear.

Free will is taught over and over and over again.

I have answered this objection before.
These are the words of Job. Yes they are inspired, but they are Job's words, not God's words. There is a big difference.
God himself removed the hedge. God himself gave the permission; allowed Satan to afflict Job. Nothing could be done to Job without the express permission of God. Satan had to have permission from God. Job had no idea what was happening in heaven when he responded in this way. God gave Satan permission to afflict Job. This point must be conceded.

That is because Job did not know what was going on in heaven. So how could he say that. We also don't know what is happening in heaven right now. Job spoke as much as he knew, but it wasn't accurate. What was accurate was that God gave permission to Satan. The first chapter is very clear about that. That is what it teaches--God allowed Satan to afflict Job.

God allowed Satan to afflict Job, and yes he had a purpose in it, and knew that his faith, though it be tried as fire would be found to the praise and honor and glory to the Lord. It is the will of God that all Christians God. God does not ordain or decree evil to happen. He is not the author of it. But he allows it to happen.