justaname said:
Howie,
I actually organized my I ideas and reposted them in a different thread called "Free-will take two." And similarly how you don't care what free-will actually is I don't care to discuss why God elected some and not others, but for your sake I will post this.
Romans 9:11
11 for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls,
Romans 9:19-22
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?”
20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it?
21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?
22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,
Thank you for your reply. Just to clarify. I did not say I don't care what free will actually is. My intention was to, for the moment, merely observe man's interaction with God, and vice versa without attaching labels to it. My bad for not wording it that way.
But it comes as no surprise to me that this seemed a convenient reason for you to avoid replying to my request as to why God has elected some and not others. You see, I believe that this is revealed in scripture. I shared a passage to that effect, to which I see you have no intention of explaining to me, as to how it fits in with your conclusions. This does nothing for me but cause suspicion, my friend.
As for the passages you have showed me, they do not amount to the conclusions you have drawn. The question.."why did you make me like this?" does not mean anything unless the words "like this" are explained, which they are not. Like what? A sinner? The answer is that God did not actually make us sinners. Adam did. I see no reply from God in that passage that admits anything.
But what did the potter actually make? He made Adam, and then promptly gave him a command to avoid a certain tree. Funny thing is that Adam had the ability and the prerogative to disobey the command. This is not free will?
And this thus became the lump that reproduced and filled the earth. Adam reproduced after his own kind, just like all of life does. And out of that lump that multiplied, were they not of the same mental capacity to go on certain paths? And out of God's foreknowledge would He not have know that some would end up as vessels of wrath and others vessels for honorable use? How do we conclude that He needed to orchestrate the outcome of each vessel that came out of a womb? The passage does not say that. It merely says that we have no right to question any of these things and blame God for them.
If a sinner refuses to be reconclied, he therefore becomes a vessel of wrath, which God would have had foreknowledge of, and therefore prepared this one for destruction. If another accepts the free gift of life, he would become a vessel for honorable use. God has the right to make these determinations. This is His authority and sovereignty in action. People always want to point the finger back at God, as Adam did when he said that the woman You gave me caused me to eat. This is what the passage you shared is talking about. Blaming God. In fact, why not ask God "why did you make me with this free will? It's your fault."
You see, there is way more than just one way to look at a passage. But when we look at all the bible we can see man going his own way over and over and God dealing with him. But in no way, shape, or form is there a rule of thumb concerning His actions and decisions in individual cases. But this is precisely what I see here. The attemtp to create a solid clad "rule of thumb" doctrine from a few examples while ignoring other examples that contradict the same rule of thumb. The bible says..many are called but few are chosen. In some cases God honors a man's choices and in others He intervenes. Is this too hard to accept?
