Is Not-Choosing Still Choosing?

[Rey Reynoso]

Some folk believe that God does not elect individuals for damnation but passes over them to elect other individuals. They might then defend their position by stating God didn't choose to damn them to hell, he allowed them to go in the direction they were already going (or some nuanced version of that).

Question 1: Is not-choosing these individuals, in this system, effectively choosing them for damnation?

Question 2: Why or why not?

Question 3: Does it matter?

[Rey Reynoso]

I know: In another thread (I think either Mary or Icons) I had posted something shorter than all these comments and it wound up cutting off like 3 paragraphs. I hate that. With an elective passion.

So I wanted to make sure I got in what I saw as the 5 possibilities without them disappearing due to not counting the amount.

James Gibbons said:

Rey’s talking to himself again.

[mem]

Jennifer said:

God ordained that Adam and Eve would fall; that is, he willed it to happen. By that fall the whole human race is dead in sin and unable to answer Gods call; but God chooses to restore some to life giving them the ability to answer; and steps over the bodies of those that he chooses not to restore leaving them dead.
there is a clear choice made about who to save and who to damned.

I think the Reformed position maintains both that the Fall was a part of God's sovereign plan, and that Adam and Eve were not coerced (see, for example, WCF chapter IX; other pertinent chapters are III-VI; naturally not every reformed denomination adheres to the confession, but I believe the language is fairly typical).

Regardless, we're still asking essentially the same question as we were before: if God permits the fall, rather than preventing it, isn't he ultimately responsible? That is to say, did God cause the fall by letting it happen? He certainly had the power to prevent it; It's not as though Adam's will is somehow greater or more powerful than God's. Naturally the answer to that question really depends on how you define "cause."

Rey's question about whether or not permission is the same as positively willing a negative won't be answered this way I don't think.

[Jennifer]

I think the question is did God plan the fall or did he plan around the fall?

mem said:

Jennifer said:

God ordained that Adam and Eve would fall; that is, he willed it to happen. By that fall the whole human race is dead in sin and unable to answer Gods call; but God chooses to restore some to life giving them the ability to answer; and steps over the bodies of those that he chooses not to restore leaving them dead.
there is a clear choice made about who to save and who to damned.

I think the Reformed position maintains both that the Fall was a part of God's sovereign plan, and that Adam and Eve were not coerced (see, for example, WCF chapter IX; other pertinent chapters are III-VI; naturally not every reformed denomination adheres to the confession, but I believe the language is fairly typical).

Regardless, we're still asking essentially the same question as we were before: if God permits the fall, rather than preventing it, isn't he ultimately responsible? That is to say, did God cause the fall by letting it happen? He certainly had the power to prevent it; It's not as though Adam's will is somehow greater or more powerful than God's. Naturally the answer to that question really depends on how you define "cause."

Rey's question about whether or not permission is the same as positively willing a negative won't be answered this way I don't think.

[Rey Reynoso]

The question isn't in regards to the Fall, necessarily but is closer to what mem is saying. If the Infra group is right is the not-choosing, passing over, (whatever other term) ultimately, really, in effect choosing the end: damnation.

Anselm made a good point about it being binary insofar as the end is concerned. I offered 5 possibilities but they're all long up above.

[ScottL]

Rey -

Based upon the 'Five Reyan Possibilities', the answer to your questions could be 'yes' or 'no' based upon one's own definition of terms. Even mem mentions this above. :)

Mike Lewis -

You said, 'But if God is the all sovereign God we Calvinists paint him to be, then we have the issue of whence came evil. If God really is as sovereign as we say, then he had to be the source, ultimately.'

For God to be all sovereign does not demand that God be the ultimate source of evil. James 1:13 says, 'Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God," for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.' And it is the devil that is called the 'father of lies' (John 8:44) and God is called the 'Father of mercies' (2 Cor 1:3). Father points to being the source of, the person from which something comes from. God is never mentioned as the 'father of evil', 'father or lies', etc.

Thus, I cannot see that, though God is all-sovereign, this demands that He also be the ultimate source of evil. We know God is not the author of sin, since He is holy and pure and perfect, and that Satan is that author. And we also know that He is sovereign. Just because both of those statements are true does not make God the author of sin. Both are true, and so for us to understand how God is ultimately sovereign but not the author of sin might not be perfectly explainable, but He must not be the ultimate causer/author of sin if both statements above are true.

Hope all that made sense

[mem]

Jennifer said:

I think the question is did God plan the fall or did he plan around the fall?

Unfortunately, I don't think this is going to take us where we want to go, either. Certainly God knew about the fall before he created; Adam didn't take God by surprise. Why didn't God create a world that didn't contain the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Does the fact that he didn't make God responsible for the fall?

I'm not trying to answer this question, necessarily, but to illustrate how in some sense God must be responsible, unless we adopt some unbiblical definition of God.

I also don't want to hijack Rey's thread, so maybe a discussion of the fall would be better in another. The only point I'm really trying to make here is that we can't look at the fall (necessarily) to answer the question he originally posed.

[Rey Reynoso]

Yup: i agree with both of you in regards to the definition of the terms. I would say though that it's not only a definition of the terms but a logical allowance within the structure of the defined terms. For instance my fourth was backward causality and my first was finite casualty and my fifth was closer to no causality but a choosing of multiple worlds. This can even be carried through with the problem of evil that you stated in your comment to Mike even though my purpose here is looking at damnation.


ScottL said:

Rey -
Based upon the 'Five Reyan Possibilities', the answer to your questions could be 'yes' or 'no' based upon one's own definition of terms. Even mem mentions this above. :) Mike Lewis -
You said, 'But if God is the all sovereign God we Calvinists paint him to be, then we have the issue of whence came evil. If God really is as sovereign as we say, then he had to be the source, ultimately.'

For God to be all sovereign does not demand that God be the ultimate source of evil. James 1:13 says, 'Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God," for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.' And it is the devil that is called the 'father of lies' (John 8:44) and God is called the 'Father of mercies' (2 Cor 1:3). Father points to being the source of, the person from which something comes from. God is never mentioned as the 'father of evil', 'father or lies', etc.

Thus, I cannot see that, though God is all-sovereign, this demands that He also be the ultimate source of evil. We know God is not the author of sin, since He is holy and pure and perfect, and that Satan is that author. And we also know that He is sovereign. Just because both of those statements are true does not make God the author of sin. Both are true, and so for us to understand how God is ultimately sovereign but not the author of sin might not be perfectly explainable, but He must not be the ultimate causer/author of sin if both statements above are true.

Hope all that made sense

[Rey Reynoso]

Probably best to ask one of the Calvinist folks since I might misrepresent them. I thought Predestination was integral to their concept of election although predestination to salvation (vessels of mercy prepared beforehand) vs. predestination to damnation (with two models, one being focused on in this thread.

Karl St. said:

Rey:

I have some questions for you? I am not Calvinist but Arminian - Wesleyan. The tendency for us Wesleyan's is too place predestination into determinism and negate that discussion. In the spirit of discovery, why are predestination and damnation important to Calvinistic thought? I have read one well known Reformed theologian (Reinhold Neibuhr) who pretty well discarded the idea of predestination and was wondering if these ideas are necessary. Again, help me understand why these ideas are present.

As far as some other things I have read in this fascinating thread:

Isaiah 45:7 (you'll need to know Hebrew) I bring prosperity and create "woe"... The word ain't "woe". Yep its what you think it is in light of this discussion.

I Kings 22:21 (again, Hebrew is helpful here) "Ru ock" which means active presence of God, means the NIV is a bit deceptive in its translation. "Finally, a spirit came forward..." This passage lets God take responsibility for producing and advocating a lie.

Genesis 22:1 ...God tested Abraham... The word tested is not the best translation, tempted comes a lot closer.

I know these passages are terribly difficult to handle but it seems most here can at least see what implications can be drawn from here. God is God, perhaps we don't have an adequate definition of evil????

[Rey Reynoso]

I'm not so sure. In this thread I did winnow down the ultimate end to damnation but I think Car and others have made a point of implying a holistic salvation in the negative. People, they would say, are damned because they are willfully against God. They're not only heading towards judgment, they are already under the wrath of God, they're bodies are in the grips of sin, their minds are in enmity against God and they're pulling the world down with them.

Salvation although it does include salvation from all those other things necessarily also includes the final eschatalogical salvation from wrath (if Hell is allowed to be the wrath of God for the sake of discussion). Election in this model would then be picking the individuals to be holistically saved (necessarily ultimately saved from Hell). Damnation then winds up being not only the ultimate end (hell) but the whole process that ultimately ends in hell or wrath or judgment.

So at this level the question, I think, becomes exceedingly poignant and in effect, my Possibility 3.

Karl St. said:

Rey Reynoso said:

Probably best to ask one of the Calvinist folks since I might misrepresent them. I thought Predestination was integral to their concept of election although predestination to salvation (vessels of mercy prepared beforehand) vs. predestination to damnation (with two models, one being focused on in this thread.

Thank you!
But what about the New Testament meaning of salvation, to be made whole, and not the concept of going to hell? Doesn't that make the whole discussion a wash? Kant wasn't in favor of predestination, Kierkegaard wasn't influenced by it and in his Fear and Trembling he pretty much throws the idea on its ear. It seems maintaining the doctrine of Election takes more effort and time than would be reasonably requested. It seems to me that the definition of salvation is opposed to the concept of Election as is currently outlined in this thread. What do you think?

Karl

[Rey Reynoso]

I don't think it affects it very much. In this system no matter what, if God doesn't intercede then the people are still given over to wrath, even of the degenerative kinda. The person might be doing stuff within their framework as wrath but the only way out of it is by having God intercede somewhere and that (within this system) results in salvation from wrath (be it Ultimate or Mediate).

Basically what I'm saying damnation (wrath, judgment, blindness, spiritual death) is all part of the same group even in the present mediate sense because it never ends without God's intercession in which case it becomes Not-Wrath. Proponents of the system say it happened beforehand (in an elective sort of way) therefore even the downward spiral would have been effectively chosen (depending on which Possible structure you go with--unless this is like my Possibility 5 which is more like multiple worlds)

Karl St. said:

Interesting, I see.
Let's put a spin on it and see how it plays out. Let's take the concept of the wrath of God from Paul's writing in Romans chapter 1. The wrath of God is not in the form of a lightening bolt but in the form of permissiveness. God allows people to do their own thing, blindly not seeing what they are doing because they are in the grips of sin and self deception. If the wrath of God is in the form of permissiveness and not the lightening bolt, how does this affect the discussion?

Another part of the discussion needs some development; final judgment in light of justice. Liberals rightly can question this idea; 70 years of sin = eternal damnation? The balance of the scales of justice do not equal here. I think it would be good for a thorough analysis of the origin of the belief of damnation to be added to this discussion. I know that damnation is absent in thought through at least the inter-testamental period but I'm not sure how developed the thought was in 1st century Palestine. This could shed some light on the discussion.

[Rey Reynoso]

What I did was try to stay within the system as presented by some reformed folk. It winds up being Platonic in some respects because its already working with platonic presuppositions. I think my 3 is closer to a compatibalistic model but it winds up, ultimately, still making God effectively choosing by not-choosing.

I'm still trying to wrack my brain to see if there's other ways to allow God's not choosing (to salvation) being ultimately choosing (to damnation) but I can't figure another option out. Do you have any other suggestions that still work within the framework of the topic opener?

edit: I didn't really get them from anywhere particularly--they're models already drawn up in philosophy and honestly can be found really in comic books. My fifth proposition is pretty much Crisis on Infinite Earths, my 2nd (which I think was the one that there was no options but damnation) is basically X-Men Days of Future Past (then subsequently Present) where the X-Men's Future always ends in disaster, always ends with Rachel Phoenix hunting Mutants and always ends with the Sentinels killing Wolverine. My third is the Infra* option stated by the reformed position in some arguments, my first is mostly Arminian (and the X-Men stories: we control our own fate!) and my Fourth is Back To the Future 2.

But I think they have real names. Like 2 would be a form of Hard Determinism--maybe Fatalism, 3 would be Compatibalism (which technically doesn't work in light of my question), 4 would be Backward Causality and 5 would be, probably a form of Molinism. I've seen Molinism applied to this issue but from an Arminian perpspective. I haven't seen Backward Causality, I don't think.

Karl St. said:

I have gone over all your five options again, far more in depth this time. My congratulations for taking the time to think through the various options you have presented. One critique if I may; this is all Platonic thought. Were you aware of this? You have done a good job of presenting many ideas of metaphysical dualism. If we accept your premises as is, I have no idea where to take this. I sincerely appreciate the work you have done on the options. But I think working outside the ideas of Platonic philosophy might steer your discussion differently. Where, how, did you come up with these 5 options? Nice system of analysis....
Karl

[Rey Reynoso]

Some would say its mental gymnastics and say we shouldn't discuss it because it broaches on mystery. Reason I want to talk about it is because if its true that this form of predestination in effect still makes God effectively responsible for damnation, there's no reason to ignore double predestination. I think that's a road that most Calvinists don't want to take but it's probably the most consistent road to travel.

I thought that another way to get rid of the problem was to drop the concept of individual election to salvation but then that wouldn't be Calvinism.

Karl St. said:

There are two options but I am not sure you would want to travel those roads at this point. 1) Universalism 2) re-examining the premise as to whether or not there is a hell. I think over the major theologians in the past 100-150 years and predestination is not something they deal with significantly. They touch upon it but it never, ever gets developed. Niebuhr's complete disregard for it ended my debate on the topic years ago. Is it a doctrine that really has an impact on the world or is it mental gymnastics? I am becoming a pragmatist in my old age (Dewey).