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]

Possibility 3: There are no options allowed but damnation. The person wantonly and freely chooses the option that was only available to them and they are damned. The illustration here would be the kids throwing rocks with their arms aimed at the window, ensuring the proper strength is put into the arms to carry the ball and the physics in place to result in glass shattering. God would be in every detail ensuring that thrown rock would result in the reaction of shattered glass: the person doesn't have the option to get out of the reality without God's personal interjection (removing the paraphernalia that ensures the end result, stopping the glass from shattering, making the person into someone who doesn't throw rocks at glass). What this effectively would mean is that if God is solely responsible for ensuring the non-damnation then he is effectively responsible for the damnation.  As Anselm said, this is effectively binary (it's either 0 or 1) but I'll use a logical model to show what is in this proposition:

There are two events for each system of individual. One is salvation (f) and one is damnation (g). Event (f) is caused only by God interceding (i). So any given system with God's intercession ends with Salvation:
(i) -> (f)
Therefore event (g) can only Exist if there is no intercession by God because if God becomes involved it will always end with Salvation of the Individual.
-(i) -> (g)
That being the case, both events are, ultimately caused by God. In one case He intercedes, in another He doesn't intercede so they both end differently dependant on Him. There is therefore no use postulating God Not-Choosing by Passing over when under this breakdown: it's still God choosing.

So here the answers would be: Yes because even though the individual is the "throwing the rock" (inserting a mini-no) the System is ordered specifically to ensure the end result of the shattered glass with no real options otherwise unless God steps in and changes the entire system for the individual (makes him into a non-stone-thrower, removes the contraption, puts a wall in front of the glass).

[Rey Reynoso]

Possibility 4: The future is real and only accessible to a non-finite being. In other words, time is a construct only experienced to linear creatures so causality is merely codependent events. When the individuals in their "future" go to Hell, it isn't because God forced it or coerced it beforehand. Their going to hell caused their passage into going to hell. (This is hard to get but it's basically the idea of "I'm going to shatter that glass with my thrown rock" not becoming real until I throw the rock and shatter the glass. The event becomes the cause that makes the earlier statement true.) The difference with God interceding is that He's not an in-time creature and thus can interrupt the cause (Going to Hell) from becoming the passage (by whatever means: be it regeneration, pulling off of the earth, stopping the doors of hell) in effect not making the Cause Happen. (With our repeated illustration it would be God stopping the glass shattering by blocking the stone or moving the glass, repeatedly.) Of course this strikes me as having a Back To The Future problem. Stopping an event that will happen by getting before it happens and not allowing the passage for it to happen creating an alternate time line in which the events that happened never happened. It wouldn't make sense since the time line which you stopped was a point that factually happened outside of time. Now I have a headache.

So in this scenario: No, he didn't cause it because they happen outside of time as events but its hypothetically impossible since the event would have to happen for it to be stopped from happening.

[Rey Reynoso]

Possibility 5: There are a plethora of possible worlds for the entire group of people yet there are no possiblle worlds where everyone is saved. It's an entire group of categorically bad possible worlds which are only accessible by the intervention of a being (God) that exists in (or if you rather over) all of them. God then ensuring that the maximum are saved (since the maximum is never All in this model) chooses the possible world by which the most are saved. This possible world becomes actual when God chooses it. Therefore damnation of individuals in this world occurs in all the other possible worlds but decreases exponentially to the best possible world. God's choosing from a list of bad possibilities and the current reality was the best possibility (arguing from He is good and works perfectly, etc.) so then the damnation of individuals in this world occurs separately from God (as does salvation incidentally—suffers from the same problem as Possibility 1).

So in this case: No God's not-choosing does not ensure damnation—in every possible case damnation would have happened but his choosing the best possible world ensures the Most possible for salvation.

[James Gibbons]

Rey’s talking to himself again.

[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????