God's Sovereign Will(s?)

[Marshall (Marshall Janzen)]

@mitchellmckain

@Marshall

Yes, I think everyone in this thread has agreed with some variation on that

Nope.

Fair enough. I should have stuck to speaking for myself.

@Daniel_Fisher

In short, you’ve described programmer programming an entity that is literally pre-programmed, by definition an automaton. And yes, we Calvinists believe nothing of the sort.

I still don’t understand how it can be nothing of the sort. I haven’t seen yet how you put two seemingly contradictory ideas together: that all things are ultimately ordained by God, and that some things are left open for a person to choose.

This is where I get the “all things ordained” from:

@Daniel_Fisher

We do believe that, to use the Westminster Confession’s language “God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.”

This is where I get the “some things open” from:

@Daniel_Fisher

Rather, Westminster’s (and Luther’s) position is that our fallen nature , apart from the Holy Spirit’s intervention in changing our nature or giving us a heart of flesh, precludes our ability to make certain choices. But said nature does not force us to make any particular choice among the myriad of options.

I can see how this works for those who believe human choices are only forseen by God, not ordained by God. God forsees everything, including many possible worlds where different choices are taken; God knows which world will be actualized through foreknowledge.

But, I had thought you didn’t hold to that view of choice. I thought you viewed an undetermined choice as a logical contradiction, seeing the only options as what mixture of God, environmental factors or chance does the determining. I got that from reading this:

@Daniel_Fisher

Something predetermined our nature, and thus desires, and that something wasnt we ourselves. Even in an atheistic universe, devoid of God entirely, then it was the laws of physics, chemistry, the initial composition of the universe, the gravitational, constant, the entire evolutionary process, our ancestors choices, our mother’s diet when we were in utero…

All these things created our natures, and innate desires, no? (Or did I on my own, In a sheer act of free choice, decide that I would start desiring food every time my stomach got empty?) So bottom line is that in the compatibilitist sense I am describing, our choices are just as truly free as they would be had there not even been a God predetermining anything.

I know others read that as you misunderstanding libertarian free will as being completely unconstrained, but my reading is that you didn’t make that mistake and instead were arguing that every creaturely choice must ultimately be determined by something beyond the creature. If I read you wrong, please let me know!

Anyway, if everything is indeed ordained and an undetermined human choice is indeed impossible, I don’t see how my “programmed” analogy misses the mark. I’ve also discussed this here with other Calvinists who have stated that everything is, ultimately, determined by God. When I ask how that differs from us being, ultimately, no better than programs, all I’ve heard is “mystery.”

Maybe you can show where you see things differently.