Paul's Passing Thoughts

Freewill is a major metaphysical pillar of God’s creation. We like to talk about the “attributes of God,” but we must also be careful that God is not erroneously limited by our own definitions of Him.

Below, you will hear a very formidable thinker of our day decry God for creating the world a certain way; specifically, the allowing of suffering and evil. In other words, he believes God should have predetermined goodness in order to prove Himself good.

God indeed created the world according to good, but obviously, God did not predetermine choices and possibilities. Does that make freewill an evil concept? Clearly, John Calvin believed that God predetermined evil while God Himself is good, and the subject speaking in the following video states that God is evil because He didn’t predetermine an exclusion of evil. Hence, in both cases, freewill is deemed evil.

When mankind sinned, it was God’s choice to redeem mankind. Man could not choose to be reconciled to God, nor was it possible for man to devise a way of reconciliation. That could only be accomplished by God. Once man sinned, he was ashamed and hid from God. But God sought him out, and offered a solution for sin. I believe man is capable of making that choice.

What is evangelism? It is doing what God did in the garden on His behalf. Man is ashamed and hides from God, but as His ambassadors, it is our job to seek them out and present God’s plan of reconciliation. Man’s aloofness from God because of shame does not equal an inability to choose. Man’s resentment towards God because God is not predeterminist does not preclude an ability to be persuaded.

God does predetermine a happy ending through intervention, but that is not plenary determinism. God invites all men to choose God’s plan of intervention. Instead of all men being doomed, God intervened.

Wrestling with this issue creates lots of accusations. In the video, the subject accuses God of being completely selfish. And in fact, many of God’s most popular self-proclaimed pundits advocate the centrality of God’s self-love. An example of that would be Dr. John Piper and this fellow here. The same advocate the idea that God predetermined evil as a way to better highlight His holiness and bring more glory to Himself, and as another means of self-love through that enhanced glory.

God predetermined the means of salvation, and He seeks all men out and implores them to choose life. I believe every good thing and enjoyment comes from God and beckons man towards eternal life. The goodness of God and the love of God is not merely God sporting with mankind, it is meant to lead us to repentance and the full experience of God’s eternal goodness.

God clearly takes no pleasure in the death of man, so we should diligently seek out men on God’s behalf because God sent His only Son into the world…not to condemn the world, but that through His Son the world might be saved.

paul