Hall of Fame inductees ~12-20-2003

[Z Man]

Originally posted by Poly
Do you hear yourself? You are saying God created something for the sole purpose of destroying it.

I'm just repeating what the Bible has already established.

Romans 9:22-23
What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory...

So God creates man, predestines that man to be evil, and decides to punish man for the evil He predestined for Man. Unless He just gets a warped kick out of it, why couldn't He have just saved himself the trouble and not made man at all? Better yet, if He truly hates sin, just as He says He does, and felt the need to pre-program man, why not program them to do all good?

That's a good question, and no man has the answer to that. We'll find out when we see Him face to face.

My best effort to answer this question would be that everything God does is to display His glory. As John Piper has put it:

The chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy Himself forever. God does all things for His own sake. "For My own sake, for My own sake, I do it....My glory I will not give to another." (Isaiah 48:11) This is love, because in pursuing the praise of His name in the hearts of His people, He commands the very thing that completes our joy. God is the one being in the universe for whom self-exaltation is the highest virtue and the most loving act.

The happiness of God in God is the foundation of our happiness in God. If God did not joyfully uphold and display His glory, the ground of our joy would be gone. God's pursuit of praise from us and our pursuit of pleasure in Him are in perfect harmony.

For God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

- Desiring God, John Piper

 

[Lighthouse]

Whenever I read, or hear, the arguments for Calvinism, from a Calvinist, my head hurts.

 

[Z Man]

Originally posted by lighthouse

Whenever I read, or hear, the arguments for Calvinism, from a Calvinist, my head hurts.

I don't argue for 'Calvinism'; I simply argue for the truth of God's Word. Call that whatever you wish...

 

[Lighthouse]

FIne. call it whatever you want. It's still circular enough to make my brain shut down if I listen to it for too long. And even moreso if I try to make sense of it, which is impossible.

 

[Z Man]

Originally posted by lighthouse

FIne. call it whatever you want. It's still circular enough to make my brain shut down if I listen to it for too long. And even moreso if I try to make sense of it, which is impossible.

It's impossible for you to understand the Word of God?