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The Arminian embraces contradiction easily.
They have no answer to John 3:16 other than a humanistic notion that man is able and therefore must be persuaded. And when man comes to an inner grasp of that which he is being persuaded, he will perhaps choose rightly.
The moment we start asking about "how much" God loves those people or start asking questions of decree and hidden things is when we get into trouble. We don't need to know, as creatures, how God really "feels" about people in order to be sorrowful that the wicked should perish. God, as He is in Himself, is not our example. We are creatures. It is enough to know that what has been revealed is the repentance of sinners and a desire that men would come to salvation.
Anthony Burgess, the Westminster divine agrees:
...grant the Text [Eze. 33:11] to be comprehensive of Eternal death, as many other places are; such that, God would not have any to perish, but come to the knowledge of the truth, 1 Tim. 2.:4. Then the answer is known, which may easily be made good, though it be not my work now, God has an approving will, and an effective or decreeing will.
God’s approving will is carried out to the objects, as good in it self; but Gods Effective will is, when He intends to bring a thing about.
God had an approving will, that Adam should stand, therefore He gave him a command, and threatened him if he did fall; yet He had not an effective will, to make him to stand, for then who could have hindered it?
Thus Christ’s tears over Jerusalem (How often would I have gathered thee, and thou wouldest not?) were not Crocodiles’ tears (as some say the Calvinists make them) for though Christ, as God, had not decreed the conversion of the Jews, yet the thing it self was approved of, and commanded, and he as the Minister of the New Testament, affectionately desired it:
So here in the Text, God by this pathetical expression, does declare, how acceptable and desireable a thing it is in itself, that the Jews should be converted; how distasteful and unpleasant their damnation was: therefore mark the expression, He does not say, I do not will the death of the wicked, but I have no pleasure in it:
And if that of the Arminians be true, that God does effectually will the conversion of all, why then are not all converted? Who hath resisted his will? but I intend grapes, and not thorns; practical not controversal matter from this Text.
Src: Spiritual Refining, Sermon 66, “Showing that the Damnation of Wicked Men is unpleasing to God, and that which He delights not in.” p. 403-408
Notice the distinction that Burgess makes about the kind of will it is that expresses a desire in God that is real. It is the same distinction we've been making all along about a type of love for the lost that is expressed in the manner than Calvin did - a love for the world at large, a love expressed to those who hear the Gospel, and a love specifically for the elect. Yet the first two types of love are what Burgess calls a "pathetical expression" - the thing is true in itself that the Jews should be converted. Thus, Burgess notes that it is real concern for people based on a revealed desire (that is God has revealed a call to sinners to repent).
That revealed desire that God has for men to repent is sufficient for us. It is sufficient that God has called us to preach to sinners and that He has loved the world and sinners and sent the Gospel into the world to redeem.
The difference between the Calvinist and Arminian view of general love is the realm in and extent to which it is exercised. For the Calvinist it is confined to the temporal realm, is non-saving in nature, and effects exactly what it seeks. For the Arminian general love operates in the realm of salvation and fails to effect what it seeks. By the Arminian doctrine of universal love there is no salvation offered in the gospel. There is but the possibility of salvation but not actual salvation.
God is good and doeth good. Holy Scripture teaches no such idea as ineffectual divine goodness. The only basis for sinful men to receive and rest upon Christ for salvation depends on the fact that God is effectually good, that He has mercy on whom He will have mercy.
AMR
They have no answer to John 3:16 other than a humanistic notion that man is able and therefore must be persuaded. And when man comes to an inner grasp of that which he is being persuaded, he will perhaps choose rightly.
The moment we start asking about "how much" God loves those people or start asking questions of decree and hidden things is when we get into trouble. We don't need to know, as creatures, how God really "feels" about people in order to be sorrowful that the wicked should perish. God, as He is in Himself, is not our example. We are creatures. It is enough to know that what has been revealed is the repentance of sinners and a desire that men would come to salvation.
Anthony Burgess, the Westminster divine agrees:
...grant the Text [Eze. 33:11] to be comprehensive of Eternal death, as many other places are; such that, God would not have any to perish, but come to the knowledge of the truth, 1 Tim. 2.:4. Then the answer is known, which may easily be made good, though it be not my work now, God has an approving will, and an effective or decreeing will.
God’s approving will is carried out to the objects, as good in it self; but Gods Effective will is, when He intends to bring a thing about.
God had an approving will, that Adam should stand, therefore He gave him a command, and threatened him if he did fall; yet He had not an effective will, to make him to stand, for then who could have hindered it?
Thus Christ’s tears over Jerusalem (How often would I have gathered thee, and thou wouldest not?) were not Crocodiles’ tears (as some say the Calvinists make them) for though Christ, as God, had not decreed the conversion of the Jews, yet the thing it self was approved of, and commanded, and he as the Minister of the New Testament, affectionately desired it:
So here in the Text, God by this pathetical expression, does declare, how acceptable and desireable a thing it is in itself, that the Jews should be converted; how distasteful and unpleasant their damnation was: therefore mark the expression, He does not say, I do not will the death of the wicked, but I have no pleasure in it:
And if that of the Arminians be true, that God does effectually will the conversion of all, why then are not all converted? Who hath resisted his will? but I intend grapes, and not thorns; practical not controversal matter from this Text.
Src: Spiritual Refining, Sermon 66, “Showing that the Damnation of Wicked Men is unpleasing to God, and that which He delights not in.” p. 403-408
Notice the distinction that Burgess makes about the kind of will it is that expresses a desire in God that is real. It is the same distinction we've been making all along about a type of love for the lost that is expressed in the manner than Calvin did - a love for the world at large, a love expressed to those who hear the Gospel, and a love specifically for the elect. Yet the first two types of love are what Burgess calls a "pathetical expression" - the thing is true in itself that the Jews should be converted. Thus, Burgess notes that it is real concern for people based on a revealed desire (that is God has revealed a call to sinners to repent).
That revealed desire that God has for men to repent is sufficient for us. It is sufficient that God has called us to preach to sinners and that He has loved the world and sinners and sent the Gospel into the world to redeem.
The difference between the Calvinist and Arminian view of general love is the realm in and extent to which it is exercised. For the Calvinist it is confined to the temporal realm, is non-saving in nature, and effects exactly what it seeks. For the Arminian general love operates in the realm of salvation and fails to effect what it seeks. By the Arminian doctrine of universal love there is no salvation offered in the gospel. There is but the possibility of salvation but not actual salvation.
God is good and doeth good. Holy Scripture teaches no such idea as ineffectual divine goodness. The only basis for sinful men to receive and rest upon Christ for salvation depends on the fact that God is effectually good, that He has mercy on whom He will have mercy.
AMR