Comments on: Sovereignty // Eugene Cho

By: mikesgateway

mikesgateway — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:46:30 +0000

Joe I agree, I think when we get bogged down in “our rights” we begin to become small g gods. I ultimately don’t get a say as to why I’m saved and why others aren’t. God is the God here, not me. The taking away of Free Will doesn’t make God “unloving” or “coercive”, He after all is God, capital G. In fact, Jesus’ ministry touched on (often) the idea that there are NO LEVELS in His church, Pharisees were often seen as “above” others because of their righteousness but Jesus fought this, too, there is no free or slave, male or female in the church, meaning, we are all on the same level. Anytime we add “I chose”, “I did”, etc, we believe that our “righteousness” give us a one up on others who haven’t done the same thing, but God said that our Righteousness is like dirty rags…nothing I do that is good is because of me, especially not moving towards a God who is my enemy (whom I hated before I was saved). The underlying RAGE in our hearts towards God keeps us from moving towards Him without Him causing it to happen. He gets to have mercy on whom He has mercy…elect (our politicians don’t elect themselves) and predestined (meaning a destiny chosen for us) all speak to God’s plan despite our will. Predestined doesn’t mean He saw what we would do and said “okay I predestine you because I see you are going to do it anyway.”…rather, “He has chosen certain parts of our stories, salvation is one of them and “good works for us to work though” is another….

I love my child, and I am going to do everything possible to make sure he goes to college…in some ways, I will force it through any means possible, and I won’t feel guilty about that, it is the best thing for him…I also take him in for shots, (about to do that again this week), it has already been chosen for him, he gets no choice, is that mean? coercive? unloving? No, it is ensuring that he will be healthy later. Our earthly relationships are all SHADOWS of what is true between the Father and us…He loves us so much that He is willing to take us into surgery to have cancer removed, even if we dont want to go to surgery.

Great debate, hope it continues, and continues with a friendly tone. Sometimes text can be read in ways that were intended….

By: Sovereignty of God Blog Series « Man of Depravity

Sovereignty of God Blog Series « Man of Depravity — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:11:04 +0000

[...] // Sovereignty post Fri July 17th: Ross Gale // Sovereignty post Mon July 20th: Eugene Cho // Sovereignty post Wed July 22nd: Adam Walker Cleaveland // Sovereignty post Fri July 24th: Aaron Ivey // Sovereignty [...]

By: stephen

stephen — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 20:45:37 +0000

Eugene,
i’ve been thinking this same thing for years and every time i spoke up about this, i got blank stares… I knew i couldn’t be the only one with those views. Maybe it’s because until recently i was going to a notorious reformed church not too far from the q cafe. Thanks for the post. well written and really helpful to see my thoughts articulated by someone else!

By: Joe Louthan

Joe Louthan — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 05:22:38 +0000

Curious: where in Scripture does it say that God gave us free will?

And if so, how do we deal with:

Romans 9:15-16 (ESV) For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.

Is that not make it perfectly clear that it does not depend on our will but God will choose whom He will have mercy on?

By: David

David — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:45:04 +0000

Far from being confused, it’s great to now have some way more eloquent words to use when trying to explain this concept.

By: Eugene Cho

Eugene Cho — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:51:20 +0000

thanks tyler for hosting the dialogue. i’ll be cross posting this on my blog in the next couple days.

i don’t have the energy to respond to the good questions that were raised via the dialogue here but want to comment on the God hardened Pharoah’s heart bit. Mainly because it’s one of the most common verses used to support God stripping free will.

in my reading, i have to remind myself not to isolate a verse outside the larger meta narrative – both of the narrative of the entire Scriptures but also of that specific context.

That verse by itself is pretty clear…God…hardened…his…heart. But in the larger context, God sent Moses (and others) to Pharoah on numerous occasions to repent. Pharoah had the capacity to choose to repent but chose not to…

and thus, God hardened his heart.

By: Preston W. Nesselrotte

Preston W. Nesselrotte — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:39:28 +0000

Very well said Kurt!

By: Kurt

Kurt — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:30:13 +0000

“In giving the gift of Free Will, I believe God actually chooses to “relinquish” power. He still remains in control because power or authority isn’t stripped away from him but in His love, benevolence, and grace, God chooses to give the gift of ‘free will’ to humanity.”

I think your connection between relinquishing power and love is spot on. Can we truly love someone and still hold all of the power? Of course not. While some might be comfortable with pressing the mystery button here saying that our relationship with God cannot be compared to human love I am not. Throughout the bible God seeks to speak in analogies of human love when speaking of His relationship with us…He steps in our direction through inspired Scripture and reveals His love through analogies we can understand.

God seems secure with relinquishing His power to be in relationship with us…why cant we rest securely in that?

By: Preston Nesselrotte

Preston Nesselrotte — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:40:34 +0000

Mike – Is God more interested about showing mankind how powerful he is or how loving he is?? Jesus said “When you see me you see the Father and “I and the Father are one”. In other words, when we see Christ HE IS the exact representation of God. When I see Christ I don’t ever get the clear picture you seem to be painting here and that is Jesus was all about showing us how powerful he is. Yes, Christ did display his power through the Holy Spirit – but most of the time it was done to point us right back to how loving he truly is (ie. healing, raising people from the dead, etc).

If God has so much love that he wishes to share that with other created moral beings then we must ask ourselves this: “Can real genuine love be chosen or coerced?”. The thing to remember here is even if we don’t realize that God is forcing certain people to love him (elect) and others to hate him (damned), the bigger issue is that God knows in his own heart and mind that he is forcing people to love him and in the end this is not real/genuine love. Love must be freely chosen, never forced (that’s rape). Freewill is necessary

As in the case of Pharaoh (and other certain events), I would never deny that God uses providential power to force certain events to come to pass – That’s why they are so unique whenever they are mentioned in the scriptures. But this is the exception and not the rule! Majority of the time God allows freewill to exist. However, there are moments in the bible whereby God will providentially cause someone or something to occur. Again, it is the exception and not the rule – this is why they are considered so unique or special when mentioned in scripture.

God is indeed sovereign, but I am one that believes God is a lot more dynamic and free, and not in a fixed box like many reformed believers tend to put him in. As I like to say “what’s wrong with freewill”? Are you telling me God is intimidated by a little ol’freewill?”, Is God really needing to be painted as some micro-manager who must control every minute detail of his creation, or is God a little bit bigger and more dynamic than that??? In my opinion, it seems to me those who object or deny freewill are really the one’s who are limiting God’s power, and placing him in a very small box.

BTW – Thanks Tyler for sharing Eugene’s comments here. Sounds like someone I can finally agree with on this subject

By: Tyler

Tyler — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:11:04 +0000

Devils advocate here Mike…what about the verses in the Old Testament that talk about God “changing his mind” or “relenting” of something. Wouldn’t that speak to a God that then changes his will?