The Parable of the Sower and Predestination

Greg addresses whether or not the Parable of the Sower is relevant to the question of predestination.

 

Comments

[dave]

@ GH5; > "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!"

>> Jerusalem = the wicked rulers. buildings cannot throw rocks at people. The rulers were not willing that Jesus should gather their constituents.

As Augustine said pertaining to this verse; He gathered together as many of her children as He wished: for He does not will some things and do them, and will others and do them not, but He hath done all that He pleased in heaven and on earth

[KWM]

Goat Head 5,

How do you make sense of the blatant nature of Genesis 50:20?

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive

God meant it for good.

[Goat Head 5]

WL

Dismissing ideas you don't agree with as childish, silly and stupid is a poor way to end a discussion, but this usually ends in name calling,

Your "will onion" view of God, if seriously adopted, would mean that no statement in the Bible about what God wills, wants or desires can be believed, because we are unable to determine where it sits in your hierarchy of wills.

We would consider a person who communicates like this a liar.

Hence I must dismiss your will onion view of God as mistaken.

Goat Head 5

[Goat Head 5]

KWM

I have no problem with Gen 50:20.

God worked good out of the circumstances caused by the free will choices of those around Joseph, like He promises to do for those who follow Him.

Goat Head 5

[KWM]

Goat Head 5,

God worked good out of the circumstances caused by the free will choices

But that’s precisely what it does not say.

It says:

God meant it for good.

It does not say, “Worked good out”.

If you, Goat Head 5, refer to an action and say, “I meant it for…” what you are saying is that you carried out an act or made an event transpire for a purpose. That purpose may or may not have been fulfilled, but you did it.

We know God can do things. The difference is that you just choose to believe that God must do (or is responsible for) things that fit your tastes and sensibilities. That God must work with the hand that he’s dealt by human choices. I choose to believe God does what He says he does.

[KWM]

WisdomLover,

I did not yet respond to your comment yesterday at 5:59am. I think understanding your last paragraph is the problem many people have. They simply cannot understand how the exercise of God’s perfect power is totally congruent with their free choices, and that He’s in ultimate control.

And yet, we are totally responsible.

[WisdomLover]

Priceless.

The author of will-onion language is offended by name calling.

I call your view childish, not because I'm name calling, but because your view is, in fact, childish. It has all the earnest fervor of a precocious eleven-year old's thought. You will insist, brooking no criticism, on a univocality for your word "will" so that you can drive the words of the Bible into your theological framework. A framework where you have your little corner of reality where you, not God, are sovereign.

And this is a classic case in point:

Your "will onion" view of God, if seriously adopted, would mean that no statement in the Bible about what God wills, wants or desires can be believed, because we are unable to determine where it sits in your hierarchy of wills.

For starters, I presented no hierarchy of wills, no multi-layered onion to be peeled back, no will #5 (as you suggested in one of your other 'chirps').

Instead I pointed to the very familiar psychological fact that there are things people want initially, without considering all the ramifications and details, and there is what people want finally, after they've thought things through.

You yourself have these two sorts of desires. And it is straightforward to determine which desire is operative in any case, it is the desire that actually informs your action that represents what you finally want.

If you don't, or refuse to, understand this and make this distinction, then yes, you have a childish and impoverished psychological theory.

Rather than taking offense, think deeper.

[Brad B]

When someone fails to acknowledge the clear unambiguous scriptures passages, but treats them as subordinate to passages that are rich with subtle nuanced revelation that ought to be interpreted with and through the the clear passages as guidlines, it exposes one of two or more things.

Possibly, the person is bringing their own bias to the texts and like a man who only owns 1 tool, for instance if his only tool is a hammer, he sees every solution accompllished with a blow from his trusty implement.

Or, the person might be unable or unwilling to recognize reasonable rules of interpetation are necessary to resolve tension of texts but this process in no way minimizes the conclusions' validity and binding import toward the interpretation.

Another possibility is that a person might not be able to rationally inspect their own worldview simply because they dont want to.

In any [or all] of these cases, fruitful dialog is evasive.

[Goat Head 5]

KWM

I choose to believe that God works with our free will, hence undetermined, choices because that is what I see in the Bible.

The idiosyncratic view of "sovereignty" as all controlling is something I don't see in the Bible.

In fact, I see many places in the Bible where God's clearly stated will, stated with no qualifications, is not what happens.

Now this doesn't mean of imply I am in control, as is so often and childishly, irrationally charged.

Goat Head 5

[WisdomLover]

The idiosyncratic view of "sovereignty" as all controlling is something I don't see in the Bible. . . . Now this doesn't mean o[r] imply I am in control...

So God is not in control of my actions, and I am not in control of my actions.

Who exactly is?

[Brad B]

Hi WL, your question exposes the irrationality of what is truly libertarian free will. Not the same definition you normally use but I've seen people argue that proposition with all sincerity...all in the name of libertarian free choice.

In case there are some remaining like The Goat Head 5 when he shows ineptitude as a biblical exegete instead showing biblical illiteracy says:"The idiosyncratic view of "sovereignty" as all controlling is something I don't see in the Bible."

This is the Sovereign reigning over His creatures and accomplishing His will with and through the actions of men. In this passage we see what men think while at the same time the revelation of what is behind the scenes [vs15] when we troll about believing that we can even lift so much as one finger without the Sovereign Lord already ordaining it from long ago.

"Isa 10:1 Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression,

Isa 10:2 to turn aside the needy from justice
and to rob the poor of my people of their right,
that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!

Isa 10:3 What will you do on the day of punishment, in the ruin that will come from afar?
To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth?

Isa 10:4 Nothing remains but to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.

Isa 10:5 Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger;
the staff in their hands is my fury!

Isa 10:6 Against a godless nation I send him,
and against the people of my wrath I command him,
to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

Isa 10:7 But he does not so intend, and his heart does not so think; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few;

Isa 10:8 for he says:
“Are not my commanders all kings?

Isa 10:9 Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?

Isa 10:10 As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols, whose carved images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria,

Isa 10:11 shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols as I have done to Samaria and her images?”

Isa 10:12 When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes.

Isa 10:13 For he says: “By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding; I remove the boundaries of peoples, and plunder their treasures; like a bull I bring down those who sit on thrones.

Isa 10:14 My hand has found like a nest
the wealth of the peoples; and as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken, so I have gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved a wing or opened the mouth or chirped.”

Isa 10:15 Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it. As if a rod should wield him who lifts it, or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood!

Isa 10:16 Therefore the Lord GOD of hosts
will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors, and under his glory a burning will be kindled, like the burning of fire.

Isa 10:17 The light of Israel will become a fire,
and his Holy One a flame, and it will burn and devour his thorns and briers in one day.

Isa 10:18 The glory of his forest and of his fruitful land the LORD will destroy, both soul and body, and it will be as when a sick man wastes away.

Isa 10:19 The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few that a child can write them down.

Isa 10:20 In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.

[Brad B]

A quick correction and another point: The correction...in the second paragraph, exchange the word instead with the words "while also".

Additional point to be added. This scripture is prophecy...written prior to any of the events.