But, God wants us to be right, too. In the sense that we are to know the truth about Him, which sets us free and in the sense that He wants us to understand why it is so important to evangelize.

God did make man a choosing creature. He does show us life and death, good and evil, blessing and cursing and then leaves it up to us to be responsible to His illumination of our mind and spirit to choose. He does His part and as choosing creatures we have our part to play. We can receive or reject the enlightenment of His truth to us. This is why He commands us to go into all the world and preach the gospel. The preaching of the gospel illuminates the natural man.

Yes, God is always just and right.

Joshua 24:15
And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Julius,

But none of us can lay claim to being "enlightened enough" to know the entirety of truth. We are not God. Truth is concrete and it is dependable and it is solid, but we only know in part at this stage.

I HATE postmodern thinking where "what is true for you is not necessarily true for me and everyone is right, so let's all just get along." But I also make it a point to reject "There is no way I can be wrong because look at these 3 verses I found that say the opposite of what your verses say." Knowledge easily leads to pride. This is not a cut-and-dry issue. That's why I take the stance that Oracio and Dolfan proposed--God is God and let us just bask in the glory of who He is.

I want to know God, but I know that I am not going to fully know Him in this life. So I have no problem setting ideas aside as things that are earmarked to be cleared up definitely in eternity.

I allow that I could be totally wrong, but I am not moving there until the Lord leads me. What bothers me is that the attitude we tend to have toward one another is "Oh, you poor, deceived creature. Let me show you a better way." And then we try to lead each other to somewhere other than Jesus.

I love taking about this subject, but only if we can all walk away thinking about what we believe and examining ourselves in the Light of Christ. It isn't worth it if everyone walks away saying, "so and so is so wrong. I can't believe they think this way."

Absolutely, havok. Only Jesus has all the truth.

It is good to search the scriptures with brothers and sisters and also maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

I am always learning something, and my understanding of things is constantly being challenged with new light.

It is good to maintain a teachable spirit.

Quote:"...then God is right." This is EXACTLY the attitude we ought to have. God is good and right and just no matter what we think or feel."

I am going to ask something extremely and outrageously hypothetical here but I hope you can get the gist of what I am getting at.

What if God wasn't good; in fact what if he was downright mean.

Would we still be under obligation to worship and adore him, just because he created us?

In other words, does or should Gods character matter?

Because my primary concern with the whole election/non-election issue is that Gods character is important. He created us able to judge what is right and wrong. To me the idea of double predestination is gruesome. Saying that is ok (if true) because God is God doesn't sit well with me at all, because I do not think that God would ever do something like that.

In fact if that doctrine is true the non elect should be praising and worshipping God all the way into hell because they were chosen to fulfill some purpose of Gods.

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Todd

TMK, I know this seems odd. It IS odd humanly speaking.

But, "the non elect should be praising and worshipping God all the way into hell because they were chosen to fulfill some purpose of God's".

Scripture says, "at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." Every tongue, every knee, everywhere. Confession of the Lordship of Christ in spite of their own wickedness. The Father receives glory from it. The wicked are fully included. It is worship that Paul describes here. It is -- dare I say it? -- compelled worship of those upon whom the judgment of condemnation rests. Not a moment of joy. A moment of true and unending terror. Yet, God is glorified by it.

We can't conjecture whether God is good. He simply is. All that may be described as "good" has Him alone as its referent. There is no other way. God's meanness would be goodness to us because it is Him. We would not know meanness as such, but we would consider it good and it would be objectively true if God were mean. In fact, our lack of meanness would be evil.

God's character does matter. By it, we know Him; by it, we know what it is He made us to be. But, He is self-defining. He also defines everything else. If double predestination is biblically true (and, let me say I don't believe it is, at least not in the Romans 9 sense of it as it is embraced by many Christians), then double predestination is right and good because it is -- like all else He does -- done after the counsel of God's own will. Whatever I think God is or would be or do is incorrect if His revelation of Himself is to the contrary, even if I find it unpalatable. "Lord, help my distaste to become the taste of heaven!"

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Tim

"at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father."

I dont have a problem with that verse at all and obviously believe it is true. Those in hell will know they DESERVE to be there, because they refused to repent and believe.

That is a far different matter than saying they are there because God pre-ordained that they would be there so too bad for them.

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Todd

Yeah, imagine being in Hell because you were created for it. You would forever be wondering why God was partial to someone else and lamenting that you were ever born.

The Bible says, "Hell was created for the Devil and his angels". Notice that Jesus never includes man. He never says it was "prepared for the Devil, his angels and man." Makes sense to me when I consider the whole counsel of God.

Matt 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, PREPARED FOR THE DEVIL AND HIS ANGELS.

I think part of the problem is that we do not consider the truth that God dwells in the realm of eternity outside of time. For Him it is all in the present, like one who sits in a helicopter and is able to see a parade from beginning to end all at once. At any moment God can enter into the present realm and truly feel and express His feelings as He sees what is going on in this world. I am thankful that God is past our finding out because if He was able to be perfectly comprehended He would stop being God. In eternity we will still continue to grow in our knowledge of this infinite Being who is worthy of all praise and adoration.

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Oracio

If God predestined some for hell, does anyone have any thoughts on why hell was only created for the Devil and his angels?

J- I have never considered that question- point extremely well-taken.

O- that was CS Lewis's solution. I used to find a lot of comfort in it; then over the years I have read various things that shed quite a bit of doubt on the idea that God exists outside of time. But if that is true it does solve some problems.

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Todd