We ourselves have manifested wickedness. God is the author of the author of sin, He cannot be the author of sin itself, for sin is the result of a rebellion against God. At the same time, God is not guilty of sin because He is not the one who is actually committing the sin. John Calvin said, “Creatures are so governed by the secret counsel of God, that nothing happens but what he has knowingly and willingly decreed.”18 Of course, that girl did have a point. He said “God… effects, and moves and impels all things in a necessary, infallible course…”16 He also said, “This is the highest degree of faith – to believe that He is merciful, the very One who saves so few and damns so many. John Calvin actually blamed God for Adam’s fall by saying, “I freely acknowledge my doctrine to be this: that Adam fell, not only by the permission of God, but by His very secret council and decree…”43 How contrary this is to the Word of God which says, “The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works” (Ps. 20:31). They say that many are on the broad road, and few are on the narrow road, because God wants it to be that way. There is not one thing that happens that he has not actively decreed – not even a single thought in the mind of man. God’s will is always that we live victorious over sin and never that we live surrendered to sin. That means that when God gave Adam and Eve the impression that He didn’t want them to sin, He was not lying, since the first lie came from the devil after God gave them this impression. Created morally innocent, they were now free to choose what is good and as a result have a good character, or to choose evil and as a result have an evil character. All rights reserved. 97:10; Amos 5:15). W1 is a world in which I do sin at 8:15 PM on Mon. The Infra or Sublapsarians declare that the Views of the Supralapsarians legitimately make God the Author of Sin, SECTION IV. What would be so wrong with His counsel or with His will that He would need to hide it from His universe? by Phil Johnson. 3:5). And by the force of this decree it could not be otherwise but that they must sin.”14 Dr. John Edwards said, “He might have hindered the fall, but he would not. If God decreed sin then sinners go to hell for doing the will of God. The Westminster Confession of Faith (the doctrinal standard for many Presbyterians), Chapter III, makes it clear that at least one well recognized portion of Calvinists firmly rejects the claim that God is the author of evil (emphasis added): I. Cease your evil-speaking, ye who ought to speak well of Him, and to bestow all honour upon Him.”5. This passage shows that sin was the result of man’s own free will and God is not to be blamed in any way. We must remember that God does not desire sacrifice but desires a holy people (Ps. Consider these truths in logical syllogisms: If God’s will was always done, sin would never have occurred and everyone would be saved. Therefore, mankind was created to live holy! The doctrine is based upon stoic philosophy, logical argument, perverted Scripture and human assertions. (See, for example, Job 1:12; 2:6.). God, motivated by love, was trying to govern man by moral law, by presenting the truth about the consequences of sin, thus giving them motivation for the right choice (Gen. 2:17). They moreover sometimes claim that this idea is either standard mainstream Calvinist teaching—or that it's a necessary inference from Calvinist doctrines. The Bible describes God and the devil as enemies, not friends. 12:33). If God caused all the sin of men, if we are puppets of God or marionettes in the hands of the Divine, and are not free moral agents, then God is the only real sinner in the entire universe and we cannot be justly responsible and accountable for our actions. This is the reason why the Bible distinguishes between Christ being ordained before the foundation of the world and Christ being slain from the foundation of the world. Since this is true, it follows that God has decreed the existence of evil, he has not merely permitted it, as if anything can originate and happen apart from his will and power.”36. If sinners have acted according to the actual will of God, they are not really rebels at all. Does Calvinism make God the author of sin This looks right to me. Aristotle, for example, named four categories of cause: The development of potentiality to actuality is one of the most important aspects of Aristotle's philosophy. God is pleased with men when they live holy (1 Thes. When a being originates sin through their own free will, they are sinning and consequently become a sinner. To credit the works of the devil to God is just as much blasphemy as it is to credit the works of God to the devil. 3:2; 8:18; 8:27; 13:2; 13:11; 14:24; 15:9; 15:18; 15:24; 15:28; 17:2; 17:17; 21:2; 21:16; 21:20; 23:32; 23:37; 24:9; 24:19; 1 Chron. 3:5). Every sin that is condemned is the condemnation of the work of God! God ordained whatsoever comes to pass, not unwillingly, but (as noted previously) by sovereign fiat. Jesus said “if” because the will of God is not automatically chosen by man. Now, Arminians (and extreme hyper-Calvinists) sometimes cite Calvin's arguments against bare (passive, unwilling) permission and claim Calvin actually meant to teach that Calvinists should never use the word permission to describe how God sovereignly works. Consider. God said to Eve, “What is this that thou hast done?” (Gen. 3:13) and God said to the serpent, “Because thou hast done this” (Gen. 3:14). This is what Arminians typically try to do with God, pinning the moral responsibility for all evil on Him, as the Final Cause. 7:30). It does not mean that God created moral evil. The devil is evil and is therefore not the author of good, while God is good and therefore is not the author of evil. 20 He has never commanded anyone to be wicked or given anyone permission to sin. If we don’t want sin to occur, but God wants sin to occur, then we would be ungodly for not wanting sin to occur! Men make themselves damnable because men make themselves sinful. We know that Adam and Eve did not have a “sinful nature” because when God made everything He made it “very good” (Gen. 1:31). Think of all the awful stories you have ever heard on the news. Calvinism Refuted – Jesse Morrell. ", But He ordained the means as well as the end. A simple Bible study reveals that God has a serious problem with sin, but is God the cause of His own problem? 14:33). But isn't it still the case that God's decree ultimately causes "whatsoever comes to pass"? Yet, God speaks very differently of His character when He says that He hates the hands that shed innocent blood (Prov. It was God who commanded obedience from Adam, but it was the devil that tempted Adam to sin. God’s eternal decree for sin was “thou shalt not” (Exo. Therefore, sinners are the cause of sin, not God. God is not the author of sin! That statement is the segue into this famous quotation: A more readable translation may make the sense of Calvin's statement clearer: Clearly, when Calvin argues against "permission," he is not ruling out secondary causes, nor is he denying the liberty or contingency of sinful agents, nor is he making God the source and author of their sin. The distinctions between various kinds of causes are long-established differentiations—elementary concepts of truth and logic that go back at least as far as Aristotle. Jesus stated a self-evident truth of reason when he said “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit” (Matt. Again, what Calvin objected to was "the distinction between will and permission." This of course He never does, because sin is not His plan and sin is not good. God is the good author of the good story. They had no sin nature. Yet, despite the effort and influence of God, they sinned. He formed Adam in his own image, that is Adam was a sentient and rational being with the potential to be God-like in character through his moral choices.”1. We must not project Greek ideas of perfection unto the Hebrew God. The reason was because he had decreed their fall, as we may gather from God’s creating the tree of good and evil before their creation…”15 Even Martin Luther unashamedly said that God was actually the cause of sin, so that all sin is caused by God and all sin is unavoidable. God is always and only passive with regard to evil, they said. That is because mankind has been created by God as free moral agents, who have wills of their own, who are capable of choosing His will or rejecting it. The Westminster Confession of Faith teaches the very same view I have defended here: That's what Calvin himself taught, and that's what authentic Calvinism has always stressed. The Bible says, “For every creature of God is good…” (1 Tim. God does not even tempt anyone to sin, let alone cause anyone to sin (Jas. They themselves, not God, are the source of the evil for which they are condemned. God could not say “neither came it into my mind” if it was in His mind that their sin was planned! Calvinism Makes God the Author of Sin . The chapter on God’s providence likewise says that when God ordains what will come to pass, “neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes [a category that includes the human … This presupposes the free will of man, which can reject and rebel against the will of God. 2:11; 3:7; 3:12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1; 1 Sam. Nobody would ever call such a man benevolent or good. 3:22). Their actions would not be praiseworthy but punishable! 34:10). “…God is the first efficient cause of everything, but evil has come, not from His first act, but by a second act, an act of creatures. 17:6; 21:25), as opposed to doing “that which is right in the sight of the Lord” (Deut. The Bible explicitly tells us that God hates sin (Prov. If a person says that God “created sin,” then they are in fact “accusing God of sinning.” But the Bible explicitly says that the Lord will not make or fashion iniquity (Zeph. Sin was not the will of God but was a rebellion against His will. Man was created for God’s pleasure. But since free choice… originates sins… punishments are justly inflicted.”7 Tatian said, “Nothing evil has been created by God. Mankind was created with the ability to obey the law of God or to disobey the law of God, which is why God commanded them to obey and the devil tempted them to disobey. God is the final cause; not the efficient cause of evil. But Reformed Theology charges God with causing all the child sacrifices and abortions of the world, causing the slaughter of millions of innocent babies. By forbidding the tree of knowledge, God gave them the opportunity of forming good moral character. If God wants sin to occur, so should we! How could we worship Him at all if the existence of all sin and misery was secretly His fault? This article has been moved here. When Israel would sacrifice their children to idols, God said to them, “ye pollute yourselves” (Eze. If God wants men to be sinful, we should want them to be sinful too! The Calvinistic interpretation of God hardening the heart of the Pharoah , so that he ends up sinning , makes God the author of sin.Similairly , by hardening the hearts of majority of humans and allowing them to remain in the sin of unbelief , God becomes the author of sin according to Calvinism. God the Efficient Cause of Sin, SECTION III. Jesus even mourned over Jerusalem and said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matt. While I was street preaching outside of a club in OttawaCanada, a girl said to me “God wants us to be out here and have fun. But we, who have manifested it, are able again to reject it.”8 Augustine even said that the “free choice of the will was present in that man who was the first to be formed… he sinned by that free will… ”9 Cornelius Van Til said, “If God does exist as man’s Creator, it is as we have seen, impossible that evil should be inherent in the temporal universe. To suggest otherwise is to be guilty of high blasphemy. Here is the bottom line: The matter and guilt of evil lie in man, not God. But if they sacrificed their children to idols because of God’s fatalistic plan, God could not charge them with polluting themselves since He was really the one who polluted them. Yet, this is maxim is precisely what Calvinism teaches. Lucifer’s sinfulness was not something that he was created with but something which he himself created. God gave them free will and a moral law so that they could do what was right. According to Brown’s Dictionary of the Bible, the Nicolaitans “imputed their wickedness to God as the cause…”19 Jesus said, “…the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate” (Rev. 4:8), if God secretly decreed the existence of sin when He could have decreed holiness in those instances? 32:13; Deut. 1:2). These events were not secretly decreed by God, as if God were such a heinous monster! Read More. There can be no blame or punishment where necessity, instead of liberty, reigns. Truthfulness is the foundation of trustworthiness, but what confidence can one have in the character of a person who doesn’t mean what he says? Never does Calvin suggest that God forces, coerces, or constrains anyone to sin via an active, efficient agency. [To get around the whole "God causes sin" thing, Calvinism came up with the idea of "ultimate cause" and "secondary cause" (they go by other names, too). When God, in the beginning, created man, he made him subject to his own free choice. Adam would be the victim of God’s eternal and secret bullying. 6:7-8). Warning a person about the consequences of their choices takes for granted that they have the ability of choice and assumes that they can choose between two alternatives. Since everything that happens in the word was foreordained by God, then sin was foreordained by him as well. In effect, they are claiming that God, if sovereign, must always be the effectual agent and immediate cause of every action. is the cause of those actions which are sins…”35, Vincent Cheung said, “God controls everything that is and everything that happens. Adam and Eve were justly held responsible for their sin because the law that God had given them was not at all impossible for them to keep. Calvinism says that God caused the damnation of all, so that He could predestine the salvation of the few. But if God’s plan is good, He should not grieve over it but rejoice over it. [a] 12 Don’t claim that he has misled you; he doesn’t need the help of sinners to accomplish his purposes. In other words, they were not choosing in accordance with His Divine plan or will. It is in this sense that, as John Calvin said, God cannot be said to merely permit sin but rather to … God takes pleasure in righteousness and God created us for His pleasure. 6:16; Isa. Therefore the god of Calvinism is a sinner. There are four causes:Material cause, or the elements out of which an object is created;Efficient cause, or the means by which it is created;Formal cause, or the expression of what it is;Final cause, or the end for which it is.Take, for example, a bronze statue. However, R. C. Sproul Jr. said that God secretly wanted Adam and Eve to sin and gave them the desire to sin because He wanted objects upon which to pour out His wrath. It was intended to solve the difficulties which earlier thinkers had raised with reference to the beginnings of existence and the relations of the one and many. God said, “I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth… I the Lord speak righteousness, I declare things that are right” (Isa. 81:11). 8:44), this references his lie in the garden. God said “thou shalt not” and He meant it! 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