Monday, August 31, 2015

The Hardshell God - Unable or Unwilling?

For everything that is God must either be willing or not willing that they are.  As Jonathan Edwards correctly stated:

Whether God has decreed all things that ever came to pass or not, all that own the being of a God own that he knows all things beforehand. Now, it is self-evident, that if he knows all things beforehand, he either doth approve of them, or he doth not approve of them; that is, he either is willing they should be, or he is not willing they should be. But to will that they should be, is to decree them.”

This is both biblical and logical.  But if God is willing that something should be yet it does not transpire, then the only alternative is that He is not able to bring it to pass.

With that in mind let me ask my Conditionalist friends within the “Primitive” Baptists a few questions, worded in such a way that really exposes what it is they are affirming when they divorce the subjective experience away from the eternal salvation of the family of God.

Is God unable or unwilling to bring the gospel to all of His elect?

Is God unable or unwilling to convert all of His elect?

Is God unable or unwilling to convert “regenerated atheists”?

Is God unable or unwilling to convert “regenerated idolators”?

Is God unable or unwilling to impart evangelical faith to all of His elect?

Is God unable or unwilling to impart evangelical repentance to all of His elect?

Is God unable or unwilling that all of His elect come to know His Son?

Is God unable or unwilling to save all of His elect from their ignorance?

Is God unable or unwilling to give all of His elect a zeal which is according to knowledge?

Is God unable or unwilling to experimentally sanctify all of His elect?

Is God unable or unwilling that all of His elect grow in grace?

Is God unable or unwilling to convert His elect at the moment they are regenerated?

Is God unable or unwilling to preserve His elect in holiness?

Is God unable to unwilling to use instrumentality for His own glory?

Is God unable or unwilling to ordain all which comes to pass?

Is God unable or unwilling to save His people from the practice of sin?

Is God unable or unwilling to grant what He commands?



What say ye?

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