Four Point Calvinism

I would like to start by first addressing the pros more immediate arguments and then move to the verses from the previous round and increase the exactness of my intentions. Let me be clear, I am not contesting the idea that god is good. I am contesting that the Calvinist god is good and that because of that they are incompatible. God has given us some sense of justice and it is on some level left to us to sort out what is right and what is not right. It is in the spirit of this debate that we analyse what we know to make the best estimation whether or not god actually contains the qualities that Calvinism teaches.. Adam and Eve: And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day Genesis 1:31. Adam and Eve by god's own sight were seen as good [containing the capacity for evil but still good] and still they were tempted away from him. There is no evidence that if the serpent never came by that Adam and Eve would ever have taken of the fruit. Sure god made us capable of sin but even with the devil himself tempting Eve she and Adam resisted for a time [note: god's presence absent] which is a testament to the goodness god created and saw in them. If we were evil from the start the serpent would not have been needed they would have rushed to the tree as soon as god left, lusting for what they were told not to have. Us and Sin: If god does not love sin and we are entirely sinful how can he love us before we are saved. We know he loves us even while "dead to our transgressions", verses and verses are devoted to the subject. But understand if we are only sinful, and god hates sin [another subject we can quote verses and verses for] how can he love us? Either we are not entirely sinful [a debated subject] or god loves sin [which Calvinism also acknowledges god hates sin]. Are we not made in the image of god? When we see young children are they depraved? Sure they have their moments but Jesus in Matthew 18:3 he says we are too become like children. In our youth before we have had a chance to hear god should we not be the most wrong? Why do we perceive children so innocent then? As for your example with the cookies and your child: A charming example we can relate to but let's put things in perspective. [You left your children alone with a bunch of cookies and told them not to eat them and he eats them as you expected he would]. 1 It is not one child we are talking about but you setting up billions and billions of children 2 You told him not to eat them but what about the billions of lives that never hear the gospel? Israel was a small and reclusive country, they stayed to themselves. Who told those people not to eat the cookie? They were hungry looking for fulfillment how could you not understand them seeing a cookie without direction and taking it. 3 You are more intelligent than a child, how are you not taking advantage of the child? How mad would you be after all you made the child you understand its limitations how much can you blame a child for reaching limits you imbued into it? 4 The punishment is eternal damnation. If you were setting up billions of children for damnation by putting them in situations you understand that they are not capable of handling properly, yes, I would call you unjust and a bit of a psychopath actually. If you called yourself a being of love, I would scoff and call you a liar, I would do everything to stop you because your misplaced sense of love is destroying far more than it is giving. Sure the child needs to learn consequences but what's the point of teaching it consequences if you set it up for eternal destruction. Are your combination of actions more profoundly loving or destructive? If a friend boasted about how he punished his child after locking them in a room with a cookie would you be quick to call them a good parent? If you have created a system of such incredible suffering [such as a system of creating a life only to be destroyed by something out of its own power] why would I not judge a tree by the fruit it bears? The Christian god is loving. The god of Calvinism is petty and cares more for cookies and blind injustices then it does for the people it says it loves and then condemns the majority to destruction. They are not the same. You can be held accountable for a situation you created. If I abducted 100 children and threw them in a room together without food for 200 days would you be angry with them for eating each other or me? How am I not the murderer? If you were the judge you tell me who would go to prison for the deaths, me or the children ? I also find it interesting that simple quotations about God not changing his mind are given without explanations for say Exodus 32:12-14. It is easy to cherry pick verses from the bible that fit to build a specific picture of God. I could cherry pick verses to paint God as angry, manipulative, or unforgiving. If a person wants a specific god it is easy to build themselves one from the expansive library that is the bible. If want to feel god will punish my neighbor, all I need is my perspective to view a verse from and to look at the right verses. This is also true with Calvinism. The bible contains verses on near every subject, some specific and others broad, and it is easy for us to select for ourselves the qualities of a god we want to serve. Indeed the Pharisees, masters of knowledge, understood the text well and forgot his heart and so too I feel this with Calvinism. One example I often see quoted for Calvinism: But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God." (John 1.12-13) Calvinists often interpret that it is by the will of God men are always turned, but it is also equally easy to interpret that God is offering people the right to choose. It is incredibly easy to approach a verse and decide what it means before you even have read it. Beware of the man who confirms complex ideas from simple verses. What this means is that squabbling over verses that confirm what you believe does not amount to much, anyone of us can build any picture of God and find it which is why addressing every verse is unnecessary as I have already demonstrated what can confirm for you can be evidence to contrary for me.. This does not mean that hope is lost. Verses are the word of god and thus true but we must be careful not to manipulate them. If a person should seek to understand God it should be done by asking themselves: 1) does this fall in line with the character set forth by Jesus? Jesus was longing patient considerate and hated wrong doing. If it conflicts with this it is more likely a man's idea rather than God's. 2) does this conflict with the ten commandments or loving a neighbor as yourself [yes even the ones of religions we might not like] and putting god first in your life. There are other similar ways of holding ourselves in line with god; this is just one way. It is entirely possible that god predestined the entire world, this however does not mean he did. God creates us from the ground up and he could certainly predestine all of existence and people by natural phenomena. This is very attractive to us, I mean if I was god I might make every decision myself as the adage goes "if you want something done right do it yourself". You want a god of power? Here is a god of ultimate power. But we serve a god that does not always get what he wants. Every Time a righteous man suffers a defeat we know god does not delight in that. When Israel turned away from God, he was unhappy. Our god is not a god made in man's image who must control every possible action in the universe but one who allows us to make choices. Our god is not insecure in his will, but rather, so secure we are allowed to work against it at times. Saul worked to crush the early Christian church only to join it later. Why would God not have just made Saul to be a Christian leader through genes and life? Why did he not make Jonah from birth to be a man who would preach to Nineveh and save him a rather smelly trip? In fact in Jonahs case we see a man who strained against god's will for quite a time before eventually deciding god's path was the right one. God is not looking for machines programmed to do his will but servants he has woo"ed to want to do his will. He wants you to want to wash the dishes not just wash the dishes! How useful would a man be in eternity that fakes righteousness how long could he keep up the charade? 10 years? 1000? 10000000000000000000000000000000000 years would still leave him all of eternity. More on predestination in the next round.