How do Calvinists explain God's wanting no one to perish and electing some to judgement?
score:10
The typical Calvinist response to this question is captured well by Wayne Grudem in his Systematic Theology:
[1 Timothy 2:4 and 2 Peter 3:9] speak of God's revealed will (telling us what we should do), not his hidden will (his eternal plans for what will happen). The verses simply tell us that God invites and commands every person to repent and come to Christ for salvation, but they do not tell us anything about God's secret decrees regarding who will be saved. (32.D.6)
It's true that some Calvinists take a different approach and suggest that "all" in 2 Peter 3:9 refers only to the elect, and the "all" in 1 Timothy 2:4 could be interpreted as "all sorts of people." John Piper explains this in more detail in his article, "Are There Two Wills in God?," but like Grudem he too argues for "two ways of willing" in God. Piper draws on one of the classic proof texts for this idea, Acts 2:23:
this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. (ESV)
That is, the most heinous crime in all of history, the brutal murder of the Son of God, was part of God's "plan" (his "secret" or "decretive" will). And despite that, it's clear that the men who killed him sinned – they violated the commandments of God (his "revealed" or "preceptive" will).
Let's look at a few more verses that are used to establish this idea. First, here are some that describe God's will as fully independent and never failing:
Psalm 115:3: Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. [ESV]
Daniel 4:32: the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.
Romans 9:18: So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
These verses above describe his "decretive" will. But the following verses show that his "preceptive will" is regularly disobeyed:
Matthew 7:21: "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." [cf. Matthew 12:50]
Ephesians 5:17: Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
For more analysis of this and my answer to a similar question, see How can God be Sovereign (in the Reformed sense) if a man can ignore His call to repentance? Piper's article also gives a thorough defense of this type of distinction.
One closing thought: it's worth noting that Calvinists argue that this difficulty also applies to Arminianism. Arminians must also reconcile "God desires that every individual be saved" and their belief that not every individual is saved (at least those who reject universalism and affirm God's omnipotence). Their explanation, Grudem says, is that God desires humans to have free will more than he wants them to be saved, and that this is a manifestation of the two aspects of his will. How Arminians would say they deal with this issue is a subject for another question.
More post
- 📝 What writings are held as "biblical canon" by Swedenborgians?
- 📝 Can people speak in tongues today?
- 📝 Would Mormons accept communion, administered by a representative of another Christian denomination, as valid?
- 📝 Do Calvinists rejoice in the destruction of sinners?
- 📝 What are the most prominent christologies in all of Christendom?
- 📝 Why do theologians and philosophers suppose a connection between God's Infiniteness or Finiteness and Omnipresence, and Problem of Evil?
- 📝 Is Melchizedek an immortal human?
- 📝 What did the commisioning of the preaching of crusades involve?
- 📝 What is the earliest extrabiblical teaching of baptism using a trinitarian formula?
- 📝 Complete list of versification differences in the Tanakh
- 📝 When was the Gospel of Mark written?
- 📝 Was Peter poor and uneducated before he met Jesus?
- 📝 Why is the date of the 2016 Passover a month late when compared to Easter?
- 📝 Has the Catholic Church ever attempted a local substitute for the word Amen?
- 📝 What is an overview of Jesus' ministry during Holy Week?
- 📝 What roles do faith and works play in the LDS/Mormon understanding of salvation?
- 📝 What non-canonical texts do Eastern Catholic liturgies use?
- 📝 How well provided is Paris Foreign Missions Society?
- 📝 Unique Catholic Feasts of local Churches?
- 📝 Why does the Book of Revelation allocate such a subordinate role to the Holy Spirit?
- 📝 What are the moral, religious, and promissory obligations of canon lawyers?
- 📝 Hebrew 1:10 means according to the Catholic?
- 📝 Are people 'made for each other'?
- 📝 Is there any evidence that Jesus had no children?
- 📝 Why doesn't the Bible also say a woman should leave her parents to be united to the husband?
- 📝 What did Christ mean in Matthew 10:34?
- 📝 Did Judas Iscariot know that Jesus would be killed when he turned Jesus over to the Pharisees?
- 📝 Jesus rejects equality with God - How does this statement reconcile with traditional teachings?
- 📝 According to Catholicism, is our world the only one?
- 📝 In Catholicism, does sin compound?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How do Calvinists explain God's wanting no one to perish and electing some to judgement?
- 📝 How do some denominations explain why they interpret the incidents with Elijah and Philip so differently?
- 📝 How could Jacob wrestle with God if no one can see God and live?
- 📝 How do Jehovah's Witnesses explain Thomas's exclamation, "My Lord and my God"?
- 📝 How do the proponents of the idea that salvation once received cannot be lost explain Hebrews 6:4-6 and 10:26-29?
- 📝 How do Christians explain commonalities between their religion, other major faiths and obscure isolated tribal belief systems?
- 📝 When and how was the doctrine of the one divine will established?
- 📝 How do Calvinists explain Calvin's use of Baruch?
- 📝 How does one test the spirits and identify false preachers?
- 📝 How does one discern between thoughts inspired by the Holy Spirit and those produced from themselves
- 📝 How do those who believe in salvation by grace, and in works being the fruit of salvation, explain Galatians 6:8-9?
- 📝 How do Jehovah's Witnesses explain Paul's apparent equating of Yahweh and Jesus in Romans 10?
- 📝 What traditions believe that a woman's relationship with God must go through some man and how do they support it from the Bible?
- 📝 Does God want things? What are some of the things He wants, and how did we find out?
- 📝 How do Congregationalists explain 1st Tim 1:3 and Titus 1:5?
- 📝 Troubled people showing interest in reading the Bible: how to explain to them that faith is a lifestyle and not an "ATM"?
- 📝 What is this ‘water’ in ‘wells of salvation’ that Isaiah speaks of here, and how is one to draw such water up?
- 📝 How do Catholics explain the apparent inconsistency between Mary's not experiencing labor pain and Rev 12:1-6?
- 📝 How do Calvinists explain Luke 19:41-44
- 📝 How can one "buy" oil and "buy" gold, garments, and eye salve if these things can only attained by grace?
- 📝 How do Jehovah's Witnesses explain Paul's apparent equating of Yahweh and Jesus in Ephesians 4?
- 📝 How it is possible to be one God in three persons (Jesus, Holy Ghost, and God the Father)?
- 📝 How broad and inclusive is the definition of service in exhortations to serve one another?
- 📝 How do Jehovah Witnesses explain differences between NWT and Hebrew/Latin/Greek in Zechariah 12:10 and Acts 20:28?
- 📝 How do creationists explain some recent hominid discoveries
- 📝 Mere Christianity Book I Chapters 1 and 2: How would Lewis explain morality being inherently known but also taught?
- 📝 How do Christians who see Scripture as self-evidently inspired explain that Catholics, Protestants and Mormons have different sacred scriptures?
- 📝 How do Protestants explain the incorruptibility of Catholic and Orthodox saints?
- 📝 How do Catholics explain Hebrews 13:10 and John 6:54?
- 📝 How do one know that the Bible is absolutely true and is not a "make believe" fiction?