TGOGATBWOM Part 2

In order to move coherently and smoothly through the Scripture countering election and sovereignty and asserting free will, Pinnock and friends must ignore one very basic facet of Biblical teaching: we are all sinners. There's really no good way to counter this other than to ignore it, which this book does at every possible turn.

Adam freely chose to disobey God and every act of will since has been corrupted by sin, not as some external force we strive to act against but as the core of our very nature. Apart from God's grace we delight in rebellion against Him. Everything in Scripture testifies to this, from Genesis to Revelation. To ignore this is to rewrite Scripture.

This simple statement above is enough to counter Pinnock`s entire book, but because I enjoy tearing down antiscriptural swill I will continue.

Universal Grace and Atonement in the Pastoral Epistles, I. Howard Marshall

What I find particularly odd about Marshall's essay was how he so cavalierly throws aside their Pauline authorship. This makes it easy for him to ignore every system of thought in the Pauline epistles,  namely election and sin and of course Romans 9. If we correctly assume every book that begins with "I, Paul", is written by Paul, how can we assume that these books are not? If they were not written by Paul, then Marshall is totally fine with using books written by some liar claiming to be Paul the Apostle, as long as he can use them to prove his point. Like I said, I find this very odd.

Does God want all men to be saved? Not according to Romans 9. Even if we exclude Pharoah by saying, "He was the only person God wanted to damn", we cannot exclude the general statement that Paul makes:

What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction?

 Marshall's argument falls apart when he begins to examine the scope of how the word "all" is used. Calvinists believe that when the New Testament speaks of God's desire for "all" to be saved it means all believers. In this sense "all" means all whom God has chosen to be saved, since we have seen that no one can believe in God unless God wants them to. The other option is that somehow God wants all men to be saved except for those He doesn't. This is contradictory and I do not hold to this view.

I am fine with the Bible not always making sense. It's about God. He shouldn't make sense to us. This isn't one of those times.

Conveniently Marshall narrows his investigation to the Pastoral epistles, and I would not have a problem, logically speaking, if he only mentioned these books, but this is not the case. Near the end of this essay he says,

If we ask why some believe and others do not, we can say no more than that this is part of the mystery of evil to which the Pastorals, like the rest of Scripture, can offer no answer.

Wrong. This isn't a mystery that God has chosen to keep hidden. The answer is twofold: (1) men are born sinners, and (2) God chooses some to be His children. If Marshall's question was meant to say, "Why does God choose some and not others?", then yes, this is a mystery. As I have said before, I believe that Marshall and every author in this book intentionally obscure the specifics of election and man's sinful nature in order to further their belief in free will.