big idea

so i have a big idea. one big idea. if any of you are at all familiar with puritan books, you may know of john gill. this guy wrote The Cause of God and Truth which was a response to Discourses on the Five Points [of Calvinism] by a Dr. Whitby. Gill basically answers all of Whitby's points against Calvinism, verse by verse, and then doctrine by doctrine, finally using the early church fathers to show that Calvinism is not only biblically but historically supported.

well

i want to write a similar book. there are roughly seven places where calvinism differs significantly from arminianism:

the view of scripture vs human philosophy
the sovereignty of God
the depravity of man
the love of God
divine election
regeneration
perseverance

irresistible grace and limited atonement may follow logically from these first few points, but the scripture support isn't as extensive or explicit, so i don't think their exclusion will damage the main thesis of the book.

sources will include
arminian: jacobus arminius, john wesley, norman geisler, why i am not a calvinist, roger olson (possibly), charles finney, clark pinnock, possibly charles ryrie (i think he's arminian)
calvinist: john calvin, thomas watson, jonathan edwards, charles hodge, millard erickson, john macarthur, arthur pink, stephen charnock, john owen

i also want to compare arminian theology to catholic theology. they bear many similarities to each other.

in the introduction i want to explore the concept of God as "other," meaning we should expect, as we learn more of him, that he will confound us, possibly even terrify us, especially those who do not believe. a common objection to calvinism is that "God is not a monster." what is a monster? God is powerful, incomprehensible, invisible, like nothing else we know or can imagine... possibly he is a "monster" in some sense.

i will examine assumptions, underlying philosophies, approaches to scripture, and conclusions and finally compare conclusions to the writings of the early fathers. the fathers bear no greater credibility than any other writings outside of scripture, but arminians often claim that calvinism is relatively "new" and therefore suspect.

i have a lot of reading to do.

An open letter to young parents

Raise your children or the world will, with its drugs, sex, and violence. No one cares about your children like you do. Your children do not want things. They don't want a Nintendo or a pool or a nice car. They don't want Dad and Mom both working every single day. They want you in their life—teaching them, guiding them, correcting them. Children require sacrifice. They are costly. They cost us time, money, energy. They keep us from the pleasures that we enjoyed before they were born. You will not be able to have the things you want, if you want happy, healthy children. Play games with them. Stay home with them. Read to them. Sell your second car. Teach them about God. Do whatever it takes.

May 5 Devotion

By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he, being dead, yet speaketh.

Hebrews xi. 4.

Through his righteousness, we are freed from the guilt and punishment of sin, so that all afflictions have lost their curse and sting, and are become medicinal. We may have bitter dispensations many times, but they are not salted with a curse. We may cry with Luther, Strike, Lord! Strike! my sins are pardoned. When God hath laid up comfort in. the heart beforehand, all our corrections lose their property, and they are federal dispensations; as David: Ps. cxix. 75, ‘I know, Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.’ When God thresheth us, it is but that our husk may come off. They are not acts of revenge to satisfy justice, but only to free us of a mischievous disease; and death is a friend, it is a remedy whereby we may be delivered into glory: 1 Cor. xv. 55, ‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?'

This will give us comfort in the hour of death. When the soul, smitten with the sense of sin, is drawn to the tribunal of God, oh then, the righteousness of Christ is a comfort. Men dealing with men like themselves may cry up works; but when they plead their cause before God, then who can speak of his own righteousness? Then they tremblingly fly to the horns of the altar and to mercy. There is no screen to draw between us and wrath but Christ, no way to answer justice but in the satisfaction of Christ, no way to appear before holiness but by the obedience of Christ. Let one of those audacious volume writers come and say, Lord, cast them out of heaven that cannot approve themselves to thee by their own graces.

Then we are made heirs of eternal glory; therefore it is called justification unto life. A pardoned person is made a favourite: Rom. viii. 30, ‘Whom he justified, them he also glorified.’ Christ doth not only prevent the execution, but we are also saved. It is much to be delivered from wrath to come: Rom. v. 9, ‘Much more then, being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him; ‘as if it were a lesser thing to glorify a saint than to justify a sinner. When God can accept of us out of his free grace, certainly he will give us heaven.

Thomas Manton

Love

John 3.16
Nicodemus expected Christ to say"for God so loved the Jews" but what did he say? "God so loved the world" Nicodemus knew God couldn't possibly love everyone in the world, with all their sin and perversion and rebelliousness.
Jesus then said "that whosoever believes in him will have eternal life" Nicodemus thought "ah... There it is." God cannot love the sinner, at least not without significant accommodations. God cannot love the sinner without mediation and sacrifice. Something or someone must die. God requires a covenant based on atonement before he can love the sinner. There is no other way. Thankfully, he has provided the way, but we can only enjoy his love if we apply this way, this Christ, by humbly acknowledging our impotence and depravity and his glory and righteousness through faith in Christ. This is the only way God will love us.

Does God Love Everyone?

God Loves Everyone

We know that God loves everyone. God loves me and God loves you. God loves my neighbor and God loves my pastor. God loves all of us without condition, just as we are. If God loves everyone, then God loves Hitler also. God loves child molesters and rapists and terrorists and abortion doctors just as much as he loves you and I and Christ, his beloved Son. Christ loves everyone in the world that hates him and mocks him and blasphemes his name just as much as he loves his bride, the Church. God loved Esau even though the Bible says he hated Esau (Malachi 1.2). God loves those who shed innocent blood, those with haughty eyes and a lying tongue even though Proverbs 6.16-17 says he hates these people. God is love and therefore God loves everyone equally.

Obviously, this reasoning is incorrect. The Bible says that “God is love,” (1 John 4.8) and “For God so loved the world…”, yet we cannot simply toss aside verses that profess God’s hatred for a person or a group. We must investigate further and attempt to reconcile scripture when scripture seems to contradict itself. This doctrine that teaches that God loves everyone raises serious questions. Why is repentance necessary if God loves us as we are, sin and all? How can Christ possibly have the same love for his bride that he has for sinners who hate him eternally? Why does Scripture explicitly teach that God hates anyone (Malachi 1.3)? How can God allow a man to perish eternally in hell if he loves him? If God grants repentance, then why doesn’t he grant repentance to everyone he loves?

Other practical issues emerge. The church has been preaching the universality of God’s love for well over a hundred years, and yet the church struggles to remain relevant. Church attendance falls[1] while the world constantly calls our authenticity into question.[2] Is attendance down because we have convinced everyone so well that God loves them, that they no longer believe they need a Savior? Why do they need a Savior that tells them how to live if he loves them just as they are? Why do we need to be saved from our sins if our sins do not affect God’s love for us?

But God does not love us, at least not outside of Christ. How can he? We are sinners and he hates sin. If he hates sin, he most certainly hates the heart of the person that commits sin, that loves sin and everyday lives eagerly to commit sin. The Psalmist says, “You hate all who do iniquity” (Psalm 5.5, New American Standard Bible). Every one of us commits iniquity (Psalm 53.1-3; Jeremiah 17.9). If God loves righteousness and hates wickedness (Psalm 45.7), then God loves only One, and that person can only be Christ. God’s mercies may be over all his works (Psalm 145.9), but all the wicked he will destroy (Psalm 145.20). God may be good to all, but his goodness does not necessarily equal love.

God’s Universal “Love”

Theologians use many different verses to prove that God loves everyone, but John 3.16 consistently stands apart from them all.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

God loves the world. In the New Testament, however, this verse alone connects God’s love with the entire world explicitly. Paul tells us in 1 Timothy that he “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2.4). Peter tells us that God does not wish for any to perish, “but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3.9). God asks Ezekiel, “Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked, rather than that he should turn from his ways and live?” (18.23), and then he answers himself, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live” (33.11). The apostle John declares that “God is love” (1 John 4.16). John Frame quotes Frances Turretin to describe God’s universal love:

There are three degrees of one and the same love…First, there is the love of benevolence by which God willed good to the creature from eternity; second, the love of beneficence by which he does good to the creature in time according to his good will; third, the love of complacency by which he delights himself in the creature on account of the rays of his image seen in them.[3]

John Frame adds, “God’s love extends to everyone, but in different ways…God loves everything that he has made, including his enemies…Although only believers receive eternal life, God’s love in sending Christ is directed to the world as a whole.”[4] Henry Thiessen  believes that God “is unlike the gods of the heathen, who hate and are angry,” and that God “cannot hate what he has made.”[5]

Turretin describes three degrees of love, but while Frame confers this love on everyone, Turretin narrowly confers it only to the elect. He adds

By the love of benevolence, he loved us before we were; by the love of beneficence, he loves us as we are; and by the love of complacency, he loves us when we are (viz., renewed after his image). By the first, he elects us; by the second, he redeems and sanctifies us; but by the third, he gratuitously rewards us as holy and just.[6]

These “variations” of love essentially follow the same path, however. They all result in the salvation of the creature. Christ tells us that God “sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5.45). Theologians refer to this as goodness or benevolence. God does not elect everyone. Frame incorrectly broadens the scope of God’s electing love, and Turretin confuses God’s benevolence with his love. Elsewhere, Frame uses Matthew 5.43-48 to declare that God “loves everything that he has made, including his enemies.”[7] This inference, however, does not necessarily follow from this passage. Jesus commands his audience to love their enemies, but this entire sermon served to contrast the Jews’ understanding of the Law against God’s perfect intent. Jesus preached this sermon primarily to demonstrate their ignorance of God’s Law and not primarily as a theological statement on God’s character. The sermon also described the behavior of those who wished to belong to the Kingdom of God. D. Martyn Lloyd Jones says, “The Sermon on the Mount is nothing but a great and grand and perfect elaboration of what our Lord called His ‘new commandment.’ ... Whenever Christ is enthroned as King, the kingdom of God is come...The great purpose of this Sermon is to give an exposition of the kingdom as something which is essentially spiritual.”[8] We know that Christ himself pronounced judgment against his enemies (Matthew 11.21; 18.7; 23-13-16); he called them fools and blind men (23.17), hypocrites (23.23), and vipers (23.33). We can hardly describe his attitude toward the Pharisees as “loving.”

Regarding God’s hate, the Psalmist tells us that God “hates all who do iniquity” (Psalm 5.5), and those who love violence, “his soul hates” (Psalm 11.5). Thiessen ignores the biblical testimony when he states that God cannot hate what he has created. Paul says, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1.18). God must hate not only sin, but the sinner, if he will remain holy. Psalm 145 repeatedly declares God’s majesty and his glory, and in this context, also declares “The Lord is good to all, and his mercies are over all his works” (Psalm 145.9). God’s goodness glorifies his name, and that is its purpose. R.C. Sproul distinguishes the different aspects of God’s love, referring to God’s goodness toward all as his “love of benevolence”, and his love toward the saints as his “love of complacency.”[9] Theologians call this goodness, “love”, but if God does not grant the faith that leads to salvation (Acts 5.31; 11.18), how can we truly call this love? God does not allow those he loves to perish forever. The end of Psalm 145 says, “The Lord keeps all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy” (145.20). God’s goodness glorifies him, just as his love for his people, and his hatred and wrath upon the wicked also do (Romans 9.17,22,23).

If we look again at scripture which professes God’s universal saving love for mankind, we find that this love may not be universal after all. Peter says that God does not wish to save all men. In speaking of those who stumble over Christ by disobedience, he says, “to this doom they were also appointed” (1 Peter 2.8). Paul makes a similar statement in Romans, when he says, “[God] has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires” (Romans 9.18). God has no desire to save everyone. In light of these verses, those that proclaim God’s love for all must be reevaluated. Peter addresses the members of the church in 2 Peter 3.9. He says, “God is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.” (emphasis added). God speaks only to Israel in Ezekiel 18 and 33. He says, “Hear, you Israelites,” (18.25), “Therefore, you Israelites,” (18.30) and “Why will you die, people of Israel?” (33.11). In 1 Timothy 2.4, “all men” refers to men both in authority and not. If God hardened Pharaoh (Romans 9.17,18), and he does not grant repentance to everyone, then obviously he does not desire all men and women throughout history to be saved.

Reevaluating John 3.16 reveals a similar distinction between those who trust and those who do not. In this chapter, Christ describes unbelievers as “condemned,” lovers of darkness, and evildoers (3.18-20), but “the world” is “saved” (3.17) and “loved” (3.16). We know that God grants repentance (Acts 11.18) and therefore faith is a gift (Ephesians 2.8) for those he will love (Romans 5.8). God decides who will be saved (John 1.13), but D.A. Carson does not believe we can limit the scope of the phrase “the world” in John 3.16.[10] The scope of this phrase varies in the book of John depending on the context, however. In a single verse, “world” may mean the physical world or simply those who do not believe in Christ (1.10). In the same chapter, the scope of “the world” only includes those who place their trust in Christ, as John the Baptist says, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1.29). In John 4.42, 6.33, 6.42, and 8.12, the scope of the phrase again includes only those who trust in Christ. In chapter 15, Christ limits the phrase to those who hate him and his disciples. Christ tells his disciples, “The world has hated Me... the world hates you” (15.18,19). Of John 3.16, Leon Morris says, “The Jew was ready enough to think of God as loving Israel, but no … Jewish writer maintains that God loved the world.”[11] Nicodemus expected Christ to say, “For God so loved the Jews,” but instead he said, “For God so loved the world.” Christ brackets “the world” with two repetitions of “whoever believes” in him, and later in verse 17, he says that he did not come “to judge the world, but that the world might be saved.” In every instance in this passage, “the world” refers to those who believe in Christ, and not merely the Jews, but Gentiles also. John later repeats this in his first epistle when he says, “He is the propitiation for our sins [Jews]; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world [Jews and Gentiles]” (1 John 2.2). Christ intended not to expand the scope of God’s love to include believers and unbelievers, but specifically the Gentiles and Jews who would believe in him. In John, as in the rest of scripture, God loves his people exclusively.

God Loves His Bride

The Hebrew word hesed best describes God’s love for his people. The New American Standard Bible translates hesed as “lovingkindness” in Psalm 136, which repeats the phrase “For His lovingkindness is everlasting” as it describes the great works of the Lord in relation to creation (4-9) and his deliverance of Israel (10-22). “God’s covenantal relationship with his people” is the basis for God’s hesed.[12] Baer and Gordon say, “Divine hesed is abundant…hesed fills the earth (Psalm 33.5; 119.64).”[13] God’s hesed “rises above” his wrath through its “superior quantity and permanence.”[14] God’s lovingkindness reaches to humanity in general[15], but we find “the importance of a prior commitment or bond.”[16] God’s lovingkindness “demands service, fear, and even a corresponding exercise of hesed in return.”[17]

God loves Israel alone in the Old Testament. God chose Israel to be the object of His love, and none of the other nations (Deuteronomy 7.7-8). God led her through the wilderness (Psalm 68.7; 78.15), conquered Canaan for her (Joshua 24.11-13), and established her kingdom (2 Samuel 5.12). God performed none of these works for any other nation. When Israel ignored God’s commands and worshipped other gods, God disciplined her out of love (Hosea 2.8-13), yet promised her a future salvation (Jeremiah 24.6,7; 29.10-14). God used the other nations as tools to chastise her (Jeremiah 26.8-11), but he never entered into covenant with them. God belonged to Israel alone, yet in spite of this overwhelming evidence of God’s exclusive love for his chosen people, Christians still insist that God loves the entire world in this same way. If God suddenly loved a people outside of a covenant, unholy (not separate from the world), and openly hostile to him, this would signify a great change in God’s character from Old Testament to New Testament, but John tells us that God loves the world that believes in him (John 3.16). Paul also tells us that God has expanded his love to include the Gentiles (Acts 28.28), and it is in this sense that God loves the world.

A Special People

Speaking at a concert to a small congregation, Rich Mullins described how believers witnessed to him before he became a Christian:

I remember when I was a kid, and people would always say—you know because I was one of those typical depressed adolescents. I wrote poetry. That’s how morose I was as a kid—people would go around saying, “Oh, cheer up, man because God loves you!” and I would always say, “Big Deal! God loves everybody. That don’t make me special.”[18]

I loved this video clip, but as I listened to it, I have always wondered, “Aren’t we special? Isn’t that the whole point of Israel? Isn’t that the point of love, that someone is special, and that others are not?” If a man loves every woman that he knows in the same way he loves his wife, how can he say he loves his wife at all? If a man loves any and every woman, he becomes an adulterer. His wife is not special, and neither is anyone else.

Thomas Watson, 17^th century Puritan, describes our state before we believe:

Before this covenant there was nothing but enmity. God did not love us, for a creature that offends cannot be loved by a holy God; and we did not love him, since a God that condemns cannot be loved by a guilty creature; so that there was war on both sides. But God has found out a way in the new covenant to reconcile differing parties, so that it is fitly called the covenant of peace.[19]

We read the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son (Luke 15), but we ignore the implication of the meaning of being lost. For something to be lost, it first must belong. The sheep belongs to the shepherd. The coin belongs to the woman. The son belongs to the father. God’s children are God’s children, and he loves us and us alone. If he loved the children of another, we could not say that he honestly loved us. God’s love should always strengthen us to live holy lives, not just by the greatness of mercy he has shown us, but by the fear that it inspires, for as the author of the epistle to the Hebrews said, “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10.31).

Bibliography

Bradley, Jayson. “All Christians Are Hypocrites”, May 23, 2016. Retrieved from https://relevantmagazine.com/god/all-christians-are-hypocrites.

Bruce, F.F., General Editor. New International Commentary of the New Testament: John, by Leon Morris. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1971).

Frame, John. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief, (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2013)

Lloyd-Jones, D. Martyn. Studied in the Sermon on the Mount, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1981).

Mullins, Rich. “Rich Mullins – Step by Step (Sometimes by Step) Live.” Published at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OW-gjjwsag on January 26, 2012.

Outreach Magazine, “7 Startling Facts: An Up Close Look at Church Attendance in America”, April 10, 2018. Retrieved from https://churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/139575-7-startling-facts-an-up-close-look-at-church-attendance-in-america.html.

Robinson, Jeff. “Does God Love Everyone the Same?”, adapted from D.A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2000). Retrieved from https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/does-god-love-everyone-the-same/

R.C. Sproul, “Is it biblical to say that God loves everyone?”, adapted by Nathan Bingham, June 28, 2017. Retrieved from https://www.ligonier.org/blog/biblical-say-god-loves-everyone/

Thiessen, Henry C. Lectures in Systematic Theology, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979).

Turretin, Frances. Institutes of Elenctic Theology: Volume 1 (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1992).

VanGemeren, Willem A., General Editor. New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology: Volume 2, D.A. Baer and R.P. Gordon, “hesed” (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997).

Watson, Thomas. Body of Divinity, (Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1890).

---

[1] Statistics report between 20-40% of Americans regularly attend church. Specifically, only 23-25% of Americans attend church 3 out of every 8 Sundays. From Outreach Magazine, “7 Startling Facts: An Up Close Look at Church Attendance in America”, April 10, 2018. Retrieved from https://churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/139575-7-startling-facts-an-up-close-look-at-church-attendance-in-america.html.

[2] Relevant Magazine describes the struggle of the Church to maintain a consistent witness to the world and remain honest at the same time: Jayson Bradley, “All Christians Are Hypocrites”, May 23, 2016. Retrieved from https://relevantmagazine.com/god/all-christians-are-hypocrites.

[3] John Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief, (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2013), 236, quoting Frances Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology: Volume 1 (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1992), 242.

[4] Ibid, 237.

[5] Henry C. Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979), 86.

[6] Frame, 236 again quoting Turretin, 242, emphasis added.

[7] Frame, 237.

[8] D. Martyn Lloyd Jones, Studied in the Sermon on the Mount, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1981), 15-16.

[9] R.C. Sproul, “Is it biblical to say that God loves everyone?”, adapted by Nathan Bingham, June 28, 2017. Retrieved from https://www.ligonier.org/blog/biblical-say-god-loves-everyone/

[10] Jeff Robinson, “Does God Love Everyone the Same?”, adapted from D.A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2000). Retrieved from https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/does-god-love-everyone-the-same/

[11] F.F. Bruce, General Editor, New International Commentary of the New Testament: John, by Leon Morris. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1971), 229.

[12] Willem A. VanGemeren, General Editor, New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology: Volume 2, D.A. Baer and R.P. Gordon, “hesed” (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), 211.

[13] Ibid, 217.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid, 211.

[16] Ibid, 213.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Rich Mullins, “Rich Mullins – Step by Step (Sometimes by Step) Live.” Published at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OW-gjjwsag on January 26, 2012.

[19] Thomas Watson, Body of Divinity, (Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1890), 154.

abortion and responsibility

I encountered this dude who said that responsible people abort their children.

https://twitter.com/flashgo21/status/1079221800658178048

I replied: "but unprotected sex outside of marriage is ok"

https://twitter.com/TedTheCortez/status/1080491430995345408

Yeah, obviously I got a bit upset, called him a degenerate, blah blah blah. But let's examine what's going on here.

Is it responsible to murder an unborn child who isn't wanted? I don't think it is. It sounds responsible. It sounds like the right thing to do. I mean, that's what we're all after, "the right thing". What is the right thing?

I propose two things: self-control and marriage.

I believe it is more responsible and more sensible to control the urges of the body and wait until marriage. Yes this is difficult, but is that what we are now? Do we give up whenever something is difficult? Is that the standard of morality? If it's too hard, then it's wrong. Even animals care for their children. They don't rip open their own wombs and destroy the young because they're too lazy and selfish to care for them. You people are worse than animals. You live for your pleasure with no thought of the future, not only your future, but the future of the next generation, and of society as a whole. Here's more of this regrettable conversation:

Flash
no deflection ted. getting an abortion can be a very responsible decision

Self
Yeah you said that. I'm saying that truly responsible people consider the consequences of their actions in advance, sex being extremely consequential and all. I prefer to think of myself as a man with a will rather than an animal subject to whatever fleeting passions may arise.

Flash
you can consider yourself whatever you want teddy, no form of pre-coitus birthcontrol is 100% effective, as you should know given your interest in this debate. also interesting wording that pregnancy is a consequence in your world view. i wonder which archaic text that comes from

Self
oh my a diminutive. oh my anti religion. i'm not talking about birth control. i'm talking about being married. yeah religion. i wonder how society has lasted so long with all these religious rules hampering my fun. do you even think about the crap the atheists feed you? do you even consider for once that these "rules" of religion from this archaic text that has endured for millennia despite ignorami like you disregarding it? because it's right. but you want to throw it away so you can have your pleasure with your penis and then toss out the next generation like trash. you're the reason society is collapsing and i'm trying to keep it together. you're not responsible. you're a common atheist degenerate who believes in nothing but your own pleasure. gimme a break with your "responsibility"

I hate capitalization in social media by the way.

Thanks to Darwin, modern anti-reproductive science (which is hardly the culprit as there is little ideology involved in birth control) and the flood of atheistic dogma that has entrenched itself into our universities, we now have this guy, @flashgo21, who believes it is somehow responsible to engage in what used to be considered consequential, life-changing, weighty behavior, but is now simply another casual hobby. Yes, I am religious and I believe religion, exclusively the Christian religion, is correct.

Society rests on the edge of a blade, as it were, and every single one of us either works to maintain civilization or destroy it by our choices and our beliefs. Individual morality build the West, and this nation, as we agreed on principles that life is sacred, self-control is a virtue (among many others), and the family sits at the core of society and its future. Without principles, without true virtue, we will not survive as a nation or a society. In this regard, it matters little whether or not you trust in God as I do, only that you trust that these principles alone secure our future as a people who strive for kindness and "the right thing".

Free will

We are not free though. Whether you believe in God or whether you deny his existence, we are not free. Physics teaches that we are the product of an enormous chain of chemical, biological, and physical reactions reaching back to the beginning of time, and if we were diligent enough, and we were meticulous enough, we could look from the beginning of this chain and predict exactly the end of it, right here, right now, as you read this. Science teaches that you are determined.

Philosophy believes that we have free will, but what is philosophy after all? Philosophy is the reasoning of men reasoning about reason. Philosophy is a school of fish talking to each other about the world beyond the sea immediately before the fisherman catches them in a net to be eaten.

There is no fisherman.

We are not food.

Who cares what they think? They know nothing. 

The one escape, the last authority that may redeem us from the ignominious and humiliating jaws of fatalism, the Word of God, also teaches that we are determined. Impersonal forces set in motion at the beginning of time have not determined our existence and the events of our lives, however. God has and wholly without apology or qualification of any kind.

Modern "process theologians" believe that God limits or denies his sovereignty in order to allow man the dignity of free will. With free will, man can thwart the plans of God. God must then adjust his plans to allow for man's freedom. Who then is sovereign? Not God by any means. 

Nothing remotely similar to this "theology" can be verified through Scripture. 

God rules the mind of Nebuchadnezzar: 

Let his mind be changed from that of a man and let a beast's mind be given to him, and let seven periods of time pass over him. This sentence is by decree of the angelic watchers, and the decision is a command of the holy ones, in order that the living may know that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whom He wishes and sets over it the lowliest of men. 

Daniel 4.16-17 New American Standard Bible

Without explaining a single event, God assumes responsibility for the calamity of Job, rather than blame Satan:

Who is this that darkens counsel

By words without knowledge?

Now gird up your loins like a man,

And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell Me, if you have understanding,

Who set its measurements? Since you know.

Or who stretched the line on it?

On what were its bases sunk?

Or who laid its cornerstone,

When the morning stars sang together

And all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Job 38.1-2

Our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.

Psalm 115.3

God leads nations as with a cattle hook in the nose (Isaiah 37.29). He sent an evil spirit to lead men to their judgment (Judges 9.23). He hardens hearts and renders men unable to respond in faith (Exodus 4.21; 33.19; Isaiah 6.9-11; Matthew 13.10-17). He creates us for His purpose, for destruction or for mercy (Romans 9.21-23).

There is no such thing as true free will. In our pride, we grasp for it and cling to it, but if we humbly seek the truth, we will realize that we do not belong to ourselves, but to God, from birth to either eternal death or eternal life.