🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽

Grateful recipient of God's grace and forgiveness.

Attorney. Husker 🏈🏀. Sharks 🏒. Giants ⚾. Future guide on Disneyland's Jungle Cruise. #GoArmy #FinsUp

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

If you're visiting my profile from some other post, hello! I get along with pretty much everyone. That probably includes you, even if we disagree. Remember, the measure of a person isn't politics; it's how they treat others, especially those who can do nothing for (or to) them.

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

@TuLoong88 @historyinmemes

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

Because the woman was about to become a villain/tyrant on the level of the guy Katniss chose not to shoot (who was pretty darn bad). But the guy villain had lost all his power, while the female was just on the cusp of obtaining hers. Katniss destroyed the incipient tyranny rather than the defeated one.

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

You're certainly entitled to your opinion! And again, I'm not saying California is well-run by any stretch. But a lot of city-specific issues arise from poor city governance more than anything else. I've been to some pretty unpleasant places and California is not (again, yet) in their class at all.

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

I don't think such things are "acceptable." All I'm saying is that I don't think California as a whole (yet) qualifies as a "failed state" or a "disaster." Could those particular parts of LA be a disaster? Sure, but they're not the whole state (I'm a NorCal guy, so unfamiliar with the ins and outs of LA's particular issues).

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

@realjacobsrival @evanwch "Failed state" is pretty strong. Do we have some pretty serious problems that no one seems interested in addressing? Sure. Are we, say, Haiti? We are not.

So while things aren't good, and (IMO) aren't trending up, I don't know that I'd call California as a whole a "disaster."

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

@realjacobsrival @evanwch He did not say that. There's a pretty big gap between "not a disaster " and "good."

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

@1984_nate Dead people don't sin either so. 🤷‍♂️

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

Romans 1:18 says God reveals His wrath against ungodliness. It doesn't say God does not love sinners.

God poured out His wrath on Israel repeatedly while still loving Israel. Judgment and love are not mutually exclusive categories in Scripture.

And Romans 5:8 emphasizes that God's love was demonstrated "while we were still sinners." The point of the verse is the timing of God's love, not the prior existence of election.

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

Are you sure? I agree that God hates sin and that unrepentant sinners remain under His judgment.

But I don't see Scripture saying God only loves people after they repent.

"God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:8)

If God loved me only after I repented, then He never loved me at all until after He had already changed me.

The Gospel seems to present repentance as a response to God's love, not the condition that causes God to begin loving us.

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

@MSScienceWizard @AlphaForDummies @ArchTheAtheist There is plenty of evidence for widespread persecution, although it was off-and-on, largely depending on the emperor at the time.

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

@ajay1227 @ProvisionistP It seems to me that forgiveness and love can indicate a heart for God. I'm not saying Esau was definitely regenerate; I'm saying the case against him isn't open-and-shut.

And God loves and draws everyone.

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

Hebrews says Esau was "godless" *in selling his inheritance*, and that he was rejected *with respect to the blessing he had forfeited*.

That's different from saying God never loved him salvifically or that there is no evidence of grace in his life.

The question isn't whether Esau sinned/made big mistakes. Of course he did.

The question is whether Scripture presents him as nothing more than a permanently hardened object of divine hatred.

When Genesis revisits Esau years later, we find him running to meet Jacob, embracing him, kissing him, and weeping with him despite Jacob's deception.

That doesn't prove Esau was saved. But it does suggest his biblical portrait is more nuanced than "godless, rejected, case closed."

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

The real question is how much evidence God would provide if His goal was not merely to prove a fact, but to invite a relationship that allows for genuine acceptance or rejection.

Even in the biblical narrative, many people witnessed miracles firsthand and still didn't believe. If someone can explain away a resurrection claim, they can explain away photographs, government records, or anything else as well.

And while being the largest religion doesn't prove Christianity is true, it is at least relevant that a movement centered on a crucified and risen Messiah spread throughout the Roman Empire despite centuries of persecution, beginning with people who claimed to be eyewitnesses.

My argument isn't "Christianity is true because it's big."

My argument is that Christianity's survival and growth are at least consistent with the possibility that God knew exactly what He was doing.

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

@AlphaForDummies @ArchTheAtheist And yet--somehow--it became the largest religion in the world, despite its adherents being terribly persecuted over the first 300 years of its existence.

Maybe God knows what He's doing. 🙂

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

Every theological system does makes distinctions. My point is that they seem to run in only one direction.

In Calvinism, when Scripture speaks of God's love for the world, desire that all be saved, unwillingness that any perish, grief over sin, or lament over Jerusalem, those texts are routinely qualified by appeals to election, decretive will, effectual calling, and divine sovereignty.

But when Scripture speaks of election, reprobation, effectual calling, or God's sovereign decree, those texts are rarely qualified by appeals to God's universal salvific desire, love for the world, or grief over the lost.

In other words, the sovereignty texts function as the controlling grid through which the love texts are interpreted, but not vice versa.

That's what I mean by "privileging sovereignty over love."

To put it differently, if I approached Romans 9 the way Calvinists approach 1 Tim. 2:4, I might say, "Paul is discussing Israel's historical role in redemptive history, so we should not read this as referring to individual salvation." Calvinists generally reject that move because they believe the broader theological implications of the text extend beyond its immediate context.

My question is why similar broader implications are permitted for Romans 9 and John 6, but resisted in 1 Tim. 2, 2 Pet. 3, Ezek. 33, and Matt. 23.

The non-Calvinist has a simple answer to this question: "f God desires all to be saved, yet all are not saved, then how can God desire something that does not happen?"

P1) God desires a genuine love relationship with His image-bearing creatures.

P2) A genuine love relationship cannot exist if one party has no ability whatsoever to reject it.

C) Therefore, if God desires a genuine love relationship with His image-bearing creatures, He must permit the possibility of rejection.

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

I appreciate the thoughtful response.

My concern remains that Calvinism does not apply the same hermeneutic consistently.

I agree that context matters. My question is whether the contexts require Calvinism's narrower reading.

For example, in 1 Tim. 2, the mention of kings and rulers certainly supports the idea that God's concern extends beyond one class of people. But does that require us to read "all people" as "all kinds of people" rather than all people generally? I don't believe it does.

Likewise, in 2 Pet. 3, I understand the argument that Peter is writing to believers. But does that require "not wishing that any should perish" to mean "not wishing any of the elect should perish," or is that conclusion being imported from the system?

And in John 12, the presence of Greeks certainly shows that Gentiles are included. But showing that Gentiles are included is not the same thing as showing that "all people" means only "all kinds of people."

My concern is that the narrower reading is repeatedly chosen in passages about God's salvific desire, while the broadest possible reading is chosen in passages about election and effectual calling.

Romans 9 is addressed in a Jewish context. John 6 is spoken to a particular audience. So why is John 12 limited by context, but John 6 is not?

So my question is not whether context matters. It absolutely does. My question is why context is considered decisive in narrowing the love texts, but not equally decisive in limiting the sovereignty texts.

That seems to predetermine the outcome.

And I don't think the decretive/preceptive will distinction fully resolves the issue. It explains how Calvinism reconciles the texts, but it doesn't answer the underlying question: in what meaningful sense does God desire the salvation of the non-elect or sorrow over the death of the wicked if He eternally decreed their damnation and could have done otherwise?

Likewise, with Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, I agree that His sorrow was real. But that is precisely my question. If their rejection was eternally decreed and could never have been otherwise, what exactly is the object of His lament?

When Jesus says, "How often I wanted . . . and you were unwilling," the most natural reading is that Christ genuinely desired something that those He addressed genuinely resisted.

You say God feels the full weight of sin's tragedy. But under exhaustive determinism, there did not have to be sin or tragedy at all. God could have decreed every person righteous, regenerate, and saved. So if He instead decreed billions of people into inevitable damnation, then appealing to "tragedy" does not really answer the concern.

And a universal call to repent made to people who have no ability to respond seems difficult to square with God's revealed character. God does whatever He pleases, yes. But whatever He pleases is not arbitrary or capricious. It is consistent with His love, justice, mercy, and sincerity.

Finally, God's desire for universal salvation is not the only thing God desires. God may also desire a genuinely reciprocal relationship with creatures capable of accepting or rejecting Him. The existence of resistance does not mean God has failed. It is the natural result of allowing creatures to accept or resist grace.

Again, I find it more in line with God's revealed character to conclude that His salvific desire genuinely extends to all people, that Christ genuinely desires the salvation of those who reject Him, and that God's grace can be resisted. That seems to fit the universal language of Scripture without repeatedly narrowing its scope.

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

@2EdgedClaymore @1984_nate You really don't. You have the freedom to choose A or B. You choose A. Because God knows everything, including you, intimately, He knew what you would freely choose in that situation. That doesn’t mean He made the choice FOR you.

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

@_jonbowlin @isaiah489 @rootcausesleuth @torporade Under Calvinism, God's feeling towards the reprobate cannot be described as "love" in any meaningful way, and certainly not in a 1 Cor 13 sense.

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

If a Calvinist affirms both: 1) that God genuinely desires the salvation of all people; and 2) that Christ died for all people, my question is then: if God desires the salvation of every person, Christ died for every person, and God has the power to save every person, why does He withhold the grace necessary for many people to believe?

In other words, what prevents the salvation of the non-elect?

The non-Calvinist answer is that God permits resistance because God wants us to love Him freely.

The Calvinist answer is that God chooses not to grant the grace necessary for faith.

At that point, I'm not concerned about the extent of the atonement, but about how God's salvific desire toward the non-elect can be at all meaningful if He eternally withholds the very grace required for them to respond.

So the issue ultimately remains the same: how can God genuinely desire the salvation of those He has decided not to save?

[🌽🎈Todd Thacker 🎈🌽 @todd_thacker]

Sure.

P1. Scripture teaches that God loves the world (John 3:16), desires all people to be saved (1 Tim. 2:3-4), is not willing that any should perish (2 Pet. 3:9), takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezek. 33:11), and genuinely laments the rejection of those who refuse Him (Matt. 23:37).

P2. The natural reading of those passages is that God's salvific desire extends even to those who ultimately perish.

P3. Calvinism teaches that God eternally decreed not to save many of those same people and could have irresistibly saved them had He chosen to do so.

P4. Therefore, Calvinism must reinterpret the universal language of God's salvific desire ("all," "world," "any," etc.) or distinguish between different senses of God's will in order to avoid a contradiction.

P5. In practice, this means texts about God's love, grief, compassion, and desire for repentance are qualified or narrowed by texts concerning election and sovereignty.

C. Therefore, Calvinism gives interpretive priority to sovereignty and election over texts describing God's universal salvific love and desire, resulting in a picture of God's character that I find less faithful to the whole counsel of Scripture.