Thus Scripture reveals that both human agency and divine agency are to be fully affirmed without attempting to tell us how this can be, because we have no way to understand it, no matter what Scripture would say: all of our analogies concerning different agents or different kinds of agency must be drawn from what [...]
Archive for the ‘foreordination and man's choice’ Category
We Lack the Conceptual Wherewithal
Posted in Mark Talbot, foreordination and man's choice, unattainable knowledge on August 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
We Can Understand Why We Cannot Understand
Posted in Mark Talbot, foreordination and man's choice, unattainable knowledge on August 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“But,” you ask, “how can this possibly be? How can Joseph’s brothers have acted freely and responsibly if what they did was what God had previously ordained? How can Pilate and Herod and Judas and the Jewish people be properly blamed fror what God had predestined to take place? How can God govern the choices [...]
God Is the Primary Agent
Posted in Mark Talbot, foreordination and man's choice on August 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
So the biblical view is this: God has ordained or willed or planned everything that happens in our world from before creation, from before time began. God is the primary agent – the primary cause, the final and ultimate explanation – of everything that happens, yet the causal relationship between God and His creatures is such that [...]
God Sustained Them in Their Sin
Posted in Mark Talbot, foreordination and man's choice on August 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
God, as the One who actively sustains all things (see again Heb. 1:3 with Col 1:17), was the source of their being. But they, as Adam’s descendants, were the sole source of their sin. Their sinful inclinations made them the authors of their own sin. And, consequently, they did evil while God did not, for [...]
He is Never Absent or Inactive
Posted in Mark Talbot, foreordination and man's choice, sovereignty on August 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
All of history is composed of this sort of dual explanation: God foreordains what humans choose. He is never absent or inactive when human beings hurt each other or themselves. In the person of His Son, He is always in our midst, as the One who holds each and every aspect of creation, including all [...]
Paul’s Shipwreck and God’s Foreordination
Posted in Mark Talbot, foreordination and man's choice on August 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The story of Paul’s shipwreck in Acts 27 involves the same sort of dual explanation [of both God's sovereignty and man's choice]. In verses 22-25, God promised categorically through Paul that no one on the ship was going to be lost. Yet later when some of the sailors were secretly trying to jump ship, Paul [...]
