Tuesday, August 21, 2012

God's antecedent and consequent will

rogereolson says:
August 21, 2012 at 12:13 pm

The Joseph story is always brought up by Calvinists, but Arminians (and the early church fathers and non-Augustinians throughout the ages) have always had a simple explanation. I don’t know why Calvinists don’t seem to get it. God has an antecedent will and a consequent will. In his antecedent will God did not want Joseph sold into slavery by his brothers because that would be wanting them to sin. In his antecedent will he used Joseph’s brothers sin of selling him into slavery to bring about something good. Simple.


i) The text of the Joseph cycle doesn’t distinguish between a divine antecedent will and a divine consequent will. That is Olson’s makeshift interpolation, which he imposes on the text.

ii) Moreover, imputing contradictory wills to God simply generates a new problem.

4 comments:

  1. Simple.

    ...shouldn't the previous sentence be about God's "consequent" will?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Doesn't seem he has the end in view?

    How can the Omega talk this way about the Alpha and everything in between and not miss a beat or establish a point?

    "Simple"!

    ReplyDelete
  3. "ii) Moreover, imputing contradictory wills to God simply generates a new problem."

    I'm slightly confused. I always thought that God's moral will could be contradicted by His decretive will- have I misunderstood?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's not a conceptual contradiction, but a verbal contradiction based on using the same noun ("will") in different cases. It's just a conventional way of labeling things.

      Delete