Get back to me when you have some experience with Father’s special providence in your life.
That is definitively false. There is nothing naturalistic about the timing. Reread the Rich Stearns account and stop insulting me.
Is this how you want to interpret the bible?
What makes you think I haven’t experienced God’s providence in my life. I have. However, what is described in the bible with respect to the red sea, the Jordan, the dead being raised, the blind seeing, the lame walking, demons being cast out etc is not just “Special providence”.
You would have to cut the bible into pieces and abandon large parts of it to explain these vents as acts of God’s “Special providence”.
What would motivate anyone to do this?
I am an engineer. I am very confident in the rules of nature. However, I don’t believe God is in any way constrained to work within the parameters of nature. He can and does do miracles.
Edit: Do you think Jesus fed the 5000 through “Special providence”?
You know that I don’t. Quit baiting me.
I am not baiting you. I am genuinely curious why you think providentialism explains creation.
And what makes you think providentialism is compatible with evolution?
Let me point out some specific qualities of providentialism which are in direct contradiction to evolution-
- Teleology - God created with teh end result in mind.
- Design - God is intricately involved in how organisms function and the design of life is his handiwork. (This is directly connected to God’s omniscience).
- It’s supernatural: In that nature does not have the ability to create. Everything it has is given to it.
The above three is intelligent design if anything.
The theological question is simple. Does nature have an inherent ability to create (even through accidents). The answer is no. If nature creates anything, then this ability is given by God and the end result is fixed according to God’s purpose.
None of those, zero, are contradictory to God’s providence. Purpose and design are implicit in providence. Good grief. How are they not? Sometimes God’s providence does break natural laws, but often it does not.
And I emphatically agree. When I hear that evolution has designed something, I roll my eyes and cringe.
That’s a pretty decent description of God’s providence at work. 
Is God not able to control when and where atoms and molecules associate (as in abiogenesis) and when and where mutations occur in DNA? If we could turn back the hypothetical clock 14.8 Ga and start over, we would have exactly who and what we have today. God’s purposes are not thwarted.
The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.
‘Luck’ and ‘chance’ and ‘accident’ are not in my working vocabulary, and this is my favorite quote:
“You have to believe in free will, you have no choice.” I.B. Singer
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I wrote -
So the point is that providential-ism is fundamentally in contradiction with evolutionary theory as an explanation for how living organism came to be.
As per the theory of evolution, the end result would not be the same if the clock was turned back.
Are you proposing some kind of scenario where God set things into motion 14.8 billion years ago and then everything happened on its own? If so, that’s a form of deism.
The question is not whether God can control atoms and molecules. The question is how he does it. I believe God sustains the universe and hence i view the “Laws of Nature” as a description of how God has and continues to arrange the universe. I dont think the “laws of nature” have any ontogenic existence other than in the preferences/choices of God.
‘Luck’ and ‘chance’ and ‘accident’ are not in my working vocabulary, and this is my favorite quote:
“You have to believe in free will, you have no choice.” I.B. Singer
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Take a pair of dice. make a decision that you will renounce Christianity if the dies falls into an even number. Can you guarantee it wont? if it did, would you claim it was God’s decision for you to be no longer christian?
The above scenario should tell you what free will is and why Dice have nothing to do with it 
Again, no, it is not. Why do you deny that God could providentially arrange things on a molecular scale as he does on macro scale in our lives?
…is controlled by God, as recognized by those of us who know who really in control. Philosophical naturalists, obviously cannot believe that, but we can.
No, it is not a form of deism, because God is actively involved in the sustenance of his creation. Have you not read?:
That’s pretty funny. I am a Christian because of God’s will, not my own. Did you have a choice in being born? Neither did you in being born again.
So those who are not born again can’t be blamed for not making a choice… Because they are incapable of making the choice?
Haven’t you read…
…to all who received him, those believing in his name, he gave authority to become God’s children.
Being born again is a miracle of God. However, this miracle is in response to a free will choice.
From man’s perspective, perhaps.
In any case, those who have truly had their hearts changed need not worry about losing their salvation or reversing their decision. It’s difficult to be unadopted or unborn (including unborn again).
The Christian’s Confidence
Not really. I am not a Calvinist… and frankly, I don’t think the apostles were either.
You are looking at it too narrowly. Being born again is better understood as being revived into a relationship with God through the Spirit of God.
Is it possible for the Holy Spirit to be taken away?
Is it possible for someone who has been brought to life to die?
The answer is that this is possible.
I believe that we are safe in Christ’s hands and no one can snatch us away. But can we reject him and leave… Many obviously do.
The Christian’s Confidence
Can a loved and loving adopted child become unadopted?
Interesting article by the way.
The author is basically asking the reader to ignore the Calvinistic teachings on election and trust that Jesus came to Save the lost and has no predetermined list of the “elect”.
That’s the truth.
John 3: 16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his unique Son so that everyone who believes in him might not be lost but have eternal life.
God has loved us freely… Will he coerce us to love him? Is it in his character to coerce some into loving him and then leaving the rest to perish?
If God was into coercing love and obedience, wouldn’t he do it to all people?
God’s love is free and his yoke is born freely without coercion. As Jesus said -
Mathew11: 28 “Come to me, all of you who are weary and loaded down with burdens, and I will give you rest.
29 Place my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest for your souls,
30 because my yoke is pleasant, and my burden is light.”
His yoke is taken up willingly.
I have no argument with that, but neither can the believer lose his salvation. The ‘believist’ or ‘mere professor’ can turn away, but once a child of God, always a child of God.
(@moderators: We should split this, back at about #109.)
So what about the biblical warnings about apostasy?
If its to “believists”, then it’s a waste of ink as they cannot fall away from something they don’t have.
If its to the “child of God”, then it’s waste of ink again as it’s impossible for true children of God to fall away.
Why would Jesus say things like the verse below-
Revelation 3: 4 But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me in white clothes because they are worthy.
5 The person who conquers in this way will wear white clothes, and I will never erase his name from the Book of Life. I will acknowledge his name in the presence of my Father and his angels.
Shouldn’t we take Jesus warning seriously? If its impossible to erase someone’s name from the book of life, then why make the threat? Is Jesus making an empty threat here?
Anyway, all of this is out of topic… though it’s hard to resist discussing these things…