What I mean is 2 different ways that He accomplishes His will
Are you referring to ordinary providence here?
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What I mean is 2 different ways that He accomplishes His will
Mankind has no control over providence. We are simply living out the providence in what we see and understand as time.
Again, and no one has yet to address this question, could Judas have refused to sell out Jesus?
I am just simply saying that those means He uses and how He uses them were decreed before time as we know it began.
The Puritan writings on providence are easy to read, yet they are deeply thought provoking. They are biblically focused, yet they throb with a sense of God’s ongoing activity. They are rigorously Reformed, yet they are wonderfully sensitive to human pain. They were written for people living in a time of social, political, and religious upheaval in the seventeenth century. They were written for people who knew a great deal of the angst that we moderns often mistakenly view as peculiarly modern or even postmodern. The Puritan writings also apply to people in the twenty-first century who suffer massive change. More than that, they spell out clearly some biblical principles that Christians today desperately need to hear:
• God is in control of His universe.
• God is working out His perfect purposes, also in my life.
• God is not my servant.
• God’s ways are far more mysterious and wonderful than I can understand.
• God is always good; I can always trust Him.
• God’s timetable is not the same as mine.
• God is far more interested in what I become than in what I do.
• Freedom from suffering is not promised in the Christian gospel.
• Suffering is an integral part of the Christian life.
• God works through suffering to fulfill His purposes in me.
• God’s purposes, not mine, are what bring Him glory.
• God enables me to read His providences through the lens of His Word.
• I have few greater pleasures than tracing the wonders of God’s ways.
Beeke, J. R., & Jones, M. (2012). A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (p. 177). Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books.
There is also a "prescriptive will" of God, that is, God's will for mankind. E.g. Don't steal, don't lie, don't commit adultery. His permissive will is that He allows us to steal, lie and commit adultery.
"In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will" (Ephesians 1:11).
b. It is a bona fide calling. The external calling is a calling in good faith, a calling that is
seriously meant. It is not an invitation coupled with the hope that it will not be
accepted. When God calls the sinner to accept Christ by faith, He earnestly desires this;
and when He promises those who repent and believe eternal life, His promise is
dependable. This follows from the very nature, from the veracity, of God. It is
blasphemous to think that God would be guilty of equivocation and deception, that He
would say one thing and mean another, that He would earnestly plead with the sinner
to repent and believe unto salvation, and at the same time not desire it in any sense of
the word. The bona fide character of the external call is proved by the following passages
of Scripture: Num. 23:19; Ps. 81:13-16; Prov. 1:24; Isa. 1:18-20; Ezek. 18:23,32; 33:11; Matt.
21:37; II Tim. 2:13. The Canons of Dort also assert it explicitly in III and IV, 8. Several
objections have been offered to the idea of such a bona fide offer of salvation. (1) One
objection is derived from the veracity of God. It is said that, according to this doctrine,
He offers the forgiveness of sins and eternal life to those for whom He has not intended
these gifts. It need not be denied that there is a real difficulty at this point, but this is the
difficulty with which we are always confronted, when we seek to harmonize the
decretive and the preceptive will of God, a difficulty which even the objectors cannot
solve and often simply ignore. Yet we may not assume that the two are really
contradictory. The decretive will of God determines what will most certainly come to
pass (without necessarily implying that God really takes delight in all of it, as, for
instance, in all kinds of sin), while the preceptive will is man’s rule of life, informing
him as to what is well pleasing in the sight of God. Furthermore, it should be borne in
mind that God does not offer sinners the forgiveness of sins and eternal life
unconditionally, but only in the way of faith and conversion; and that the righteousness
of Christ, though not intended for all, is yet sufficient for all.
Systematic Theology by Lewis Berkof pp512, Part 4: THE DOCTRINE OF THE APPLICATION OF THE WORK OF REDEMPTION , Chapter 6: Regeneration and Effectual Calling, Part C External Calling
I am just simply saying that those means He uses and how He uses them were decreed before time as we know it began.
Not sure that this is helpful language given that every event takes place in the eternal present of God's decrees. When we start thinking in terms of decrees "before time began" we end up with causal determinism of some sort. That is, if we affirm the reality of secondary causation and begin thinking of God's decrees as taking place "before time" (which is itself confused) then we end up with a Christianized deism where God initiates first causes and then intervenes in the clockwork of the world from time to time, but by and large there are chains of cause and effect that could not be otherwise.
As for our Judas case, it's fairly clear, even within the text, that Judas' essential moral freedom is preserved, as Pharaoh's was, and yet God is giving him over to evil precisely because Judas had chosen it. One of the sobering things about the narrative is how it illustrates that God often punishes by giving people exactly what they want, which is sin, and is gracious when He removes it.
A further question would be how prayer works within the decrees of God.
His freedom was preserved because his actions flowed from his heart. Correct?
Basically Judas did exactly what he wanted to do at every point in time, and made decisions based on his senses, his thoughts and using every aspect of his reason in an identical way in which any regenerate saint of God has the full capacity to do.
The only difference between Judas and the apostle John, was that God hated Judas, but loved John. Roman 9:20
His freedom was preserved because his actions flowed from his heart. Correct?
Right. God did not cause Judas to sin. Judas caused Judas to sin, even as that action was within the will of God.
To say He caused Judas to do something means that Judas did not want to but God forced Him to.
Basically Judas did exactly what he wanted to do at every point in time, and made decisions based on his senses, his thoughts and using every aspect of his reason in an identical way in which any regenerate saint of God has the full capacity to do.
The only difference between Judas and the apostle John, was that God hated Judas, but loved John. Roman 9:20
Are you saying that Judas was regenerated? And if so, does God hate some of those who are?
Turretin and others were wise to say that these so-called "wills" in God were actually distinctions or modes of the one divine will. Strictly speaking, there is only one will (classically defined) in God