You Sunk My Arminian Battleship!

How Arminianism Allows Calvinism to Escape the Charge of 'Author of Evil'

Did God allow sin to occur? Yes.
Is God committing some moral wrong by allowing sin to occur? No, God is free to allow anything He wishes (take it up with Him if you disagree).

http://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/fallacies-of-calvinist-apologetics-fallacy-8-calvinism-doesnt-charge-god-with-the-authorship-of-sin/#comment-4757

Did God determine sin to occur? Yes.

Is God committing some moral wrong by determining sin to occur? No, God is free to determine anything he wishes (take it up with him if you disagree).

How Arminianism Makes God the Author of Evil

That’s confusing different kinds of sources; I’m using ‘source’ in an originative sense. Look under ‘What is meant by ‘author of sin?’’

http://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/fallacies-of-calvinist-apologetics-fallacy-8-calvinism-doesnt-charge-god-with-the-authorship-of-sin/#comment-4754

Consider the damage caused by this tornado:



Obviously, the tornado isn't an agent with indeterministic free will. Clearly, the ultimate originator of the tornado's action is God. In fact, we can't even say the tornado caused the damage. It's like a puppet. As the Bible makes clear, the weather originates with God. He determines and controls the weather. The evil and destruction caused by tornadoes &c are not ultimately originated by some immaterial tornado self that creates its destructive path ex nihilo.

Rather:

Psalm. 148:8 lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
stormy winds that do his bidding,

Jonah 1:4 Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.

Psalm 42:7 in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.

Amos 3:6 When a trumpet sounds in a city,
do not the people tremble?
When disaster comes to a city,
has not the LORD caused it?

Since Arminians consider humans on the Calvinist understanding to be similar to lightning bolts, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc., in that they lack personhood and ultimate originative abilities, as well as ability to do or think otherwise, then the Arminians must call God the author of evil since there is no doubt that children dying from starvation (every day, almost 16000 children die from hunger-related causes) due to droughts God determined is an evil:



And God is the agent who originated this (if a human had the ability to control weather and caused a drought, killing many children, he would be morally culpable) evil, and since origination of evil means author of evil, then God is the author of evil on Arminianism. On Arminian assumptions, humans are no different than the above phenomena under the assumption of what Arminians' claim Calvinism teaches about humans vis-a-vis God's providential control. So what's the morally relevant distinction between God using a impersonal "human" to create destruction and an impersonal tornado? So, there's a similar thing going on in Arminianism that they claim is going on in Calvinism. And it is that thing that Arminians claim makes God the author of evil.

Of course, Arminians can respond that God has good reasons for the evil he allows, and thus isn't the author of evil in a morally culpable way, but then he gives up the argument against Calvinism.

Or, perhaps Arminians can admit that humans-on-Calvinism are quite different than weather phenomena (i.e., they have originative powers in the morally relevant way, they are personal, they act, they intend, and they can be held responsible for it even if they have been determined to act or intend how they do, etc), but then (again!) he gives up the argument against Calvinism.

Or, I suppose they can deny what looks to be the clear biblical teaching about God's relationship of control and determiner of the weather. But apart from the ad hoc nature of this move, the demoted (even for Arminians) status of God and his providential governing, the Arminian loses his appeal to the "clear" sounding passages about God's saving love for all whoever and Jesus' death for all whoever. Much of their arguments here rest on "the clear" teaching of Scripture. Lastly, they have argued that the Bible uses common sense terms that presuppose what common man would assume about those terms. If so, the above passages read by a common man would be read that God controls the weather like a manipulator controls a marionette.