More Examples Of Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security

In the ninth century, Rabanus Maurus wrote:

Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security

I wrote a post about the subject in 2007. Below are links to my recent series on the topic. I expect to add further links to this page in the future, as I write more material that's relevant.

Part 1: Preliminaries, Some Earlier Sources
Part 2: Augustine And His Opponents
Part 3: The Mercyists
Part 4: Some Other Sources

I later wrote about some medieval sources supporting eternal security.

And here's a post about some relevant comments made by Caesarius of Arles.

Go here for a discussion of support for eternal security in Jerome's Letter 119 and his commentary on Amos.

Another post discussed how pre-Reformation sources interpreted Biblical passages that have been cited in support of eternal security.

Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security (Part 4)

Jerome wrote, regarding Jovinian, a monk who was a contemporary:

"He endeavours to show that 'they who with full assurance of faith have been born again in baptism, cannot be overthrown by the devil.'…The second proposition of Jovinianus is that the baptized cannot be tempted by the devil. And to escape the imputation of folly in saying this, he adds: 'But if any are tempted, it only shows that they were baptized with water, not with the Spirit, as we read was the case with Simon Magus.'…Does any one think that we are safe, and that it is right to fall asleep when once we have been baptized?…And we flatter ourselves on the ground of our baptism, which though it put away the sins of the past, cannot keep us for the time to come, unless the baptized keep their hearts with all diligence." (Against Jovinianus, 1:3, 2:1, 2:3-4)

Whether Jerome was consistent in his beliefs on these matters and how to reconcile them with the later comments he made about mercyism, discussed in my last post, are distinct issues from what I'm focused on in this post. My focus here is on Jovinian's views, not Jerome's.

The Protestant historian Philip Schaff wrote:

"Jovinian's second point has an apparent affinity with the Augustinian and Calvinistic doctrine of the perseverantia sanctorum. It is not referred by him, however, to the eternal and unchangeable counsel of God, but simply based on 1 Jno. iii. 9, and v. 18, and is connected with his abstract conception of the opposite moral states. He limits the impossibility of relapse to the truly regenerate, who 'plena fide in baptismate renati sunt,' and makes a distinction between the mere baptism of water and the baptism of the Spirit, which involves also a distinction between the actual and the ideal church." (History Of The Christian Church, 3:4:46)

Gregory Lombardo, a Roman Catholic scholar, wrote:

"Jovinian exaggerated the justifying efficacy of baptism, so much so that he asserted that it was impossible for a baptised person to commit sin…What Jovinian was really teaching was salvation by faith alone, without works. All that is necessary is to receive baptism with a full faith. The rest - marriage, virginity, fasting, and any other good work - mattered little, since one was no better than the other in merit, and since it was really not necessary to perform them to be saved. Baptism and a full faith made it impossible for a person to fall away." (St. Augustine: On Faith And Works [New York, New York: The Newman Press, 1988], n. 10 on p. 65; n. 34 on p. 75)

In the eighth century, Bede wrote against "those who understand by this [justification apart from works] that it does not matter whether they live evil lives or do wicked and terrible things, as long as they believe in Christ, because salvation is through faith" (cited in Gerald Bray, ed., Ancient Christian Commentary On Scripture: New Testament XI: James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2000], 31). He made those comments in his commentary on James. I've read that commentary, and the version I've read renders Bede's comments in a way that suggests that Bede is placing the individuals in question in the first century (David Hurst, trans., Bede The Venerable: Commentary On The Seven Catholic Epistles [Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1985], 30). Hurst's translation suggests that Bede was attributing the view in question to some people the apostles were correcting in the first century, whereas the translation used by Bray leaves the timeframe unspecified. Whichever translation is correct, Bede thought that such a view had been held by some people by the time he wrote.

As I have time for it in the future, I may discuss further examples of partial or full support for eternal security among extrabiblical, pre-Reformation sources. But the examples I've provided over these last few posts are enough to demonstrate some significant problems with the documentary I'm responding to.

Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security (Part 3)

In his translation of Augustine's work cited in my last post, Gregory Lombardo wrote the following about some of the individuals Augustine was responding to:

Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security (Part 1)

A documentary arguing against eternal security recently came out. It's mainly about the Biblical evidence, but it makes some comments about extrabiblical history along the way. Since it makes some misleading comments about the extrabiblical sources, and advocates of eternal security have handled those sources so poorly, I want to comment on the subject. It's not one of my primary areas of research, but I know enough about the topic to provide some information that significantly undermines the documentary's claims.

Can a Christian be demon-possessed?

1. If you're a freewill theist, then that commits you to the proposition that a Christian can be demon-possessed. And that's because a freewill theism believes a Christian can lose his salvation. If, a fortiori, a Christian can lose his salvation, then he can be demonically possessed. It's an argument from the greater to the lesser. If loss of salvation is possible, that's a greater case than possession. If something is possible in the greater case, then that includes the possibility of lesser cases.

Isn't subjection to demons a less radical condition than reversion to an unsaved condition? For a Christian to be possessed would be a horrific degree of subjection, yet lack or loss of salvation isn't a matter of degree but having nothing to counterbalance possession. If a believer can be possessed, that generates enormous tension between two opposing forces, but in the case of lack or loss of salvation, there is no tension because there's nothing on the other side (the Holy Spirit) to counteract the evil. 

Indeed, to be unsaved makes unbelievers liable to demonic possession. Conversion is sometimes an exorcism which liberates unbelievers from possession. So a reversal in your spiritual status, by losing you salvation, would render you vulnerable to the possession all over again. 

Now a freewill theist might object by saying that's not a case of  believer being possessed, but a former believer. But that takes us back to the a fortiori argument. 

2. So the upshot is that I think we have a clearcut answer to the question where freewill theism is concern. The answer is less clear in the case of Calvinism due to ambiguities in the concept of possession, including degrees of sin. Christians are sinners. What degree of sin is compatible with being a sinner? That's one of those sorites paradox questions. 

Did Jesus die for the damned?

From a Facebook exchange:

Davenant cites Zanchi saying:

"It is not false that Christ died for all men: for the passion of Christ is offered to all in the Gospel. But he died effectually for the elect alone, because indeed they only are made partakers of the efficacy of the passion of Christ."

Hays 

How is the passion of Christ offered to all in the Gospel unless all hear the Gospel?

Jorge

I don’t think that is the point of the quote (not the main one at least), but that when the gospel is offered at earshot, it is truly offered irrespective of election.

Hays 

Perhaps, but that still wouldn't mean Christ died for all men.

Jorge 

If the offer is real and objective, then he did. Even in a sense.

Hays 

Well, the offer of the Gospel is conditional. If you repent of your sin and believe in Christ, you will be saved. Which doesn't entail universal atonement.

Jorge 

What is being offered is there is nothing to give for some?

Hays 

Again, it's conditional. Christ died for those who respond to the offer.

Jorge 

Sure, it is conditional and all that, but what is he offering to those who don’t respond positively?

Hays 

It's not a promise to those who don't respond. The offer is contingent on a receptive response.

Jorge

So, there is no offer until the hearer responds positively?

Hays 

No, it has nothing to do with chronology. It's not like there's some leftover atonement for sin for those who refuse the offer. Christ never died to atone for the sins of those who refuse the offer.

Jorge

That is an affirmation. But I keep asking, what is being offered to those who will reject?

Hays 

It's not an offer to those who reject it but to those who accept it.

Jorge

So, what is it for those who reject it?

Hays 

It's a promise provided that the offer is accepted.

Jorge

So, it is an offer. You previously said it wasn’t.

Hays 

No, it's a qualified offer. Why is that distinction so difficult to grasp? In one sense you could say those who reject it are promised nothing. Or you could say they are counterfactually promised something (if they were to accept it).

Jorge 

So, if some reject it, do they reject nothing?

Hays 

i) There's nothing in reserve for those who refuse to comply with the terms of the offer.

ii) You keep ignoring the qualified nature of the offer–as if it's either simply a promise or simply not a promise.

iii) The problem is looking for a shortcut formula to reconcile particularist passages of Scripture with universal sounding passages. It's a facile solution that doesn't work.

What's required is to exegete the more universal sounding passages to show that they are in fact consistent with the particularist passages.

Terry

The problem you have in seeing what is being said is your categories. You are falling into the error of thinking in terms of quantity rather than quality. Pecuniary rather than penal. Christ death was not a commercial transaction with the Father...so much suffering for so many sins plural.

Hays 

i) To begin with, you're making ignorant assumptions about my position. I don't take the position that Christ died for x number of sins, but that he died for x number of sinners. 

ii) In addition, "died for" is shorthand for "died with the intention of saving." Jesus didn't die with the intention of saving those who will never be saved.

Is the God of open theism trustworthy?

We're all mind-numbingly familiar with objections to Calvinism, but the flip side is whether the God of open theism is a God who can be taken seriously. Say what you will about Calvinism, but that's a God to be taken seriously (if Calvinism is true). But the God of open theism is more like a comic book superhero. 

This also goes to the question of what makes God worshipful. Opponents of Reformed theism say the God of Calvinism isn't worthy of worship.

But how worshipful is the God of open theism? Is he a God you can trust? 

Christians and their loved ones can suffer terrible things in this life. In Calvinism, God is able but sometimes unwilling to protect Christians from horrible things. At we at least believe that God has a good reason for not protecting us in those situations. So he's still trustworthy.

But in open theism you're exposed to terrible harm because the God of open theism is unable to protect you. Indeed, the God of open theism doesn't know the right thing to do because he doesn't know the future, so he doesn't know the long-term consequences of divine intervention. 

It's hard to see how you can have faith in a God like that. He's not in a position to look out for your best interests even if he wanted to. So he can't be an object of unconditional trust. 

Indeed, not knowing the future means he will be mistaken in many cases. He will entertain false expectations. Indeed, some open theist prooftexts say that. 

So following the open theist God can be unintentionally harmful, since he's making stuff up as he goes along. You can be hurt, but he can't (except emotionally). 

In open theism we are in a very real sense, on our own. That has ethical as well as religious ramifications. While that may sound liberating to the shallow-minded, it's terrifying when you consider how vulnerable human beings are. It's a recipe for ruthless self-interest, because it makes life so insecure. In open theism we're living in a minefield. 

Predestination and human actions

https://tabletalkmagazine.com/article/2020/04/predestination-and-human-actions/

The no-true apostate fallacy

Moreover, we must differentiate from permanent apostates people who never had genuine saving faith in the first place but merely a counterfeit faith (like Judas). In cases of counterfeit faith apostasy does not truly enter the picture. So on this view, although it is possible to apostatize and forfeit salvation, no one ever actually does so. 

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/why-doesnt-god-terminate-would-be-apostates

An all-too-typical specimen of the desperate lengths that Calvinists will go to to salvage their a priori theological system. The No-True-Scotsman fallacy!

Wait, this wasn't written by a Calvinist, but by a high-profile freewill theist who denounces Calvinism. Fancy that! 

The "angry Calvinist" trope

Context: Michael Brown plugged Steve's post "Straining Trumpian gnats while swallowing Democrat camels", in which Steve defends Michael Brown against Randal Rauser's criticisms, then out of the blue someone named Stephen J. Graham decided to call Steve an "angry Calvinist". See here:

https://twitter.com/DrMichaelLBrown/status/1227774795812626432 or https://twitter.com/sjggraham/status/1227856666605039616

I'd add:

Suppose my "normal description" of Graham, who is Irish, is that he's a drunken Irishman, simply because "it's the most fitting", even though there's no reason for me to think Graham is drunk. Suppose I just assumed Graham is a drunken Irishman whenever I read a tweet from Graham, even though there's zero evidence his tweet was sent in a state of inebriation. That would be unfair of me to do, to say the very least! Yet that's evidently how Graham treats Steve: Graham's default setting is that Steve is an "angry Calvinist" even in writings or works which have nothing to do with Calvinism.

Also, ironically, many freewill theists call for universal love, but they defame and malign Calvinists for no good reason.

Flipping Molinist dominoes

Molinism

Since CCFs do not depend for their truth values on God's will, and God is omniscient, God knows the field of CCFs "ahead of time," that is, in a way explanatorily prior to his decision to create. He can therefore foresee exactly what world will result from any set of initial conditions he might choose to create. Thus, Molinism is a No-Risk view, and it offers wide scope for divine providential control. For example, supposed it is true that if Eve were offered an apple by a snake, she would freely take and eat it. If God wishes Eve to eat such an apple, all he has to do is arrange for a snake to offer her one. On the other hand, if he wishes Eve to avoid this action, he simply sees to it that no such offer is made. In either case, God exercises providential control by  managing, so to speak what conditions free agents find themselves in rather than by making things happen directly as a result of his will, and either case Eve acts only on her free will. 

Theological determinism

It follows that determinism in this model is exclusively theological, and there need be no causal determinism in the created order. God can create as random a universe as you like, in the case that he can create a universe where, for example, there is no set of simple natural laws that describe all or nearly all of the events in the universe. On the other hand, it will not be random at all in the sense that it will be exactly the universe God intended to create. Heath White, Fate and Free Will: A Defense of Theological Determinism  (Notre Dame 2019).

This is interesting because it means Molinism is, in its own way, even more deterministic than Calvinism. If it's certain that the agent will respond in a particular way in a particular situation, then the initial conditions predetermine the outcome. Flip the first domino and all the other dominoes fall in a particular, inevitable sequence.

In Calvinism, by contrast, it's possible for the same outcome to eventuate from different initial conditions because it's not deterministic in that way. Rather, it operates more like dramatic logic, where the plot unfolds in a particular way, characters act in a particular way, for teleologically and psychologically plausible reasons. Not a mechanical domino effect, but because God prefers one world history or cosmic narrative over another. 

Models of providence

Open theism is a view relatively easy to understand. According to open theism, God simply created a world with many libertarian-free agents in it and turned them loose. Their free choices were ultimately contingent, and–the hallmark of the view–God did not know ahead of time what they would do. (A primary motivation for open theism is the conviction that, if God did know what agents  were going to do ahead of time, they would not be free.) Thus they are responsible for their deeds and, to a large extent, God is not. God governs the world by controlling the nonfree aspects of creation and by being vastly more intelligent than his creatures the way a chess grandmaster might outplay a tyro. Divine providence is exercised through God's fantastic chessmaster skills, but open theists admit that God "takes risks" in creating and in further interacting with the creation…Open theism is incompatible with divine eternity, and there is a vast swath of knowledge–knowledge of future contingents–that it entails that God does not know…

For the Molinist picture of God's creative choice can be famed this way. Imagine that, prior to creation, the set of possible free creatures forms a union and comes to God with their employment demands…Or imagine a little differently, that they have a long list of all the possible worlds, and they have crossed off a number that they refuse to cooperate with. God, then, has to work within the boundaries his "employees" have set. Less picturesquely, he has to work within the boundaries of CCFs he did not choose to be saddled with.

One way of thinking about God's relationship to his creation goes like this God created seven billion or so other agents, all with libertarian free will, and turned them loose. These seven billion agents tend to get in each other's way. We are all quite familiar with our projects' being frustrated by our recalcitrant fellow human beings. God is in much the same situation, except that he is vastly more powerful, intelligent, and long-lived than the seven billion others that he must outwit, outplay, and outlast. 

According to the theological determinist…God's position vis-a-vis other agents is not that of a grandmaster playing a ninety-dimensional chess match against seven billion opponents, not even if we add that he somehow has advance knowledge of what moves they will or would make. 

Traditionally, God is held to be not only omniscient but essentially omniscient. TD not only embraces these attributes but also has a very clear explanation of both how God is omniscient and why he is essentially omniscient. God knows what happens because he makes it happen; his knowledge of the world is through (or just is) his knowledge of his plan for the world. Since his plan is comprehensive and his power is almighty, there is no possibility of his foresight's going wrong. 

Providence is the divine attribute that says God orders the world wisely and well. It is the attribute that allows the theist to trust God and to believe that, however unwisely or badly the world seems to be going at a particular time and place, in the end God's presently hidden goodness will overcome the apparent evil. Devotionally speaking, providence is one of the most important of the divine attributes.

In No-Risk views of God's relationship to his creation (i.e., those of TD and Molinism), God knows the end from the beginning, and his creation proceeds exactly as he wills it to at all times.  This means that evils done or suffered early in the narrative of a life or a world can be planned out so as to play a positive role later on. 

[In Risk-Taking views] the analogy of an adult supervising children at a playground captures the basic idea. The adult observes from the sidelines the melee of free-willed children running around a jungle gym. She has some idea of how the children are likely to behave, without perfect powers of prediction. She may step in if the play seems to be getting too dangerous or damaging, and she may punish children who do harm to others and comfort or compensate those who have harm done to them…On the other end of the spectrum, God could just let the chips of this life fall where they may–he might turn a blind eye to the bullies on the playground, so to speak–so that sublunary life is not ordered particularly wisely or well, but then set everything right, somehow, in the next life. 

My point in going through this difference between No-Risk and Risk-Taking views of divine providence is that I believe they generate, or are capable of generating, quite different attitudes toward evil and suffering in believers. Let me illustrate this with the biblical story of Joseph. 

In the narrative, Joseph begins as an arrogant young man and parental favorite. His brothers, envious and angry, eventually retaliate by selling him into slavery and convincing their father that Joseph is dead. Joseph is enslaved in Egypt, is unjustly accused of attempting to rape his master's wife, is jailed as a result, is forgotten by a friend he helps while in jail, and then is finally released to serve Pharaoh. He rises to be Pharaohs' chief minister and provides for the country during famine. His brothers, suffering under the famine in Canaan, travel to Egypt to procure food, not knowing Joseph's fate. Incognito, he provides for them, eventually reveals himself, and the family is reunited, with Joseph forgiving his repentant brothers.

In the course of reassuring his brothers of his good intentions at the end of the narrative, Joseph makes a remarkable theological assertion: "Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today". That is, Joseph views his kidnapping and enslavement not, or not merely, as the results of created free wills acting contrary to God's desires, but as part of a divine plan to provide for his family during famine and to ensure their prosperity across generations. God does not intervene to prevent these evils, and he does not compensate for them afterward. Rather, they form an intrinsic part of a narrative in which even the events that we would ordinarily describe as evil are revealed to have good aspects, planned from the beginning by the divine mind though inscrutable to the humans in the midst of events. 

This is a view that can really be held only with No-Risk assumptions. It gives suffering a meaning in a way that Risk-Taking views cannot do, I think, for in Risk-taking views, the bullies on the playground or the slavetraders in the desert are not agents of the divine plan but confounding factors God has to work around. There is no point, no deeper meaning, in the suffering they inflict. There can only be the promise that its victims will not be forgotten. Heath White, Fate and Free Will: A Defense of Theological Determinism  (Notre Dame 2019).

Predestination and prayer

A stock objection to Calvinism is that it renders petitionary prayer pointless. My stock response is that in Calvinism, prayer and answered prayer are means by which the future is realized. To put it counterfactually, some events will happen in answer to prayer that wouldn't happen absent prayer. That's entirely consistent with predestination. However, I'd like to go beyond that to address the objection from a different angle. 

i) The Bible contains a number of blanket prayer promises. There is, however, a class of unanswerable prayers, and that's contradictory prayers. That's true for Calvinism and freewill theism alike. So there's an implicit exception to the prayer promises in reference to contradictory prayers. That doesn't call into question God's sincerity since God can't perform contradictions, so it should be understood that contradictory prayers aren't included in the promises. 

ii) Mind you, the Calvinist God might prearrange history to reduce the number of contradictory prayer promises. However, that has to be counterbalanced by other considerations. A world history with more unanswerable prayers might be better overall than a world history with fewer unanswerable prayers. Prioritizing circumstances to minimize contradictory prayers would marginalize other goods. 

iii) That said, freewill theism adds another class of unanswerable prayers. According to freewill theism, God has made prayer promises that he cannot keep because God's ability to make good on his prayer promises is often conditional on the independent cooperation of human agents. This means that in many cases, God can't grant your petition even if it's a perfectly legitimate request. In Calvinism, God is able but unwilling to answer some prayers while in freewill theism, God is willing but unable to answer some prayers. 

In that regard, freewill theism calls into question the sincerity of God's prayer promises. Unlike contradictory prayers, which are necessarily unanswerable, these prayers are contingently unanswerable. As a rule, God won't answer them because he must "violate" the freewill of human agents to grant the request. 

If freewill theism is true, there must be a vast number of prayers that God cannot answer if granting the request hinges on the independent cooperation of all parties to the petitioned outcome. Consider prayers for salvation, prayers for persecuted Christians, prayers to halt the wicked from harming the innocent. Since all concerned parties have libertarian freedom, God can't grant the request if they refuse to cooperate unless he overrides their freewill. 

So that creates an enormous loophole in prayer promises. It's unclear how the prayer promises were made in good faith when so many situations we pray about aren't actually covered by the promises. The God of freewill theism was never in a position to deliver on prayers that fall under that incalculably huge, but unstated class of prayer requests. 

It's like offering everyone who shows up at a certain time and place a free laptop, when only 30% of those who show up get the laptop. If the God of freewill theism knows that a vast number of prayer requests are automatically disqualified, should he not word the promise to make it more realistic?  

N.B. Don't compare that to the relationship between special redemption ("limited atonement") and the well-meant offer of the Gospel. To continue the illustration, 100% of those who show up for the laptop receive a laptop. Everybody responding to the offer gets what was offered. 

Fatalism, paganism, and predestination

Many people have an instinctive aversion to the idea of predestination. But one of the interesting things about predestination is the way it requires a Christian worldview to underwrite it. In paganism, predestination is impossible. There's no absolute Creator God. The gods are themselves the product of the ongoing world process. The gods are not omniscient. No one god controls everything. They have territorial jurisdictions. 

So it's not possible in paganism for the world to unfold according to a master plan. Many events happen for no reason. Sheer contingency plays a huge role in history. If you reset history at an earlier date, it will never repeat. 

Greek mythology has a murky doctrine of the Fates. They predetermine the human lifespan. 

Classical fatalism is different from predestination because the outcome is inevitable regardless of what else happens. There is no one chain of events leading to a particular outcome, but multiple paths all converge on the same outcome. Changing the initial conditions doesn't change the outcome. It's not clear that fatalism is even coherent in a pagan worldview, except in the deus ex machina sense.  

Gathering the children of Jerusalem

Mt 23:37 is one of the most popular Arminian prooftexts. I've discussed in in some detail a few years ago:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/07/o-jerusalem-jerusalem.html

i) But I'd like to revisit the issue. One complication is how to translate the passage. In order to render the statement in idiomatic English, translations obscure the fact that the same verb (thelo) is used both in reference to Jesus and Jerusalem:

Jerusalem, O Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! How often have I wanted (ēthelēsa | ἠθέλησα) to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! (ēthelēsate | ἠθελήσατε). 

It's difficult to capture the contrast in smooth English, using the same synonym. Thelo can mean to wish/will/want/intend/decide/desire, &c. So in that respect, the point of contrast lies between something Jesus wanted to happen and something Jerusalem didn't want to happen. For now I'll stick with the word "want," but revisit that (see below). 

ii) Apropos (i), Arminians typically ove look the fact that the passage has three subjects rather than two subjects. It doesn't say:

I wanted to gather Jerusalem but Jerusalem didn't want to be gathered

I wanted to gather the children of Jerusalem but they didn't want to be gathered

Rather, it says:

I wanted to gather the children of Jerusalem but Jerusalem didn't want me to gather her children. 

So in that respect the point of contrast doesn't lie between those Jesus wants to gather and their disinclination to be gathered, but between those Jesus wants to gather, and the disinclination of a third party (Jerusalem) to let Jesus gather the second party (the children of Jerusalem). The object of Christ's desire isn't Jerusalem but the children of Jerusalem. It doesn't say the object of his desire rebuffed his desire. It doesn't say he reached out to the children of Jerusalem but they spurned his overtures. 

iii) Another question is the nuance of the verb, and whether it has the same nuance in each occurrence. In English, "wish" has a weaker connotation than "will". If Jesus meant that it was his wish to gather the children of Jerusalem, but Jerusalem was resistant, that raises the question of whether he got his wish. 

If, however, it means he willed to gather the children of Jerusalem, but Jerusalem was unwilling, it's harder to see how he could fail to accomplish what he willed to accomplish. "Willing" something to be the case is stronger than merely wishing something to be the case. 

Likewise, if he "intended" (or "decided") to gather the children of Jerusalem, but he was thwarted, then that means Jesus was mistaken. Intention carries the expectation of success. You intend (or decide) to do something if you think it lies within your power to do it. If you don't think you have the ability to pull it off, then that's something you hope for, not something you're in a position to decide the outcome on. 

iv) It would be consistent with open theism for the Son of God to intend or decide something but belatedly discover that he didn't have the foresight or mojo to carry out his intentions. So this would make it a better prooftext for open theism than classical Arminianism. So if the verb has the stronger nuance, that's a problem for classical Arminianism. 

v) Returning to (ii), if Jesus wills to gather the children of Jerusalem, but the Jerusalem is unwilling, it doesn't mean his design was overruled unless gathering the children of Jerusalem somehow depends on the cooperation of Jerusalem. Remember, there are three subjects in play. Rather, Jesus and Jerusalem both have designs on the children of Jerusalem–contrary intentions. 

What if the thrust of the statement is just the antithesis of the Arminian interpretation. Jesus gathers her children despite the opposition of Jerusalem. His success does not depend on whether Jerusalem complies. After all, he's not even attempting to gather Jerusalem. Rather, the children of Jerusalem are distinct from Jerusalem.

vi) What does Jerusalem–in contrast to her children–represent? Presumably, the religious establishment. Most of the religious leaders were hostile to his ministry. But that doesn't mean they have the power to veto his outreach to the children of Jerusalem. He doesn't need their permission to gather Jews to himself. Indeed, throughout the Gospels, he draws followers despite the vehement opposition of the religious authorities. They can't compete. They are impotent to stop him. So what if the thrust of the statement is actually that Jesus will gather the children of Jerusalem in spite of everything the religious establishment does to obstruct his ministry? Throughout the Gospels, Jesus bypasses the religious authorities. They can't stand in his way. He doesn't require their consent to save Jews in their midst. He prevails while his adversaries will be left out in the cold.  

Two doors

I've discussed this before, but I'd like to use a different example to illustrate the point. Freewill theism touts the necessity of having freedom of opportunity. To have "real" freedom or a "real" choice means having alternate courses of action available to you. 

But here's the problem. Say you're standing in front of two doors. You can choose between Door A and Door B. In a sense, that's freedom of opportunity. You have two options to choose from. 

But here's the catch: the doors don't have windows. They're opaque. So you don't know what lies behind each door. You don't know in advance where each door will take you. 

Moreover, whichever door you go through locks behind you. So you're trapped by the choices you make. 

Even though you can pick one or the other, it's a blind choice. You might as well flip a coin. 

What if you go through Door A and find out that as a bad choice. But you couldn't know that before you did it, and once you do it it's too late to try Door B instead. You're stuck with the choice you made even though you couldn't foresee what you were getting into.

In addition, you didn't get to choose what your options are. Rather, you're confronted with options, and you have to make a choice from the options you're given. But what if none of them are the options you wanted? 

And this isn't just a metaphor. This is what happens to us in real life. This is how "choice" actually plays out. Open theism is so shallow in that regard. 

At least in Calvinism, there's the promise that everything happens for a good reason, even if you have to go through hell on earth in this life. But in freewill theism, you make conscientious decisions with catastrophic unintended consequences for yourself or your loved ones, and it may be utterly pointless. Just your hard luck. 

From exile to Eden

There are various introductions to Roman Catholicism. Cardinal Ratzinger wrote a modern classic. More recently are entries by Robert Barron and Thomas Joseph White. Barron's book was based on the script for his 10-part documentary film. Ratzinger uses the framework of the Apostles' creed. White's organization owes more to systematic theology. Barron uses the Incarnation as a unifying principle–plus Catholic art as well as thumbnail biographies of notable Catholics. 

This raises the question of how a Protestant might write an introduction to the evangelical faith. How would we present the alternative? There are different approaches. You could take the approach of systematic theology. You could take the approach of historical theology and church history. Another possibility is to take a more existential approach. I don't have time to write a whole book, but here's a sketch:

Each of us is on a journey. We were born in exile. Our progenitors were banished from the garden. We lost the tree of life. We face into death. 

We came from God. Some of us are on a journey back to God, while others are on a journey away from God.

We were born at sea. Born aboard a ship. There were passengers before we were born. There will be passengers after we disembark. We don't end with the same passengers with whom we began. Some passengers disembark at the harbor of heaven while others disembark at the port of hell. 

God is interpersonal by nature. One God in three persons, who mirror one another. The inmost circle of reality. But God shares his beatitude by making creatures are able to enjoy the gift of life. The inmost circle of the Triune God ripples out in concentric circles of creation. Like our Creator, we are social beings. 

We are creatures of time and space while our Maker exists above and beyond time or space. The Son left the inmost circle of the Triune fellowship to invade the outermost circle of his alienated creation. Like a child separated from his parents by the dislocation of war, we grew up never knowing our Creator. Like an estranged child who meets his father for the first time, we see in Jesus the face of our Maker. 

Every now and then, miracles break into our world to remind us of another, greater, better world beyond our fleeting, dying world. Not miracles enough to transform our world, but sufficient to point beyond our world, like flashes of lightning that illuminate trail and the distant destination. A sign, special providence, or answered prayer to renew our hope. Sometimes we walk in twilight. Sometimes we walk in darkness. But when we despair, when we feel utterly forlorn, a flash of lightning shows the way forward.  

There is darkness without and darkness within. We need redemption and renewal to enlighten the darkness within. Revelation to illuminate the trail ahead as well as redemption and renewal to illuminate our darkened hearts. 

Darkness is otiose. It creates nothing. Left to itself, darkness remains darkness. It has no spark. To irradiate the moral darkness of our hearts, the match must come from something–or Someone–outside ourselves. 

The Fall was Adam's error, but it wasn't Heaven's error. There are children of light born to children of darkness. Children of the dawn whose existence emerges from children of the night. That was God's plan all along. In the world to come, the sons of dawn will praise the wisdom that brought them about and brought them out. In the beginning, God separated the light from the darkness. And he continues to do so throughout church history. And he will do so at the Consummation of all things. 

Can God break his promises?

It's commonly argued that if God knows the future, then the future is fixed. If God knows that I will buy a classic Mustang on July 20, 2019, then I cannot fail to buy a classic Mustang on that date. 

In my experience, some Arminians respond by saying that our future choices/actions are the source of God's foreknowledge. If I didn't buy a Mustang on that date, then I cause God to have a different belief about the future.

With that in mind, let's take a comparison: can God break his promises? Suppose Charles Wesley complies with the term of John 3:16, but the moment after death he finds himself in hell. He complains to God that God broke his promise. God responds by saying that if Charles Wesley finds himself in hell, that retroactively makes it the case that God never made the promise in John 3:16 in the first place–in which case God didn't break his promise! Has something gone awry in the reasoning? 

Cambridge Companion to Reformed Theology

The reviewer has more of a "Confessional Calvinist" mindset than I do. However, the reviewer makes some useful points:

http://www.meetthepuritans.com/blog/book-review-cambridge-companion-to-reformed-theology