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June 22, 2009 12:42pm v.7
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 Does God love all people? It's not so simple as "God hates the sin but loves the sinner." It's a difficult question, because although God demonstrated love to the entire world through the sacrifice of His Son on the cross, that sacrifice ultimately results in an eternal judgment in the lake of fire, that is so severe, that its hard to say that God truly ever loved that lost person in the first place. So is it conscionable to tell a non-Christian that God loves them when God may have predestined them to hell? How do we confront Christians who have adopted heretical solutions like Free Will, Arminianism, Pelagisnism, or any sort of free will, etc. These are some of the difficult questions addressed by D.A. Carson in his short book, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God. I admit, that this book is so good that I read the entire thing in one sitting, and wish you would do the same! If you haven't read a book by D.A. Carson, this is an excellent starting place! The first 25 pages are available online for free too. Carson defines Compatibilism as the belief that "God's unconditioned sovereignty and the responsibility of human beings are mutually compatible." Compatibilism does not mean there is both Free Will and Predestination, but it does mean that even though an individual is predestined to reject Jesus, they are still responsible for rejecting Jesus. Compatibilism is the only solution to the problem of evil that maintains orthodoxy. Here's a quote from the book: In short, compatibilism is a necessary component to any mature and orthodox view of God and the world. Inevitably it raises important and difficult questions regarding secondary causality, how human accountability should be grounded, and much more. I cannot probe those matters here. I particularly enjoyed Carson's critiques of the hyper-Calvinists from the Reformed Tradition who struggled to understand evangelism. I highly recommend this easy-to-read primer on the doctrine of God's Love. It's so short and the pages turn so fast, that you will be delighted by the whole thing, and it gets better with every page flipped. I hope you read it today!
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Comments: #1 June 24, 2009 10:53am Hey Wyatt, I'll have to give this a read. Sound very similar to Edwards' argument in Freedom of the Will. Certainly a viable theological perspective to be sure. Supposedly Edwards has written the best defense of compatibilism in the Freedom of the Will. I've only read sections of it but not the whole thing. Maybe that will be in our future to read?
phil #2 July 2, 2009 6:30pm John Piper just preached on John 3:16 and he said that this book is the correct way to approach that verse as well. I was surprised to hear him mention the book right after I read it. http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2009/3883_God_So_Loved_the_World_Part_2/
Wyatt
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