Does God love everyone? Does God love everyone the same?

[Ezra]

God is definitely omniscient, for in him is found all knowledge (Colossians 2:2b-3; 1 John 3:20b).

Agreed.  But what does this have to do with the OP?  And as far as Calvinism is concerned, God's "sovereignty" overrides everything, and in His "sovereignty" He chooses to love some more than others.  That, of course, is not supported by Scripture, but some Scriptures are misinterpreted to support that erroneous belief.

 

The bottom line is that because Christ is the PROPITIATION  for the sins of the whole world (1 Jn 2:2) that is proof that God loves all human beings and has provided for their salvation.  But unless sinners repent and believe the Gospel, they cannot be saved. God does not choose some for Heaven and others for Hell.

[By Faith]

 

By Faith said in post 57:

 

 

 

Similar to this analogy, before God created the world, he could have reviewed an infinite number of different threads (as it were) of all the possible free-willed sequences of events which could occur in the world, based on all the possible choices each individual could make during his or her lifetime. For example, in one thread, right after God created Adam, Adam could have chosen first to walk around the south side of the Garden of Eden, while in another thread, Adam chose first to walk around the north side, and in another he chose first just to sit on the grass and look at the trees, and so on through all the different possibilities for his first choice, and then through all the different possibilities for all his subsequent choices, and then through all the possible choices made by everyone else from the beginning of the world to the end of it. After reviewing the infinite number of threads of all the possible sequences of free-willed choices, God could have chosen to create, to bring into actual existence, that one thread which would give him the best opportunity to eternally show both his mercy and his wrath (Romans 9:22-23).

 

Also similar to the movie analogy is the scientific idea of the "block universe", meaning that time, from the viewpoint of physics in itself (i.e. outside of how humans happen to experience time) there is no arrow of time: The past, present, and future of all space in the universe exist as one block of a 4-dimensional space-time. So the past still exists, and the future already exists. This is similar to how all the frames of a film, all its moments of time, exist at the same time in one reel of film, yet we humans happen to experience a film only one frame at a time, and in one direction. Also, with regard to the "block universe", quantum-level experiments have shown that the future determines the past as much as the past determines the future. So from the viewpoint of Christians, this means they can pray for God's will to be done in the past, just as they can pray for it to be done in the future. For example, if they remember a close call in their past where they just barely escaped having a car accident, they can presently pray that God would keep them from having that accident, and this could help them to avoid it. That is, they could have avoided it because years later they prayed to avoid it.

 

 

Not met anyone who believed in Molinism. Pretty amazing here. 

[Omegaman 3.0]

Well, my thought of locking the thread, does not seem as necessary or well advised as it did. I do not like the idea of locking threads a lot of the time, it is sad when a thread gets shut down, because people go so far off topic, or start edging into mean territory, because it deprives others, of learning from the dialogue, and being able to express the good things they may have had to share with others.

So, I am going to compromise, I am locking it temporarily, the thread seems to have already cooled of a bit, so after a little time more, I will reopen it, and let it continue, if any are interested.

It needs to, however, stay on the topic, which is not Calvinism. Certainly if a belief from Calvinism is relative to the topic, it should be allowed. However, the point should be made by quoting the scripture passage, without reference to Calvin. If someone does not like a doctrine, then I think the way to respond is:

 

"I don't think that is an entirely accurate understanding, because verse such and such says . . . "

 

and not with:

 

"I don't accept that, that is Calvinism!"

 

The test is not who said something, or what the beliefs of theologians are. The test is: "Is it scriptural?"