Does God Hate the Non-Elect?
Over at his blog, Rey has posted that God hates the non-elect. Twice.
Rey thinks this because he denies that the default human condition is sinful and thus opposed to God by its very nature. It is not necessary for God to hate us first so that we may hate him; hating God and denying the Creator is only natural to the creation because of the Fall.
Natural man, in his natural state, is opposed to God. That is why he hates God. It is not the converse of 1 John 4:19.
But, when God enlightens us and makes us a new creation, we are then able to love God because he first loved us.
Rey is attacking the hyper-Calvinistic notion that God hates the non-elect. There is much Scriptural evidence that he does, in fact, love all of his creation (Jn 3:16–“For God so loved the world. . .”). The elect he loves more deeply (Rom 8:29–“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed . . .”). God commands us to love our enemies. Why would he command us to do something that he himself doesn’t already do? Do the wicked not receive blessings from God?
In order to substantiate his position, Rey must show us, either from Scripture or Reformed writings, that God loves only his elect. Scripture shows he takes care of his elect, but both Scripture and natural theology indicate that he loves both the elect and the non-elect.
Why does God elect some and not others? Well, that is a mystery, but it is not random (as Rey repeatedly suggests by comparing election to a lottery).
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Posted on October 3, 2009, in Apologetics, Bible Thoughts, Theology and tagged Calvinism. Bookmark the permalink. 11 Comments.
Josiah Concept Ministries 
Your statement “Rey has posted that God hates the non-elect” is a bit misleading. I posted that in Calvinism God hates the non-elect. As to all men by default hating God, how do you explain all the sincere Jews in the world? You really think they hate God?
“Rey must show us from Scripture or Reformed writings that God only loves the elect.” This is standar Calvinist treament of John 3:16. Non-Clavinists say that “for God so loved the world that he sent his only-begotten son that whoesoever beleiveth in him should have eternal life” means God loves everyone and anyone who will believe can be saved. Calvinists say the “world” here only means the elect because God can’t love the non-elect nor can they be saved.
“Why does God elect some and not others?” He doesn’t. That’s a tare.
I don’t mean by “he doesn’t” that everyone is saved but only that predestination is a lie.
Red herring. Check John 3:18.
First, read what I said about John 3:16. I said the same thing that you did. Second, no one can believe unless God enables him to believe, so this is another red herring. Finally, substantiate that position of yours with Reformed writings, because I’m still missing the part where Reformed writers say that God hates the non-elect.
Another convenient tare. So then you agree that predestination is in Scripture, you just think it’s a tare. Good luck with that.
Predestination is a rather convenient tare for those rebels against God who want to believe that they don’t need to obey God because salvation is all based on a cosmic lottery. If anyone “hates God” it is those who buy into this tare. It is also rather covenient to dismiss my question on whether you think sincere Jews hate God by labelling it a “red herring.” How convenient to slander people and then refuse to defend your slander.
Now, inasmuch as Jesus says that those who do not keep his sayings will be destroyed as by a flood and that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees or we will by no means enter the kingdom of God and that he which does God’s will is saved not he who says “Lord, Lord” (that is, he who thinks he won a cosmic lottery, how couldpredestination not be a tare? Indeed we must either say that these statements are tares or that predestination is a tare. I am consistent for I identify one of two opposing statements as a tare. You simply pretend to believe both when you only believe one, namely the tare of cosmic lottery. Just remember,m however, that a being cruel enough to hand out bliss and eternal torment based on a lottery is also cruel enough to rig the lotto to where nobody wins. Have fun with your lottery comission god.
As to your belief that sincere Jews “hate God” isn’t it interesting that Paul says “I bear them record that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge”? That’s in Romans 9, 10, or 11, I think its 11.
Ok, so Paul says that everybody but the elect hates God, including sincere Jews. But Paul says the Jews have a “zeal” for God. That zeal obviously includes love. The problem, however, as Paul sees it is that they don’t “know” the truth of what God requires for righteousness, i.e. Following Jesus.
So according to Paul the Jews lack knowledge. According to Cory they hate God. Who is more believeable?
Even of the pagan gentiles, Paul never says they are “without God in the world” and “in bondage to idols that are not God.” But he doesn’t say they “hate God” except when speaking of those who “did not like to retain God in their knowledge” whic is only a subset. After all, many philosophers among the Greeks posited that there was only one God and that he was not like a bird or reptile or so on that Paul lists in Romans 1. And does not Paul even quote one of them, saying “in him we live and move and have our very being, as one of your own poets has said”? How then do they “hate God” when they clearly love him yet lack perfect knowlegde of him?
Wow,some major typos there. Where I say “Paul” says everyone but the elect hates God I obviously meant to say “Cory” since the point was Cory’s claims aren’t based on Paul like he thinks. Then aslo when I say Paul ‘never’ said the Gentiles “were without God in the world” the word ‘never’ does not belong there. My point is that this IS what he said rather than that they hate God. Even without pointing these typos out I figure most people would get the point but I might as well point them out anyway.
And when Paul says “the carnal mind is at enmity with God” he is speaking to and of Christians who are not spiritually minded, not of Pagans or Jews. This is not meant to indicate that everyone is born hating God but to show that they will not be saved even though they are Christians unless they straighten uip their attitude (goodby OSAS).
And in the phrase “naturual man” the word natural (psukikos from psuke for soul) doesn’t mean ‘natural’ as in the natural state of man, but means ‘animal’ as in a man who lives by animal passions as though he had no spirit.
Does God control everything?
http://thinkpoint.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/does-god-control-everything/
I’m not sure it’s accurate to say God loves those He’s reprobated.
Does God love the whole world in the sense you’ve provided? I don’t think so…even arminian commentators say otherwise when commenting on John 3:16. It is about the counterintuitive nature of God’s love…that He would save those who are opposed to Him.
As Arminian Andrew Lincoln has said:
“Some argue that the term ‘world’ here simply has neutral connotations—the created human world. But the characteristic use of “the world” (ho kosmos) elsewhere in the narrative is with negative overtones—the world in its alienation from and hostility to its creator’s purposes. It makes better sense in a soteriological context to see the latter notion as in view. God loves that which has become hostile to God. The force is not, then, that the world is so vast that it takes a great deal of love to embrace it, but rather that the world has become so alienated from God that it takes an exceedingly great kind of love to love it at all,” The Gospel According to St. John (Henrickson 2005), 154.
So then, French, would you admit that in Calvinism the non-elect hate God because he first hated them?