Greg Koukl - Does God Desire Literally All to be Saved?

Taken from our blog Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason looks at the question, "Does God desire literally all to be saved?". For more information, visit http://www.str.org.

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[Kanbei85]

I'm a great supporter of Greg Koukl, but it grieves me that he supports Calvinism, which is an internally-incoherant man-made view which goes well beyond the clear reading of scripture. If man's free will to choose God or to reject Him is removed, then the whole point of life and the whole message of the Bible is completely lost. There must be some kind of interplay between human free will and divine will that is perhaps impossible to understand in human terms.

[Kanbei85]

There is nothing limited about Christ's atonement. As one man brought sin into the race of men, by one man, Christ, is our redemption secured. (this is a paraphrase of Paul). The only limiting factor on our atonement is our own will to recieve it. God wills that none should perish, but that all would come to repentance. But just as he gave Adam and Eve a choice, he gives a choice to each of us. This is God's nature, and God does not change.

[741rjohnson]

God desires the salvation of everyone.1Timothy 2:3-4(Arminian Theology): God is Sovereign, therefore he will accomplish his desires. Isaiah 55:11 (Calvinist/ReformedTheology). If God desires the salvation of everyone and he has the power to accomplish his desires, doesn't it seem logical that he will accomplish his desire(the salvation of everyone). Isn't the combination of their theologies Biblical Universalism? Because they believe in eternal torment they have to reject each other's theology.

[sunshinegirl1967]

I disagree with Greg here. How can anyone truly desire the good of billions of people and yet only secure that good for a few? That doesn't make sense.

[MagenticAdam66]

Let's face it ~ god knows exactly who is to be saved from the beginning of the world. So why don't we just all pack the "holy books" up, and let the big fellah get on with his business. I reckon he'd be sure to get it all done a hell of a lot sooner without all us mob constantly bleating to him of our desires to be included.

[MagenticAdam66]

I'll cut it short & sweet for you. In addition to working six days a week, fitting in necessary leisure time, educating, feeding my family, extra necessary business activity, observing the sabbath, I also have to implicitly understand the word of god, and adhere to ALL CORE requirements for salvation of my soul, right? So, can you please advise me "priest" as to where I should start? Catholic? Protestant? Calvinist? Ahhh, ~ which subsect of the chosen sect, please? Don't jeopardize my soul now!

[bitterrenter]

This person misrepresent God is such a huge way by saying that God will pass over the majority of mankind and only save a few. He is just religious and is spiritually blind. I hope you all don't follow what he says. Reformed = heresy/error.

[ahumblechosenservant]

@Kanbei85

Isn't purpose given by something other than yourself?

So how does life not have meaning if man isn't Sovereign?

Isn't it the Sovereignty of God that truly gives meaning to life? If sin is just some random force, then how does it have meaning?

And for what I believe to be a better explanation of 1st Timothy 2:6 (what Mr. Koukl meant to cite) go to ww w d ot fr eegrace dot net slash gill

It is John Gill's exposition of the Bible.

[gatorpower]

@Kanbei85 I see you've moved the goal posts again. I said people can not accept what they do not understand. It is only superficially linked to belief and rationality in certain cases. We seem to be talking about two different things. This has nothing to do with the idea of 'god' being real. Instead, it has to do with his specific attributes and, ultimately, the concept salvation itself. If people have to 'dumb' this down in order to understand it, then they don't accept what it really is

[Kanbei85]

@gatorpower

I don't get the feeling that I'm being responded to here so much as retorted to. You still haven't explained why it isn't rational to believe something is true even if you don't fully understand it... I stand by the examples I gave, which you did not address. The word of the creator of the universe is something I am willing to believe even though some aspects of it are mysterious to me.

[gatorpower]

@Kanbei85 Dead wrong how? Just because one can construct a 'sentence' that puts forth a premise that is at least comprehensible in English, doesn't mean the concept itself is understandable. You can 'pretend' you accept it, but you only accept as much as you understand and you block out the rest. Simply memorizing what what one should believe is not the same as acceptance.

[Kanbei85]

@gatorpower My point is, you are dead wrong in saying that to accept is to understand. The mere fact that some aspects of God's will and His ways remain mysterious to humanity for the time being in no way means we don't have free will to believe or disbelieve.