But, perhaps, the best answer to this folly is this: Mr. Arminian, you, a puny mortal, are actually doing, and that often, the very thing you say an almighty God cannot do! Predestining the acts of free-agents, certainly and efficiently, without their freedom. For instance: Mr. Arminian invites me to dine with him at one o'clock PM. I reply, yes, provided dinner is punctual and certain, because I have to take a railroad train at two PM. He promises positively that dinner shall be ready at one PM. How so, will he cook it himself? Oh, no! But he employs a steady cook, named Gretchen, and he has already instructed her that one PM must be the dinner hour.

That is predestination he tells me, certain and efficacious.

I now take up Mr. Arminian's argument, and apply it to Gretchen thus: He says predestination and free-agency are contradictory. He predestinated you, Gretchen, to prepare dinner for one o'clock, therefore you were not a free agent in getting dinner. Moreover, as there can be no moral desert where there is no freedom, you have not deserved your promised wages for cooking, and Mr. Arminian thinks he is not at all bound to pay you.

Gretchen's common sense replies thus: I know I am a free agent; I am no slave, no machine, but a free woman, and an honest woman, who got dinner at one o'clock because I chose to keep my word; and if Mr. Arminian robs me of my wages on this nasty pretext, I will know he is a rogue.

Gretchen's logic is perfectly good.

My argument is, that men are perpetually predestinating and efficiently procuring free acts of free agents. How much more may an infinite God do likewise. But this reasoning need not, and does not, imply that God's ways of doing it are the same as ours.

His resources of wisdom and power are manifold, infinite. Thus this popular cavil is shown to be as silly and superficial as it is common. It is men's sinful pride of will which makes them repeat such shallow stuff.

~Charles Spurgeon

I have CDO. It's like obsessive compulsive disorder, but in alphabetical order like it should be. ~ Unknown

Clean your own doorstep first. ~ Abraham Maslow

Saphira: It takes courage to admit you're wrong.
Eragon: Only if you're afraid of looking foolish, and I would have looked far more foolish if I persisted with an erroneous belief.
~Christopher Paolini, in Eldest

When Jesus had tasted it, He said, "It is finished", and bowed His head and dismissed His spirit. ~ John 19:30

Skating is for stubborn, determined people. ~ Emily D