Calvin, John. Institutes of Christian religion.
Section 5 in Chapter 21:
All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death.
I think Calvinists fear that saying that God predestinates people to hell, they are afraid that they are giving God "a bad name" Scripture tells us clearly that God MAKES some for His wrath .
So wiggle if you will .. But do consider if God just "passes over" men He has in effect predestinated them to hell.. unless you want to wander into arminian theology that they can will a difference in this decision
God is glorified by His mercy and His justice and His wrath ...I will not steal the glory from Him
"Modern Calvinists respond to the ethical dilemma of double predestination by explaining that God's active predestination is only for the elect. God provides grace to the elect causing salvation, but for the damned God withholds salvific grace. Calvinists teach that God remains just and fair in creating persons he predestines to damnation because although God unilaterally works in the elect producing regeneration, God does not actively force the damned to sin. It is not the view of any of the
Reformed confessions, which speak of God passing over rather than actively reprobating the damned."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_in_Calvinism
"The WCF uses different words for the act of God's election and reprobation: "predestinated" and "foreordained" respectively. This suggests that the two do not operate in the same way. The term "equal ultimacy" is sometimes used of the view that the two decrees are symmetrical: God works equally to keep the elect in heaven and the reprobate out of heaven. This view is sometimes erroneously referred to as "double predestination", on which see above.
R. C. Sproul argues against this position on the basis that it implies God "actively intervenes to work sin" in the lives of the reprobate."
There is no equal ultimacy. It is asymmetrical, God predestines some out of the mass of fallen man to be saved, and leaves the rest in their sin.
I will not steal God's glory, but will use the words Scripture uses on this issue and not use my own rationalistic categories to defend the error of High Calvinism on this point.
The Confession NEVER uses the term predestination with reference to the reprobate.
God discriminates among men considered as sinners and does not choose to damn some men before he chooses to create them. Election is in the context of the Fall, the infralapserian order of the decree prevails. Most Reformed theologians have held to infralapserianism and have reserved the language of predestination for the elect and passing by/reprobation for the non-elect. There is something more active about predestination, whereas reprobation is the choice to leave in sin and withhold grace.
Rev. Lane Keister explains it well in another thread:
"I have always found the image of a sun baking bricks to be helpful in understanding how God hardened Pharaoh. Just as the sun takes out all the moisture of a brick, leaving it hard, so also God withdrew all His graces from Pharaoh, leaving him hard. It was not a hardening wherein God infused some kind of stubbornness into Pharaoh. Not an infusion, but a withdrawing."
Of course, there is more nuance than that. God passes by the reprobate, but that does not mean that God is passive in his decree. All of history is within his will. God's will is done. While God does not cause man to sin, in the context of man's sinning, God often removes restraints and punishes sin with more sin and hardness of heart with more hardness (but even in Romans 1 this is called a "giving over" of the sinner). This is an imperfect analogy, but God does not push more darkness into the heart of the sinner, but removes the little light there is so that the darkness takes greater control. While this, too, is part of God's will, it is not an active causation of sin by God towards the sinner. God even shapes the circumstances so that a sinner will be destroyed, as in the case of Pharaoh, and yet God never caused that king to sin.
We can say that God acted positvely to give grace to the Elect. But just as God did not positively cause Adam to fall, those already fallen in Adam do not need God to push them down into hell...they are already falling there by their own weight. Even when God "hardens" a man, that is nothing more than withholding of grace and restraints and merely allows the sinner full vent without restraint to his sin. The language of Romans 9:22 does not negate this, sinners are prepared and reserved to destruction by God's withholding of grace and God's providences in their lives.
Scripture backs up this asymmetry. God does not take delight in the death of the wicked, says Ezekiel 18). Yet many other passages speak of the delight in God's salvation of His elect.
This issue is not merely a matter of semantics, nor a distinction without a difference. It defends the goodness of God and also sticks more closely to the Scripture's language and the phrasing of the Confession, who intentionally chose to use different terms for Election and Reprobation (predestined for the former, and passed by or passed over for the Reprobate). Again, Scripture speaks of predestination only with relation to graces and blessings (and predestination is usually closely linked to being in Christ, see Ephesians chapter 1).
The High Calvinist makes God the author of sins, both Adam's and ours. God permitted the Fall of Adam, God did not make Adam Fall. Yet his fall was certain and willed by God. And now, God does something for the elect by giving graces, but actively choooses NOT to do something for the reprobate. A withholding can be said to be active, as well, but God cannot be blamed for choosing to do nothing because His choice to do nothing for the reprobate is done within the context of a fallen humanity and not a sinless neutral race. A Governor choosing NOT to act to pardon all the sinners on death row does not actively choose to kill the prisoners...they are already heading in that direction, after all. But He does act by withholding, and that withholding is part of his will. The same applies to God.
