The main point I was making in my original observation of this was the Bruce Ware is not a disinterested person in this conversation. It’s not that his definition was necessarily faulty, it would just look better, if nothing else, to quote straight from the horses mouth.

As your examples suggests: It is preferable to allow adherents of a position the privilege of defining their terms so that the terms have the best chance of withstanding scrutiny (which may rightly and decisively follow). Exceptions may be made when the audience agrees that the adherents are crackpots.

Why does Ware need to ascribe to a certain view of freedom in order to prescribe it a definition?

Should we only let Mormons tell us what they mean by salvation? (this gets hazy if you have ever tried.)

Should we only let a Nazi tell us what Hitler believed?

I know these may sound extreme but I am just not sure what to make of this concept.

Since you’ve posted again, I know you’ve seen my question. So I want to ask it again because I think it gets to the heart of the issue:

Am I to understand you correctly, that human sin (in the Garden) was predetermined/decided/foreordained by God?

2. The Mark Driscoll video is an example of exactly why I reject Calvinism! Limited atonement for me is a huge problem, biblically. Driscoll says, “God so loved the world that he saved SOME?” The type of thinking he represents would make me terrified that I never could know whether or not I am saved. HAS God chosen me? Or is this thing I THINK is faith in the Lord who saved me just filthy rags and I am still going to hell. It may be filthy rags in terms of it’s worth when compared to God’s love, but I cling to the promise that God is true to his Word and that if I have responded to his offer of grace (which I have) than I am in a redeeming relationship with him thanks to his blood.

Maybe I’m missing the point, but I find Driscoll’s presentation (while emotional) horribly offensive. (And please don’t start down the “offense of the cross” road. That’s not what we’re talking about).

I sometimes wonder if God put Calvinists on the planet to remind everyone else or our need to seek humility in our interactions with the unregenerate.

With that said, I lean toward Nick’s and Tom’s arguments. My simplistic answer to your questions, Denny, go along the following vein:
The Israelites and Pharaoh were free to choose other courses of action. A key phrase in your question is “God infallibly predicted.” God is not a soothsayer or medium. He doesn’t predict; He knows. I don’t predict I will hit the ground if I fall from the top of a building; I know. I don’t predict the tide will come in and go out; I know that will happen every day. Given the laws of nature, which are constant, I can be assured of that knowledge. God’s knowledge is unfathomable, however. He is not limited by time or space. He knows the future, past, and present, all at the same time. He knows the choices we will make, and He knows the cries for deliverance and help that will rise from his children. He knows the changes He will make in answer. Our finite minds cannot follow the trail of consequences for every option in our lives, but He sees THE trail that is ultimately taken from the myriad of options for each human being that ever lived. How can we even pretend to understand and explain that?? It is as though at the same time, He exists in the year 400 B.C. and A.D. 2050. I can’t begin to talk about predestination, election, and free will in that context, a context that is beyond my understanding.
How can I think that God can only follow one track, one which He predestined for His creation to follow as robots through their dull puppet-like existence. No! I cannot believe that. Although God’s character never changes, He created beings and put in them a free will. Therein lies the richness of the creation. He wanted man, a creature who with free will would choose to obey and serve Him, not one He made who was predetermined to obey and serve Him. What would be the point of that?

I believe I am about twice your age. The older I get the more I see clearly the bottom lines in life’s issues. No time to play around with blacks, whites, and grays…just bottom lines. Not ever having been in the academia circles of theological and doctrinal debates, I cannot discern the point in this instance. Let’s say the line in the dirt is drawn. All of you Arminians cluster on one side and all you Calvinists group on the other side. Let’s list your differences in your calling and in your obedience to our Lord on the following issues and watch the line: salvation by grace, the shed blood for propitiation, the virgin birth for deity, the death, the burial, the resurrection, the ascension, The Great Commission, second coming, works as outgrowth of being saved by grace……Uh, where is that line??? Is it fading?? “Go ye therefore and teach all nations.” Teach them what?? Arminianism? Calvinism? Neither makes a fig of difference in the bottom line. Just DO IT because He said to…go teach and preach the GOSPEL before it is too late for so many. When you get there, just ask Him who was right. But, focus on making that privilege possible for as many lost people in the world today as you can touch with your life. Oh, yes, all you bloggers don’t need to feel compelled to offer rebuttal, because I probably would not be able to understand your argument.

But, as I said, I detected there was a possibility I was misunderstanding you. Thanks for clarifying, brother.

Tom, you wrote:

Adam #15 – Just a minor note of clarification…unless I’ve misunderstood what you were saying:

Calvinists are the ones who hold to a ‘Compatibilist’ position…it is the Arminians who are the incompatibilists. Calvinists maintain that humans make free decisions AND those decisions are determined by God. Thus, free will and determination are ‘Compatible.’

ME: Hold on, because things are about to get confusing! Calvinists are “compatibilists” with regard to human freedom, but they are incompatibilists with regard to divine foreknowledge. The issue we are talking about is whether God can have infallible knowledge of future free actions in the libertarian sense. Calvinists deny libertarianism, and further believe that God’s foreknowledge of our decisions is strong evidence against our having libertarian freedom. Therefore, they are incompatiblists.

Ironically, so are open theists. Hasker has a famous argument against God’s exhaustive foreknowledge involving cheese omelets and a guy named Clarence.

Arminians and molinists argue that God’s foreknowledge and libertarian actions are compatible (see my comment above), and are called “compatiblists.” I know this is confusing, but it is how the terms flip flop in the foreknowledge debate.