This is a quote from Grace To You (Italics mine)
Using the word MYSTERY is a classic escape hatch for Calvinists. Feeling that they can appeal to the greatness and depth of God's nature they go merrily on their way speaking in circles. The problem is what they end up saying about the God they want so desperately to defend.
Look at the quote again. The author here says scriptures teach that we are incapable of believing yet responsible for not believing. Huh? How can a man be responsible for doing something he is (according to Calvinist doctrine) completely incapable of doing? If this is true it makes God as capricious as any tyrant ruler we love to root against in movies.
What if the command was God wants all men to fly like a bird but does not give them wings? Taking the illustration further What if God also said I will only save those who fly like a bird but only gives wings to some? That God would be unlovable and unworthy of worship.
Appealing to mystery does not relieve God of a duplicitous action in requiring an act that we are incapable of performing.
"When God desires all men to be saved, He is being consistent with who He is. In Isaiah 45:22God said, “Turn to Me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth.” Isaiah 55:1 invites “every one who thirsts” to “come to the waters” of salvation. Again, in Ezekiel 18:23, 32 God states very clearly that He does not desire that the wicked should perish, but that they would sincerely repent (cf..Ezek. 33:11). In the New Testament, Peter writes, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9)."
No true biblical theology can teach that God takes pleasure in the damnation of the wicked. Yet though it does not please Him, God will receive glory even in the damnation of unbelievers (cf..Rom. 9:22–23). How His electing grace and predestined purpose can stand beside His love for the world and desire that the gospel be preached to all people, still holding them responsible for their own rejection and condemnation, is a mystery of the divine mind." (Same Article as above)
It is not a mystery it is a contradiction! I am not saying we can understand everything about God. We certainly cannot! But making a contradictory statement about God cannot be swept away with the term mystery.
Just as an aside point,
"No true biblical theology can teach that God takes pleasure in the damnation of the wicked." I agree! But John Calvin does not agree.
"We say, then, that Scripture clearly proves this much, that God by his eternal and immutable counsel determined once for all those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, it was his pleasure to doom to destruction." Institutes 3:21:7
Calvin was clear that he felt it was God's pleasure to damn unbelievers for not believing when, according to him and Augustine, they cannot believe. This by the way was not the view of the church for the first 300 years of it's existence. Augustine, influenced by Manichean and Gnostic philosophy, was instrumental in changing the view of soteriology.
An honest examination of scripture reveals a God who has made provision for all humanity through the death of His Son on the cross. The sin of the world was atoned for in that one act of love. (I know, I know. I'll cover the TULIP "L" another time!) God works through the preaching of His living Word and the ministry of the Holy Spirit to open the hearts and minds of men so that they have to make a willful decision concerning the Gospel.
Thanks for reading!
Dave
