Thanks for the helpful posts brothers. I think that in our effort to safeguard God's sovereignty, there are tendencies to obliterate things that exist, which God may delight in. Of course, there is nothing in us, that we can take credit for, if it happened to be that God loved an object for the objects qualities, it was always God himself that created that cultivated that quality in the being.
But if the question is raised "Why does God delight in this", the answer is always going to be the same. When we come to the will of God we have reached that than which there is nothing higher. I've quoted Calvin on this point several times already on the board, so I'll mix it up a little by quoting Francis de Sales:
O Theotimus! my friend, never, no never, must we permit our minds to be carried away by this mad whirlwind, nor expect to find a better reason of God's will than his will itself, which is sovereignly reasonable, yea, the reason of all reasons, the rule of all goodness, the law of all equity.
God sovereignly determines to love - to communicate good in various degrees: existence, temporal blessings, eternal election, ultimately, Himself. He loves us, precisely because He loves us: no cause can be assigned for the will of God. Calvin has well taught us that we are to seek for no higher reason than the will of God
I appreciate the precision in your words: no cause
can be assigned for God's willing to love. But, as Alan pointed out above, God
may very well have reasons to love that we are not aware of. For example, he may have planned the creation of his elect to possess particular qualities which are particularly delightful to him. We do not know these deep counsels of God, so we will not speculate. But our safeguarding the deep things of God should not run us to the other extreme of making too strong a negative assertion about God's reasons.
It's a curious method to avoid speculation by raising an entirely speculative point! I understand Dr. Strange's desire to assert (in the fine company of Turretin) that God's will is not unreasonable: but God's will is, as Francis remarked,
the reason of all reasons.
But analyze it a little more closely. God determined that people He chose would have characteristics in which He particularly delighted: that's no speculation. That's the simple teaching that whom predestinated He also glorified. But since you acknowledge that we have nothing we have not received, since you admit that it is only God who makes one to differ from another, it is not logic to hold that there was something in people apart from God that drew God's attention. The point of the doctrine of sovereign election isn't that the elect and the reprobate are identical; it's that it's the decree of God that puts all differences between them.
Two branching thoughts:
1. could it be that in the philosophical milieu of the Reformers, pure, unadulterated WILL was seen as the ultimate measure of glory? In our day, the philosophical mindset has shifted such that relationality, and the consideration of others is the measure of glory.
2. It's interesting to note that in Deut 7, it seems that God chose the nation of Israel, and THEN set his love on them. But in Eph 1, with regard to the church in Christ, he seems to have loved them, and THEN predestined them. Could there be a distinction here??
Shifts in philosophical mindset don't, logically speaking, have any impact on what the truth is. Jung read the book of Job and propounded the theory that Job is morally superior to God, knows it, but keeps his mouth shut on that score only slyly hinting at it because God is the more powerful (though apparently not the more intelligent). This is not a Biblical method of reasoning: Paul reasons from the fact that God is judge of the world to the conclusion that God is just (Romans 3:5,6). We start with God: we let Him be true, and
every man a liar. We listen to the challenge of Paul reminding us that we don't have the stature to reply against God. With Job, we put our hand over our mouth. With Christ, we rejoice that God the Father has done what pleased Him. We let His will be the rule, the determiner of good and evil; not to do so, ultimately, is to fall into the mistake of Adam and Eve, to believe that good and evil can be determined without reference to God's will.
All of that to say, that shifts in what the world values don't actually matter when it comes to our theology: we must take our stand with Job and Paul and Christ.
I doubt you can make such a distinction. Not only are choosing and loving intimately related, but Deuteronomy shows that God loves,
because he loves. If you quote with elisions the point made in the text is inescapably clear:
The LORD did not set his love upon you ... But because the LORD loved you.... Compare Hosea 14:4 where God resolves to love them freely, or 1 Samuel 12:22 where the choice of a people is predicated on God's good pleasure. The
beneplacitum of God is the ultimate ground of election and of love.
