One of the biggest issues I had, to the point of seeing suicide as one of the only valid rectifications of a apparent conundrum in Christianity, specifically with the Reformed side, was the absence of personal authority, while being saddled with ultimate responsibily... The very definition of tyranny.
If the Lord pre-ordains whether someone loves Him or not, then punishes them accordingly, then He is a tyrant as you point out, so I think you are seeing that same problem I saw. I had to find a way for the Lord to be soveriegn, AND have balanced personal authority to choose our actions, and responsibility for our choices.
I can thankfully credit R.C.Sproul for being a lying manipulator of scripture for helping me break out of my orginal "Reformed" set of assumptions. Once I saw how badly Sproul was butchering scripture I gained awareness of how badly I was interpretting scripture myself. Personal responsibility HAD to come with personal choice and agency.
In my first post on this thread, I did not use pre-ordained at all, in the sense of the Lord puppeteering our actions. Instead He ordained ordinances. His decreed actions. He stated His will quite clearly, and His will is spelled out in excruciating detail in the Torah. Now we have full authority to choose to obey or rebel. He has absolute sovereignty to judge us for our choices.
By changing the Reformed doctrine of the Lord decreeing whether you blink in the next few seconds and you have no agency to alter that, you only think you chose to hold your breath, to the Lord decreeing Torah; Suddenly all of scripture becomes more cohesive, and the Lord stops being a tyrant.
You do not need the predestination doctrine to hold imputed righteousness. He has soveriegnty to judge as He will, and He has already stated He intends to curse 10 generations of those who hate Him, and bless 1000 gens of those who love Him. That mercy is extreme! But ultimately, the Messiah came as a mediator, a go-between, so that the sins of Israel will not be charged to Israel, but will instead fall on the husband of Israel. Since His righteousness was so great, and His love of the Lord so complete, that His love covers over a multitude of sins.
He only covers His people though, he doesn't cover everyone. He makes it quite clear that those who love Him and obey Him, who work toward salvation with fear and trembling through obedience, those are the ones He claims. So we must make personal choice, and we are rewarded for our good deeds, and if we truly love and obey Him then our past sins, as stated in the terms of the Renewed Covenant of Jer31, those past sins will not be remembered, because they are charged on the account of the Messiah, who is able to be a covering for us, thus imputing His righteousness on those He claims as His. For Israel was bought for a price.
If the Lord pre-ordains whether someone loves Him or not, then punishes them accordingly, then He is a tyrant as you point out, so I think you are seeing that same problem I saw. I had to find a way for the Lord to be soveriegn, AND have balanced personal authority to choose our actions, and responsibility for our choices.
I can thankfully credit R.C.Sproul for being a lying manipulator of scripture for helping me break out of my orginal "Reformed" set of assumptions. Once I saw how badly Sproul was butchering scripture I gained awareness of how badly I was interpretting scripture myself. Personal responsibility HAD to come with personal choice and agency.
In my first post on this thread, I did not use pre-ordained at all, in the sense of the Lord puppeteering our actions. Instead He ordained ordinances. His decreed actions. He stated His will quite clearly, and His will is spelled out in excruciating detail in the Torah. Now we have full authority to choose to obey or rebel. He has absolute sovereignty to judge us for our choices.
By changing the Reformed doctrine of the Lord decreeing whether you blink in the next few seconds and you have no agency to alter that, you only think you chose to hold your breath, to the Lord decreeing Torah; Suddenly all of scripture becomes more cohesive, and the Lord stops being a tyrant.
You do not need the predestination doctrine to hold imputed righteousness. He has soveriegnty to judge as He will, and He has already stated He intends to curse 10 generations of those who hate Him, and bless 1000 gens of those who love Him. That mercy is extreme! But ultimately, the Messiah came as a mediator, a go-between, so that the sins of Israel will not be charged to Israel, but will instead fall on the husband of Israel. Since His righteousness was so great, and His love of the Lord so complete, that His love covers over a multitude of sins.
He only covers His people though, he doesn't cover everyone. He makes it quite clear that those who love Him and obey Him, who work toward salvation with fear and trembling through obedience, those are the ones He claims. So we must make personal choice, and we are rewarded for our good deeds, and if we truly love and obey Him then our past sins, as stated in the terms of the Renewed Covenant of Jer31, those past sins will not be remembered, because they are charged on the account of the Messiah, who is able to be a covering for us, thus imputing His righteousness on those He claims as His. For Israel was bought for a price.
