Visitor: Does the Bible really teach that there is no such thing as chance? My version still says that "time and chance happen to all."
If everything - absolutely everything mind you - was decided before that first "let their be" then Ryle's last paragraph simply makes no sense. All that talk about what we should seek and strive to do and believe is advice impossible to follow because what I believe as well as what I do were, apparently, fully and finally established before the foundation of the earth. Radical Calvinists will vehemently disagree with me about my ability to make any choice - however trivial - but only because God decided some time ago that they would. Nothing to do with them though, just grace that they back the right horse. Me though? Apparently there is a God in Romans who makes things he hates and will eventually destroy. Weird though, don't you think, not to mention any of that in Genesis 1, where things are only "good" and "very good"?
Response:
A two-part response:
1) The Bible teaches that God is all-seeing (Psalm 33:13-15), never-sleeping (Psalm 121:3-4) and cares deeply about His people (Romans 8:38-39). He assures us that He knows every hair on our head, and when every sparrow falls ... but He comforts us that we "are of more value than many sparrows" (Luke 12:6-7).
The text and all of Ecclesiastes is speaking from a human perspective, so time and chance refers to man who does not know his time. Please read the text in context:
Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all. For man does not know his time. Ecclesiastes 9:11-12
When we take a broader view of the context, then, we see that the text is saying that man's steps are all decided in heaven by God. It is neither might nor weakness that determines the outcome, but God alone. Chance is not some entity working out there in opposition to God, but refers to what happens to man, without his cooperation. Everyone is subject to chance because each person does not know his time or what might befall him from above.
Further, a false, untenable, absurd result follows from your denial. Your view would have us believe that God either doesn't pay attention to us or does not care. If your view were true then it follows that you must affirm that there are some things that take God by surprise. If so then you have made "chance" a greater or more powerful entity or phenomena than God Himself and you would thus dethrone Him.
Instead why not simply read and yield to the Scripture rather than philosophize?
The Bible teaches that men are fully responsible for their sin even though God ordains that all things, including that sin, infallibly come to pass. See the following texts:
"...you yourselves know this Jesus, delivered up according to the DEFINITE PLAN and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. Acts 2:22-24
"for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do WHATEVER YOU HAND AND YOUR PLAN had PREDESTINED to take place." Acts 4:27-28
Your view simply cannot account for these texts apart from some serious acrobatics. Don't kick against the goads.
2) You said, "All that talk about what we should seek and strive to do and believe is advice impossible to follow because what I believe as well as what I do were, apparently, fully and finally established before the foundation of the earth. Radical Calvinists will vehemently disagree with me about my ability to make any choice - however trivial - but only because God decided some time ago that they would."
Response: Due to the fall and the consequent corruption of your nature, you cannot follow any of the "advice" given in Scripture. Your moral compass and thus your ability to choose right, is broken. Only grace can restore your will to choose what is good (John 6:63) Our inability to choose is not because God is coercing us to make choices one way or the other. We do so voluntarily. Even though the Scripture indeed teaches that God ordains all that comes to pass (Eph 1:11), it also teaches that the choices we make are driven by what we love most ... so our choices are fully compatible with God's sovereign decree, as I already demonstrated with Scripture in the first part of the answer. So we have our own will and we make real choices. To declare otherwise is to misrepresent what we believe.
A quote from Calvin should be sufficient to demonstrate that this is the classic Reformed position on the issue:
"...we allow that man has choice and that it is self-determined, so that if he does anything evil, it should be imputed to him and to his own voluntary choosing. We do away with coercion and force, because this contradicts the nature of the will and cannot coexist with it. We deny that choice is free, because through man's innate wickedness it is of necessity driven to what is evil and cannot seek anything but evil. And from this it is possible to deduce what a great difference there is between necessity and coercion. For we do not say that man is dragged unwillingly into sinning, but that because his will is corrupt he is held captive under the yoke of sin and therefore of necessity will in an evil way. For where there is bondage, there is necessity. But it makes a great difference whether the bondage is voluntary or coerced. We locate the necessity to sin precisely in corruption of the will, from which follows that it is self-determined.
- John Calvin from Bondage and Liberation of the Will, pg. 69-70
Frankly, I am not sure why this is so difficult to embrace given the abundant evidence of the same in the world we live in. Do you complain to God about when and where you were born, since you had no choice in the matter? Or that He chooses to grant some people in this world more favorable conditions than others? Some are born poor and starving or with disease and others in health and opulence. Some are born blind and others, mute. Did not God determine this? Likewise, with regard to salvation, does not God have mercy on whom He will and harden whom He wills? (see Rom 9:16-18)
May the Lord look favorably upon you and open your eyes to the truth of his sufficient grace in Christ Jesus.