Predestination?

[Asterix]

i have a question about predestination (well duh, considering the thread title)
“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”-Romans 8:29-30.
Ephesians 1:5 and 11. “He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will…In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.”
Looking at these verses, it seems that predestination is true. from a personal standpoint, i reject predestination, as it seems to interfere with free will, something i believe in strongly. Now, someone (a Christian please, i don't want atheists, etc., with all due respect to tear this apart) help me interpret this. do these verses mean some are predestined to go to heaven (or whatever the proper term is) and everyone else has a choice, or does it mean the Calvinist predestination idea, that you're going to heaven or hell and you have absolutely no choice in the matter? or does it mean something totally different?
and another thing! if these verses mean that Calvinist predestination is the truth, then what is the point of believing in Christ? If you believe in Christ as Savior, and also believe that if you do God may still tell you to go to hell, doesn't the rest of Scripture fall apart? Believing in Christ alone won't save you if you follow this idea, but doesn't that contradict many a teaching of Jesus? or am i just a total idiot who has no idea what i'm talking about (i'm pretty sure this is true...)

[Turbo]

i have a question about predestination (well duh, considering the thread title)
“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”-Romans 8:29-30.
Ephesians 1:5 and 11. “He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will…In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.”
Looking at these verses, it seems that predestination is true. from a personal standpoint, i reject predestination, as it seems to interfere with free will, something i believe in strongly. Now, someone (a Christian please, i don't want atheists, etc., with all due respect to tear this apart) help me interpret this. do these verses mean some are predestined to go to heaven (or whatever the proper term is) and everyone else has a choice, or does it mean the Calvinist predestination idea, that you're going to heaven or hell and you have absolutely no choice in the matter? or does it mean something totally different?
and another thing! if these verses mean that Calvinist predestination is the truth, then what is the point of believing in Christ? If you believe in Christ as Savior, and also believe that if you do God may still tell you to go to hell, doesn't the rest of Scripture fall apart? Believing in Christ alone won't save you if you follow this idea, but doesn't that contradict many a teaching of Jesus? or am i just a total idiot who has no idea what i'm talking about (i'm pretty sure this is true...)

Its a complicated theological question. Basically, there is a difference between foreknowledge, Calvinist predestination and the predestination the Catholic Church embraces.

Foreknowledge = Your path is known by the Lord but you are the one who makes the choices.
Calvinist Predestination = You (the person) are chosen by God for salvation, this finds conflict with free will
Catholic Predestination = Christians are predestined for salvation as a group.

My beliefs teach me that Christians as a group are predestined for salvation and the Lord has the foreknowledge to know what choices we make. The choices are our own as a result of free will.

[Asterix]

^ so... that God knows your choices doesn't necessarily interfere with free will. makes sense, i suppose. If my thinking is right, this is sort of like predicting a move in chess (or anything else)-even though you know what the other person is going to do next doesn't make it any less that person's choice.
About Catholic Predestination-that's interesting. Christians are destined to be saved just by being Christians and believing in Christ, naturally. After you make the choice of being a Christian and join the group, you are saved, automatically.. there is no conflict with free will here, if i figured this out right. with this thinking, isn't the whole concept of predestination redundant?

[Vezon]

God predestinated certain people to be saved. Those same people also have a choice about whether or not they will be saved. It's just something you must accept by faith. But the idea of the chess game is interesting. Oh, and God does not predestinate people for eternal punishment(not sure if I'm allowed to use the name). No where in the Bible does it say that people are predestinated for punishment. The idea of that kind of predestination comes from verses taken out of context.

[Asterix]

God predestinated certain people to be saved. Those same people also have a choice about whether or not they will be saved. It's just something you must accept by faith. But the idea of the chess game is interesting. Oh, and God does not predestinate people for eternal punishment(not sure if I'm allowed to use the name). No where in the Bible does it say that people are predestinated for punishment. The idea of that kind of predestination comes from verses taken out of context.

your first couple of sentences are explained by my chess idea, i believe. but rather than something god really does, i think he just knows, and the predestination is explained by the Catholic idea of predestination. if i am thinking right, which i probably am not.

[basics]

" do these verses mean some are predestined to go to heaven (or whatever the proper term is) and everyone else has a choice, or does it mean the Calvinist predestination idea, that you're going to heaven or hell and you have absolutely no choice in the matter? or does it mean something totally different? "

Asterix,

You know its the most hated expression in the Bible and not just by the religious but others as well, why? Because it takes away from man what he foolishly thinks he already has in free-will. Man cannot get over that in all the Scriptures it never says that man has free-will. Beginning from the fall of man that breed were put under sin and Satan, bound in it and no will could outside of God break that.

Now that is a fundamental that must bring immediate attention to the fact as to why Jesus Christ our God and Saviour had to come to this world. Man was bound in sin, his nature evil, and ruled over by the power of Diablos, the Accuser. It is also fortified by Jesus who said that no man can come to the Father except by Him and no man can come to Him except the Father draws them. That is the free-will that silly men think they have.

Great play is made about Apostolic succession, and these were the men who were around Jesus during His ministry, but when it comes to them telling us that God in figure being a potter, making things for destruction and things for keeping and that by predestination does not mean what they affirm it to mean, I have to ask what part of any body are they. And then there are those that quite arrogantly say that this is only a result of God knowing the end from the beginning, oh how foolish they are.

Its rather funny that at the cross Jesus Christ paid by blood in full for the sins of those that are predestined to be saved. Had He shed His blood to cover what men might or might not choose then by definition all men must be saved since blood must have been shed to cover all eventualities. I mean He couldn't cover all and then recover what was not used just because He knew the end from the beginning, why? Because on that cross when each price had been paid He cried out " It is finished."

And then there is Peter telling all that could hear that salvation was unto all that believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, to them and to their families...and the additional, " As many as the Lord God shall call." Does that sound like choice or does it sound like as many as the Father draws? It is God who justifies, sanctifies, makes righteous, makes perfect. No other. And it is God who in heaven before the worlds were made who filled the books with names by His grace that none should boast.

Sixteen times is free-will mentioned in Scripture and not one concerning the condition of man. All are about offerings in the religious feasts for a people already covered by God to be even for a short moment in time, Holy through the same rituals which as we know lasted only as long as to the next celebration. God had chosen them to be Holy but were they? Most perished along the way in their sin still under the power of Diablos. Now if there had been free-will this is the perfect example of what it really was.

[Scipio Africanus Maximus]

You can read this blog post on the topic if you wish. It has an interesting interpretation of the first verse you mentioned.

http://takingtheyoke.blogspot.com/20...stination.html

[SigniferOne]

...

Pretty much as Turbo said: foreknown, but not made. Even if those verses weren't there you'd have to conclude that he who is saved would be foreknown, because God has omniscience, so it necessarily follows. How omniscience can work with an entity that has free will has several good ways of looking at it:

-one is the chess analogy, especially the Zugswang scenario, where the circumstances are such that the player is forced to make a certain move, even despite his better wishes; you, on the other side, can know 100% ahead of time that he will do so, even though his choice is free and nobody violates it.

-another is understanding that God exists in the future as well as in the past, in short, equally distant from all points in time. God, from the future, knows now what you will do, so there is perfect omniscience there, although you were not forced and exercised free will all the way.

Sixteen times is free-will mentioned in Scripture and not one concerning the condition of man.

This is a red herring -- "Free Will" just a technical term, an artifact of our current temporary culture and lexical way of expressing things. The key question is how many times the Bible earnestly and repeatedly tells for man that he ought to do things? How many times? That is the real clincher. Count those instances, and you will run out of numbers.

Paul says, "Have faith, my brothers!".

He does not say, "God made me tell you, that He will make you have faith, so don't bother even trying because those who will, will, and those who won't, wont. So in effect even me telling you this was unnecessary. But God made me say it so I guess I had no choice."

[Asterix]

Paul says, "Have faith, my brothers!".

He does not say, "God made me tell you, that He will make you have faith, so don't bother even trying because those who will, will, and those who won't, wont. So in effect even me telling you this was unnecessary. But God made me say it so I guess I had no choice."

i agree with sig here. the way i think of this is-
God said to Adam and Eve to not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and what not. if God had created A&E w/o free will, then they wouldn't have. of course, they did. another way is to think about it would be that it's redundant to say not to eat from the tree for the same reason SigniferOne states in his "what Paul didn't say" quote.

(I use the Adam and Eve thing as a metaphor, so don't get into creationism from this, please)

[Caledonian Rhyfelwyr]

-one is the chess analogy, especially the Zugswang scenario, where the circumstances are such that the player is forced to make a certain move, even despite his better wishes; you, on the other side, can know 100% ahead of time that he will do so, even though his choice is free and nobody violates it.

That analogy doesn't work. The opponent of the player making the move does not literally "know" what move he will make, he can only guess. If player B had really known what move player A was going to make before he made it, then as soon as player B knew that, player A could only ever make that move.

Player A wills to do it, but he could not have not done it. This is why Calvinists say they believe in free will, but not libertarian free will.

-another is understanding that God exists in the future as well as in the past, in short, equally distant from all points in time. God, from the future, knows now what you will do, so there is perfect omniscience there, although you were not forced and exercised free will all the way.

And yet God interacts with us her as we act within the constraints of time. If God is outside of time in relation to us, then it was incorrect of the scripture to say that anything was foreknown of God, since to foreknow something requires knowledge of something before it happens. If God is outside of time, how can he know something before it happens, since to know it "before" would require acting within the constrains of time?

This is a red herring -- "Free Will" just a technical term, an artifact of our current temporary culture and lexical way of expressing things. ."

Probably part of the problem is that people have different definitions of it. As I said above, although we have the popular free will v determinism debate, it would be more accurate to call it libertarian free will v deterministic free will. Calvinists still believe people will to act the way they do, the simply believe that all of history is inevitable, one decision leads to another, you will act a certain way at a certain point in time because your will is so inclined etc.

Libertarian free will on the other hand needs a random element in the human will so that things cannot be foreknown. If, by the nature of my will, I will always be inclined to act a certain way, then that means there is no random element - everything is predetermined. But this doesn't sit well with Arminians who don't wantto believe that the elect were foreknown of God.

To try to explain better... a Calvinist says that a person will always be inclined to act a certain way under certain circumstances. As such, he exercises his free will when he does so. Obviously, since we only act one way in any circumstance, this version of free will is compatible with determinism, hence predestination.

On the other hand, for an Arminian, a person must not only be able to act according to his will, his will must actually be able take different options.

So say a person weighs up what he wants to do with a score out of 100. He has two options, A and B, and he weighs up whats best, and gives 51 points to A, and 49 to B. In a Calvinist's world, he will always go with option A. In an Arminians world where a random element is needed to remove determinism, he will go with A 51% of the time, and B 49%. Without this randomness, you have determinism and predestination, everything is inevitable, since there is only ever one result in any given circumstance.

That is what Arminianism proposes with its libertarian free will, and it is why IMO the Calvinist version of free will is far more meaningful anyway, since a person can always act the way their will leans towards, without leaving things to chance.

[SigniferOne]

That analogy doesn't work. The opponent of the player making the move does not literally "know" what move he will make, he can only guess.

You've missed my ZugSwang reference, which underlined that particular part of my post. In ZugSwang, which is a pairticular position on the board, a player is in a situation where, for the next 1, 2, 5 or even more moves, he can do one thing and one thing only; if he does any other moves than that single one, that will result in an automatic loss. So if you've put the player into this unfavorable scenario, if you've surrounded him with these automatic-loss scenarios on all sides, you know exactly what he will do, with 100% precision (unless he's willing to forfeit and lose the game itself).

If God is outside of time, how can he know something before it happens, since to know it "before" would require acting within the constrains of time?

I think this is a bit of a semantical quibble here. You're muddling the difference between being outside of time, and not understanding time. That's what you claim -- that God doesn't understand time, and cannot speak in temporal terms of 'before', after', just because he is outside of it. I think you see that by merely formulating the issue in these terms, it gets disqualified from being right.

Probably part of the problem is that people have different definitions of it.

Unfortunately this does not address the point I raised, namely that looking for the specific formulation "free will" in the Bible is a bit of a red herring. We can also look for the Hebrew phrase of the "unconstrained will", or "unconditioned decisionmaking", "causeless causation", etc etc. Are any of these phrases in the Bible, and can any reasonable person expect them to be present there? And by the same token is the specific phrase "unconditional election" there? No? Does that completely disprove your Calvinistic hypothesis here? How about this, cite me the verse that talks about "unfree will"? Or better yet, how about citing a verse with the complete clunky phrase you've used here, the "deterministic free will"? Where are all these phrases?

Of course any sensible person will see that they aren't there and would never be expected to be there, because they're just artifacts of our, temporary, present civilization. In future times, and different places, those concepts will be called differently. So instead of placing all of your energies on finding and refuting the specific word, focus your energies on the concept behind it.

What is that concept I'm referring to, and how can we detect it's presence regardless of what it's called? When a person is asked to do something. When it is written that he ought to do something. When God's judgment depends on the person's particular choice. Why would Paul ask, encourage, his people to have faith? Why would Jesus say, "ask and ye shall receive"? It makes no sense! Abraham's worth depended, depended, on his decision with regard to Isaac. The message from the Bible is clear and unambiguous.

All of these verses and concepts from the Bible become senseless, meaningless, if the Calvinist hypothesis holds true.

it would be more accurate to call it libertarian free will v deterministic free will.

I don't think that formulation is necessary at all, because to say that it's free is to say everything about it. That libertarian, random element is already included in it being free.

Arminians who don't wantto believe that the elect were foreknown of God.

That's not correct at all, Arminians not only already believe, but have even complete explanations for how the elect would have been foreknown to God.

IMO the Calvinist version of free will is far more meaningful anyway, since a person can always act the way their will leans towards, without leaving things to chance.

This formulation of things, however, disassociates the person from his will; will becomes just another external agent acting on him. Obviously whatever the will decides, the person will do.

But unfortunately this is another injection of muddiness in what was heretofore a perfectly simple a clear understanding. There is no difference between a person and his will. He IS the will. The question is not whether he can do what his will decides against; but whether he and his will being one and the same thing, his will can choose things without constraint. In other words, whether he has a free will, or not. It's a very simple question, one familiar to people at large, once you clear all of this Reformed scholastic superstructure muddiness from it.

[basics]

" Paul says, "Have faith, my brothers!". "

SigniferOne,

The words you quote were directed at people who were born again believers each one having the ability to doubt when there was no need to. From their regeneration they always had faith but as persecution grew some's faith weakened in part because they were not long converted.

So what was the motive behind what Paul implored these men and women? It was to have not only faith but more faith by keeping their eyes on Jesus Christ. That is how faith gets stronger something that even the staunchest of men and women have had to learn over their years in Christ Jesus. We have to learn to live by His power and not our own frailties.

The unregenerate man cannot see this never mind understand it. Faith is to harness the power of God that we might live in a hostile world knowing that all that was promised to us will come to pass just as it did for Him when He was raised to glory. It is that same faith that is imputed, imparted to all them that believe, that is all them regenerate.

Why we are regenerate is because otherwise we would still be bound in sin, condemned to death by the Law and therefore certain for hell and damnation. Now if men want to consider being bound by that as having free-will that is up to them but it is not how Paul explains it in Romans when he declares that God because of the fall handed them over to the lusts of a fallen nature to do all the dreadful things stated.

That in the lusts of their hearts they conjured up idols fashioned to be their gods replacing the only God that does exist. So we see that but for what was predestined even before the worlds were made probably all of us would never see heaven and if it were down to man then merit would play an extensive role because that is how the world judges itself. It is written that for the good pleasure of God were we made, not for the good pleasure of man.

Oh, men don't like to hear that preferring to hold the threads of life in their own hands. But God is the Author of life and He is the Creator of new life that already laid out and ordained before we came into being. I remember one Billy Graham crusade where it was counted that more than five thousand had come forward to give themselves to Christ yet after some years it was discovered that only five or six still attended church. That is free-will for you.

They used their will to give themselves to God yet just as time passed their nature melted them away just like melting snow off a dyke. One cannot be bound to one thing supernaturally and then naturally unbind yourself. That is not the nature of the curse that is sin. It has been proved generation upon generation that man cannot appease God by his will because it is bound in sin. It is God that justifies and it was God who through grace named all them that would be. Free-will has never existed but in the minds of fallen men.

[Nimthill]

I'm an atheist and I'm going to reply to this topic, just try and stop me ;-)

The problem might be solved when you consider God in relation to time. If God is outside of time, he knows everything that has happened and is going to happen because for him, there's no difference in time. He can pop in and out of time whenever he wants. It also means that God knows right now what's going to happen in thousands of years from now, and what choices you're going to make. It doesn't mean you're not going to make any choices though.

If you hold a candy and a piece of dung in front of a kid, you know he's going to go for the candy. Doesn't mean the kid didn't make the choice to go for the candy.

[Asterix]

I'm an atheist and I'm going to reply to this topic, just try and stop me ;-)

The problem might be solved when you consider God in relation to time. If God is outside of time, he knows everything that has happened and is going to happen because for him, there's no difference in time. He can pop in and out of time whenever he wants. It also means that God knows right now what's going to happen in thousands of years from now, and what choices you're going to make. It doesn't mean you're not going to make any choices though.

If you hold a candy and a piece of dung in front of a kid, you know he's going to go for the candy. Doesn't mean the kid didn't make the choice to go for the candy.

thanks for not tearing this apart.
your dung-candy analogy works, except that sometimes the choice a person makes isn't always the candy-it could be the dung on occassion.

and, unrelated to the the post i quoted- i have been thinking about that constant question, how can a good God let bad things happen in the world? While i am now Buddhist (believing the world is filled with suffering and nothing good really ever comes out of living here) i recognize this and wonder too. a question to theists-what is your justification/rationalization/epiphany regarding this? i won't mention mine right now for fear of looking like a fool.

[Border Patrol]

I would think a more interesting argument for predestination would be the existence of the fourth, fifth, and sixth dimensions. After all, if we are truly just advancing along the fourth dimension, wouldn't that mean that whatever it is we are going to do already exists, just at another point along the fourth dimension?

[Asterix]

I would think a more interesting argument for predestination would be the existence of the fourth, fifth, and sixth dimensions. After all, if we are truly just advancing along the fourth dimension, wouldn't that mean that whatever it is we are going to do already exists, just at another point along the fourth dimension?

er, i no nothing about science whatsoever, but i suppose you are right. of course, i probably have absolutely no idea what im talking about.

[TransFax]

The question could also be: The predestination of WHAT?

WHAT could be an object of predestination? Cells, atoms, sub-atomar particles. energy-spaces? If predestination would apply to such (IF), then why bother about it, as it only affects cells, atoms, sub-atomar particles. energy-spaces.

If predestination is to affect the soul or mind, then we first have to figure out if soul/mind can be an OBJECT at all.

[Théoric HämmerHörde]

Maybe the Bible is wrong. That the inclusion of predestination was a premeditated maneuver of early writers to synthesize a faith which emphasizes the critical judgement after death. Having the urgency of saying one's destination is sealed, and possibly to damnation, is a terrifying concept. and is therefor a perfect tool to scare people into believing.

[Col. Tartleton]

The future already didn't happen.

Think about it.

[Théoric HämmerHörde]

The future already didn't happen.

Think about it.

THANK YOU