Predestination v. Freewill

[Big J]

Wow. Just got done reading the debate in the Asatru thread, and it got me thinking. My experience was with Baptist (fundy/Independant) and Roman Catholicism, neither of which "believe" in predestination.

So forgive me Pop and ATown if I mess it up...but basically, predestination states that it was established before birth whether you would be saved or not, correct?

So the way I see it, there are three options (and forgive me if I use the wrong terms...I am trying):
(1) Free will--A person chooses or rejects Jehovah, without his interference.
(2) Limited Predestination--Jehovah "chooses" a person, yet the person would have to "walk the walk" to be saved.
(3) Full Predestination--Anton LeVey, Josef Stalin, and Madalin Murray O'Hair (a very strong atheist (as in "There are no gods, period) ) could all be in Heaven if they were "chosen" by Jehovah.

Here are my problems with each one.

Free will kind of negates Jehovah being all knowing and all powerful. How can you have free will with an omnipotent, omnicient deity?

Limited predestination has the problem of Jehovah "choosing" someone, only to have them not do what they are supposed to...thus making an omnicient deity...not all knowing.

Full predestination means that no matter how good one is, and even if they have faith, one could still be in danger of hellfire. Goes against the whole idea of needing faith (or faith + works) to be saved.

It is late and I am tired, so if I messed up on anything, i will correct it.

I would like to hear from people on this...what does everyone believe, and how do you rectify your beliefs with the arguments (and feel free to post other aguments against the other ones if you want to too.)

Oh, and Happy New Year! to all

 

[mrpopdrinker]

I would have to believe in free will. Is God even all knowing and all powerfull in the first place? To be honest I am not sure. We were made in his image and likeness so i do not believe he can be sovereign over humans. Even if he could be he would have to limit his power over us. Like I said if he in responsible for everything then God is the biggest heretic and sinner. Is he all knowing? "Turn from Thy burning anger and change Thy mind about doing harm to Thy people. 13“Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Thy servants to whom Thou didst swear by Thyself, and didst say to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14So the Lord changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people," (Exodus 32:12-14, NASB). If he is all knowing then why change his mind? (or relent as some translations say) Why not just not make that decision in the first place?

 

[LionOfJudah]

you forget that His ways are Higher than our ways, and we will never understand them all. (wow just like quoted 2 songs and a verse

) Plus its only up to you to accept the facts that
God is all knowning
God is all powerful
God is God, and you are not.

Yes we made us in His Image But its just that an image, just as when you look into a clear pond your image is there, but it is distorted a little. the "distortion" is our sin period we sinned we screwed it up, and He owes us nothing, so who is to say He can pick and choose who He likes, He knows who will reject Him, and who will embrace Him. You can say well
I can not (will not) believe that a Loving God....... (fill in the blank)

Ok lets break this down
first is I, you yourself, as a person it doesnt matter that you cant believe it because it is God, you either accept everything, or you reject it all.
Can Not, or are you just not willing to accept it because you have been saying X all these years and dont want to controdict your self.
Believe, well that is what it is all about Faith, and if you can not believe that God is a God of love and wraith well, might want to read the Bible again.

The only part that would be right in the entire sentence is the Loving God, because He is a Loving God.

I use the Exodous Scripture when i was defending Free will, infact there are some in the NT that i know of (Go find em) some would just disregard that as OT, but what you dont realize is that God delt with His people Totally Different in the OT than in the NT, infact you should just call them the Old Covanent and the New Covanent. IF you read the scripture and understood the context of the verse, yes God was burning with anger, and He wanted to distory Isreal, but Moses, was not saying Change your mind, he was reitterating what God had done for the Isrealites, inbringing them out of Egypt and everything, was not worried about what happens to them, but rather what Gods Reputation would be. Plus it just shows us His Grace in the OT, because they deserved to die, but HE let them live.

 

[mrpopdrinker]

Quote[/b] ]Yes we made us in His Image

You forget the word likeness. Genesis 1:26 "Then God said let us make Man in our in our image, in our likeness....."

Quote[/b] ]you forget that His ways are Higher than our ways

So is causing people to sin and sending them to hell for it higher than our ways?

Quote[/b] ]God is God, and you are not.

Try telling that to Kenneth Copeland.

Quote[/b] ]God is all knowning
God is all powerful

Can you give me somthing to back that up please?

Quote[/b] ]Believe, well that is what it is all about Faith, and if you can not believe that God is a God of love and wraith well, might want to read the Bible again.

I believe he is a God of love and wrath. However a loving God is not going to create people for the purpose of sending them to hell. The title "loving God" has to be earned.

 

[LionOfJudah]

PoP you Forget that He doesnt OWE you anything, The Psalms Talks about Gods Soverignity and Power.

IS it God who causes you to Sin? or is it your own Desires? Or can the old atage be true, the Devil made me do it.

 

[mrpopdrinker]

Quote[/b] ]The Psalms Talks about Gods Soverignity and Power.

Dont make doctrines out of songs and poetry.

Quote[/b] ]IS it God who causes you to Sin? or is it your own Desires? Or can the old atage be true, the Devil made me do it.

It is my own desires.

Quote[/b] ]PoP you Forget that He doesnt OWE you anything

He said that I could have salvation if I wanted it so yes he does owe me salvation.

 

[Ultima Avatar]

That's not owing you it. That's like saying: I'll give you money if you want it. That's not owing anyone anything. If they don't want it, God is under no responsibility or inhibition to grant them it. There is a conditional to it: YOU WANT IT.

God is all-knowing, and all-powerful...well. You'll have to tell me why the Bible refers to him as the Almighty...I think that word might possibly refer to being...umm...almighty. Yeah. A.k.a. omnipotent.
Desires take place into sin, and God made you, and made you to have desires. So would not it ultimately revert to God's responsibility for sin?
You forget pop that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. So if David and the other pslamists' songs, and Solomon's proverbs, are not worthy of being constituted as sound doctrine from God, or even wisdom from God, then the rest of the Bible is unreliable as solid doctrine of God as well. For if one part is not inspired, then another could be, and another. And if that's the case, then God is a buncha BS.
Is He?
KENNETH COPELAND, I love to say, is nowhere near the spectrum of Christianity that as a pastor, he could and SHOULD be. Neither are Hinn, Hagee, and Chick, and many, many more Word of Faith movement monsters.

 

[mrpopdrinker]

Quote[/b] ]You forget pop that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.

I am no longer sure on that one. I do believe most of it was inspired. But I cant really take somthing like a psalm and use it for doctrine.

Quote[/b] ] many, many more Word of Faith movement monsters.

I dont know if monster is the best thing to call men of God.

Quote[/b] ]That's not owing you it.

Maybe not exactly owing. However he did promise it to those who ask and he cannot go back on that.

 

[CGamer]

Ok here are my 2 cents about predestination, sidenote I'm a Baptist:
First I believe many peoples concept of predestination is inaccurate. Ex. Predestination, God has ordained that you & you will be saved but not him or her. Or I've heard people say "God sent those people to hell"

Ok now here are my thoughts on the subject;
Predestination and free will do exist silmultaneously, first on predestination.
God has predestined that all men/women should(emphasize on should) be saved, by saying this God's intention for man is that he be saved and fellowship with Him. Now here's where freewill comes into play. Freewill as it applies is this man's choice or desire, whether it be to serve God or serve himself. Here also is God's omnipotence or all-knowing comes into play. God knew that Heath Summerlin would be saved on July 30, 1997. So does that mean God says he will be saved regardless, no it means that God knew me, and knew my decision but yet He did not force Himself upon me only made Himself available to me.

Jeremiah 1:4-5 Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Again God's desire is for all men not just a few to be saved.

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

God doesn't want robots as some define predestination but wants willing freely chosen followers. Again God created Adam and Eve for fellowship. And again He knew what there actions would be, but yet He still created them, so why? God had angels he created for there purpose to love Him, but man was created to love Him based on man's desire to love God not because it was their purpose.

So to sum it, predestination, yes, because God knew what the cost would be, Jesus.

Freewill, yes, Because God knew man's decision Jesus or not.

So its up to you, choose Salvation in Jesus or Separation in Sin.

 

[Ultima Avatar]

I doubt highly the words and claims of many who self-profess themselves to be men of God. I'm a cynic, born and bred within myself.

So basically CG, what you just said is that God doesn't predestine people...He just knows what all's going to happen.

 

[TastyWheat]

Quote[/b] (CGamer @ Jan. 04 2004,9:16)]So to sum it, predestination, yes, because God knew what the cost would be, Jesus.

Freewill, yes, Because God knew man's decision Jesus or not.

(sidenote: you don't sound like most hardcore Baptists I've heard in my lifetime, which is refreshing)

This quote hits the nail on the head, Ultima. The issue is not whether you believe in predestination or not; if you are a Christian, you better believe in it. The issue is what is/has been predestined. The Calvinist/Reformed tradition says individuals are predestined to salvation (but as my sidenote shows not all in the Reformed tradition necessarily believe this); the Wesleyan/Arminian tradition says the means of our salvation has been predestined - Jesus' death on the cross. I have no clue what the Catholic/Orthodox traditions believe, sadly...if Leo were here I'm sure he'd be apt to tell us.

People have been pretty effectively utilizing Scripture to "prove" both. I think for the most part Reformed theologians pull from Paul and Romans and Wesleyans pull from John's theme of God's love in his epistles. Trying to break out Scripture to prove either one thus will result only in a stalemate...

 

[Ultima Avatar]

I suppose.
However, the question is: who's right
and the hidden question is: does the belief matter a whole heckuva lot?
I can answer the second. Yes. It does matter what facets of Christianity you avidly support and believe in as total dogma. It does. Because it affects your relationships, your witness, even your worldview. Who's right, however, is moot. What you believe is the shaping, and so the belief's ultimate right or wrong can be humongously influential...for instance, Pre-adamite culture. THAT is a huge factor to believe in that makes or breaks the whole of Christianity. Your beliefs affect your witness. Most definitely.
Predestination and free will, the same way. I just don't know which aspects of predestination are accurate.

 

[LionOfJudah]

Pop if you are going to ignore one book of the Bible you might as well ignore it all. end of story because Its all the Word of God put in there by Him (in like 300AD none the less) Yes you can take Song and Poetry and form Doctrine from it, because instead of righting it out as a lecture or a letter, the Palmsists wrote it out in rythme, may not rythme to you by it is rythme

 

[mrpopdrinker]

Quote[/b] ]Yes you can take Song and Poetry and form Doctrine from it

I can also form doctrine from morrowind if I wanted to. The psalms were meant to praise God and therefore could say anything they wished if the author thought it would make God happy somehow.

Quote[/b] ]Pop if you are going to ignore one book of the Bible you might as well ignore it all.

No I think I will keep the rest of it.

 

[Big J]

Quote[/b] (TastyWheat @ Jan. 04 2004,6:55)]I have no clue what the Catholic/Orthodox traditions believe, sadly...if Leo were here I'm sure he'd be apt to tell us.

I have no clue about Eastern Orthodoxy. The more I read about it, the less like Roman Catholicism it seems (non-trinitarian, etc.).

For the Roman Catholics, it is faith and works that earn your way into heaven...thus why they need purgatory (that way one can "burn off" all the sins you did before entering heaven.) So I would put them firmly into the Freewill catagory.

On a side notye, I'm glad to see this going as a good discussion.

I am learning stuff here too.

LOJ, the history of what was included and not in the Christian Holy Bible is quite interesting...Paul and others make a number of references to books not included...which I personally find quite interesting.

 

[Avesther]

Wow, lots of reading, hurts my eyes and head. My understanding of it, is that God is more then I can ever imagine. How can God be omnipotent and allow freewill at the same time?

Another cunondrom: How can we, as limited as we are, ever even begin to understand the answer, even if it was given to us on a silver platter?

 

[Ultima Avatar]

Well Big J, forget going to the NT for books...just read in Chronicles, Kings, and many other OT books for references to the works of Nathan the prophet, Gad the Seer, Gad the Seer and so many more. Many works we have not found...possibly destroyed, possibly hidden, possibly just not for us, and possibly not canonized if they were found. The Church canonized what they discerned to be books from God. Hence, the gospel of THomas is most definitely not going to be in the Bible...if you read it, the inaccuracy and blatant deception goes against what the rest of the Bible says.

Pop, why keep Proverbs, and Song of Solomon, then, while we're at it? I mean, they're practically worthless, if the prophecies mentioned in Psalms and referred to from the NT are as pointless and trivial as you discern them to be. So why not toss out fatherly advice and romance calls between lovers?

As to Peon, well. We probably couldn't. Not understanding simple things Christ tells us, how could we grasp difficult truths that Christ tells us? Some of us are able to understand. However, many, many of us cannot. There are many mysteries and riddles of the Bible I cannot know and will never know. But if God feels it's HIs time to show us truth, then most likely He will show it to those who can understand it.

 

[TastyWheat]

Quote[/b] (Ultima Avatar @ Jan. 04 2004,4:29)]I suppose.
However, the question is: who's right
and the hidden question is: does the belief matter a whole heckuva lot?
I can answer the second. Yes. It does matter what facets of Christianity you avidly support and believe in as total dogma. It does. Because it affects your relationships, your witness, even your worldview. Who's right, however, is moot. What you believe is the shaping, and so the belief's ultimate right or wrong can be humongously influential...for instance, Pre-adamite culture. THAT is a huge factor to believe in that makes or breaks the whole of Christianity. Your beliefs affect your witness. Most definitely.
Predestination and free will, the same way. I just don't know which aspects of predestination are accurate.

Well, I think I take the opposite stance, mainly because of the mission statements of all Reformed and Arminian groups. Also because doctrine does not come from God, it's man's futile attempt at coalescing theologies into something humans can use as a template for answering tough questions. Now granted, I still love doing theology...it's like doing Calculus, until you hit something that requires an impossible proof.

Anyway, here's my rationale. All Christians [ideally] follow the 10 Commandments, and Jesus' summation of them. Whether you believe you chose God or He chose you, it doesn't change the fact that you are supposed to love God with your whole being and love others as yourself. Also, all Christians [ideally] follow His commission in Matthew 28:19-20 about going out and making disciples while teaching them. Now, you may say, "But if God predestined people to salvation then what does evangelism matter?" I'm not Calvinist, but I can tell you the answer is two-part: 1) Because Jesus commands it! and 2) Because God may have chosen you particularly for salvation and because He may have chosen this random person in Guatemala for salvation, and he's also predestined this person to be saved because of you! So go do it!

The problem in society is that often people let their theological stances affect their witness, and they shouldn't! You know what happens when you let Calvinists go to war against Wesleyan/Arminians? The same crap that happened in the church in Corinth.

"I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, 'I follow Paul'; another, 'I follow Apollos'; another, 'I follow Cephas'; sill another, 'I follow Christ.' Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?"
~ I Corinthians 1:10-13

 

[Atown]

ok since im lazy i didt read all of it. but i do want to throw in something: isnt freewill and predestination the exact same when it comes down to it??

 

[mrpopdrinker]

Quote[/b] ]isnt freewill and predestination the exact same when it comes down to it??

No it is not. The calvinist view is you go to hell because god dident like you enough to die for your sins. The arminian view (although freewill is not arminian only same with predestination) is that you are going to hell because you were to stupid too accept salvation. So in one view the gift isnt there so there is no hope for you. or the gift will be unwrapped for you. In the other view the gift is there but it is up to you to take it. Well there is also the pelagian view where you dont even need the gift to begin with. As far as why do calvinist preach. They believe that you have to "wake up" the elect by preaching the gospel. Although if I was a calvinist I think I would just sit back and not even worry about it.