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First, does it really matter? i.e. Does the answer affect how you live your life? In both cases you must strive to serve God so I don't see how the answer matters.
Second, being able to see the future doesn't mean that one determines the future. If I see a car speeding toward a brick wall, I may be able to see what will happen in the future but that doesn't mean that I have any affect on the future. Just because God knows the future doesn't mean that he chose everything that will happen in it.
Do you see any problems with my arguments?
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9 comments:
I have been told that my first point isn't completely valid. Apparently there are many people who believe in predestination who therefore don't evangalize and/or try to do their best to server their Saviour.
Here is a good link for your readers to review the differences between Calvinism Vs. Arminianism.
http://www.the-highway.com/compare.html
As with anything in life, there are extremes to each viewpoint and moderate views as well.
- D3
Hey James... How are you? First, i think you're right... It SHOULDN'T matter. if people find it necessary to justify not evengelizing, they will do it on either side.
Second, if you created the car, the driver and the brick wall, while seeing what would happen to all 3 at the "end of the road," aren't you then determining their future. How can the creation and foreknowledge not go hand in hand? It's been a while since i've sparred verbally with you. :o)
Justin, since God created everything he had the choice to set the outcome or to give people (the driver) a free will.
If I built a brick wall, a car, and a driver (computer and software to run it). I could write the software to either make it hit the brick wall or to have some "artificial intelligence" to choose it's own path. If I had all input parameters I might be able to then forsee/determine (to conclude or ascertain, as after reasoning, observation, etc.) if the car would hit the brick wall. But that doesn't mean that I predestinated that the car would hit the brick wall.
Foreknowledge doesn't prove predestination. It would be interesting to do a study of predestination but I just wanted to make the point that forknowledge doesn't prove predestination. Creation and foreknowledge can go hand in hand but creation and foreknowedge could go with either free will or God setting the future.
One of the definitions of the Greek word translated "predestinate" in Romans 8:29 is "to predetermine, decide beforehand" and one of the definitions of "determine" is "to conclude or ascertain, as after reasoning, observation, etc." -- which leaves open the possibility that God saw the future without having set all of it. So the definitions make it difficult to discuss this without causing confusion.
Let's make this more simple. If you wind up a car and let it go to the right, it will hit the chair, if you let it go forward, it will hit the table, and if if you let it go left it will hit the wall.
i think the small detail that was left out in your scenario is that you abide OUTSIDE of time... Therefore, even in the beginning when you were deciding "if" you wanted to do this project, you were already at the end, looking at the results... with or without "AI," You know the driver chose to go right and hit the chair. i think you're right, foreknowledge doesn't prove predestination, but i think omniscience coupled with omnipresence, and omnipotence does prove predestination... What are your thoughts on this? This topic really interests me, so sorry if i get a little carried away. :o)
I'm pretty staunch on the "doctrines of grace" side (I call it "Calvinistic", meaning that I agree with the premise of the argument but believe it can be taken to extremes).
Four times in the New Testament Paul uses the term "predestined" is used in relation to what God is doing in our lives (twice in Ephesians, twice in Romans). There are also countless (okay, so someone has probably counted them...) instances of the term "chosen" being used in the same context. These lead me to believe that God chose me.
However, Joshua tells Israel in the Old Testament, "Choose this day who you will serve; as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." He was obviously presenting the people of Israel with a choice, which would defend the free will argument.
So, how do we know what's right? Here's my take. As a human, I must decide. If I don't make the decision to bow down to Christ, I have only myself to blame on judgment day. However, once I do come to Christ, I realize that if He hadn't chosen me, I never would have come to Him. I was too wicked, too mired in my own self and my own sin. He's "taken me from the miry clay", as one song puts it.
So, while I believe we are individually responsible, I also believe that, as humans with infinite minds, we'll never really completely grasp God's sovereignty. There's hardly a Christian out there who will tell you that God can't do something. Many people thank God for healing them, keeping them safe, saving them, etc. However, many of these same people have trouble believing that God may have chosen them. While they want to give God the power and praise when in certain times, they also want to take credit for using their free will to come to Him. I believe that any sinner who comes to Christ and after receiving the gift of His mercy ascribes it to his own effort - that person probably doesn't really know Christ.
I'll leave much of the arguing on this topic to theologians. I think some people abuse predestination by thinking that since God has predestined everything, they can "sin that grace may abound," as Paul put it. They forget that Paul followed up that statement with, "God forbid!" They also forget that God commanded them to preach the gospel. God didn't say, "First figure out if I've already chosen my people or not, THEN preach the gospel." He didn't say, "If you don't preach, there are people that I would have saved that I won't save now, but if you do..." He just said, preach the gospel. There are also people on the opposite end of the spectrum, who pursue works to enter the Kingdom. Or there are those who believe that salvation is in our control and that they can choose to lose it as well as gain it at their convenience.
What's important to me is that I believe that God is sovereign. For me, if I believe God has the power to heal me or guide me safely through a dangerous situation - if I believe God has sovereignty in that - how can I believe that He has no control over the rest of life? This includes salvation, bridges collapsing, etc. I just can't believe that I can pick and choose what God can have control over.
But, those are my thoughts. I guess it's a little obvious that this is an issue I've wrestled with before. Maybe we just need to have lunch sometime James....
(And you're right, foreknowledge does NOT prove predestination. I can know something is going to happen, but that doesn't mean I can do something about it. The difference is, if you believe in an almighty, all-powerful God, then you believe that God can change and control what He foreknows. As Romans 8 says, "those whom He foreknew, he also predestined." But we could have an entirely separate conversation just on the issue of foreknowledge...)
Justin and Joey, It appears that you agree with both of my points (at least for the first point that it "shouldn't" matter). I wasn't actually trying to prove one or the other. You two got a little deeper than I did. :-)
Justin, I don't see how omniscience really differs from foreknowledge in this case. I also don't see how omnipresence and omnipotence matter in this discussion. God started the "project" of creation and before he started it, he knew how it would end. I think foreknowlege is all that we need to consider in the matter.
I don't know if you guys even still look at this page or not but I've been having discussions with a friend of mine on this topic for years, and a conversation of ours again last night spurred me to look into it some more and i haven't stopped thinking about it.
But James I do agree with your initial statement, if we are all true Christians should it matter? If we Delight ourselves IN THE LORD as it says in Psalms 37:4 then the desire of our heart will be to live FOR GOD. The extremist that believe predestination is a 'get out of jail free' card aren't delighting their selves in the Lord and aren't following his call.
I've been struggling with the subject for a while and still I'm not sure I've made any headway in the search. I'm a student in college and prayed a lot about where i was to go. I believe God has a plan for me being at the school I'm at, my friend however did not pray at all as to where he would go.
Yes I believe God obviously has a foreknowledge about things, and believe we have a choice about things, a choice for one to accept his salvation or not. I believe God has a perfect will for us, but we have a sin nature and it is impossible to be perfect so we do not lead that life, i however believe that if we constant try and succeed at making good choices, then based on prayer for God's clarity towards His will He will reveal the next step in out lives. i think it's our choice to accept his options for our lives, i think he has the best options but sometimes, we either don't want them, or don't ask for them.
This sure is an intense subject that blows my mind every time i think about it in depth.
One last question for you guys if you read this....
On marriage ( In the case you re or do plan on getting married); Do you believe God has set apart someone and is preparing them for marriage to you? and if you already are married do you think God was preparing them for you before you were dating/married? Or do you think there are various people with whom you would/are compatible with on a marriage level, and it is up to you to choose the best fit?
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