nikolai_42
Well-known member
I'm interested in how people define predestination. What does it imply? Do you see scripture as saying the individual is predestined in any way
Scriptures like this need to be directly addressed :
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
Romans 8:29-30
According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
Ephesians 1:4-6
That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
Ephesians 1:10-11
And if God is simply looking down the corridors of time and seeing what we would do and then predestining us to be in Christ, how is that Him doing the predestining? How is it not rather Him simply categorizing? And if our choices are utterly free (i.e. we are just as able at any given time to choose any one choice over any other choice) then how can God work all things according to His own will? In other words, when my autonomy runs into God's Sovereignty, who prevails?
In addition, it seems to me there is a bit of a conundrum when it comes to the traditional free will position and the eternal destiny of young children or those under the "age of accountability". If God "knows" (by seeing the future of a child before it is even born) that that child is going to not choose Him, but takes the child in infancy - is He bound to save that child? You may object that the child has not done wrong or right, but this is the same God that loved Jacob and hated Esau before the children were even born and before they did wrong or right. If all God is judging is actions, how can He justly judge someone with a murderous heart who never actually murders? How can He call those who did many good works in His name "workers of iniquity" if the works (themselves) were actually good? Casting out devils is certainly a good work...
The point there is not to say whether infants do or do not go to heaven but rather to show that the typical attempt to reconcile free will and predestination by having God simply foresee (which, I note, is not as strong as Him "foreknowing") the life of someone He created causes some problems that I can't get past.
Note that I don't know where I stand on the issue. I don't think it is a fatalism vs. free will issue. I know it is complicated, but the ways many people try to accommodate libertarian free will seem to raise problems. I believe part of the reason that God allows things to work out as they do (often messy and with no redemption) is to bring condemnation where it is needed (something only He has the capacity to know) and to shut every mouth before God. When we, for example, think we can be good in our own strength - without dependence on God - God may allow us the time to prove ourselves. And if we ever do, then the necessity of Christ is tainted. We must come to the understanding that we cannot do good. But God permits this rebellion for a season in order that "every mouth may be stopped" before Him. No one will have an excuse. And what God restrains...prevents...keeps from happening...will have been restrained because it would not be to the praise of His glorious grace.
And we only see on a very small scale - our own experience. God is looking at all this in the light of eternity. So those things that He allows to persist for generations and those people He allows to be lost - these things seem incongruous with a loving God from our puny vantage point - but there is a much larger perspective that is needed to realize that the whole motivation of God is not to serve "me" but to bring all things into subjection to "Him". Israel being in Egypt for 400+ years may have seemed cruel and unmerciful (how many generations of Israelites would have lived and died knowing nothing but slavery and bondage), but God's plan transcends the individual at any given moment.
So I'm not coming down on one side or the other of the debate - but the more I look into it, the more it seems as though the standard (libertarian) free will position has real problems.
So how do you see predestination as revealed in scripture?
Scriptures like this need to be directly addressed :
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
Romans 8:29-30
According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
Ephesians 1:4-6
That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
Ephesians 1:10-11
And if God is simply looking down the corridors of time and seeing what we would do and then predestining us to be in Christ, how is that Him doing the predestining? How is it not rather Him simply categorizing? And if our choices are utterly free (i.e. we are just as able at any given time to choose any one choice over any other choice) then how can God work all things according to His own will? In other words, when my autonomy runs into God's Sovereignty, who prevails?
In addition, it seems to me there is a bit of a conundrum when it comes to the traditional free will position and the eternal destiny of young children or those under the "age of accountability". If God "knows" (by seeing the future of a child before it is even born) that that child is going to not choose Him, but takes the child in infancy - is He bound to save that child? You may object that the child has not done wrong or right, but this is the same God that loved Jacob and hated Esau before the children were even born and before they did wrong or right. If all God is judging is actions, how can He justly judge someone with a murderous heart who never actually murders? How can He call those who did many good works in His name "workers of iniquity" if the works (themselves) were actually good? Casting out devils is certainly a good work...
The point there is not to say whether infants do or do not go to heaven but rather to show that the typical attempt to reconcile free will and predestination by having God simply foresee (which, I note, is not as strong as Him "foreknowing") the life of someone He created causes some problems that I can't get past.
Note that I don't know where I stand on the issue. I don't think it is a fatalism vs. free will issue. I know it is complicated, but the ways many people try to accommodate libertarian free will seem to raise problems. I believe part of the reason that God allows things to work out as they do (often messy and with no redemption) is to bring condemnation where it is needed (something only He has the capacity to know) and to shut every mouth before God. When we, for example, think we can be good in our own strength - without dependence on God - God may allow us the time to prove ourselves. And if we ever do, then the necessity of Christ is tainted. We must come to the understanding that we cannot do good. But God permits this rebellion for a season in order that "every mouth may be stopped" before Him. No one will have an excuse. And what God restrains...prevents...keeps from happening...will have been restrained because it would not be to the praise of His glorious grace.
And we only see on a very small scale - our own experience. God is looking at all this in the light of eternity. So those things that He allows to persist for generations and those people He allows to be lost - these things seem incongruous with a loving God from our puny vantage point - but there is a much larger perspective that is needed to realize that the whole motivation of God is not to serve "me" but to bring all things into subjection to "Him". Israel being in Egypt for 400+ years may have seemed cruel and unmerciful (how many generations of Israelites would have lived and died knowing nothing but slavery and bondage), but God's plan transcends the individual at any given moment.
So I'm not coming down on one side or the other of the debate - but the more I look into it, the more it seems as though the standard (libertarian) free will position has real problems.
So how do you see predestination as revealed in scripture?
