Question:
Dear gotoHal, Predestination, a lot of folk think God knows all even what color car you will buy, and if you are pre-destined to hell what’s the point? Biker
Good question. First a brief definition of predestination: Predestination is the Divine foreordaining or foreknowledge of all that will happen; with regard to the salvation of some and not others. In other words in predestination the decision is fully predictive of the outcome, and not merely probable. This question is one that poses a very perplexing problem. Does God control, predetermine the future? Does mankind have free will, moral free will? Who is in charge, if you will. In Christian circles the question of predestination centers on whether on not a person is going to be saved or not. Were they predestined to be saved or predestined to be lost? Those that believe in predestination are called Calvinists. Let me be clear I am not a Calvinist. I write that so that the reader will know my bias in coming to this discussion.
There is a paradox of sorts involved here. First, if one accepts the tenet that God knows everything from the beginning, then one might rightfully assume that God has predestined all events and choices. But, I would argue that knowing the outcome of something doesn’t necessarily, argue for it being predestined. Predestination, in my mind, has to do with not only knowing the outcome but foreordaining the outcome. Without going in to a full exegesis of the biblical text, I would ask this question; how can a person freely choose, or not choose, to follow Christ if in fact it was foreordained, predestined? Where does free will come into the equation? It is one thing to argue that God knows, knew, something, and quite another to argue that God made it happen. The message of Christ argues against the Calvinist view. His message was clear; repent! This very word necessitates a choice and an action on the part of the person repenting. If the repenting is coerced is any manner, including the intervention of God, then it couldn’t be a true act of repentance. For an example of this let’s go back to the first story, Adam and Eve. They were given a choice. God did not stop them, God warned them. Did God know what the consequences would be? Yes. God tells Adam what the consequences would be. Why bother warning them if you already know what is going to happen because you (God) have foreordained it? I would argue that God didn’t know until Adam and Eve eat of the forbidden tree. And at the same time I would argue that God knew they would eat of the forbidden tree. Crazy? Well, I suppose it may sound crazy, the reason it sounds crazy is this; a man, me, is trying to explain an attribute of God! It is crazy! And this is where the problem lies; not in what and when did God know, but in trying to understand the knowing of God. It is impossible to understand God. Impossible. All attempts to do so must, ultimately involve using human attributes. We end up comparing God to the known us, humans. This is inescapable as that, being human, is all we know. But God isn’t human. God is Spirit, beyond human comprehension. The closest we can get to understanding The Master of the Universe is through the manifestation of God in Christ. Admittedly this understanding is limited due to the nature of the visit; bringing the message back to the planet. God does not live in our tunnel of time and space. We are limited by them God created them and is outside of them. This brings us back to my previous assertion that all of our attempts to understand God are limited. We can only know as much about God as God has deemed to tell us or show us.You, Biker, you may recall the time when Moses asks for God’s Name so he can tell the people who sent him. God replies. “And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.” Ex 3:14-15 (KJV)
Here is the question Moses asked God “And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?”Ex 3:13 (KJV) Moses wants God’s Name. Moses knows that ones name tells you about that one. God answers “I AM THAT I AM” What kind of an answer is this? “I Am THAT I Am?” Well, it isn’t an answer to the question “What is His Name?” I Am THAT I Am isn’t a name at all. It was, is, God’s way of telling the reader of the narrative that God is unknowable! As one prophet put it His ways are not our ways.. His thoughts are not our thoughts. That is why God continues in the answer to Moses “The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.” The God whose Name is I Am THAT I Am could be known, at that time, by knowing the works of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This the Israelites could understand. They only had to recall the God of their fathers, this is the very same God that has come to bring them out through the Prophet Moses. And this is where we find ourselves to this very day; we know God “darkly” Paul wrote “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” 1 Cor 13:12 (KJV)
Hal
March 6, 2010 at 5:54 pm |
“Predestination?” I have thunk about that a lot. I have been wondering for a long time if those who actually “belong” to the Messiah, (and only the Father knows who they are without any doubt whatsoever) are not in some sence like a being which exists inside of an “eggshell”. While going through the earthly life, we are being continually shaped and developed by the Power of God working on our lives, often in ways we do not have the capacity to even imagine. The Bible gives us the some degree of indication that we had some kind of ‘existence’ with God prior to the formation of the earth; and that after the “Wedding Supper” or after the ‘Thousand Years of Peace’ somewhere in our collective future, we will have an Eternal Existence; that we are, in some way, (by ‘choosing’ to live in God’s World now instead of man’s world) actually participating in now, whether we realize it or not. We are told (or so it appears to me) in no uncertain terms, that we are to Thank God “for all things”, “be Thankful “IN” all things, and that “…all things work together for good to those that Love God…” Some earthly experiences will take us into places where we will have some difficulty in finding a way to present something that resembles ‘thanksgiving’ to those around us, much less to God, Who sees and knows “all”. But perhaps God knows those experences are what we NEED to help us to
become what He would have us to be. i keep hoping i will someday aquire the ability to fall short of my goals less often.
A creature ‘starting’ its life on the inside of an eggshell would probably not have much of an idea of its ‘prior life’ or of it’s ‘future life’ beyond the shell, but just because they have little understanding of the world beyond the one they presently exist in, has no bearing on whether such a world does in fact exist. i have decided to beleive in such a place….
crack. crack. craaackk. “cheep-cheep-cheep! Is that You, Daddy?”