Romans 8:30For a long time now I've had a theory about predestination...
Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
Ephesians 1:5
having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will...
I felt now would be a good time to share it. Its a bit hard to grasp for some but for others you will find it quite easy to see my point of view.
We always talk about how our God is omnipotent (all powerful) in that he created everything in this universe from the quasars and blackholes of the galaxies down to the dimples and freckles on our faces. When we get into trouble or when we are praying we are happy to know that God is omnipresent (all seeing) and will never leave us or forsake us. But I notice that some hate the word "predestination" because if God is omniscient (all knowing) then predestination to them means that he already knows if they are going to accept him as their savior or not and it means nothing is really worth the effort.
Then there are those who limit our God by saying that he choose to hide the future from himself so that we can have free will. I find this hard to believe considering the evidence of the Bible. How many prophecies were given just on the birth and life of Jesus? What is the book of Revelation if not a glimpse into our future? No, God knows what the future holds for us.
My theory is called "My Back to the Future Theory" because I came to it after watching the above scene so many years ago. I had this thought, "Why can God not just see the future but ALL possible futures? Why can't he see not only those things I did but all the choices I didn't take?"
My thought is that God knows all the choices I could make and he chooses to let me have free will over which choice I will make. He knows all my futures. I don't believe in parallel universes so I don't believe that there is an alternate me living out one of my other choices. I do believe that God has not limited himself to the present nor limited us to a fixed path. That lines up with the Bible.
Did I get too deep for you yet? It gets better. To the glory of God can you imagine how many choices there are out there when you factor in the whole of one man's existence and then factor in all the random choices of each person on the face of the earth affecting each and every other person's decisions! Wow!
Back to predestination - I see it as a tree. God has chosen us to walk the straight and narrow path straight up the trunk of the tree. But we've all fallen short and have veered off that path. Each decision we take brings us closer to the trunk or farther away. The trunk is God's perfect will and predestined path for all of us. We choose whether we will walk on it or not.
It goes deeper. There are things we could imagine in this world that will never happen on the path of life because they are outside what God wills. When God says something will happen it will happen. It doesn't matter what choices we make at this point because God's will supercedes our own. That is what I meant yesterday when I said arguing over Hitler's motives or even my own doesn't matter. We have choice but if that choice is going to interfere with God's ultimate plans for the human race then they will not happen.
I can't be certain my theory is the right one (and it is much deeper than I can go into on one post) but it does give me hope and lines up with what I see in the Bible. The point is that we all have a choice. God gave us that choice. He didn't tell Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of Life knowing that they would anyway. He didn't offer us salvation knowing ahead of time who would accept it and who would reject it.
Joshua 24:15 (New King James Version)If this intrigues you and you want to expand on what I've said feel free to comment!
And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
9 comments:
Your thoughts on the subject seem parallel mine quite a bit, though I started my thought process in college after watching Empire Strikes Back for the millionth time and pondering Yoda telling Luke, "Always in motion the future is." Perhaps one of these days I will be brave enough to take on this topic, but until then I will be content to read your thoughts.
well as someone who has more or less been turned off of predestination because of a certian campus community. I can actually say this one makes A LOT more sense.
Paul, Rachel - Awesome to know that people actually understood me. I was worried that I didn't make myself clear. Like I said, there is a lot more to what I wrote but this was the foundations anyway. Thanks for your comments!
The concept that I was taught regarding God's omniscience is that He knows all contingencies. That would mean that He knows, as you said, all possible choices. However, It would also follow that He knows nothing contingently. That is, His knowledge isn't contingent on our choices. His plan isn't feverishly curved around the things we may choose in the hopes of bringing it all out to a good conclusion.
That's my difficulty with the "middle knowledge" perspective (That's the one you've presented). It makes God passive. He isn't actually taking part. In other words, my Free Will has become Sovereign, and God is mostly just along for the ride. It's odd to me because I can see that we have choices in Scripture, but I can't find the term "free will" anywhere in it. On the other hand, God's Absolute Sovereignty is written throughout. And yet most humans spend a great deal of time and effort defending Man's Free Will against God's Sovereignty. Why is that?
Here is a Christian concept that may help clear this up. Imagine you are the child of a king (which the Bible says you are). If the king is a loving king (which the Bible says God is) he will not be overly harsh with you and force you into activities against your will. But as king his rule is sovereign. You can choose to go horse back riding rather than swim in the royal pool. You can choose to wear the red outfit rather than the blue. But if you think you can choose to disobey the king or defy a royal decree you have another thing coming!
Like I said in the posting this theory goes much deeper than what I've said. The depth of God's knowledge and what he can do with this knowledge is multi-faceted. In our day to day living God may not care whether we wear or red outfit or our blue. He's willing to let it slide that we didn't pray in the morning before work even though he quietly asked us to. He doesn't even rebuke us for not praising Him when we get the green light at the intersection! But (depending on the person) I believe in our day to day walk that there are things he will not let happen. But I won't begin to give examples as these are personal matters between the individual and God.
On the larger scale God's master plans can not be changed. Which means, for instance, as my wife just pointed out, that if a man were to kill the mother of the AntiChrist before she gave birth God would not allow it. Why? Because His Word has already said that the Antichrist would come into the world. Noah's Ark was God's way of remedying his perfect will. Sending his son was God's way of putting us back where he had predestined us to be. The book of Revelation is a glimpse into what he has said will come to pass.
Our choices are not sovereign over God's will. What he says goes but there are things he allows us to do and to happen even though they are not within His perfect will. Does that make sense?
I love your depth of thought on the matter, although I'd have to agree with Stan--what you have presented is essentially a very well-stated argument for the "middle knowledge" of God, so good job on that. Except, I would challenge you to evaluate your presuppositions--for instance, you state, "If the king is a loving king (which the Bible says God is) he will not be overly harsh with you and force you into activities against your will." Obviously, God is a loving God, but does it follow that a loving God will not "force you into activities against your will?" Is this really the hard-core Calvinistic definition of predestination? My presupposition (as what you might call a "Calvinist") for predestination is not that I was forced into something against my will. Rather, the Bible says that my heart was literally turned from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh (Ezek 36:26). That is, God somehow, inexplicably, turned my heart so that it really was and is my desire to love and follow him. Now, this is a mystery to me, and leaves me asking the question, why doesn't God do this for everyone? I don't know that I can answer that, but my conclusion is that I passionately love this God who turned my heart and want to glorify him with all I say and do.
I originally wasn't going to comment on this as I felt that I wasn't being attacked simply taught. I still don't feel I was being attacked but I decided to read the scripture referenced (Ez. 36:26) and I must say that my position still stands.
Ezekiel 36:22 (New International Version)
22 "Therefore say to the house of Israel, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone.
As I said, God gives us day to day choice but he also has a master plan. He will not allow us to do anything that goes against it. I believe in a literal sense that he did choose to melt the heart of some so that the nation of Israel would continue. I think in times past he has done that to some individuals because otherwise would have gone against what he wills. Our God loves us and wants whats best for us and I don't think he will force anything on us UNLESS it is outside his plans for humanity as a whole.
Hope that made sense! :)
Fascinating thoughts. God sees our predestination and we don't[Paul is speaking from God's perspective].
Since God is omniscient He has all knowledge (He is the I Am).
The question that I'm struggling with most is if God knows the future then He knows what will happen in perfect sequence. However, if He sees all possible outcomes, things that could happen as a result of our choices, wouldn't that mean He holds knowledge that is useless? Would God see something that didn't happen? Wouldn't that mean God would know something that isn't true?
So there's my questions, as if they're weren't enough. At some point we'll have to choose between accepting the mysteries of God or giving ourselves an aneurism trying to figure Him out.
Hi again
I gave this subject some more thought and came up with an interesting conclusion. It's posted over on my site here. Let me know what you think.
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