Is there any truth in the ideas expressed by double predestination?

Xeno.of.athens said:

Here is a fully scriptural answer is that shown that double predestination is false, because while Scripture teaches that God “desires all people to be saved” (1 Tim 2:4) and that Christ “gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:6), it nowhere teaches that God positively wills anyone to damnation; rather, damnation is always attributed to the sinner’s freely chosen rejection of grace (Rom 2:6–8; Matt 23:37). St Paul affirms that those God “predestined” are predestined to be conformed to Christ (Rom 8:29), not predestined to evil, and he explicitly teaches that those who perish do so because “they refused to love the truth and so be saved” (2 Thess 2:10). Even when Paul speaks of God “hardening” (Rom 9:18), Scripture itself clarifies that such hardening presupposes a prior self‑hardening (Exod 8:15, 32; 1 Sam 6:6), meaning God permits, but never causes, a creature’s sin. Thus, the Catholic reading of Scripture holds that predestination is real, but always and only to grace and glory, while reprobation is never a divine decree but the tragic consequence of freely resisting the grace God offers to all (Wis 1:12–13; Ezek 33:11).

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Xeno.of.athens said:

Here is a fully scriptural answer, one that shows that double predestination is false, because while Scripture teaches that God “desires all people to be saved” (1 Tim 2:4) and that Christ “gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:6), it nowhere teaches that God positively wills anyone to damnation; rather, damnation is always attributed to the sinner’s freely chosen rejection of grace (Rom 2:6–8; Matt 23:37). St Paul affirms that those God “predestined” are predestined to be conformed to Christ (Rom 8:29), not predestined to evil, and he explicitly teaches that those who perish do so because “they refused to love the truth and so be saved” (2 Thess 2:10). Even when Paul speaks of God “hardening” (Rom 9:18), Scripture itself clarifies that such hardening presupposes a prior self‑hardening (Exod 8:15, 32; 1 Sam 6:6), meaning God permits, but never causes, a creature’s sin. Thus, the Catholic reading of Scripture holds that predestination is real, but always and only to grace and glory, while reprobation is never a divine decree but the tragic consequence of freely resisting the grace God offers to all (Wis 1:12–13; Ezek 33:11).

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Neogaia777 said:

Omniscience is not possible if there wasn't/isn't always just only one possibility/pathway, or just only one way for everything, which automatically means everything is predestined/foreordained, etc. You can't know a way a thing is going to happen/choose/go for 100% certain if those possibilities are not just only 100% certain one way only, and the other being absolute zero always from your perspective, or you don't know everything, etc. No being anywhere can do that ever, etc. If they are anything other than absolutely 100% and absolute zero, then you, or any other being anywhere, can't know them for 100% certain, etc. But all possibilities can be 100% sure/certain, and knowable for 100% certain, if this universe is 100% deterministic, and there's only ever one way it can all ever happen/go, etc, otherwise it can't, or cannot be ever, etc.

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Xeno.of.athens said:

I reject the claim that divine omniscience requires a universe with only one possible pathway, because Scripture shows God knowing future free choices without causing or predetermining them—Christ foreknows Peter’s denial (Luke 22:34) and Judas’s betrayal (John 13:11) even though both acts remain morally responsible, proving that foreknowledge does not equal predetermination. The Church teaches the same: “God’s eternal plan includes the free response of each person to His grace” (CCC 600), meaning God infallibly knows contingent futures precisely because His knowledge is not bound by time—“for Him all things are present to His eyes” (CCC 600; cf. 2 Peter 3:8). The argument you quoted falsely assumes God must reason discursively like a creature, but Catholic dogma insists God’s knowledge is simple, eternal, and immediate (CCC 202; 216), so He does not predict possibilities—He beholds all moments of history in a single act of knowing. Scripture explicitly denies that God predestines anyone to damnation: “God desires all men to be saved” (1 Tim 2:4), “not wishing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9), and Christ weeps over Jerusalem’s refusal of grace (Matt 23:37), which would be incoherent if their rejection were predetermined. Thus, the claim that omniscience requires absolute determinism collapses: God’s perfect knowledge does not eliminate human freedom, because He knows free acts as free, contingent acts as contingent, and His foreknowledge does not impose necessity upon them - “those whom He foreknew He also predestined” (Rom 8:29), meaning predestination follows foreknowledge, not the other way around.

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Xeno.of.athens said:

The claim that YHWH “was not always fully omniscient” contradicts the constant witness of Scripture and the dogmatic teaching of the Church. In the Old Testament God declares, “I am God, and there is no other… declaring the end from the beginning” (Isa 46:9–10), which presupposes absolute and eternal omniscience, not a developing or time‑bound knowledge. God’s knowledge is not acquired, sequential, or reactive; He speaks through the prophet, “Before ever a day came to be, all were written in your book” (Ps 139:16), and the Church teaches that God is “eternal, immutable, incomprehensible, almighty” (Fourth Lateran Council, DS 800). Any theory that places God “inside” determinism or time denies His divinity, because “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet 3:8), meaning He is not subject to temporal process at all.

Likewise, the suggestion that the Son “did not start out fully omniscient” is incompatible with the dogma of the Incarnation. Christ assumed a true human nature, including a human intellect, but the divine Person of the Son never ceased to possess the fullness of divine knowledge. The Catechism teaches that in His human soul Christ enjoyed the “immediate knowledge of the Father” (CCC 473), and Scripture affirms His divine omniscience: “Lord, you know all things” (Jn 21:17). When the Gospels speak of Christ “not knowing” the day or hour (Mk 13:32), Catholic tradition interprets this as referring to His human mode of knowing, not a limitation in His divine Person. To claim that Jesus is “not equal to the Other One yet” revives the Arian error condemned at Nicaea, which solemnly professes the Son to be “true God from true God… consubstantial with the Father.”

Finally, the argument that omniscience requires a deterministic universe, or else God cannot relate to us is a philosophical assumption, not a biblical or Catholic truth. Scripture shows God freely entering covenantal relationship with creatures while eternally knowing all things: “His understanding is infinite” (Ps 147:5), yet He genuinely invites human response, “Choose life” (Deut 30:19). Catholic doctrine holds both divine providence and authentic human freedom without collapsing either into determinism (CCC 302–308). God does not need to limit His knowledge or create lesser “versions” of Himself to reveal Himself; He freely accommodates Himself to us through revelation and, supremely, through the Incarnation. The dilemma “either this is true or God is made‑up” is therefore false: the God of Scripture and the Church is eternally omniscient, sovereign, and yet personally relational in a way no creaturely model of knowledge can constrain.

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Neogaia777 said:

It's either as I said, or these God's don't exist, etc. Or men we're lying about some things, or scripture was exaggerated, or changed, or whatever, or our interpretations are or were classically wrong, or these God's don't exist, etc.

And I don't expect logic to change your mind either, as that's already been presented, etc.

God Bless.

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