Absolute Predestination

Dear Dave: I have 3 questions for you.

1. Was the creation "made subject" to vanity willingly (by its own choice) or by Him who so subjected it?

2. Why?

3. What is the final outcome of the subjection of the ktisis?

Dave L said:

Why did God create the universe and all therein?

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Dear Dave: That is not the question (s).

1. Was the creation "made subject" to vanity willingly (by its own choice) or by Him who so subjected it?

2. Why?

3. What is the final outcome of the subjection of the ktisis?

Dave L said:

If you understand the question and know the answer, it will answer your questions.

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Dear Dave: I understand the questions and the answers according to the word of the Lord. Do you?

Dave L said:

I hope so.

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Dear Dave: Rest your hopes Higher. One more time>>>>

1. Was the creation "made subject" to vanity willingly (by its own choice) or by Him who so subjected it?

2. Why?

3. What is the final outcome of the subjection of the ktisis?

Pneuma3 said:

predestination comes after choice, not before one is born...Choose life and you are predestined to live,

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By definition, that wouldn't be predestination, though.

Albion said:

By definition, that wouldn't be predestination, though.

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Yup!


"-This plea contradicts itself; for to assert that because of man's freedom he can go on for ever choosing evil, is, in fact, to plead not for human freedom, but for servitude, the basest, the most degrading. Take the assertion to pieces and it comes to this. To preserve man's dignity he must be permitted to become the slave of evil if he will, the associate of devils for ever -to secure his prerogative of freedom he must be allowed to sink into hopeless servitude to sin. What would you say were an earthly father to reason thus?-I will permit my child to become a hopeless drunkard for the sake of preserving his sobriety; I will permit my daughter to sink into vice for the sake of preserving her chastity. Under these circumstances, it is mere rhetoric to talk of "forcing" the will. The will yields, because it is free, and because good is finally the strongest force in an universe ruled by God.” - Thomas Allin,-

Albion said:

I don't believe it is possible to show, in the Bible, a case of God predestining someone to salvation through the gift of Faith in Christ...and then rescinding that decision.

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This sort of fits.

John 17:12
While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

This above passage might show there is an exception to the rule seeing as Judas was already lost in the following.

John 18:8-10
8 Jesus answered, “I have told you that I am He. Therefore, if you seek Me, let these go their way,” 9 that the saying might be fulfilled which He spoke, “Of those whom You gave Me I have lost none.” 10 Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus.

John 10:25-30
25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me. 26 But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you. 27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. 30 I and My Father are one.”

Seeing as Judas was an exception, there can be more exceptions. We are made in the image of God. I believe God has given man sovereignty over his own choices regarding salvation. God doesn't choose some to be lost as in Calvinism.

Those verses appear to make a strong case for predestination.

1stcenturylady said:

Seeing as Judas was an exception, there can be more exceptions. We are made in the image of God. I believe God has given man sovereignty over his own choices regarding salvation. God doesn't choose some to be lost as in Calvinism.

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I cannot agree here because Judas and his act of betrayal must be seen as part of the divine plan. So, this possible exception--even if we were to see it as such--doesn't seem to me to show a person once predestined to salvation who later had that election rescinded. That's how I look at it.

1stcenturylady said:

Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

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1stcenturylady said:

God doesn't choose some to be lost as in Calvinism.

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And how is that any different than Arminianism?

God Bless

Till all are one.

Presumably, the Arminian will answer that everyone has a chance and there are no people who were created without any chance. However, the technicalities of actually cashing in on that chance--as the freewill/Arminian churches teach it--are, practically speaking, so difficult that a good argument can be made to the effect that it amounts to the same thing. This may be what you were getting at.

DeaconDean said:

And how is that any different than Arminianism?

God Bless

Till all are one.

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Night and day difference.

Albion said:

Presumably, the Arminian will answer that everyone has a chance and there are no people who were created without any chance. However, the technicalities of actually cashing in on that chance--as the freewill/Arminian churches teach it--are, practically speaking, so difficult that a good argument can be made to the effect that it amounts to the same thing. This may be what you were getting at.

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Of course everyone has a chance. Romans 1 says everyone is without excuse. Everyone. If they didn't have a chance then they WOULD have an excuse.

1stcenturylady said:

Night and day difference.

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Which shows, you have not studied or read what both say.



In Calvinism, everything, including this topic, is based on the Sovereignty of God.

In Arminianism, everything, including this topic, is based on man.

In Calvinism, God elects according to some purpose in Himself. Out of His "good pleasure".

In Arminianism, God chooses based upon something man will or will not do.

"To these succeeds the fourth decree, by which God decreed to save and damn certain particular persons. This decree has its foundation in the foreknowledge of God, by which he knew from all eternity those individuals who would, through his preventing grace, believe, and, through his subsequent grace would persevere, according to the before described administration of those means which are suitable and proper for conversion and faith; and, by which foreknowledge, he likewise knew those who would not believe and persevere."

Source

In Arminianism, everything is contingent on what man will or will not do, including damnation.

God Bless

Till all are one.

DeaconDean said:

Which shows, you have not studied or read what both say.



In Calvinism, everything, including this topic, is based on the Sovereignty of God.

In Arminianism, everything, including this topic, is based on man.

In Calvinism, God elects according to some purpose in Himself. Out of His "good pleasure".

In Arminianism, God chooses based upon something man will or will not do.

"To these succeeds the fourth decree, by which God decreed to save and damn certain particular persons. This decree has its foundation in the foreknowledge of God, by which he knew from all eternity those individuals who would, through his preventing grace, believe, and, through his subsequent grace would persevere, according to the before described administration of those means which are suitable and proper for conversion and faith; and, by which foreknowledge, he likewise knew those who would not believe and persevere."

Source

In Arminianism, everything is contingent on what man will or will not do, including damnation.

God Bless

Till all are one.

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I'm neither, but more Arminian than Calvinist or Lutheran. I've got news for you - faith is a work, just as obedience is a work. So, yes, there IS something man must do.

Dave L said:

So as I understand, we freely choose for the reasons God created with us, to base our choices on. As we meet up with them at the right time in life.

This resolves free will and divine sovereignty.

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What it sounds like you're proposing is compatibilism which is just determinism one step removed. This is why compatibilism is also known as soft determinism. It's wordplay, really. We may freely act according to our fundamental desires, on compatibilism, but those same desires are imposed upon us by God.

Over the last fifteen years or so, I have moved steadily away from the Calvinist viewpoint that I once held to a perspective somewhere between Traditionalism and Molinism. I think soft libertarianism accords best with Scripture, and reason, and reality. We have genuinely free choices that we make but the weight of those choices hardens us in a particular line that progressively limits our free choice.

I think God has sovereignly decreed that we should possess free agency. This seems to me to better resolve the problem of our free agency with God's sovereignty than a compatibilist view does. Or, alternatively, Molinism's ideas about God's omniscience also seem more likely than the Calvinist systematic.

1stcenturylady said:

I'm neither, but more Arminian than Calvinist or Lutheran. I've got news for you - faith is a work, just as obedience is a work. So, yes, there IS something man must do.

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Provide scripture that says "Faith is a work".

Otherwise...

God Bless

Till all are one.

Dave L said:

We have many good conversations about predestination. But we seldom define the degree to which predestination affects the universe and all.

At the least it appears many think God imagined the universe before he created it. Let it run its own course without his intervention. And then created what he saw. Making it unchangeable and therefore predestined to happen just as he foresaw it.

Another view, the most extreme says: God created all, including every thought and act of every creature in the universe when he created the universe. That not a grain of sand on the furthest planet shifts position without God who also created its path and movements in the appointed time.

Both extremes depend on God’s perfect knowledge. If God only energizes but doesn’t control all, he then must watch and learn what might or might not happen. And this would mean he is not all knowing as the bible says.

Other theories emerge but the Westminster Confession Chapter 3:1; God's Eternal Decree defines biblical predestination this way.

1. God, from all eternity, did—by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will—freely and unchangeably ordain whatever comes to pass. Yet he ordered all things in such a way that he is not the author of sin, nor does he force his creatures to act against their wills; neither is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

So as I understand, we freely choose for the reasons God created with us, to base our choices on. As we meet up with them at the right time in life.

This resolves free will and divine sovereignty.

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While studying systematic theology on this subject, it came to my attention that the notion of supralapsarianism maintains a contradictory position with itself. It ascribes to God both a perfect and imperfect knowledge of events, in one case setting God outside of time so that he knows all things perfectly, but within the linear chronology when it comes time to disparage the idea of free will, arguing that God would have to know every possible choice and result, which, it is implied, he cannot.

Absolutely predestination, or preordination, vis a vis the Divine Decree, at least as it is understood by the extreme position, relegates all free will to the realm of illusion. We only think we have free will, though our free will choices are, in actual fact, the preordained choices God orchestrated for us to make. And then, when that chain of logic leads to the inevitable conclusion that preordained choices and actions ultimately excuse the choices that we didn't actually make (as they were preordained; they were our destiny, if you will), and that God is actually responsible for the sins we commit, we suddenly end up with disclaimers as shown in the quote given from the Westminster Confession: "God, from all eternity, did [...] freely and unchangeably ordain whatever comes to pass. Yet he ordered all things in such a way that he is not the author of sin, nor does he force his creatures to act against their wills." So it happens because he wills it to happen. But even though he makes it happen, it's our fault when we do what he has forced us to do. And even though he forces our choices and actions, he's not forcing our choices and actions.

We have the free will to do exactly as what he has preordained that we should do. You can take any path you choose, as long as it's the one he has chosen for you.

The conclusion I have come to is that what God predestined is the end result, whether reward or punishment. And nowhere, in my opinion, is this more conspicuous than in the garden itself, which has given rise to so much discussion over the centuries concerning whether God wanted man to fall, caused man to fall, whether man was responsible for the fall, or whether God had some responsibility due to preordination, etc., etc., etc.

What I found after careful consideration is that God's will was that man should choose for himself if he fell or not. At the same time, God, having declared the end from the beginning, being himself outside of time, knew the choice man would make. When man made that choice, God's will was accomplished. And it was precisely due to his knowledge of what our choice would be that the Lamb was slain from the foundations of the earth.

Similarly, God, declaring the end from the beginning, being outside of time, knows each and every person who will answer his call. Knowing those who are his, and those who are not ... knowing who will repent, and who are never to be retrieved, God has fashioned some of us to be vessels of wrath and some not. Some are predestined to salvation, because that is the destiny of those whom he knew would answer the call. Others are predestined to destruction, because that is the destiny of those whom he knew would not answer the call.

In my view, all other explanations show God to be tyrannical, hateful, spiteful, a respecter of persons, etc., deciding who will be saved and who will not, making us sin through choices we can't control, but then blaming us for the deeds, allowing some to have faith, but others to reject it. The list goes on.

The only solution I could ever find is that God willed that we should have the free will to make our own choices, and to suffer the consequences, for good or ill. And knowing the choices, he planned accordingly, providing a means of redemption for those who would hear the shepherd's voice.

Romans 8:28-30 — And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 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.

Those are my thoughts on the subject.