Predestination

[Montalban]

The start point of this is God is perfect, and therefore never changes.

He doesn't sit there hurling thunderbolts at the wicked but calls all to him, good and bad alike. Some turn away from him.

 

[bricklayer]

You come up short, when you say that God is perfect.
You try to reduce God to one of His attributes.

God is perfectly holy.

God's holiness is the inviolate balance of his infinite perfections.
It is everything about Him, anything less than everything would violate His holiness.
It's His love and His hate. It's His mercy and His judgment. It's His grace and His wrath.
How else was God to reveal these without sin and redemption from sin?

The difference between a human and an atonotron is in calculable,
but it is quantifiable, both are finite.
The difference between God and man is infinite.

God's purpose for His creation is not a man-centered purpose.
It is a God centered purpose.
IT'S NOT ABOUT US

God's purpose for his creation is the revelation of His glory,
which is his holiness.

All of this, from Adam to the bride of Christ is just our bloody birth.

Appearently, It is very important to God that we start off, that we start out, that we BEGIN
as a people who will never forget the horror of sin or the hero of Christ.

 

[Montalban]

You come up short, when you say that God is perfect.

God is perfect

You try to reduce God to one of His attributes.

1 John 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

So important, that the Evangelist says it twice.

1 John 4:16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

God is love. There is in fact no love without God. You are probably confused between the 'love' people talk about and God's love. Some people say "I love pizza". That is not God's love.

There is no love without God (which incidentally is why we believe that sexual unions not sanctioned by God aren't 'love', but 'lust'). There is only real love in association with God. Thus... "If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." 1 John 4:20

Also in the same book...

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

1 John 4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son [to be] the propitiation for our sins.

1 John 4:9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

1 John 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

1 John 4:12 No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.

God is perfectly holy.

God's holiness is the inviolate balance of his infinite perfections.
It is everything about Him, anything less than everything would violate His holiness.
It's His love and His hate. It's His mercy and His judgment. It's His grace and His wrath.
How else was God to reveal these without sin and redemption from sin?

God doesn't hate. If God loves at one time, then hates another he has changed his state and God doesn't change.

Also, if creation wasn't about us, then we'd not have been created. God would have just filled Paradise with animals -without the potential for good and bad.

 

[cygnusx1]

"Jacob I loved but Esau I hated " thus said The Lord God.

 

[MamaZ]

God hates sin.. He also Hates divorce..

 

[chrisnu]

"Jacob I loved but Esau I hated " thus said The Lord God.

Hmm, wait a second. The meaning of the word used for hate in the Greek (emisesa) actually means to "love less", not utter detestation or antipathy. The same word is used in Luke 14:26:

"Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple."

Is Jesus commanding us to utterly detest our father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and life itself? I don't believe so. Jesus follows this up in Matthew 10:37-38:

"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me."

Just something to think about...

 

[Montalban]

"Jacob I loved but Esau I hated " thus said The Lord God.

The entire Old Testament is through the lens of men writing as best they could what they understood God wanted - which is not as good as when Jesus - the Word made flesh was amongst us.

That is why it appears to some that the God of the OT is a lot harsher than the God of the NT - even though it's the same God.

If you think God continually changes, that is, of course entirely up to you, but I believe he is perfect, and he doesn't change.

It's like the language that says how someone caused God to be angry. If this were literally true then that person has a power and influence over God - and can make God change his state.

I awlays start with an axiom that God is perfect.

If some think otherwise that's up to them.

 

[Montalban]

Hmm, wait a second. The meaning of the word used for hate in the Greek (emisesa) actually means to "love less", not utter detestation or antipathy. The same word is used in Luke 14:26:

"Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple."

Is Jesus commanding us to utterly detest our father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and life itself? I don't believe so. Jesus follows this up in Matthew 10:37-38:

"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me."

Just something to think about...

Although this is a suggestion that hate is too harsh a word, I still don't believe God loves us any less. God is love

When people write that God hates it is because someone has moved themselves further from God. It is a way of showing a change in the relationship of the person to God.

 

[cygnusx1]

The entire Old Testament is through the lens of men writing as best they could what they understood God wanted - which is not as good as when Jesus - the Word made flesh was amongst us.

That is why it appears to some that the God of the OT is a lot harsher than the God of the NT - even though it's the same God.

If you think God continually changes, that is, of course entirely up to you, but I believe he is perfect, and he doesn't change.

It's like the language that says how someone caused God to be angry. If this were literally true then that person has a power and influence over God - and can make God change his state.

I awlays start with an axiom that God is perfect.

If some think otherwise that's up to them.

on so many levels your just wrong .

"Jacob I loved but Esau I hated " God said those words not man.

Furthermore , The New Testament is where I got that quote from (Romans 9) and an Apostle of Christ (Paul) is not going to quote something that is wrong ....

 

[MamaZ]

Although this is a suggestion that hate is too harsh a word, I still don't believe God loves us any less. God is love

When people write that God hates it is because someone has moved themselves further from God. It is a way of showing a change in the relationship of the person to God.

One cannot have a love relationship with Father God less one is washed in the blood and born of the Spirit...

 

[bricklayer]

God is necessary,
therefore He is all He is necessarily.
God is infinite,
therefore God is all He is without limit.

God doesn't just love, He is love.
God doesn't just judge, He is rightous.

He is: mercy, wrath, Creator and Destroyer, and so much more.

Anything less than everything about God would be a violation of His holiness,
the inviolate balance of His infinite perfections.

 

[chrisnu]

God is necessary,
therefore He is all He is necessarily.
God is infinite,
therefore God is all He is without limit.

God cannot choose to limit Himself?

 

[bricklayer]

What is infinite cannot become finite.
What is necessary cannot become contingent.
Who is sovereign cannot become subject.

Sovereign means NOT SUBJECT.
Necesary means NOT CONTINGENT.

Besides, even if, that would constitute a change,
and God does not change.

Existence, Identity, Non-contradiction, Exclusion, Causality, Necessity, Contingency, the Corresponence of Truth, etc.
Without such as these, which emanate from God's nature,
language and literacy would be meaningless.

There does exist a uniform standard of sound reasoning, which emanates from God's nature. These are the literally undeniables, the first-principles of logic.

A Sovereign being subject is a breach in logic.

There is at least as much scripture to support a subjective view of God as there is a sovereign view. It's just that a subjective view is not reasonable.

The "let the bible speak for itself" claim to objectivity is absured.
There is no objective observer of God's creation.
There is God's sovereign view and our subjective view.

The idea of objectivity is as arrogant as is the idea of chance.

 

[Hammster]

God cannot choose to limit Himself?

Yes. It's called the Incarnation.

 

[bricklayer]

Jesus Christ is God WITHOUT LIMIT bodily, the fullness of God bodily.

 

[Tamara224]

If God did this, then we don't have free will. We're all automatons.

Again, you're employing a non-sequitur (logical fallacy). It does not follow that because God may force our hand that we do not also have a choice in the matter.

Like I said before, a choice is something that is internal, a decision, a thought process.

When I was a child, my parents "forced" me to do chores. But I also chose to do them. I could choose to do them before my mom got mad at me and yelled or after. And that choice would effect my relationship with my mother, my attitude and my allowance, lol. The fact that my mom was bound to get her way even if I rebelled didn't mean that the choice to rebel or obey was not always before me.

God gives us the choice to submit or rebel. He knows beforehand what we will choose and He uses whatever choice we make to bring about His purposes. Whether we submit or rebel, God's purposes will be accomplished. We cannot thwart His will by rebelling against it. We only hurt ourselves by doing that.

The choice God gives us is for our sakes, not for His.

God didn't harden Pharoh's heart.

That is simply a way of trying to explain how Pharoah distanced himself from God's love.

God is always the same, always loving. He doesn't sit there plotting an ends to man like a director - or much the same way as the Greeks held Zeus, and Moslems hold al-Lah.

God is love (1 John 4:8). He does not change (Hebrews 13:8). He never angers. He eternally loves. When we refer to God's anger it is how we react to His love. We describe it as anger as an anthropomorphism - using a human characteristic to describe God.
"God is the sun of justice, as it is written, who shines rays of goodness on simply everyone. The soul develops according it its free will into either wax because of its love for God or into mud because of its love of matter. Thus just as by nature the mud is dried out by the sun and wax is automatically softened, so also every soul which loves matter and the world and has fixed its mind from God is hardened as mud according to its free will and by itself advances to its perdition, as did Pharaoh.* However, every soul which loves God is softened as wax, and receiving divine impressions and characters it becomes 'the dwelling place of God in the Spirit'
- St. Maximus the Confessor, Chapters on Knowledge 1:12 (quoted in Carlton, C (1999) "The Truth: What Every Roman Catholic Should Know about the Orthodox Church", (Regina Orthodox Press), pp94-5)

This refers to the Old Testament passages where God is said to have hardened Pharaoh’s heart.

Well, the OT actually says that first Pharaoh hardened his own heart and then that God hardened Pharaoh's heart.

But if you don't like the example of Pharaoh.... what about the rest of the OT? For example, the books of the prophets... Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, etc... Unless we ignore or erase all of those books, we must conclude that, in fact, God does sometimes "plot" destruction.

The difference between God and Zeus is that God's plots are for the ultimate good of the people and for God's ultimate glory. God isn't malicious and spiteful. He disciplines and judges out of love and justice. The NT tells us that God will chastise and even "scourge" those whom He loves - like a Father disciplines His child. Zeus was an anthropocentric creation of men's minds who acted capriciously and spitefully. The God of the OT is nothing like him.

But none of this little tangent actually answers my questions. It just muddies the water a bit, IMHO.

I would really like to know upon what reasoning, facts and/or Scripture you base your apparent belief that God will not violate our "free will."


Also, I'd like to offer a hypothetical.... Do you think it would be wrong for God to violate a person's free will in order to prevent that person from harming someone else? For example, a man wants to rape a woman then murder her, but God intervenes and prevents the man from carrying out his wicked plot. Do you think that God would be wrong to violate that man's "free will" in such a way?

Anytime God interacts with mankind, He "violates" our "free will." When God revealed Himself to Paul on the road to Damascus, God directly interfered with Paul's "free will". God blinded Paul and forced him to change his life's path, preventing Paul from doing any more damage to Christians. Was this not a violation of Paul's "free will"? Hadn't Paul freely chosen to persecute Christians rather than become one?

And aren't we all very glad that God did interfere with Paul's "free will"?

Another good example of this is Jonah. Jonah's will was to go anywhere but Ninevah. God wanted Jonah to go to Ninevah. Where did Jonah go? Ninevah.

 

[bricklayer]

There is all the difference between human-free will and human-sovereign will.

Of couse God does not violate human-free will,
nor do we violate God's sovereign will.

Human-free-will does not equate to human-sovereign-will.

A free wil is simply a will free to act according to its nature.

Our free-wills are subjective. Everything about us is subjective.

 

[Albion]

Again, you're employing a non-sequitur (logical fallacy). It does not follow that because God may force our hand that we do not also have a choice in the matter.

Like I said before, a choice is something that is internal, a decision, a thought process.

When I was a child, my parents "forced" me to do chores. But I also chose to do them. I could choose to do them before my mom got mad at me and yelled or after. And that choice would effect my relationship with my mother, my attitude and my allowance, lol. The fact that my mom was bound to get her way even if I rebelled didn't mean that the choice to rebel or obey was not always before me.

God gives us the choice to submit or rebel. He knows beforehand what we will choose and He uses whatever choice we make to bring about His purposes. Whether we submit or rebel, God's purposes will be accomplished. We cannot thwart His will by rebelling against it. We only hurt ourselves by doing that.

The choice God gives us is for our sakes, not for His.


Well, the OT actually says that first Pharaoh hardened his own heart and then that God hardened Pharaoh's heart.

But if you don't like the example of Pharaoh.... what about the rest of the OT? For example, the books of the prophets... Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, etc... Unless we ignore or erase all of those books, we must conclude that, in fact, God does sometimes "plot" destruction.

The difference between God and Zeus is that God's plots are for the ultimate good of the people and for God's ultimate glory. God isn't malicious and spiteful. He disciplines and judges out of love and justice. The NT tells us that God will chastise and even "scourge" those whom He loves - like a Father disciplines His child. Zeus was an anthropocentric creation of men's minds who acted capriciously and spitefully. The God of the OT is nothing like him.

But none of this little tangent actually answers my questions. It just muddies the water a bit, IMHO.

I would really like to know upon what reasoning, facts and/or Scripture you base your apparent belief that God will not violate our "free will."


Also, I'd like to offer a hypothetical.... Do you think it would be wrong for God to violate a person's free will in order to prevent that person from harming someone else? For example, a man wants to rape a woman then murder her, but God intervenes and prevents the man from carrying out his wicked plot. Do you think that God would be wrong to violate that man's "free will" in such a way?

Anytime God interacts with mankind, He "violates" our "free will." When God revealed Himself to Paul on the road to Damascus, God directly interfered with Paul's "free will". God blinded Paul and forced him to change his life's path, preventing Paul from doing any more damage to Christians. Was this not a violation of Paul's "free will"? Hadn't Paul freely chosen to persecute Christians rather than become one?

And aren't we all very glad that God did interfere with Paul's "free will"?

Another good example of this is Jonah. Jonah's will was to go anywhere but Ninevah. God wanted Jonah to go to Ninevah. Where did Jonah go? Ninevah.

Good discussion

I'm inclined to think it's not that complicated, though. The opponents of Predestination have been set straight on this matter over and over again. They persist in misrepresenting the belief merely because it seems clever to call the Elect "automotons," "robots," and "puppets."

They do actually know (or at least I don't see how they don't) that with the single exception of one's eternal destination being determined in advance, the Elect and the Reprobates both make their free choices in everything else they do in life.

 

[Montalban]

It does not follow that because God may force our hand that we do not also have a choice in the matter.

Your analogy is completely false. The very idea of 'Free will' is about choosing God. It's not about doing something.

The very act of choosing God is an internal process. It therefore is not a matter of God forcing you to do something externally and you internally grumbling "I wish God wouldn't make me do this", because if, by using your analogy God forced you to love him, you wouldn't be internally grumbling "I wish God wouldn't make me love him", because you'd love him!

What you offer is a 'solution' that has more problems. God can't force us to both choose him and be able not to choose him, or God's force is not sufficient upon us.

God wants us to come to him freely.

Well, the OT actually says that first Pharaoh hardened his own heart and then that God hardened Pharaoh's heart.

Exactly, it was Pharaoh's choice. He became by nature a heart of 'clay'... as per the analogy of Maximos the Confessor I used

 

[Montalban]

I'm inclined to think it's not that complicated, though. The opponents of Predestination have been set straight on this matter over and over again. They persist in misrepresenting the belief merely because it seems clever to call the Elect "automotons," "robots," and "puppets."

That is what something without free-will is; an automoton.

I'm sorry if you find the word distrubing.