Predestination

Sorry, Renzzy, that I did not answer your challenge in a timely manner. Much is going on in my profession and I wanted to make certain that I could devote sufficient time to our discussion. Predestination has been debated since the early Christians so I doubt if we will establish a definitive answer to the validity of the theory of predestination. In fact, there exists two main streams of thought concerning this topic: predestination and conditional predestination. In actuality, predestination is a form of determinism but of a religious type and is especially found in monotheist systems of belief including both Christianity and Islam where omniscience is attributed to God. From your opening statement it appears that you are a proponent of predestination in the strict sense. I, on the other hand, lean towards the conditional predestination theories. Both camps agree that God is omniscient and eternal free from limitations of time and even causality. He does see the past, present and future. Where we differ is that you believe that God does decide the eternal destinations of each person. On the other hand, I propose that while God is completely sovereign over all things, He has given each of us the gift of free will, which each person can exercise by accepting or rejecting God's offer of salvation through Jesus Christ. The debate goes back as early as 417 A.D. with St. Augustine of Hippo and the British monk, Pelagius. Even St. Augustine did not deny that man has the freedom to choose but he does assert that our ability to exercise our free will is subject to error and, on account of original sin, enslaved to sin. However, Pelagius would argue that the grace of God cures the effects of original sin setting man free to choose God's will. This is effected by God's grace working first within our soul, awakening our desire to do His will and God cooperates with man by granting our prayer requests for a greater desire and ability to choose His will. Augustine's strict predestination is neither complete nor universally accepted by Christians. While you present Biblical quotes supporting predestinating grace, the concept of free will is also affirmed in Scripture and throughout Christian tradition. A major problem with your view of predestination is that many things come to pass on a daily basis that are sinful and evil. If man truly does not have a free will and God ordered everything to come to pass, then God becomes the source of all the evil in the world, an idea I believe we must reject! "This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5), "When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (James 1:13-15; 17) What about Adam? On one hand he is commanded to refrain from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (see Genesis 2:17), but on the other hand Adam's sin was preordained. God has given many laws and commands in the Bible, yet these are broken on a daily basis. Is God both the lawgiver and the lawbreaker if He ordains whatsoever comes to pass? God told Adam to leave that apple alone but Adam used his free will and chose to ignore God's command. What a wonderful life it would be if he had chose to obey instead! There are a number of Scriptures where God commanded something, gave a decree, and what was decreed (because of human repentance arrived at by exercising free will) did not come to pass. "On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: ‘Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned." " (John 3:4). "When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, He had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened." (Jonah 3:10) "In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, ‘This is what the Lord says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.' " (2 Kings 20:1). "Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people, ‘This is what the Lord, God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the temple of the Lord. I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for My sake and for the sake of my servant David.' " Especially note 1 Samuel 23:11-12. Had David remained in Keilah, Saul would have gone there and the men of the city would have betrayed David, but none of this happened because David left. Hence circumstances (human free will), and not immutable decrees or Fate, controlled these events. Rather than ordaining everything that happens, God reminds us that the future is flexible and that our choices today, whether good or bad, can alter our future. "If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it." (Jeremiah 18:7-10)