Predestination

Predestination

Predestination, in theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul.

Explanations of predestination often seek to address the "paradox of free will", whereby God's omniscience seems incompatible with human free will.

Freewill may be at the core of God's gift of life in love to man, and His Divine hope for man to choose to love Him back.

Predestination as a doctrine in Calvinism deals with the question of the control that God exercises over the world. In the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith, God "freely and unchangeably ordained whatsoever comes to pass."

"This terrible doctrine of predestination was taken up again in various forms at various ages by Cathars, Albigenses, Calvinists, and Jansenists, and was also to play a curious part in the theological struggles of Kepler and Galileo."

Is there any validity to the arguments in favor of predestination?

Once someone makes a choice, there may be a cause and effect which will produce an inevitable consequence. But to suggest that there is no choice at all, and we are condemned only to exist within the whim of God's singular power of choice, is to suggest there is no love.

There can be no such thing as love without choice. That is the way things work, by definition, love can only be a product of choice.

If there is no choice, we are just biological puppets. Can a puppet love? Can a robot?

How many times does the Bible talk about free will choice, freewill offerings, and free assemblies?

If there is no free will then why do we see the Bible talk about giving man choices, warnings, and even rebukes, none of which would be needed in a universe without choice.

Freewill offerings are mentioned dozens of time which we are told were offered "willingly".

We are told to choose and are given choices hundreds of times in the Bible. From the very beginning, there were explicit instructions about eating or not eating of the two trees.

Infact without some choice the law is superfluous and of no consequence along with judgement itself.

If God did not give man a right to choose, man becomes a mere toy in a childish god's sandbox.

But no, God is great, and gave enough of Himself to man that he not only has a right to choose, but is imposed upon by the responsibility to do so.

"Choose you this day whom ye will serve;"

Every choice is not yours to make. You are only predestined based on those fundamental choices you make.

You are supposed to choose to repent and to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness, or you can "choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that [were] on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24:15

Unfortunately, most people choose to serve those lesser gods many.

Where did it come from

Predestination as a theology seems to be constructed from the use of one word that appears in two places in the epistle to the Romans and Ephesians.

Romans 8:29 "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. 30 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."

Ephesians 1:5 "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will... 11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:"

What was the purpose of Christ?

Was it to set the captive free so that he could make freewill offerings of charity in love for one another?

Do you imagine it was to start a church that says it is okay to covet your neighbor's goods through men who exercise authority one over the other, like the governments of the gentiles do?

Do you believe in the love of Christ that commanded that His disciples make the people sit down in the Tens so that they can form a network capable of a daily ministration that provides for the needy of society in Pure Religion through charity, love, and hope?

If you choose the unrighteous way of force, fear, and fealty, there will be sacrifice but little or no mercy.

In such covetous practices through men who exercise authority one over the other, you will be predestined for destruction through the strong delusion that the evil of coveting and biting one another is good.

But if you choose to live by faith, hope, and charity, which is The Way of Christ, you will have sacrifice too but also mercy. You will be predestined by that choice for eternal life.

So, you have the choice of loving the gods of this world who by their nature take away choice and make you mere [merchandise]], or serve the God of heaven by loving one another.