Predestination and Election

[unred typo]

Are there two of you? Because what you write is like stranger and stranger.

quote by stranger on Tue Sep 25, 2007 7:59 am
Who God has 'foreknown and predestined' before the foundation of the world are those in Christ. How can God know? You need to ask God that question. God may or may not explain His knowing to you that would agree with your reasoning and intellect. I am only a bystander and not witness to what God did before the foundation of the world. If I offered a reason for God's action I would be speaking presumptuously. We know 'those whom He foreknew He predestined'. . . and armed with this knowledge I am content.

You’re armed alright. It reminds me of the ‘chimp with the shotgun’ visualization. I don’t mean that as ad hominem but you need to consider what you’re pointing at and why. How can God know who God has 'foreknown and predestined' before the foundation of the world ? I have asked God that question. I feel he has given me the perfectly plausible and simple explanation. The future is not known because there is nothing to know as of yet. He is the God of the present moment and perfectly aware of all things that can possibly be known at any given moment of the present time.

God’s knowledge of the ‘elect’ is simply that he has chosen that those who choose to follow Christ will be placed ‘in Christ’ and those will be the ‘elect.’ He doesn’t know who they will be until they choose to follow Christ and he himself decides that they are committed enough to be placed in the ‘elect’ and he himself places them there. This is an individual placement by God himself, not according to the will of the flesh or the will of man, but God decides when each person is ready to be born of the spirit.

So God knows only that those in Christ will be chosen for what he has ordained for them. Are you ready for an analogy? We love those.

Let’s say I am a photographer for a magazine. I can choose those who wear ghost’s costumes to my Halloween party next week to be in my cover photo for next month. I can plan the party, provide the costumes and choose the ones that will be in my photo long before I send out the invitations. I have sovereignly elected the ghosts to be chosen but I have no idea who they will be until they choose to wear the sheets to my party.

God has chosen those in Christ to be the elect long before he has sent out invitations to come to him. He has no idea who those people will be but he knows they will be those in Christ because that is what he has sovereignly decreed will be.

Do you get it?

quote by stranger:
God's foreknowledge about Ninevah? While I know that there is a counsel of God - I do not know what is contained therein about Ninevah. I can only speak in general terms of something that I once heard: every action upon the earth is also an act of God. If I can find the quote I wil post it to you. Don't forget 'Adam'.

I’m not interested in the quote you have heard. It sounds like something an idiot would say. I don’t recognize it from the Bible if that is where you got it from. I would have to see the context before I made any judgment if it came from scripture.

My idea about Nineveh is simply that what the Bible says is true. God had not predetermined what he was going to do with them until he saw what they did when he sent Jonah there to preach. It wasn’t already written down somewhere from the foundation of the world. The idea that all things are known in the future is simply not biblical nor rational.

quote by stranger:
Here is an interesting passage for you :
Ezekiel 33:11-12 (New American Standard Bible)
11"Say to them, 'As I live!' declares the Lord GOD, 'I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?'

12"And you, son of man, say to your fellow citizens, 'The righteousness of a righteous man will not deliver him in the day of his transgression, and as for the wickedness of the wicked, he will not stumble because of it in the day when he turns from his wickedness; whereas a righteous man will not be able to live by his righteousness on the day when he commits sin.'

I don’t see the relevance of those scriptures to our discussion. Please qualify why you feel they pertain to our discussion about the fixed knowledge of the future.

 

[Drew]

Greetings unred and stranger (and others):

I have not been following this thread lately and have only read the last 2 posts (one from each of you). As you may know, I lean against the whole idea that God "elects" unto salvation and I also lean towards the idea that God does not know "the future" exhaustively.

Concerning "the future", I suggest that the future is not a real thing anyway - not an "object of knowledge" even for God. We use the term "the future" as if it denoted something that already exists and justs needs to be shifted into "now" at the rate of one second per second. I suggest it may be more accurate to think of a God who makes general (and sometimes specific) plans and acts on those plans rather than a God who has witten out the history of the Universe and is just letting that history play out.

Stranger - I have not forgotten that you were the only person who offered any kind of reasonable counterargument to my take on 2 Kings 20 (do you remember? you argued that Hezekiah had to be spared in order to give birth to an offspring. I should see if I can counterargue that claim of yours.... :D ).

Concerning election: I think that some passages that refer to election are about nations and not about individuals. I think such is clearly (and I mean obviously) the case in respect to Romans 9 and the story of the potter. I have read a very convincing argument (and re-formulated it myself recently, perhaps earlier in this thread) about Ephesians 1 to the effect that the election in question was really only about a specific set of NT apostles.

Unred: I have a question about your take on election. You seem to assert that those who freely choose Jesus are then elected, i.e. they are already "in Christ" when they are elected. You will probably not be surprised to hear that I have sympathy for this view. My question to you and also to myself: What are such people elected for? Critics to your position will object that the whole purpose of election is to "secure one's place in heaven" so that if one is elected having already (freely) become believers, there is nothing left to be elected "to", if you understand me.

I have some thoughts but I will stop now to keep this post short.

 

[unred typo]

quote by Drew:
Unred: I have a question about your take on election. You seem to assert that those who freely choose Jesus are then elected, i.e. they are already "in Christ" when they are elected. You will probably not be surprised to hear that I have sympathy for this view. My question to you and also to myself: What are such people elected for? Critics to your position will object that the whole purpose of election is to "secure one's place in heaven" so that if one is elected having already (freely) become believers, there is nothing left to be elected "to", if you understand me.

The way I see it, Drew, is that the group (the unidentified body of believers in Christ) is elected individually as each one is added to the body of Christ because of their belief and walk in the teachings of love and good works. I really have a problem saying we are saved as if it were a past event. I think of it as we are 'saved' as long as we continue in Christ. As you probably know from past posts of mine, I am against the doctrine of OSAS and see it even as undermining of the power of the gospel to keep us walking on the straight and narrow.

As for what those who follow Christ are elected to, I would go with all the things that AVBunyan listed from Ephesians. They are elected to become heirs of salvation, to be conformed to the image of his son, to be empowered and filled with all the fullness of God, and to be given gifts that are to be used to encourage and uplift the entire body of believers, to mention a few things. If you are a follower of Christ, you are part of the group God has chosen to become heir to those promises. If you drop out of the group, you may temporarily or permanently lose those promises until or unless you repent and rejoin. It is by virtue of the fact that you are in Christ that you have been elected. Election is not a guarantee that you will become all that God has chosen for those who follow Christ should become. You have to take advantage of those promises by actively seeking to pursue them in your life.

It might be helpful to understand this as being part of a club or other group. There are privileges and benefits that have been ordained to those who are members of the club. If you are in the Boy Scouts, in the YMCA or in the AARP, you have certain things that become part of your legacy that have been foreordained for members only. Before you joined, you were not a partaker of these benefits. If you are ‘in Christ’ you then become heir to the promises that God has foreordained from the beginning for those who are ‘in Christ’. It’s not that you personally were chosen but you became part of those chosen. I don’t believe Paul ever dreamed some would imagine they were somehow chosen before they were even born so his language is not as specific as it could be here.

 

[stranger]

unred typo wrote:

Here is an interesting passage for you :
Ezekiel 33:11-12 (New American Standard Bible)

11"Say to them, 'As I live!' declares the Lord GOD, 'I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?'

12"And you, son of man, say to your fellow citizens, 'The righteousness of a righteous man will not deliver him in the day of his transgression, and as for the wickedness of the wicked, he will not stumble because of it in the day when he turns from his wickedness; whereas a righteous man will not be able to live by his righteousness on the day when he commits sin.'

I don’t see the relevance of those scriptures to our discussion. Please qualify why you feel they pertain to our discussion about the fixed knowledge of the future.

The relevance has to do with God's way of looking at the righteous and the wicked. If we consider Ninevah:
Ninevah was on the verge of being destroyed. But the 'wicked' turned from his wickedness and the judgment was averted on this occassion - I am not sure what happened to Ninevah long term.
Jonah 'knew' as it were that God finds no pleasure in the death of the wicked. His initial reluctance to preach was because He knew that God was merciful and it seems that he would have preferred Ninevah destroyed.

Sodom and Gomorrah:
The relevance of the Ezekiel passage to Lot tells us that Lot's previous righteousness life would not deleiver him from destruction had he fallen into sin. Similarly, any wicked who repented may have been spared, though it seems that Lot was the only one. This was the point of Abraham's prayer.

The point? God knows what He will do in the event that you repent and in the event that you refuse to repent. This is the principle set forth and from this general principle the future becomes just that little bit more knowable.

 

[stranger]

Greetings unred and stranger (and others):

I have not been following this thread lately and have only read the last 2 posts (one from each of you). As you may know, I lean against the whole idea that God "elects" unto salvation and I also lean towards the idea that God does not know "the future" exhaustively.

Concerning "the future", I suggest that the future is not a real thing anyway - not an "object of knowledge" even for God. We use the term "the future" as if it denoted something that already exists and justs needs to be shifted into "now" at the rate of one second per second. I suggest it may be more accurate to think of a God who makes general (and sometimes specific) plans and acts on those plans rather than a God who has witten out the history of the Universe and is just letting that history play out.

The notion of our knowledge being derivative of God's knowledge applies to the future just as it applies to the present. I notice that you use a more tentative expression about leaning towards, and God not knowing the future exhaustively. If I may focus on the principle: as a man sows so shall he reap. This general principle will help us understand something more specific still yet future.

As far as the future goes - I have to say that much of what will happen will happen because the stage is already set in both past and yes, in the ever diminishing present. Future history appears to align itself upon present and past precept. Something totally unprecented happens rarely happens. If your car is red today, is it going to be blue tomorrow?

The regression of even a single nanosecond time interval moves into the past in just one nanosecond - reducing the present into something that is untenable practically, (for we slow creatures), yet logically seemingly resonable.

 

[unred typo]

quote by stranger on Wed Sep 26, 2007 2:08 am

Unred: I don’t see the relevance of those scriptures to our discussion. Please qualify why you feel they pertain to our discussion about the fixed knowledge of the future.


The relevance has to do with God's way of looking at the righteous and the wicked. If we consider Ninevah:
Ninevah was on the verge of being destroyed. But the 'wicked' turned from his wickedness and the judgment was averted on this occassion - I am not sure what happened to Ninevah long term.
Jonah 'knew' as it were that God finds no pleasure in the death of the wicked. His initial reluctance to preach was because He knew that God was merciful and it seems that he would have preferred Ninevah destroyed.

Sodom and Gomorrah:
The relevance of the Ezekiel passage to Lot tells us that Lot's previous righteousness life would not deleiver him from destruction had he fallen into sin. Similarly, any wicked who repented may have been spared, though it seems that Lot was the only one. This was the point of Abraham's prayer.

The point? God knows what He will do in the event that you repent and in the event that you refuse to repent. This is the principle set forth and from this general principle the future becomes just that little bit more knowable.

OK. I see why I have this mental block in our conversation. Somehow from your words I got the impression that you believed the future was set and every detail was known by God. Apparently, you believe God knows what he will do in the future based on his principles. This is not unlike what I believe, but you seem to think there is a timeless factor that allows God to see those events in the future. Or maybe not. Or maybe you are still formulating your opinions on this subject. I’m really not sure what you believe despite all your preparations to outline our beliefs.

Reading your post to Drew, I gained a little more insight into your belief. You said, “As far as the future goes - I have to say that much of what will happen will happen because the stage is already set in both past and yes, in the ever diminishing present. Future history appears to align itself upon present and past precept. Something totally unprecented happens rarely happens. If your car is red today, is it going to be blue tomorrow?â€Â

This is not what I consider exhaustive knowledge of the future. What most people who hold that view, believe is that God knows every detail of every event of the future as if he were watching it in a movie. To them, we are just another rerun of the show God created in the beginning of time. God already knows what will happen because he wrote the script, created the actors and produced the set. This is what I thought you believed at some point by what you expressed. I apologize for beating you up over your double minded dialogue. Exactly what are you saying?

At one point you said man could predict the future. I believe man can make predictions of the future but only God can guarantee what he says will come true. I could not successfully predict even that my red car will be red tomorrow because I could have a fire in the garage that burns it to a crisp tonight. My red car may not be red tomorrow if it gets stolen by professionals who strip it and repaint it blue for resale in a matter of hours. Man is not in ultimate control. God likes to remind us of that on occasion by snarling our plans.

He, on the other hand, can make whatever he chooses to happen and predicts will happen, actually happen. He can do that and does do that but that isn’t the way the universe is run. He has put man in control of his own destiny. No one can force you to go to hell by your actions. You have been freed to choose who you will serve. Even with a gun to your head, you can not be forced to believe what you don’t believe, even if you say you believe it to save your life. ‘A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still’ holds true.

As for ‘time’ being a created thing, I held that view for quite a while and eventually gave it up because it became apparent that it was messing up my understanding of all those instances where it appears that God is waiting on man’s reaction to his actions before he makes his next move. God, to me, is more like a brilliant chess player than a movie producer.

 

[Guest]

unred - are you an advocate of "open theism"?

 

[unred typo]

quote by aLoneVoice on Wed Sep 26, 2007 8:58 am
unred - are you an advocate of "open theism"?

I don’t know. I just read the Bible and believe it. Is that ‘open theism’?

 

[Orion]

What if I'm not "one of the elect"? What if God hasn't called me? Could it be the reason why I have so many spiritual struggles?

 

[Guest]

What if I'm not "one of the elect"? What if God hasn't called me? Could it be the reason why I have so many spiritual struggles?

Who said that we are to be free of spiritual struggles?

however, when confronted wtih Truth - there are just two options: 1) Believe or 2) Deny.

 

[Guest]

quote by aLoneVoice on Wed Sep 26, 2007 8:58 am
unred - are you an advocate of "open theism"?

I don’t know. I just read the Bible and believe it. Is that ‘open theism’?

Based on our conservation on another thread in regards to infalliability - how do you know what you are reading is Truth?

I believe you are smart enough to know what :open theism: is.

 

[unred typo]

quote by Orion on Wed Sep 26, 2007 9:23 am
What if I'm not "one of the elect"? What if God hasn't called me? Could it be the reason why I have so many spiritual struggles?

God has called all men everywhere to repent. That includes you, Orion, and me and every person reading and not reading this thread. All have sinned and all are called to repent.

Acts 17:29-31
then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
30And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commands all men every where to repent:
31Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he has ordained; whereof he has given assurance unto all men, in that he has raised him from the dead.

Adam, the first man to sin, was called an offspring of God.

Luke 3:38
Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

If you are in Adam, you are one of those whom God has called to repentance. If you follow Jesus Christ and do as he has taught us and as his spirit still teaches us;

1 Thessalonians 4:9
But as touching brotherly love you need not that I write unto you: for you yourselves are taught of God to love one another.

Then you are also ‘in Christ’. If you are ‘in Christ’, it is a given that you were chosen to inherit eternal life, because God ordained that ‘those who follow Christ’ would inherit eternal life by patient continuance in good works. (Romans 2:6-11) Being chosen to inherit eternal life is not a guarantee that you will continue to the end, but as far as God is concerned, he will do all he can to convince you to persevere without doing it for you. If you continue to follow Christ, he has guaranteed that you will inherit eternal life. He has paid with the blood of his own son to make that possible. Do you believe it?

The reason you have so many concerns is because you are making it too complicated. You are a complex person but you need to become as a little child and follow Christ, not any man on earth. Jesus said to love one another and if you pay attention, you will know what that means in your everyday life. If you mess up, admit it and try to do better next time. That’s what we call confession and repentance, and forgiveness brought to us by the blood of Christ. That’s all you have to do. One day at a time.

Today if you hear his voice, harden not your heart. Hebrews 3:15

 

[unred typo]

quote by aLoneVoice :
Based on our conservation on another thread in regards to infalliability - how do you know what you are reading is Truth?

I believe you are smart enough to know what pen theism: is.

I know when I am wanting to know the truth and when I am only interested in proving what I want to be true. If you knock, ask, and seek the truth and nothing but the truth, you have God’s word that you will receive it. I believe that, do you?

I am not as ignorant as some people believe and more ignorant than others have imagined me to be I‘m sure. I have heard ‘open theism’ tossed around but being basically lazy, I have not bothered to research it myself. Categorizing and labeling other people’s belief systems isn’t something I care about anyways. Will believing in what you call ‘open theism’ get me banned from this forum?

 

[Orion]

So the doctrine of Election isn't that God has specifically chosen YOU, or Chuck Swindol, or Billy Graham, etc and specifically decided not to choose [fill in the blank of those who died that lived evil lives], . . . but that he chooses everyone and leaves the rest [coming to God] to them?

 

[Guest]

So the doctrine of Election isn't that God has specifically chosen YOU, or Chuck Swindol, or Billy Graham, etc and specifically decided not to choose [fill in the blank of those who died that lived evil lives], . . . but that he chooses everyone and leaves the rest [coming to God] to them?

Incorrect. The Doctrine of Election, simply stated, says that God knows who and who will not be saved. because of this foreknowledge, God "elected" choose those who will and will not be saved.

 

[Orion]

Incorrect. The Doctrine of Election, simply stated, says that God knows who and who will not be saved. because of this foreknowledge, God "elected" choose those who will and will not be saved.

So. . . . . . .there is no selection, but just knowledge of those who are going to be saved.

 

[Drew]

Incorrect. The Doctrine of Election, simply stated, says that God knows who and who will not be saved. because of this foreknowledge, God "elected" choose those who will and will not be saved.

So. . . . . . .there is no selection, but just knowledge of those who are going to be saved.

I think that there is indeed selection by God - He indeed "elects" in this "selection" sense. But I submit that many New Testament texts are incorrectly seen as being about election of individuals to salvation or loss are really about election of nations- God "selects" a nation (such as Israel) and indeed sovereignly acts in history to use that nation for some purpose. I think this is clearly true in the case of Romans 9 - the potter account. I will not present arguments in this post.

And while I believe that God generally does not elect individuals in the specific sense of "choosing Fred to be saved and Fred cannot resist" and "choosing Joe to be lost and Joe cannot escape this fate", I am open to arguments that, in some very limited cases, God has indeed elected some individuals to "salvation". I think of the text of Ephesians 1. But I am still thinking about that.

 

[Guest]

Incorrect. The Doctrine of Election, simply stated, says that God knows who and who will not be saved. because of this foreknowledge, God "elected" choose those who will and will not be saved.

So. . . . . . .there is no selection, but just knowledge of those who are going to be saved.

Ultimately Orion, ours is not the place to question how God acts. Rather, our place is to respond to the Truth and conviction of the Holy Spirit.

Does it matter if it is selection? No. When confronted with the Truth of God and the conviction of the Holy Spirit - what is your response?

Thanking God for conviction and providing the ability to you to believe, or rejecting God because you do not like how He is running things?

 

[unred typo]

quote by Orion on Wed Sep 26, 2007 10:17 am
So the doctrine of Election isn't that God has specifically chosen YOU, or Chuck Swindol, or Billy Graham, etc and specifically decided not to choose [fill in the blank of those who died that lived evil lives], . . . but that he chooses everyone and leaves the rest [coming to God] to them?

Correct. The verses you find that sound like Billy Swindol was chosen and not Mr. Evil Hellbound, are verses that speak about those unnamed generic group who are ‘in Christ.’ God has ordained that those people, whoever they are, that follow Christ will be given eternal life. You become part of the elect by your following Christ. Those who follow Christ have been chosen as a group to inherit eternal life. If you remove yourself from the group of Christ followers, you are also removing yourself from the promises made to those who follow Christ.

These words are so back loaded with man made doctrines that it is almost impossible to simply read the Bible and understand what the author intended. Let me try an analogy. We hate those but….

Change ‘followers of Christ’ to ‘followers of Dr Fatkins’. The good doctor has a diet that will help even the chubbiest to lose weight. He is so determined to spread his message of weight loss heaven that he makes a free offer. As long as you follow the Dr.Fatkins diet, Dr. Fatkins has promised that those on his diet will receive the loss of at least 50 pounds of ugly fat. He has also ordained that those who follow his diet and lose at least 50 pounds will receive a lovely Dr. Fatkins Tee shirt and lifetime membership in his club as long as they maintain strict adherence to his diet. Who are those elected to the gifts of tee shirts ? and who gets free lifetime memberships? Does Dr.Fatkins know who these people are when he ordains them to tee shirts and club membership? No, but they are chosen to receive these things by virtue of their decision to follow him and their perseverance to the diet.

The call is to ‘whosoever will’ follow the diet. The gifts and calling are freely given. There is no charge to accept the challenge. There is no payment required to belong to the club or buy the tee shirt, in fact, you can’t buy a tee shirt or become a member ANY OTHER WAY than by following the doctor’s diet. It is not by works of money you have earned or by being in the right family or going to the right school or anything other than following the diet and losing the weight. The question is, do you believe in the doctor enough to attempt to follow his diet and earn the right to become members of his family of dieters?

Now I realize that a number of phrases such as ‘not of works lest any man should boast’ will be invoked in some people’s brains by things that I have written here. It’s like hypnotized people who begin crowing like a rooster every time they hear the word, ‘morning.’ I’m convinced that they have been programmed to say that and they can’t help it and do it without giving it any thought. If you would like to mention some of these catch phrases, I will be happy to explain them all, if you would really like to give it some mind struggling thought. I know you have been pulled every which way on this so I won’t take it personal if you decline.

 

[Drew]

Does it matter if it is selection? No.

I think it does matter. And I will appeal to the general principle that no matter how esoteric an item of theology might appear to be, how disconnected from the living of one's life it seems to be - bad theology leads to bad life choices.

In the matter of election: I can think of a number of negative and very real consequences of believing in a "selection" version of election where God essentially pre-determines that a person will end up saved or lost. I am talking about a "selection" form of election where God does not merely "look ahead" and elect a person unto salvation if that person freely accepts Christ, but rather a form where God causally, and in a fully sufficient sense, makes it to be the case that the person will be saved (or lost) such that the person has no degree of freedom whatever to contribute to the matter of her salvation. There are definitely people who hold to this view and believe it to be Scriptural.

If someone can show that this view is in fact Scriptural, I will withdraw what I am about to say. If this form of election is indeed not Scriptural, then believing that one has been "elected" in this sense can have real problematic implications for living one's life. In this regard, note that Paul (in the book of Romans) criticizes national Israel for their belief that membership in God's family was theirs by virtue of being born an ethnic Jew. The form of election that I am talking about seems similar - a belief that one is born in a state of salvation.

If you believe that your membership in the kingdom was sealed long ago, I can easily imagine that you will not "work out your salvation with fear and trembling" - that you will think yourself immune from falling away and being lost. Also, a confidence that you are sealed into heaven will almost certainly lead you to rush to judgement that someone who does not share your theology must be one of those "elected unto damnation" and therefore a person whose opinions really do not matter. I understand that Calvinists will respond that a drift into viewing the world as a priveleged "us" and a lost "them" does not have to happen if one is appropriately humble in respect to accepting one's election.

There is possibly some merit to this view. But I suggest we look at the evidence. And I will, with some trembling, suggest that those in this forum have promoted such a view of election have indeed exhibited the kind of dismissive behaviour of others that I claim might accompany the belief that the world is split into 2 camps - those fore-ordained to glory and those fore-ordained to loss.

Not to mention the loss of motivation for evangelism. If you believe that eternal fates were fully settled at the foundation of the world, how can you make sense of the need to evangelize? - after all, the result will be what it is destined to be, regardless of what you do.

So it does indeed matter what you believe about whether election involves "selection".