Predestination

[Oats]

Can God create a Rock so heavy he can't lift it? Can God predestine your life and at the same time give you free will? Both are logically impossible questions and scenarios.

...God always knows exhaustively what the future can be, and he always knows what it will be insofar as it is completely determined by his will. Moreover, he always knows what his will will be no matter what other free agents finnaly decide and do. However, insofar as what he wills is alternatives for free creatures to choose between or among, God does not know which alternatives will come to pass. What he knows is what each agent must choose within the parameters set by its powers and circumstances....

Imagine God as a chess master playing a rookie....Being a chess master he knows all the possible move he can make as well as the rookie...The rookie can make his move freely...But God being as master is always many steps ahead in controlling the Game



The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. --Proverbs 16:4

 

[Pard]

I'm not going to argue with you, make your peace with God when your time comes...

 

[Oats]

I'm not going to argue with you, make your peace with God when your time comes...

??? what did I say?

 

[Pard]

??? what did I say?

Not you, I didn't even see your post. I was talking to the other guy. I can't argue with a guy who cannot except the scripture out of the book he says he believes in, so I will leave it up to God.

 

[Oats]

Not you, I didn't even see your post. I was talking to the other guy. I can't argue with a guy who cannot except the scripture out of the book he says he believes in, so I will leave it up to God.

Sorry...

But you're right...nit picking aint the way it be....

You have to let the word classify itself

 

[Pard]

Very true. If you come to the Word with faith all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place for you. If you come to the Word thinking you know it all... well it makes you put the puzzle together yourself and you don't get to look at the box!

Oh and the puzzle is not your normal puzzle. When it is all done you have an entire copy of the Bible, in puzzle form... all 6000 words!

I have come to the realization that you can lead a horse to water, but God doesn't want you to kick the horse in the water, if the horse wishes to die from no water... not my fault.

 

[Oats]

Very true. If you come to the Word with faith all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place for you. If you come to the Word thinking you know it all... well it makes you put the puzzle together yourself and you don't get to look at the box!

Oh and the puzzle is not your normal puzzle. When it is all done you have an entire copy of the Bible, in puzzle form... all 6000 words!

I have come to the realization that you can lead a horse to water, but God doesn't want you to kick the horse in the water, if the horse wishes to die from no water... not my fault.

Right on...

Shoot me an email sometimes

 

[Pard]

Ya I will. I have been trying to figure out Thunderbird because I cannot log on to gmail with firefox any more so I have not been able to send emails for like a month now.

 

[Oats]

Ya I will. I have been trying to figure out Thunderbird because I cannot log on to gmail with firefox any more so I have not been able to send emails for like a month now.

s'alright...when ever you get the time

 

[coffeeelover]

Since God transcends time and space - these two ideas are not contradictory.

God Preordains our fate - belief or disbelief - if he did not He would not be All Powerful - he would simply be an observer.

..But what has been preordained for us is based on what choice we make in this world by our own free-will.

So when a man chooses to disobey God - God had foreknowledge of this choice - and by the execution of the act allowed the choice to be made - thus controling the choice through His Power to allow it or forbid it.

This is why on the day of Judgement one who is judgd in an unfvourable light can not use the excuse "but you made me do it" - rather God simply allowed the man to sin, giving the man the full opportunity to not sin - but since the outcome of the mans choice was known to God when He preordained all things - the result of the mans choice was preordained.

That seems like a semantics trick argument. God either Preordains our actions or he doesn't. Why make it more complicated than it needs to be to try and make two things that can't both be true both be true?

Can God make a puzzle so complicated that he can't solve it?

 

[A New Dawn]

If you want to believe that that's your prerogative, but with out free will life is meaningless, and destiny negates free will.

Well if your life is predestined, you can't chose a different path. If you can choose a different path it isn't predestined. They can't fit together. There is either destiny or free will.

Life without God is meaningless, and Romans also teaches us that man, without God's intervention, is unwilling and unable to choose Him. If we are unable (and unwilling) to choose him, then I'd rather not have the ability to choose a different path.

But, I'd like to point out that man's will is only truly free once God has claimed his heart. Before then, it is a slave to the old nature and can choose nothing that is contrary to that nature.

 

[Vince]

"Predestination is the first step to salvation."

The Bible makes no such statement.

Again, predestination refers only to being conformed to the image of His Son, and to be adopted as sons. There is no conflict between predestination and free will, because no one is forced to be predestined. When you accept Christ as Savior, God indwells you and stays with you, working in you to make you more like Christ.

 

[lovely]

Hmmm...can't find my post. I tried to respond to you, Oats, but it's missing...I'll try again later when I have more time.

 

[Oats]

Hmmm...can't find my post. I tried to respond to you, Oats, but it's missing...I'll try again later when I have more time.

Sure nuff'

 

[Drew]

And that seems like a response from someone who hasnt thought much about the subject.

It seems to me you already have your mind made up.

and poseing an irational argument in response to my rational explaination of how free-will and Gods Power over all creations do not colide is not a constructive response.

I think coffee-lover's critique of your position was essentially correct. You seem to embrace 2 positions that cannot be logically reconciled. If God is truly the only agent exerting causal agency in respect to a person's ultimate fate, then that person cannot have any causal agency himself - all of it is taken by God by hypothesis.

I can accept the idea that God "knows in advance" what choices a person might freely make - there is no contradiction there since knowledge agent A of a choice X made by agant B does not logically necessitate causal agency on the part of A. But it is a violation of the relevant concepts to assert that agent A has full and sole causal agency in respect to action X of agent B, and yet still try to claim that agent B has exerted free will in respect to action X.

 

[A New Dawn]

"Predestination is the first step to salvation."

The Bible makes no such statement.

Again, predestination refers only to being conformed to the image of His Son, and to be adopted as sons. There is no conflict between predestination and free will, because no one is forced to be predestined. When you accept Christ as Savior, God indwells you and stays with you, working in you to make you more like Christ.

You are isolating verse 29 from verse 30 and you can't do that. They are part of the same passage. Verse 29 does say, yes, that He did predestinate those whom he foreknew to be conformed to the image of His Son. It goes on to say MOREOVER (meaning "and in addition to that (being conformed to the image of His Son)") those same people who were predestinated will be called, and those same people who were called will be justified, and those same people who were justified will be glorified. It is all one thought tied together by the word "MOREOVER".

Can you respond to this? You have ignored verse 30 every time I have posted it and spoken to it.

 

[Vince]

Of course I can explain it, Dawn.

Calvinists make the error of assuming that God predestined some people to salvation ( No one is predestined to be saved) and then he called them to salvation. But the Bible teaches that all people are called to salvation. The passage teaches us, instead, that all people who are predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son really are called.

The Catholic Church, for instance, put solemn anathemas of those who accepted Christ, and despite the change in their lives, they were still going to Hell. (After various military defeats, the Catholic Church changed that doctrine.) But the Scriptures teach that those who turn to Christ really are called.

Throughout the history of genuine Christianity, there are powerful authorities who proclaimed that born-again Christians were going to Hell, would be punished by the gods, would be condemned by Allah, etc. But God's Word promises us that we really are called.

READERS: Remember that Christians are predestined to be conformed to the image of God's Son, and are predestined to the adoption of sons. There are no other predestinations.

 

[Oats]

I think coffee-lover's critique of your position was essentially correct. You seem to embrace 2 positions that cannot be logically reconciled. If God is truly the only agent exerting causal agency in respect to a person's ultimate fate, then that person cannot have any causal agency himself - all of it is taken by God by hypothesis.

I can accept the idea that God "knows in advance" what choices a person might freely make - there is no contradiction there since knowledge agent A of a choice X made by agant B does not logically necessitate causal agency on the part of A. But it is a violation of the relevant concepts to assert that agent A has full and sole causal agency in respect to action X of agent B, and yet still try to claim that agent B has exerted free will in respect to action X.

I posted a comment about this very subject in this thread...please give it a look over...I have more...

 

[A New Dawn]

Of course I can explain it, Dawn.

Calvinists make the error of assuming that God predestined some people to salvation ( No one is predestined to be saved) and then he called them to salvation. But the Bible teaches that all people are called to salvation. The passage teaches us, instead, that all people who are predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son really are called.

The Catholic Church, for instance, put solemn anathemas of those who accepted Christ, and despite the change in their lives, they were still going to Hell. (After various military defeats, the Catholic Church changed that doctrine.) But the Scriptures teach that those who turn to Christ really are called.

Throughout the history of genuine Christianity, there are powerful authorities who proclaimed that born-again Christians were going to Hell, would be punished by the gods, would be condemned by Allah, etc. But God's Word promises us that we really are called.

READERS: Remember that Christians are predestined to be conformed to the image of God's Son, and are predestined to the adoption of sons. There are no other predestinations.

So which is it? Are all people called to salvation, or are only those who are predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son predestined? You have two contradictory statements up there (unless you are implying that God predestined everyone to be conformed to the image of His Son.)

 

[Vince]

Dawn, all people are called by God to salvation. Those who accept that call are predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son and to the adoption of sons.

But no one is predestined to accept God's call.