To grasp the predestination of Calvinism, one must wrestle with the TULIP of Calvin. http://www.mslick.com/tulip.htm
The T stands for “total depravity”.
It gets weirder from there.
This is the faith of my forefathers. I’m grateful Pops Mercotan felt that it was hooey and went in a far different direction spiritually, along with my mom, before I showed up.
I think that part of the confusion/disagreement on this issue is that we (as humans) perceive time as being linear and unidirectional, because that’s the way we experience it.
If God is omniscient and exists “outside of time” as many religions teach, he does not have this limitation. In his plane of existence past, present and future are all one. He knows what choices we will make, because he watches us as we make them.
But from our frame of reference, he watched us make them millions of years ago, before the creation of the world. His knowledge is not the cause of our choices, his knowledge is the result of our choices.
I agree with you up until that last part. If the course of events cannot change, there is no choice (that is, the term has no meaning). Furthermore, there really is no chain of cause and effect (again, in any meaningful sense) when past, present, and future are all one.
But it isn’t so much that the course of events cannot change, it is that the events have allready occured from the point of view of God. All choices were freely made, but those choices occured at the moment the universe of space and time came into being. The fact we see time going from a beginning to an end is just our point of view. The choices we feel we will make in the future, we have allready freely made in that future, since that future has already happened from God’s perspective.
“Before Moses was, I AM.” said the Lord.
It’s not a typo, or a grammar mistake. Temporal tense has a far different meaning to God than to you or I.
Think of it this way: if God gave everyone who has ever lived, and will ever live absolute and complete free will, from each of our perspectives, our choices determine our fates, at least in conjunction with other peoples choices. The complexity of thousands of years of choices and consequences are, to us, free will.
However God is omniscient. He always knew, and always will know each and every second of creation. Cause and effect are aspects of our temporal point of view. So, the question of free will is, from His perception, do I give it to them, or not. The decision doesn’t take place in one moment, but in every moment. That confuses us, but not Him. When the Littleville Titans high school football team takes the field against the Pittsburg Steelers, everyone has free will, and pretty much everyone knows how it is going to turn out. The case of the entire universe and all of time is a bit more complex, but God is very smart.
Trying to put God in a box is frustrating. It might well be disrespectful too.
Tris
If Einstien is right, then we may have to decide between free will and reality itself. The cite is New Scientist, 18 June 2005.
Boy, haven’t done theology discussion for a few years, now I’m in two discussions. (I’m an atheist, btw, or a strong agnostic, depending on how one defines terms.) Anyhoo, predestination is an odd duck but, in fairness, the NT is ambivalent on the subject. For example, contrast John 6, verse 40 (“This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.”) with verse 44 (“No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.”)
Also, FWIW, I agree with the camp that says God’s omniscience does not negate free choice.
Bleah. I could (but won’t) keep repeating myself. This reminds me of an abortion thread, except that I think I’m on stronger logical/definitional ground than one finds in those threads.
To wit: if events have already occurred, they cannot be changed (how could it be otherwise?); they are necessary in all possible worlds. If one wants to say that from the human perspective, we have free will, I’m fine with that. But it does not change what is necessarily the case.
Tris, while I’m not particularly worried about disrepecting God, neither am I trying to do so, nor am I attempting to “put God in a box”. This is purely a matter of definitions and logic. Necessitiy and knowledge are strictly defined; unless one changes their definitions, I see no way to escape the conclusion.
The Master Argument, as I live and breathe. 
Modality is always a tricky subject, and invoking “possible worlds” raises the question “what makes a world possible?”, somewhat defeating the purpose. However, even sticking with this approach, I think we have to restrict discussion of past events to possible worlds in which those events occurred. If Event A occurred rather than Event B in one world, then it’s true that it has to have occurred in those possible worlds which are “derived” from this. However, this doesn’t affect the validity of worlds in which Event B occurred instead. The historicity of Event A is only true in a subset of possible worlds, not in all possible worlds - which, by definition, means that it’s not necessary.
We must also remember that, in this sort of discussion, “time” is by no means an absolute.
I’m not following the free will camp here. If God is the First Cause, how is he not responsible for all of our choices?
A note: I include references to “time” and “past” because I know not how else to speak of them other than reiterating something akin to the tedious phrase “be aware that when I use the term “past”, from God’s point of view, past, present, and future are all one”.
While of course you are correct to point out the necessity of derived worlds only, I’d think this is overridden by the axiom that “God knows the course of events”. Now again, this is knows, not believes; there is no room for something like “Oops! Whaddya know – I, God, was wrong about what Digital Stimulus was going to post on the SDMB. Silly me, must work on sharpening up my omniscience.” Nor do I think a claim of “Hey, I’m God; I’m gonna close my all-seeing eye and decide to fool myself into believing something different than what I know to be predestined” is appropriate. Furthermore, one might define “possible world” as one that God can imagine (or believe in). However, we’re speaking of God’s knowledge (and, in deference to Tris, perhaps I should note that it may be offensive to speak of God as having mere beliefs); this moves it from the realm of possible to necessary.
There are no possible branches in the course of events if God knows them (every state is necessarily so); to deny that is to deny that God knows what will happen (see note above about tedious references to time). The only alternative I can see is to make an appeal to not understanding the words “know” and “necessary” (that is, to redefine them) so as to make them meaningless – at least, from my limited, human viewpoint. To do so is to end all conversation (for words become mere sounds with no meaning); conveniently, in this case, to not do so has the same result.
Point of order: in re-reading the thread, I realized that I’ve been taking the term “predestination” as synonymous with “predetermination”. Is that correct, or is there some shade of difference of which I’m not aware?
This is the step I don’t really see. If you’re just saying “the actual is necessary” (the Master Argument), then you’re assuming what you’re setting out to prove. If you’re not saying that, how does God’s (or my) knowledge of a fact make that fact necessary?
I have no problem saying that it’s a case of begging the question; in fact, that’s why I find it so difficult to believe (hah!) that this is actually an issue of debate.
Again, knowledge is fact (especially from God’s perspective), as opposed to belief (which may be incorrect). To deny that is to say that God is mistaken (and hence does not know). Now, knowledge of the outcome of every and all events entails that they cannot be any other way. Conversely, if multiple outcomes are possible, God cannot know which will occur. Hence there is no choice (even though it may appear to humans as if there is).
I am curious, and so will ask again – how could it be any different? People have said “I don’t see how predestination conficts with free will”, but then seem to leave off any explanation. Your objection about possible worlds was enough to keep me responding; can you supply a clear example where the two are reconciled (while maintaining sensible definitions of “know”, “belief”, “possible”, “necessary”, and “omniscient”)?
If you believe the TULIP precepts, then the U states that God just sorta “picks people out” … the people have no choice in the matter.
The L states that Jesus only died for the Elect.
The I and P state that the Elect have no choice in the matter. At all. Moreover, LIP states that the Call issued by Jesus only really applies to the Elect, who also get some sort of Secret Call. The Secret Call is the real deal.
This crap is almost as bad as $cientology. :rolleyes:
Well, there are two issues here, if not three.
First, your specific question - is free will consistent with predestination? I would agree with you that there doesn’t seem to be a consistent way of answering “yes” to this, unless we attempt to articulate a position in which we can build indeterminacy into an otherwise-preordained universe. It’s possible that quantum physics may provide such a route, but I’ve been heavily stamped-on for mentioning Penrose in this context, and don’t know anyone who still advocates this position. However, as we’re in a theological frame of mind, we also need to consider the question - does Divine omniscience imply determinism? This has been addressed by other posters in this thread, but I can run through it again if you want me to.
Secondly, there’s the concept of necessity - specifically, the contention that the actual is necessary. Aristotle and Łukasiewicz’s response to this was to deny that the principle of bivalence (as opposed to the law of excluded middle) applies to statments about the future - or, if we remove time from the equation, to contingent statements in general. I’m assuming you define “necessary” as “true in all possible worlds”. It seems to me that this approach, if “necessary” is to have any meaning, requires there to be more than one possible world - if the only possible world is the actual world, then, yes, all facts are necessary; but “necessary” is then devoid of content, and we’re just saying “all facts are facts”. Perhaps looking at the negative side of things might help. Did I win the lottery last week? No. Does that mean it was impossible for me to win the lottery last week? I don’t think it does.
If you’re saying that God’s omniscience means that the actual world is somehow “crystalized” from all possible worlds, then that seems to be limiting God; it implies that God can only know the actual world, and He’s blind to any other possible ones. Do we need to get into a distinction between “know” and “have knowledge of”? I think it’s legitimate to say that God has knowledge of all possible worlds (which isn’t to claim that all possible worlds exist, of course), and He also knows which of those worlds is the actual one - but that doesn’t exclude us from using the possible, but not actualized, worlds in our discussions.
Yeah, they gave me that on a handout. The question I had was “How is the choice between good and evil even relevant if it has already been made for you?” They were too busy calling me a heathen to tell me.
I’m not a Christian, but I also can’t see what the supposed contradiction is between omniscient God and ultimate free will. I can see where there would be conflict if God made a prophesy that the actors knew about, but absent that condition I can’t see any inherent conflict. In fact all the argunments I have seen for the supposed conflict seem like semantics and poor analogy to me.
To answer your specific question, God is first cause, but one of the things he caused was free will. Once that was created everything under the purview of free will was no longer completely connected to God as the first cause. The chain of causality was severed. God isn’t responsible for our choices because he specifically gave us control of them.
I really don’t see why this causes any problems, after all we accept this all the time in the everyday world. If I hit someone in the leg with a sharp object I commit a serious crime. If I breed a dog, even knowing that animals have a degree of action beyond my control, and that dog escapes and bites someone I am not guilty of the same crime even though the result is exactly the same. I am not responsible for the choices of the dog, only responsible insofar as I had a choice about how to maintain it. Provided I took due care to contain the animal I am not responsible for its actions at all. If you want to look at it that way we are God’s dogs. We have at least a measure of free will, so God can’t be held responsible for the choices we make.
NB: This analogy ends right there. It is intended to illustrate that in the normal world an individual is not held to perfect accountability for the actions and choices of other independent entities. Please do not attempt to stretch the analogy to encompass what may or may not be ‘due care’ when for an omnipotent entity. Obviously the analogy breaks down there, but it was never meant to imply that God had taken due care of his creation, only that he was not responsible for our choices simply because he is the first cause. He may or may not be responsible for choosing not to keep us muzzled but he is not responsible for our choices.
I’m not a Christian, but as I said, I can’t see what the supposed contradiction is between omniscient God and ultimate free will. I can see where there would be conflict if God made a prophesy that the actors knew about, but absent that condition I can’t see any inherent conflict. In fact all the arguments I have seen for the supposed conflict seem like semantics and poor analogy to me.
Imagine that you are in a position to make some choice. Something trivial is good. Let’s say that you get to choose whether to call heads or tails as a coin is tossed. I assume that you believe that you are not predestined to call heads. If you wished to you could call tails.
Now imagine that I was secretly filming you calling heads. I filmed the direct result of the choice you made and I filmed it. When I view that film at some later date I will be omniscient WRT to your choices in that one specific situation. That doesn’t mean you didn’t have free will when you called heads. You had perfect free will, even to the extent that you couldn’t be influenced by my filming because you were unaware it existed. Yet I can say with perfect accuracy that when you were in that situation (once from our perspective) you called heads. Perfect omniscience WRT that one tiny event.
God has a film collection for the whole of space and time, and he has seen it all and memorised it all. He has perfect omniscience WRT that one tiny event that I have omniscience for, and for every other event as well. But just as my omniscience of your actions didn’t make your actions any less the result of free will the same applies to God. He knows what you will do because from his perspective it already happened and he is watching the playback. But he didn’t force you to do anything. You did it entirely of your own volition.
All the philosophical arguments I have seen for the supposed contradiction between omniscience and free will have revolved around semantic quibbling that because an omnipotent and infallible God knows you will do something you will have to do it. That would make sense if we accepted God as being bound to time as humans are. But if we accept that then God has ceased to be both infallible and omnipotent, so the argument consumes itself. If OTOH we accept the infallible and omnipotent God then he can exist in time any way he pleases. As such it is more correct to say God knows you already have done something so you will have already done. That’s not a contradiction, it’s simply tautology. The fact that the event God has already seen you perform occurs in the future form your POV doesn’t mean that it hasn’t already occurred form his POV.
Well, that’s something at least.
I would contend that it was indeed impossible for you to win the lottery last week. If one were to query God about it, there would be a factual answer; you did or did not win. It cannot be the case that God does not know the outcome. As to giving “necessary” meaning, it would seem that I am not so easily removed from imposing a human viewpoint on things; I can only plead to using terms in a way that make sense to me.
But I have no problem limiting God in this way, nor do others; in fact, it’s akin to the limitations usually granted when discussing omnipotence (by defenders of the faith) – for instance, when asked “can God create an object so heavy that He cannot move it”? Of course not, is the response; that makes no sense. God is bounded within the limits of logic. (I’m sure you can find a thread in which Liberal makes that particular argument, if you so desire.)