From a Christian perspective - What's the case against pre-destination?

Great Debates
1

My view (as a Christian) is that pre-destination goes against the choice that we make of our own free will. If I have to receive Christ as my Lord & Savior in order to enter the kingdom of Heaven, then I am making a choice. If I’m making a choice, then it’s not pre-determined. I could go in either direction, without anyone or God knowing beforehand.

But if it’s not pre-determined, then that also means that God is not omniscient. He doesn’t know the exact position of every particle in the Universe, nor does he know the future position of every particle in the Universe. God seems omnipotent to us, as mere Humans, since he’s the creator. But there has to be a limit to his knowledge, unless he has pre-programmed every action or thought in my entire life.

2

My take on it is that pre-destination becomes something of a “Okay, so what?” problem.

Say one sports team attempts a field goal kick, and it is wide right. “God predestined it to go wide right!”

But if that kick went in the middle instead, they say, “God predestined it to be good!”

Then you have to ask if predestination is nothing but a tautology. What’s the meaningfulness of it? It has no meaning. In fact, it even means I was predestined to type up this reply to you. What’s the point? It becomes utterly point-less, no substance, no effect, and doesn’t make any difference.

3

In the movie The Omega Code, Michael York’s character asks, “If I am predestined to become the Anti-Christ, will God punish me for it?”

The character later suffers brain damage and demonic possession, and then becomes the Anti-Christ. Which kind of sidesteps the question, but I will give them credit for raising it.

4

As for the question originally asked, it seems to me that an omniscient being would know the future. But an omnipotent being could voluntarily forgo knowledge of the future. It doesn’t mean that He has, but He could. So we are obligated to act as if He did, and try to live our lives as morally as we are able.

5

I’m an atheist and not a Christian. But it seems to me the OP is making a category error. If you posit an omniscient God, that is not the same as pre-destination of events or decisions. Knowledge is not will, and God’s complete knowledge of everything that will happen does not mean that those happenings have been willed by God.

This, of course, conflicts with the notion of an omnipotent God, but I’m not responsible for the contradictions in Christian theology.

6

If everything is pre-destined, then it’s all meaningless in my view. Why even send Jesus down to Earth to save us if it’s pre-destined. There’s no point. He would already know which one of us is going to Hell. So, that would make our lives a cruel joke, IMO.

7

You cannot assume that an omniscient, omnipotent god would be bound by the laws of physics. A creator is larger than that which is created and should by definition be above any rules in the creation. And the creator can change the rules at any times without those inside the creation even noticing. It was always and will be always. And not meant to be questioned too closely or literally.

8

If he created everything and had perfect knowledge of the future, then I don’t think any outcome would be against his will. He created it all, and knows everything that is happening and that will happen…and he knew all that before he even created it. It’s not against his will.

My only way out of this is to say there’s a limit to God.

9

:slight_smile: quote=“Exapno_Mapcase, post:7, topic:1001144”]
It was always and will be always. And not meant to be questioned too closely or literally.
[/quote]

OK, but I’m questioning it right now. God must have known 13.7 billion years ago that I’d be sitting here today questioning his limits?

I think in our tiny part of the cosmos, God seems to be infinite. But I don’t think he can literally be infinite in knowledge…there has to be a limit somewhere…like…“infinity minus 2”…:slight_smile:

10

Perhaps the big picture is preordained, but the details are left to free will.

The concentration camp is predestined.
But you have a choice:
You can join the bad guys, and become a guard at the camp, and be damned.
Or you can join the good guys, and become an inmate at the camp, and be blessed.

11

An omniscient God knows everything, so She knows the consequences of every possible choice you may have made in every possible universe, and (for all I know) in all of the impossible ones too. This basically means you have free will and pre-destination at the same time.

Don’t worry about it. You only get to live in one of all the possible worlds, so make the best choices you can.

12

He might be the clockwork creator, who sets things in motion at the start and then stands aside, so to speak. He knows what is going to happen because of omniscience (as posited), but does not exercise any will to affect it. And the original setting of things in motion was not done in sufficient detail that your eventual faith or lack of faith is an inevitable fact at the beginning of things (this last bit is just me spit-balling, I have no idea if this is an actual doctrine or not).

Why shouldn’t people question it? Or maybe you meant “not subject to being successfully questioned,” that is, people can question it but will never know or learn any of the answers.

13

Well, stop it.

OK, I’m being facetious but serious at the same time. I meant it when I said that Christianity as written is not meant to be questioned.

Religion is a fiction. Judaism was meant to be a set of moral guidance stories but those were played out in practice and so annoyed a small set of people about 2000 years ago. They set about writing a new set of stories. They literally changed the rules in the story that was Judaism. More fan fiction was written about the new central character by a set of other people after the originators were dead and couldn’t object. None of them had a goal of thinking the book through thoroughly logically. Logic was in fact antagonistic to belief, although later writers saw the many conundrums and created a series of apologetics to try to make a collection of loose ends rigorous. They can be ignored; the vast majority of believers may never have even heard of them. Believers want to believe and so cast aside all obstacles.

No, I’m giving you a God that has no limits in any way that the creations can define or even imagine. The ultimate Get Out of Questioning Free card. God can do anything including making a rock too heavy to lift. Anything less is denying the very God that you believe in. God can give you free will and know everything you will do. How? Because God. Take this gift. Atheists have to be satisfied in different ways.

14

What does “beforehand” mean when said about God? It may be that your mistake is thinking that God is within and subject to time.

15

I had a look at St. Augustine’s On the Free Choice of the Will, which I remembered addressing this issue, and which I found a PDF of online here.

Here are some relevant quotes, from pages 120, 123, and 125 of the PDF (p. 76, 79, and 81 of the printed text):

16

I’d say the flaw is here. He does know the exact position of every particle in the Universe, but that doesn’t tell you what the human soul is going to do. The human soul essentially a supernatural thing, of you were able to accurately scan every particle in the human brain, that would not fully describe what is going on in the human soul, or tell you whether that human will choose pancakes or waffles tomorrow.

17

For this I like to look at the parable of the prodigal son in a Schrodinger’s cat sort of way. In that was the son actually on his own - yes. Was the son never on his own - also yes. Both realities existed at the same time while the son left till the point when the son returned (or decided to return - your pick). Once the son returned one of the realities collapses into non-existence and the son was never on his own but just learning under the father’s wisdom.

That is how I see our salvation, once we make that choice to accept Christ have that unconditional acceptance, and our ‘on our own part of living’ is washed pure white as if we were never on own own.

Looking at scriptures that have us preexist the womb:

Eph 1:4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love

Jer 1;5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Ro 8:29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

Also note the use of the words ‘knew’ and ‘foreknew’ in the above 2 verses in the context of

Matt 7: 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Also I have found the duality here interesting. In this I ask if the inmost being what God was knitting here, or what that just a body for it that God was making for a preexisting ‘soul’. Was our inmost being not made in the womb but ‘secret places in the depths of the earth’. Also considers our body a ‘tent’ which will one day be discarded according to Paul.

PS 139:13For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.14I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;your works are wonderful,I know that full well.15My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

So it would seem like there is a case for pre-destination, but there is also independence where God does not know us. Again the Schrodinger’s cat can allow this duality. I also do believe in universal reconciliation based on many verses including :

Colossians 1:19–20 : “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

18

If you get on a rollercoaster that you’ve never been on before, do you just say “What’s the use-somebody pre-planned the route it will take”, or do you still get on the ride because you don’t know where the ride will take you?
I’m just here for the ride.

19

But what if you were being told that you could design the roller coaster ride yourself, and you went through the trouble of setting up all the loops, turns, and speeds…only to find out later that there was only one possible design?..

I’ve been told that I have free will in this thing, but some people think it’s all already decided. It can’t be the case that both are right.

20

Can’t it?

First, picture what it’d be like to do that stuff without free will. Then, picture what it’d be like to do it with free will. Now take that second scenario, and figure I hop in a DeLorean and go back in time to watch as you do your free-will stuff in Scenario Two, where you had free will; what changes?