My wife was in a chat room with christians and some non-christians, when the debate came up about predestination and free will.  She was having a hard time to explain to the nons that were saying that if we are predestined to be who we are and to do what we do and God already knows what we are going to do by his plan then there is no free will.  This really frustrated her.  I tried to describe it in the best way I could in a way that non-believers could relate to and understand that there is both.  I said that God's plans for our lives and what we do with them he does have all maped out. Rewards and consequences. If we are standing next to a busy highway and we step out in front of traffic and get hit, that is a consequence for making a bad choice.  As God wants us to make the right choices, he also has punishments for the wrong ones.  If someone walked up to you and handed you a gun, and said to put it to your head and pull the trigger. They say the gun might be loaded or it might not be, and tell you that it is your choice of what to do(they are not forcing you to do this).  God has already planned out the end results of which ever choice you make.  Do you not pull the trigger and live, or do you pull the trigger and take the chance that you might shoot yourself.   If someone says here are two closed doors, door 1 leads to something good, door 2 something not so good.  You have the choice of which door your enter. 

I think that putting it in such a way makes one think that it is related to their lives and the choices that they make in them.  Good choices have their rewards, bad choices have their consequences (or punishments).  I am in hopes that this will help people understand better that there there is both in our lives.  we have to make choices everyday that effect us.  God loves us all, does not want us to make the wrong choices.  I know that we all have made wrong choices in our lives and I know that I have learned from my mistakes as I know most of you have hopefully done the same.  So let's continue to make the right choices and see what rewards God has for us.  Grace and Peace, and God Bless. 

 

I have wrestled with this whole "Predestination/God planned it all out" concept too. This is the conclusion I've come to:

God is outside of time so He already knows the outcome of every choice. He knows us before we were even born and He knew what we would do, where we would go, everything. He looks at time as a book He's already read. Start to finish. So, the question for me is does He write that book or does He simply know what's in it?

One could look at it like this...

I love Star Wars (1977). I've seen it hundreds of times. I know every decision that every character in that movie will make. But I have no input in those decisions. I simply know what they are. Nothing takes me by surprise. I "foreknow" that Luke is "destined" to rescue the Princess and destroy the Death Star because I've seen it already. Now that's one way to look at it.

But then the question comes up, "Yeah, but what about George Lucas? He conceived of the worlds, the story and the characters. He wrote it all in a script and the actors just acted the predestined story out." Maybe God is more like George Lucas in this example. 

The problem I have with the latter example is that it means we are really just pawns in a game, actors on a stage, puppets on a string. We have no choice in anything. This life is pointless - at least for us. What's the point of witnessing and praying? We can pray all we want but if God's written the story out already, then nothing we pray for really matters. As for witnessing, what's the point? We can witness and pray for our loved ones all day long, but if God has Predestined them to go to Hell, our efforts are in vain. The whole Great Commission becomes a waste of time. And as for God, well, based on the history of this planet and the prescribed future of "unbelievers" the Predestination view paints a very scary picture of someone who supposedly loves us. No, That view doesn't seem to fit what the Bible says at all.

If God is "not willing that ANY should perish, but that ALL should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9) how could He also Predestine some to perish? That's a complete contradiction (note also Matt. 18:14).

If God has already determined some to go to Heaven and others to go to Hell, what's the point of Jesus? The view of Predestination makes that whole "plan of salvation" seem pretty rediculous to me. Why send Your only Son to be violently murdered to pay the price for people You've already pre-determined to go to Hell?

The other problem I have with Predestination is the fact that love requires a choice. There is no relationship if one is forced (or pre-scripted) to love. God created us to have relationship with Him. Sin caused the separation and Jesus provided the solution to reconcile that relationship. And we have the choice to accept or to reject. If God forces that choice on me, then it really wasn't a choice to begin with.

The other thing that usually comes up with regard to Predestination is the idea that "God is in control of everything." While God is indeed sovereign and God does have the ultimate control over everything, He has chosen in His sovereignty to not effect free will. He has given that to us so that we may choose to love Him or not. Furthermore, if you subscribe to the concept that nothing happens except for that which has gone through His hands first, it leads to another (false) belief about God.

Many have said, "But God is in charge..." and imply that all things good, bad, sick, healthy, etc. are under "God's control." Yet God Himself said in Genesis 1:26-28 that He was releasing control of the earth and everything in it (even micro-organisms that cause disease) to us.

Psalm 8:3-6 says:When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers the moon and the stars you set in place what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority...

Psalm 115:16 says: The heavens belong to the Lord,  but he has given the earth to all humanity. 

In the end of Matt. 28, Jesus gives the authority to us once again. In these and many other passages, it seems clear to me that God (in His Sovereignty) left us in charge here. He made us His Body so that we might continue the works His Body started while He walked among us.

So, I don't see God allowing sickness and disease, pain and suffering on this earth... I see US allowing it by our inaction and inability (because of fear and doubt) to take control and cast those things out (like Jesus commanded us to do). But I suppose that's another subject in and of itself...

My final conclusion in all of this is that based on the fact that the Psalmist writes in Psalm 69:28 that people can be blotted out of the Book of Life it seems to me that the names were already there to begin with. The same thing is stated in Revelation 3:5. So, how can you blot something out unless it was there to begin with?

Based on the fact that God is "not willing that any should perish" and the fact that names get "blotted out" of the Book of Life (implying that they were there to begin with) I believe God has "Predestined" EVERYONE to go to Heaven. But if we choose by our God-given free will not to accept the sacrifice of Jesus, then by our own choice, our name is "blotted out of the Book of Life."

God simply knows who is going to make the right choice and who is not because He has seen the movie already.

That's my take on it anyway.

-Rob

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When Vision Meets Resources the Dream Comes True!

That was very well put Rob.  Thank you

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Recovering Bike-aholic