4 Bible verses that support predestination

[A Cup Of Tea]

As I see it, the question is how to preserve human freedom.

I think the idea of God as micromanager, that every decision has been made for us, is a pretty awful prospect ... it means we're all just deluded puppets.

I agree of course, the idea of micromanagement seems odd to me..flawed somehow. But I don't think I could even accept it even if it was the most rational, too claustrophobic.

 

[Gordian Knot]

Frrosted said "Other than in specific, important situations, I do not believe God predestines anything (apart from our final destination). But I do believe that everything that happens is foreknown and pre-approved. Would that be preordination? If we start with the premise that God foreknows all, then it necessarily follows that anything that happens, He has allowed to happen. Pre-approval. Preordination?"

You have me curious. Why do you believe we are 99% free to make our own choices but not 100%. What is different about that last 1%?

God, being All Seeing, All Knowing, and all that other All stuff, he surely knows what your entire journey would be, right? Even if so, however, the mortal does not have that knowledge so are they acting out of free will?

Last one. If God defines the final 1% of your journey, can you really act out of free will? Any and all decisions you believe you are making have to conclude at your final destination. Which is predetermined. Your day to day choices must lead you to that final destination.

Or did I misinterpret. Perhaps you are saying that the last 1% is your judgement before God, at which point you will be allowed into Heaven, thrown into Hell, or sent into Purgatory for a purging?

 

[voiceofwood]

Rom 8:21-30 " For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified."

Rom 9:15-16 " For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”[a] 16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy."

Rom 9:21 "Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?"

Rom 9:11-13 "(for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls), 12 it was said to her,“The older shall serve the younger.”[a] 13 As it is written, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”

Can you say exactly what you take predestination to be?

 

[Frrostedman]

If we start with the premise that God foreknows all, then it necessarily follows that anything that happens, He has allowed to happen.

I don't agree that your second premise follows from your first.

I don't see how, brother. Of course, I left off the axiom that God has the power to stop anything from happening; but that was based on the fairly safe assumption that you agree with me on it.

So let's work it out in a hypothetical situation.

Pretext: God is all-knowing, and God is all-powerful.

Ok.

God sees that 3 days into the future, on Wednesday June 18th, Thomas will be climbing the steps at the library, and a huge flock of crazed birds will fly above him and defecate all over him. He will be covered head to toe in bird feces, and everyone will point at him and laugh. The event will be so utterly humiliating, that Thomas will be eventually forced to leave town and take up roots elsewhere.

God has the power to prevent this from happening. Obviously.

On Wednesday, June 18th, Thomas is climbing up the steps of the local library and the birds do their thing, and everything happens exactly as God foresaw that it would.

Ok. My claim is that since God knew it was going to happen, and had the power to stop it; the fact that it happened anyway means that God chose not to intercede, which also means that God permitted it to happen.

Please demonstrate where my claim is false.

 

[Thomas]

Hey Frosty ... sorry, overlooked this in all the chatter ...

So let's work it out in a hypothetical situation.

OK.

Pretext: God is all-knowing, and God is all-powerful.

OK.

God sees that 3 days into the future, on Wednesday June 18th, Thomas will be climbing the steps at the library, and a huge flock of crazed birds will fly above him and defecate all over him. He will be covered head to toe in bird feces, and everyone will point at him and laugh. The event will be so utterly humiliating, that Thomas will be eventually forced to leave town and take up roots elsewhere.

Have you been talking to my wife?

God has the power to prevent this from happening. Obviously.

Obviously.

On Wednesday, June 18th, Thomas is climbing up the steps of the local library and the birds do their thing, and everything happens exactly as God foresaw that it would.

Yes.

Ok. My claim is that since God knew it was going to happen, and had the power to stop it; the fact that it happened anyway means that God chose not to intercede, which also means that God permitted it to happen.

Yes.

Please demonstrate where my claim is false.

I would argue that preknowledge does not prove predestination.

For me, the message of the Gospels is not that Christ is there to preserve and protect us against the tragic in the everyday, rather that He is there with us, and stands in solidarity with us, when they do.

It's a question of theodicy: If God is good, why does shit happen?

I do not believe, as many Christians do (and the vast majority, if my experience is anything to go by), that suffering is caused or allowed by God because to embrace it leads us towards perfection.

Theodicy is something I respond to by instinct rather than any insight.

I do not hold, as many philosophers do, that this world is necessarily 'the best of all possible worlds', nor that it is intrinsically bad. It's just a world governed by the finite and the contingent, the random and the accidental.

Shit happens for no good nor bad end, it just happens. That's the nature of the cosmos in which we live.

The sheer weight of suffering experienced by the world is excessive. Long drawn-out debilities, terminal illnesses, Alzheimer's disease, the suffering of children. It's too blunt, too brutal a tool to be deployed by any kind of Deity who speaks of love or compassion. I reject karma on the same principle. Likewise I reject the philosophies of gnosticism.

Nor do these instances of suffering serve any useful purpose, as they cannot lead to the moral development of the sufferer. (I reject the common idea of hell for the same reason.)

If our lives are indeed so micro-managed, then where is our freedom to act? We are not free at all, and then we are punished by a God who determines what we're going to do ... which makes God 'conflicted', to say the least, if not outright cruel and capricious.

It is in that very moment, indeed in our every moment in act of being, that we are faced with the freedom to make choices, the chance to make the world a better place.

 

[voiceofwood]

I do not hold, as many philosophers do, that this world is necessarily 'the best of all possible worlds',

Leibnitz aside, I don't think many philosophers, at least ones worth their salt, think that

 

[Rick Lionheart]

The Bible talks about predestination and choice and does not say that one is true and the other is false, rather the Bible talks about it in a way where we can conclude that both are true. Predestination and choice are not mutually exclusive.

It is like the square rout of 4 has two answers: +2 and -2. Both are correct at the same time.

 

[Shibolet]

Rom 8:21-30 " For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified."

Rom 9:15-16 " For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”[a] 16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy."

Rom 9:21 "Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?"

Rom 9:11-13 "(for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls), 12 it was said to her,“The older shall serve the younger.”[a] 13 As it is written, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”

Predestination aka fate is a Hellenist doctrine inherited by Christianity. It does not exist according to Judaism which was the Faith of Jesus. Predestination directly contradicts the attribute of Freewill granted to man; let alone that it constitutes a mistake based on unfairness for some to be predestinated, let's say to salvation and not all. Even if it were a fair gift it would be an interference on the rights of man to choose to live his life the way he pleases.