Hey,

my theory is simple. look at a time line.
(Past)(Present)(Future)

so God, seeing time like this, writes something down, and logically, it is then writen before the beggining. it is free will and predestined. 100% of each. same way Jesus is 100% God and Man.

:-o simple huh? :-o

Whilst God is soveriegn, and knows the beginning from the end, I do also believe that we fully have the free choice of what we do.

It's a hard thing to truly think about, after all, how could we have free choice and God total sovereinity? I don't know. But God has given us choice, that when he judges he may be just in his judgement and we can blame no one but ourselves.

As long as my lungs have breath in them our future is up the air. Only when we pass into eternity will our futures be sealed.

-JW

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J. Wilson

Perhaps this really belongs in Lounge/on the lighter side/ but as this thread is already up and running here is a question.

"Was I predestined to be an Arminian?" ;-) ;-)

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Ron Bailey

At this hour of my understanding, here is my theory of predestination:

1. God knows all things
2. I do not know all things
3. The bible contains all things necessary for life and godliness


Ron - only calvanists are predestined ;-) ;-) ;-)

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Mark Nash

Without a doubt, one cannot seperate predestination from God's eternal point of view of time (viewing and experiencing all moments of time at once). Could God in all His soverignty forced our hand in every instance of our life? Yes. However, just because God can do something is not the same as God doing something.

Also, if one presumes God forces our hand in everything, then one cannot dare talk about us having a loving, intimate relationship with God. Since the Scriptures and experience testify to being able to have a loving, intimate relationship with God, we must then conclude that we are not God's puppets. Puppets are incapable of love.

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Jimmy H

.

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Jeremy Hulsey

Is this a difficult question, or what?
PERHAPS.....God calls me and gives me faith because He knows how I will respond if He does so. I still could not respond or believe unless He chose me, so could not be saved, but He makes His grace available to me as necessary.
The Bible is true, and clearly teaches from BOTH angles, so there is a mystery here that embraces both Calvinism and Arminianism. We are talking about the MANIFOLD wisdom of God - it takes the whole body of Christ and MORE (i.e. God Himself!) to know the entirety of His wisdom. He chose in His wisdom to not spell it out for us, so we would be wise not to try to spell it out too much to each other. It is nevertheless a wonderful mystery, which if treated right, can increase our love for and awe of the Creator.

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Dom Spencer

I don't see how VampireBite's theory supported free will at all, or was even in-depth enough to support predestination. I think I overanalyze too much often times though. :-P
I beieve strongly in predestination, but with some tweaks. For example, we're chosen by God to go to heaven. I read Ephesians 1 and it couldn't be clearer to me. But we're given choices in other matters...
For example (and I know it's trivial, bear with me), I have a turkey sandwich and a ham sandwich sitting before me. God lets me pick my lunch, but He already knew what I was going to choose.
If we have free will in receiving Christ, then it implies risk-taking on God's behalf. The risk is in that He lays everything out before us, and we either choose Him or don't. Where there's risk, there's chance, and where there's chance, there's uncertainty. Does God have uncertainty? By no means; to say so would be to say He's not omniscient, and we KNOW He is.
So long story short, I think we have limited free will in some aspects (we choose to disobey Him at times, but He already knew we were going to), but in the matter of who'll be next to me in Heaven...God chose them before time began.

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Mary M.

Ephesians 1, being interpreted in the light of the all scripture, I don't believe is speeking of specific individuals. Instead, Paul is glorying in the fact that God has chosen a people from the foundation of the world who would serve Him. This can be accurately interpreted to be saying that all who would repent(make a willing choice based on hearing the gospel and responding to the call of the Father's invitation) at the preaching of Christ by His servants are the ones who have been predestined.

How did He choose us? I believe it's by the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world. He saw the rebellion, but He also had a way for us to repent. Those of the Arminianist position--which I am--interpret Ephesians 1 to be speaking corprately.

Quote: "If we have free will in receiving Christ, then it implies risk-taking on God's behalf. The risk is in that He lays everything out before us, and we either choose Him or don't. Where there's risk, there's chance, and where there's chance, there's uncertainty. Does God have uncertainty? By no means; to say so would be to say He's not omniscient, and we KNOW He is."

Reply: Certainly there is a chance. But what if no one chose to follow Christ? Would He have failed in His mission? Most definately not. Did He come for us or for His own sake? Jesus said that He was here to fulfill the will of His Father. He accomplished that to the uttermost ends. And if no one ever followed Him, then the cross would be our judgement instead of salvation as it will be for all who have and who will reject Christ.

I believe that God took a chance in the very beginning by giving man and apparently angels a moral choice. True expression of love *always* invlolves a risk. Only by creating us with a moral choice could we freely love God or we could rebell and therefore bring evil into the world.

You can't view God as taking a chance like we would. From our vantage point, taking a chance always involves the unkown, but not so with God, taking a chance is tempered with Him knowing the future in advance.

I cannot in good conscience think that God has arbitrarily chosen who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. I believe that He has chosen what kind of person will go to heaven and what kind will go to hell.

But as I said in an earlier post; this is a mystery.

In Christ,
Jeremy Hulsey

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Jeremy Hulsey

I found the following article on predestination, written by Greg Koukl, to be thought provoking, I hope you will enjoy it also;

[url=1] http://www.str.org/free/commentaries/theology/badargum.htm [/url]

In Christ,

Ron

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Ron Halverson