Predestination

Well, I did not say this now, did I? I must admit to getting somewhat annoyed when people twist my words like this, but I’ll assume this was inadvertent. This was a point made to me by a Buddhist, in fact, but as I said I don’t know many Buddhists well so I asked for your observations on this.

Re: the environment. Please don’t confuse the “subdue the earth = exploit it and fill your pockets with cash and leave your decedents an environmental mess” elements of the Christian Right with the Christian position on the environment. Most Christians I know tend toward the environmentalists side of the spectrum, and some are very hard core indeed, to the point of being leaders in local protest groups. The earth is God’s creation and needs to be respected as such.

 

Great post, Grizzled. The part I quoted is why I have a problem with predestination, and you expressed it so eloquently. You really need to post more often here, my friend.

 

Sorry, that's what I got from this statement:

I just assumed you were saying it was nonexistent rather than different.

The differences concerning viewing the environment is that Buddhists understand that they ARE the environment. There is no separation from the rest of the whole. What you do to the environment, and others for that matter, you do to yourself. You see that you are interrelated to everyone and everything, that your every act is linked with the whole of humankind and the whole cosmos.

"A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security"
-Albert Einstein

This way of understanding was absent in my Christian upbringing.

 

This might sound surprising, but I’m not unsympathetic to the one energy idea. The difference, I would say, is that the energy is all of God’s creation. It is God’s energy but it’s not God. I’m also sympathetic to the idea of higher levels of consciousness. This is consistent with developmental psychology, with human history as a whole, and with the evolution of consciousness you see traced out in the Bible. It starts with tribalism, then moves to legalism (the commandments and the Law), then comes the change to the acknowledgment that people are imperfect and they apply laws imperfectly (see almost everything to do with the Pharisees starting with Matt 23) so we need to live by the Spirit, not the Law. In the greater society the realisation that laws (or at least our understanding and application thereof) are flawed is related to the postmodern rejection of metanarratives. The greater society is still trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces though.

Levels of consciousness (and I believe this is the same in Buddhism) have their positive manifestations and their negative manifestations. Wilber talks about the pathologies that exist at each level, for example. The spirit of God, I would say, is what draws you to the positive side of each level. This is good for the individual and it shows the “salt and light” of the Spirit to the world. This, IMO, is brought about by entering into a relationship with God. One can chose to behave that way of their own will, but that’s different proposition with a different set of issues. I’d have to re-read some of Wilber to comment on that. So, there are similarities, but some fundamental differences too.

 

I am sure that very little could be more irrelevant to God than that. Read the New Testament passages about the Law on what to eat, or read the passage about Jesus healing someone on a Sunday. These will show you the kinds of things God thinks are important, and the kinds of things God thinks are unimportant.

 

I’m not denying the existence of the word, only the meaning that Reform church creates for it. Maybe this is not even in keeping with Calvin’s beliefs. I don’t know, but the Reform church is the only one I’ve ever heard of that takes it to this extent. Perhaps there are some Lutheran churches in your area that do, but there sure aren’t any that I know of around here.

 

Unfortunatley I haven't read all of this thread so pardon me if someone else has said the same thing.

From my understanding of Predestiniation and similarly Karma, is that on the universal scale everything might be fixed and decided already on the human scale it is not. Therefore for our purposes we have free will to act and the choices we make will affect us as we go. Since memory only works for things past we can't know the future so our human reality is that things the future if changeable is. Also since we percieve time as a progression of events following one after the other we have a linear existence. If we percieved all events happeing at once existence would be a single point and from our standpoint we wouldn't exists.

So to sum up there very well may be predestination, whether you take it from a religious or quantum mechanics perspective, but for practical human existence there isn't and we have free will.

 

No. And as I’ve discussed this in at least 2 previous posts I’m not going to repeat it. I’m going to let you go back and read my posts to accurately represent my position.

This suggests that human freedom came from somewhere else and that God place limits on it. God is more powerful, more sovereign, than that. God is all powerful. He gave us freedom to chose. He didn’t limit it. I recommend reading the book of Romans on this whole subject area. It gives you a good overall understanding of God’s will and the teachings of the Bible as a whole.

You’re contradicting yourself here. If a person is a slave to sin, then they aren’t really free. At the very least you’re not making your point clear.

Because that’s the choice God gave us. There are some finer points around what it means to believe in Christ at the point of regeneration, but I don’t think we’re up to tackling finer points here. God gives us that choice, and in the end that’s the only choice that matters. Whether we choose Corn Flakes or Fruit Loops in the morning is of no real significance. Everything flows from the choice to enter a relationship with God, so if he gives us any choice at all it really has to start with that one.

This looks like another contradiction. Could you please clarify?

My position is, IMO, consistent with the Bible. Fishermen catch fish. If a fisherman can’t catch fish, he’s not a fisherman. Further, we know many were caught, and we know that many more would be caught because the Bible says this.

This is contradicted in so many ways by the Bible. He’s some more. If God wanted to predestine who was to be regenerated, why wouldn’t he just stick with the “chosen people”, the Jews? The New Testament is largely about the rejection of the predestination of the Jews. God opened up the option of relationship to Jews and gentiles, and note that he didn’t say some gentiles. All that talk about the Jews becoming hard hearted and turning their backs on God would be pointless because they wouldn't have had any choice in the matter anyway. It was all just a pointless predetermined charade? This just doesn’t fit with the character of God as it is described in the Bible and as it is seen and felt in the Spirit today.

Have a look at this passage from Romans 3:
19Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

21But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,[9] through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-- 26he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

If it were known beforehand who will be regenerated and who won’t, this would all be a meaningless charade. None of it would matter. It would be completely pointless. I don’t believe that this is in keeping with the character of God.

And one last point referring back to your last quote. Again I think it shows the internal inconsistence of the doctrine. If only God knows there would be no point to man knowing that this condition exists. It serves no positive purpose in a Christian’s or a non-Christian’s life. It doesn’t show God’s sovereignty. God has absolute sovereignty. He is the creator after all. We are his creation, including the free will he granted us. All of creation is a testament to his sovereignty. A scant few passages scattered throughout the Bible have no significant impact on that point and I suggest that they even suggest a limit on God's sovereignty that isn't accurate.

As far as I can discern this doctrine only produces bad fruit in the lives of Christians. I suspect that it was created as an excuse for hard heartedness, legalism, and a reason not to treat people as yourself. This is all I see it doing.

 

Thanks for the kind words Manny!

 

This version of predestination says that the choices you make in life will have no affect whatsoever on your end state. You are destined to go to either heaven or hell from before you were born and there is not a thing you can do about it. You are predestined they believe.

 

my point exactly. our disagreements on this are not as important as what unites us. these are doctrinal concerns that pale in comparison to what unites us because of Christ.

 

or even better...read the passages of Isaiah where God talks about what He deems as "real" fasting and real worship of Him through service to others.

 

I'm not sure I want to weigh in this late in the discussion, it has been interesting to read.

I am definately on the Calvinist-heavy side, solidly reformed and in strong agreement with Kate.

What I would point out is that the doctrine of predestination, as with the other four points of Calvinism, is hardly restricted to a couple verses in Romans. What about Ephesians?

I would argue that the whole of the Bible depicts what God is doing to achieve His purposes, as opposed to what man is doing to reach God. I recently completed a study on Judges that illustrates that point repeatedly and vividly: God's people are unable to achieve righteousness on their own, He chooses whom He will save clearly not for any of their works), He prepares the means of their salvation well in advance, He accomplishes their salvation, and He does all of this for His own glory.

Looking at Romans as a whole as well as many of Paul's other letters, what the message clearly states is that we did not achieve our own salvation in any way, we don't even get to take credit for making a better decision than the next person. Consequently the churches are frequently chastised for taking up the law (and imposing it on gentile believers) as if they could add to their salvation or Christ-earned righteousness in any way.

On another subject that was brought up, my copy of the Greek New Testament clearly uses the masculine in reference to the Holy Spirit.

 

I find this too negative and kind of frightening. Judges? Did you study any spiritual leaders of different religions etc? Who exactly are these people who are able to achieve righteousness? Can you name one?

 

What is it you are so upset about?????????

Judges: A book in the Old Testament.

Yes, I have studied some other spiritual leaders of different religions but I'm not sure what that has to do with this subject.

I am sure that you have seriously misunderstood my comment about achieving righteousness. Neither the Jews, the leaders (in that particular time in Jewish history they are refered to as judges), now anyone else besides Jesus Christ has ever been able to achieve righteousness sufficient for salvation. This is a foundation of Christianity that I assumed everyone was sufficiently familiar with.