Or maybe it’s just beginning? Well, there are plenty of passages that talk about someone choosing not to do something they were told to do. I guess there’s always the claim that that apparent choice was really a pre-determined action. But that just ends up going around in circles endlessly doesn’t it, and ultimately it becomes pointless. If election is predetermined, what’s the point of this life? Back to your preceding point for minute, I would certainly say that most Christian denominations lean strongly to the free will side rather than the election side, although passages that seem to suggest something like predetermination clearly exist. I haven’t thought about them that much and don’t have one handy, so I’d have to get back to make a more indepth comment. True, but we’re going around in circles again, aren’t we? If you’re elect you’re going to be saved at some point, otherwise predetermination wouldn’t be predetermination. So what happens in the case of sudden accidental death? Say you are one of the elect but you get shot in the head before you are saved. Do you automatically become saved before you die without you making any conscious choice? Again this begs the question, what’s the point of a conscious choice in the first place? If you believe you’re going to be saved at some point anyway, why would it matter when? As you suggest, why bother with the evangelism? For me it just doesn’t add up. I understand that you’re new to it so won’t press you to give an expert’s opinion. I’ll have a look at gootan’s links and see what I can find. There are other very smart people who have believed contrary things for 400+ years too, of course, like Catholics and many prominent Protestant denominations. I think ultimately, though, it’s something a person has to deal with personally. The concept of predetermination has always seemed to me to be quite contrary to Christianity, and yet those puzzling passages do exist. I’ll see if I can dig one up later. So prayer then would be about making things in this life easier or better in some way? While that can be part of prayer it’s not where my focus is in prayer, or where my understanding of where it should be is. Again this idea gets to be problematic for me in relation to the idea of the predetermined salvation of souls. If things really aren’t working out for you in this life, why bother with prayer? Why not just drink the purple cool-aid and get on to the next? Why don’t we just euthanize severely handicapped people too? If you know that the soul is predetermined to go to a certain place, these would seem to be a valid options, wouldn’t they? Yet I really don’t see that as something that I understand to be consistent with Christianity. The dots just don’t connect for me when I think about that concept of predestination. If there was an elect it would be the chosen people, wouldn’t it? That would be the Jews. Yet the NT specifically says that Jews and gentiles are alike under God. It doesn’t say all Jews and some gentiles, or some Jew and some gentiles. It even says things like, “all men are equal before God.” Is the exclusive privilege of the elect implied in this passage rather than explicitly stated? It’s never read that way to me. For me it’s always been those few verses about predetermination that seemed out of place and inconsistent with the rest of the bible … and yet they are there. The challenge then becomes, how do they fit? What are they really saying? I’ll see if I can get a chance to find a few of them and then look at them in context. (and thanks for the links mr_gootan)
This is a helpful explanation. And I guess that once a person has acknowledged and accepted God (saved, born again, or whatever the terminology of choice is) then that person is effectively predestined from that point on, so some of the same questions I have been asking would apply. Except … as Christians we are to be the “salt and light” of the world. As Christians we show the fruits of the spirit (good tree bears good fruit) to the world. Do they read this as meaning “show to the predestined world”? Because it would be pointless to be the “salt and light” to those who and not elect, wouldn’t it? (This is starting to sound more and more like an excuse for some of the excesses of the Christian Right. “We don’t need to help the less fortunate because they’re not elect, and if they are they’re predetermined anyway so my help isn’t important.” I’m probably being unfair. At this point these are essentially wholly uneducated reflections off the top of my head on the issue. I’d better do some readin’) Those passages do exist, so what do they mean? Time to go to the source. I’ll pull one or two out later and see what I can see in them.
maybe it's being salt and light to the world because we don't know who the elect are...and we don't know how God has already planned to use us in reaching those He planned to reach. i go over and over this very topic with the guys in my office and some friends at church...and ultimately, it's just not that important to me. whether God has planned it out for me or not has no bearing on how I at least THINK i'm choosing to live my life...even if it was never my choice to begin with, entirely. oh, well.
