The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Predestination and Free Will

Calvinism

Years ago, when I was first exposed to an extreme form of Calvinism, I was shocked to learn that the doctrine of predestination was still alive and well. It hadn’t died out in the era of Jonathan Edwards, as I had thought. The idea that God would arbitrarily decide in advance who would be saved and who would spend eternity in Hell, without giving anyone a say in the matter, simply repulsed me. Not only was this doctrine alive and well, but it was, and still is, the predominant view in many mainline protestant denominations and even in the Baptist church, of which I was a member.

According to an extreme form of this system of thought, sometimes called hyper-Calvinism, Jesus only died for the Elect (limited atonement), and God only loves the Elect, and it is impossible to become saved by one’s own volition, because God decides in advance who is going to desire to be saved and who is not. When God calls you to be saved, His grace is irresistable. If He does not call you, then it would be impossible for you to come to repentance and be saved. The idea is that man is totally depraved and unless God intervenes and awakens in him a desire to become saved, then the result is a hardened heart that cannot be changed.

One of the main themes of this system of thought is the sovereignty of God. The idea is that God is all-powerful and completely sovereign over His creation and will absolutely accomplish all that He sets out to do. Because God is sovereign and does not save everyone, it must be assumed that God does not want everyone to be saved. Not all Calvinists are this extreme in their beliefs. Many do not believe in the limited atonement and many believe that God really does love everyone. He just loves the elect in a different way than those who are not of the elect.

All Calvinists teach that human freedom is an illusion. It only seems real, because God allows us to make our own choices in life, sometimes referred to as “free-agency,” to distinguish it from “free-will.” The idea is that we are free to do what we want, but what we want is not determined by us, but by God. So, we don’t really possess free-will, only free-agency.

Of course, there are many Scriptures that refute these teachings, but there is also much Scriptural support for them. In fact, if you read Calvinist literature and analyze their Scriptural arguments, their case almost seems irrefutable.

Arminianism

Arminianism came about as a reaction against Calvinism. Arminians believe that Jesus did indeed die for everyone, and that we are all genuinely free to make our own choices in life. While it is true that God decides in advance (elects, chooses, predestinates) who will become saved, His choices are based on His foreknowledge of who would be predisposed to receive the Gospel and who would not. According to Arminianism, human freedom is real, and God’s grace is offered freely to all.

The Arminian arguments seem sound enough at first glance, and there is much Scriptural support for this system of thought. However, as I pondered their arguments I came to a very disturbing realization. Human freedom must be an illusion, even if the Arminians are right and the Calvinists are wrong. If God doesn’t determine our desire to be saved or not, what does? Can any of our choices in life actually be self-caused? While it is true that we are free to make our own choices in life, we are not free to determine what our desires will be. All of our thoughts have an antecedent cause. The choices we desire to make in life, if not directly determined by God, are at least “indirectly” determined by Him. After all, it was God who created the universe and set in motion random processes which resulted in our birth, genetic, social, societal, and psychological make-up and environment. We didn’t choose where we would be born, or in what kind of family or social environment we would be raised. All of these factors combine to make each one of us unique and different.

The reason my choices in life are different from yours is that I am different from you. Did I cause myself to be different? Not really. I can change the way I feel about things if I make certain choices in life, but my desire to change was a result of antecedent causes over which I had no control.

So, whether you believe that your uniqueness was caused by God or by random processes, it is still not self-caused. If you choose to become saved, and I do not, who is to blame? Ultimately, we must “blame” God for all the choices we make in life. God is the one who started it all, knowing full-well what the result would be and how each individual life would be affected.

So, it doesn’t matter whether you take the Calvinist position or the Arminian position, God is still ultimately responsible for all that happens.

God’s Foreknowledge
and Human Freedom

It has been correctly argued, that if God has a perfect knowledge of all future events, then those events must be immutable, and all human actions leading up to those events must also be immutable and not subject to change. If this is the case, then human freedom must be an illusion. If all our future actions are known by God, they cannot be changed, or else what is known by God is not accurate. The arguments relating to the incompatibility of God’s foreknowledge and human freedom lie at the center of the Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate. The major thrust of the Arminian argument is that God knows in advance what choices man will “freely” make. But if those choices are known in advance, counters the Calvinist, then they cannot possibly be changed and human freedom must be an illusion. All of man’s future actions must be “cast in granite,” and man is not really “free” to change or alter that course. Even before you were born, your eternal destiny was sealed and it cannot be changed. The Calvinist concludes that your eternal destiny was predetermined by God, since God set in motion a sequence of events which cannot be altered, knowing in advance that the result would be the eternal damnation of some and eternal life in Heaven for only the “Elect.” The Arminian would argue that although the future cannot be changed, your future is the result of choices which are “freely” made, and that your actions, although “foreknown” by God, are not “predetermined” by God. But this argument only begs the question. None of man’s choices are “freely made,” if they are the result of events set in motion at the beginning of time and not subject to alteration. Your choices in life, if not determined by “direct” intervention or “orchestration” of God, are, at the very least, “indirectly” determined by God, because God set everything in motion, knowing the result of His actions in advance.

A third point of view, which is really a variant of Arminianism, is the idea that God does not have exhaustive, detailed, knowledge of the future, because even God cannot know what does not exist. This is sometimes referred to as “Open Theism.” The word “open” refers to the openness of God to change His mind in response to “new” information and change His behaviors, resulting in an altered future. Since future events technically do not exist until they actually happen, it can be argued that God can still be “omniscient” and not know the future in every detail. In other words, even an omniscient God cannot know what is unknowable. This is true of both past, present and future events. God cannot know that an event in the past, present, or future has occurred, if it has not actually occurred. God cannot know that something is true when it actually is not. For example, God only knows that four plus four equals eight. He cannot know that it equals nine, or any other number besides eight. According Open Theism, God, based on His exhaustive knowledge of the past and present, can only know what the “most likely” future outcomes will be, and the ways He intends to “shape” future events as He interacts with His creative beings in response to their choices in life, which, for the most part, are not directly coerced by God.

For me, Open Theism at first seemed to be an attractive alternative to the traditional Calvinistic and Arminian positions, and it harmonized beautifully with the way the Scriptures picture God’s interactions with his created beings. In the Bible, God is often “surprised” or disappointed by man’s moral and ethical choices and He changes His behavior in response to those choices. Examples of this kind of interaction are countless. The story of the Genesis Flood, for example, pictures God as being “grieved” that He had made man and decided, based on how corrupt man had become, to start over again. Many of the prophecies of the Old Testament were conditioned upon human responses and behavior. Even the most hard-core Calvinist must acknowledge that if God’s knowledge of the future is exhaustive and complete, God certainly does not behave as though this were true. In response to man’s choices, God decides what He is going to do next. The whole idea of prayer and supplication is to ask God to do something He would not otherwise do.

However, there are two major arguments against the notion of Open Theism. One has to do with the testimony of the Scriptures, and the other relates to science and logic.

Regarding the testimony of Scripture, while many of the Bible’s predictive prophecies may be understood to be contingent upon man’s response, and consequently subject to change, other prophecies are not so easily explained in this way. For example, how could Jesus know in advance that Peter would be tested three times, and deny knowing him three times, before the cock would crow the next morning? I’m sure you are well aware of many other similar examples. Regarding my understanding of science and logic, it has been pretty well established that space and time as we know it are interrelated and only have relevance within the bounds of the physical universe which God, himself, created. For God to have created the universe, would it not be logical to assume that He would not be subject to its limitations? Wouldn’t God have to exist in other dimensions which transcend our space-time continuum, and most probably be able to view His creation from all spatial and temporal points of reference?

Again the question arises, if God is able to view the future in every detail from a vantage point outside our space-time continuum, would not the future then be unchangeable and human freedom an illusion? The Armenian would argue that, even when viewed from outside the boundaries of our universe, the only future God can see is the one that currently exists, one that will happen if God does not interfere. After all, even an omnipotent God cannot know something that does not exist. However, as God interacts with humanity, the future changes. Hence, as man interacts with God, he changes his destiny. Thus, the future that God sees sometimes happens, and sometimes not, depending on how present circumstances change in response to God’s initiatives. The Calvinist would then counter with the argument that the future that “currently exists” includes God’s future interventions, hence we come right back to the same problem of the future that God sees being immutable.

What if, however, God deliberately chooses to see the future from only one perspective in time, the present, for the sake of preserving human freedom? In other words, what if God chooses to only view our space-time universe from within? Just as He “emptied” himself of certain Godly characteristics when He incarnated Himself as Jesus Christ, would not the same principle hold true as He incarnates himself at various times in history in order to interact with humanity. May we regard any act of God whereby He communicates directly with humanity as a form of incarnation? This would not necessarily prevent God from seeing the future, but the future that God sees would have to consist entirely of extrapolations based on current events. Of course this would not explain examples of predictive prophecy in the Bible such as Peter’s denials. In order to make accurate, immutable predictions such as this, Jesus would have had to rely on information from an “outside source,” hence his dependence on God the Father through prayer. Only God the Father could view things from this vantage point. I know this is speculative, but could this not possibly explain the need for God’s triune nature? Let’s assume that God’s ability to see the future is limited when He views it from within our current space-time continuum, but when He views it from outside He sees the final result, which definitely would be fixed and immutable. Would this negate human freedom? Not necessarily. The future that God sees from outside the universe would be the result of man’s ongoing interactions with a God who truly cannot see the future. In other words, God would be behaving in this world as though the future were not fixed. Man’s choices would be free in the practical, functional sense, yet they would still be fixed and immutable from God’s external perspective.

Universal Restoration

The obvious resolution to the Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate is the doctrine of Universal Restoration, which is plainly taught throughout the Scriptures. It doesn’t really matter if our choices in life are “freely” made or not. The truth is that God has already decided that eventually all will come to Christ, each in his own turn, some sooner, some later. All will receive the same reward in the end. Since God is the ultimate cause of all our decisions, it fitting that He gets ALL the credit.

Ephesians 2:8-9: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–not by works, so that no one can boast.”

I love the Parable of the Vinyard. It beautifully illustrates the above principle.

Matthew 20:1-16: “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour, he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last."

To God be ALL the glory! Amen.

Thanks for the essay!

You somehow double-posted it though (and in the same category, “General Theology”), so I mod-deleted the extra one. (I chose the one that hadn’t been read as often, so that your read-score for the essay would be as high as possible. :slight_smile: )

Thanks, Jason. I couldn’t figure out how to delete the post.

Richard, thanks for the this post (article). Foreknowledge and free will was my “on ramp” into theology a few years ago. I spend a pretty fair amount of time hashing through all the stuff… probably more than I should of, but anyhow…

I identify with your thoughts on the inadequacy of the Calvinist (determinist) views and Classical Arminianism. I was in the same jam.

I wanted to make a couple comments on your take of OV (borrowing some material from a blog post I did last year).

Richard: “…the idea that God does not have exhaustive, detailed, knowledge of the future, because even God cannot know what does not exist.”

kkj: In the OV, it’s not that “God does not have exhaustive, detailed, knowledge of the future”. We would say that He does. What we would NOT say is, that this exhaustive foreknowledge is “definite”. i.e. God does not posses exhaustive definite foreknowledge (EDF). When God gave/gives us a “room” to self-detemine it opens up a realm of possibilities in the way that the world is. We’ll come back to this…

Exhaustive definite foreknowledge (EDF) can be defined as, knowledge of the all future events as definite truths about what will and will not occur. The emphasis of EDF is on the definiteness. It is knowledge of all future events as definitely this (one way) and definitely not that (any other way). No orthodox Christian view denies that God is omniscient (know all truths and knows no falsehoods), but there is discussion about whether God’s foreknowledge is best characterized as, “knowledge about what will definitely occur” or “knowledge about what will occur, and what might and might not occur”. The Open View characterizes God’s foreknowledge, not as EDF, but as an exhaustive foreknowledge, whereby some of the future is definite and some of the future is possibilities and all of the future is known by God as such.

EDF cannot itself do anything, like constrain the exercise of your will, but what EDF (if true) does, is, show us that it cannot be the case, that we act freely. The question is, “Who or what determines the truth about what we do?” If God possesses exhaustive definite foreknowledge, then He eternally knows the definite truth about what we will do. Now, that ‘knowing’ itself does not determine whether we do this or that. I’m not arguing that since God knows, God determines. I’m arguing that if God knows (EDF), then we cannot be the ones who determine the truth about what we do. If the truth of what we do eternally precedes us, we cannot be the ones determining that truth. To be free to ‘self-determine’ (truly choose), we must be the ones determining the truth about our choices.

Here is my short and simplistic argument: If EDF is characteristic of divine foreknowledge… I wake up in the morning and decide at 9:00 AM (T) to eat cereal (X) instead of toast (Y) God always knew that I would choose X at T and not choose Y. When T comes, it appears that I am “free” to choose X or Y, but it is a foreknown truth that I will choose X. This is a truth that cannot be different from the truth of what then actually occurs. It is the truth that is binding. Before T, it is never possible that Y at T would occur. Y cannot occur at T, even if it appears that Y is “possible” at T, it is not possible because it is not the truth about what will occur. It (Y) would not be the truth that God knows perfectly. If Y at T is not a part of the truth that God knows perfectly, then Y at T cannot be a decision that could be made, even if it appears that I am free to choose it. I am, in fact, not truly free to choose that which is not the foreknown definite truth. X at T is the only truth that will obtain, and this truth is a decisive constraint upon the exercise of free will. If EDF is characteristic of the foreknowledge of the truth, I am only “free” to choose X at T, and, in fact, I am not truly free.

So, the argument for the Open View (vs. EDF), is that the future is known, in part, as a realm of possibilities and not certainties only. Some things are “closed future events” (definite) and some things are “open future events” (might and might not occur) and they are known as such by God. This is not to say that God doesn’t know the future, it’s only to say that some of the future that God knows perfectly, He knows as possibilities.

I hope that is a little helpful.

Richard: “The word ‘open’ refers to the openness of God to change His mind in response to ‘new’ information…”

kkj: The “open” in OV refers to the “room” in the way that the world is for thinks to maybe ‘go this way’ and maybe ‘go that way’ - genuine indeterminacy. Perhaps related to quantum indeterminacy?

So, it’s not a ‘gap’ in God’s knowledge and it’s not “new” information, if the possibilities are already present.

It might be helpful to back up and say that OVers ascribe to “presentism.” Only NOW has ontological status. The God-world relationship is synchronous. God experiences duration with us (not necessarily in the same way that we do, but WITH us). The past and the future do not have ontological status. We reject the notion that God is “outside” of time. There is no “outside” or “inside” of time. Time is relational… that’s whole-nother thang…

So, what makes a possibility real (for us and for God) and thereby creates ‘room’ for self-determination is the way that the world IS. If the world is a completely deterministic system then, yeah, everything we do can be sourced back to one event (creation) and everything that proceeds from that is one big domino effect, but we don’t think that is the way that the God-world relationship works out (by design).

Dear KKJ,

Thank you for your thoughtful response. Later I will take time to fully digest and respond to your thoughts. Here are a few of my immediate thoughts. One of the supporting arguments for my universalist beliefs is that “ultimately” God is the “cause” of everything, and because God is loving and “good” by nature, then the result of all history must be a good one. Whether my decisions are “freely” made or not is irrelevant to this argument, if you look at it in this perspective. The point I was making is that nothing that happens in our “space-time” world is “self-caused.” Every decision we make is a result of antecedent “causes” which led up to it. All our choices are “predetermined,” if not directly by God, then they must be determined by “random processes” which were set in motion by God. The way God views the future, whether as “probabilties,” or “possibilities,” or as “certainties,” certainly would affect the ways in which He relates to us, ie. whether or not He is genuinely “suprised” by our responses and changes His actions in response to ours. The Scriptures definitely describe God’s interactions with us as “open” to change, and our actions as beeing “freely” made, as we are held accountable for them. However, even if our actions are “freely” made, and even if the future is subject to change, even when viewed from God’s perspective, that still does not answer the question, “why do I choose “differently” from you.” Why am I different from you? Did God make me different, or is my uniqueness a result of random processes which were initiated by God? The point is that although I am “free” to make what ever choices I desire, was I really “free” to choose my own uniqueness?

I wrote an essay about this, called “The Twinkie Defense,” in which I explain this dilemma. The court was lenient to Dan White, who killed Harvey Milk and Mayor Mosconi, because his actions were affected by “diminished capacity” which was a result, in part, of his poor diet, ie. lots of cokes and twinkies. Technically, all of our bad choices in life are a result of some form of “diminished capacity” and can be traced to antecedent “causes,” many of which where not under our direct control. Technically, no decision we make is “self-caused.” Therefore, why does God hold us “accountable” for our actions? My conclusion is that He holds us accountable for the sake of our personal growth & development and for the sake of those who are affected by out actions. Ultimate responsibility for our “bad” choices, or credit for our “good” choices, however, belongs to God. In a sense, God did assume that responsibility at Calvary. He no longer holds our bad choices against us. And, He wants us go give Him credit for the good in our lives.

If you look at it a certain way, it is a sin of “pride” to “judge” others as being “deserving” of God’s judgments (or Hell), because, but for the grace of God, we would find ourselves in the same position as they, given the unique set of circumstances which led to their decisions.

My two cents

Concerning freewill

Peter says we are to willingly feed the flock of God not by constraint but of a willing mind.

1 Peter 5:2
2 Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;

Constraint is something that limits freedom of action. Examples: force, compelling, threats.

Therefore, we are not to feed the flock because we are forced to feed them.

We are not to feed the flock because we are compelled to feed them.

We are not to feed the flock because of threats.

We are to feed them willingly from a willing mind.

If God is pulling all the strings then we are forced or at least compelled by those strings to feed the flock. This is totally contrary to what Peter said. And the Psalmist backs up Peter here.

Psalm 32:8-9
8 I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye. 9 Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.

If one must be led about by God with bit and bridle they are no different than the horse or mule that has no understanding.

The problem with understanding the freewill of man is that most believe that because there are causes and influences that bombard us from all directions mans will is not really free to make a choice.

But freewill is making a choice REGARDLESS of the influences that bombard us.

I have often likened it to the cartoon where on one shoulder the devil sits and on the other shoulder an angel sits. Both the devil and the angel try to influence man to follow their directions. Neither the devil nor the angel can make the choice for man; man’s will is free to follow whichever influence he wants.

Paul says Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness

Freewill is the choice to follow whom you will REGARDLESS of the influences that bombard us.

Neither God nor the Devil can take away our freedom of choice, man either YIELDS to one influence or the other; whether of sin unto death, or obedience unto righteousness.

That is why God said

Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of death

And in another place said

I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

Concerning predestination

Predestination simply means to determine before.
BEFORE man makes a choice God has determined that if man chooses death, man will walk in the way of death, if man chooses life man will walk in the way of life.
This is seen here
Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of death
And in another place said
I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

The problem with predestination is that most believe that God predetermined man to walk in the way of death and man could not do anything about this, yet no scripture ever states such a thing. However, the two scriptures I supplied above show emphatically that what God predetermined is life or death and man can freely chooses which way he walks.

Predestination is concerning life or death, NOT concerning the freewill choice of man. Thus when man chooses death man has chosen this predestination. And when man chooses life man has chosen this predestination.
Thus, freewill and predestination are reconciled.

Concerning foreknowledge

Foreknowledge is the knowledge of things happening before they happen.
God foreknew that if men choose death man would walk in the ways of death, and God foreknew that if men choose life man would walk in the ways of life.

The problem with foreknowledge is that many equate foreknowledge with predestination. They are NOT the same thing. Just because one knows beforehand a certain event will take place does not mean that the event was predestinated to happen.

Example: I knew BEFOREHAND that most here would reject what I had to offer on these topics, does that mean then that all who have rejected what I have to offer was predestinated to reject it? Hardly.

God’s foreknowledge does work closely in hand with predestination but they are not the same thing. God foreknew the two ways given to man to freely choose from. God foreknows all the ways of death and every step man will make when following the ways of death. God also foreknows all the ways of life and every step man will make when following the ways of life.

What God does NOT do is predestinate by foreknowledge that man walk in the ways of death or life. This according to God Himself is man’s choice.

Man chooses the way of death, and God knows all that man will go through, all the suffering and evil, because He knows all the ways of death. Tis the same with the all the ways of life.

God bless

Dear Pneuma,

Thank you for your response. Your line of reasoning is the commonly accepted view in most evangelical circles. I believe, however, that you are equating “free agency” with “free will.” You still do not answer the questions, “Why am I unique and different?” and “Why are my choices different from yours?” I agree with you that God does not “predestinate” in ways that prevent us from making our own choices. I don’t believe that God directly “orchestrates” all human events. I do believe that God has set truly “random” processes in motion that do “influence” our desires and choices in life. Ultimately, but only in a very indirect sense, God is the “cause” of everything, including our own uniqueness and the resulting choices we make in life. For this reason, and because God is “good,” the very epitome of self-sacrificing, Agape love, I believe that God will eventually bring us all to full repentance and redeem His entire creation.

Richard

Thanks for your response. I can tell you given this a lot of thought. I’ll try to make a couple comments.

Richard: …“ultimately” God is the “cause” of everything, and because God is loving and “good” by nature, then the result of all history must be a good one. Whether my decisions are “freely” made or not is irrelevant to this argument, if you look at it in this perspective.

kkj: OK, I think I see where you are going here. But if everything proceeded from God (who is love and good) in the kind of cause and effect way that you are describing, there would be no way to account for evil. I understand that you are saying that everything will come back around again because it can’t diverge from the nature of God forever, and that might be true, but how do you account for evil in the meantime? I account for it in libertarian free will (LFW). So, whether or not we a free to self-determine has a lot to do with how we (free will theists) account for evil. Evil emerges out of divergence from the goodness and love of God, and this is only possible if we are libertarianly free to do so.

Richard: Every decision we make is a result of antecedent “causes” which led up to it. All our choices are “predetermined,” if not directly by God, then they must be determined by “random processes” which were set in motion by God.

kkj: In order to posit LFW, it’s not necessary to say our choices are completely free of ‘outside’ influence, it’s only necessary that we have the power to do otherwise. If our choices are predetermined by whatever, then we cannot possess LFW.

LFW is important because it is necessary for genuine reciprocating love, understanding the origin of evil, and some other stuff like, moral responsibility.

Richard: The point I was making is that nothing that happens in our “space-time” world is “self-caused.”

kkj: If by ‘self-caused’ you mean that we are the ONLY factor in the choice, then yeah, no one is saying that we could ever be independent of influences, but if we can have a bunch of influences upon our will and still retain the power to do otherwise, then we are actually free to choose. If there is an ultimate cause behind our proximate cause that is actually the determining factor for what we do, then it cannot be true that we are free.

…“our space-time world”… There is only ONE metaphysical whole, and ONE time: NOW. However many ‘dimensions’ there are, they are not temporally disjointed from one another.

Richard: “why do I choose “differently” from you.” Why am I different from you? Did God make me different, or is my uniqueness a result of random processes which were initiated by God? The point is that although I am “free” to make what ever choices I desire, was I really “free” to choose my own uniqueness?

kkj: I’m not totally sure if I’m tracking with you on what you mean by, “random processes initiated by God.” But let me take a stab at this… There are a lot of things are we are not free to choose in life, but what is important is whether or not we are free with respect to moral choices. I don’t choose my parents but I choose whether or not I love and honor my parents at any given moment.

The uniqueness of our situations arise out of chance, and the exercise of LFW. It’s not only chance that I was born on the date that I was. My parents exercised LFW 9 months earlier. (As much as I’d like to think that my parents are virgins.) But there might have been chance involved in which genetic traits I inherited from which parent.

For me, LFW and chance account for this “randomness.”

Richard: Technically, all of our bad choices in life are a result of some form of “diminished capacity” and can be traced to antecedent “causes,” many of which where not under our direct control.

kkj: right, this is precisely the issue that got me thinking on UR to begin with. There are always layers of misfortune and deception at work that impinging upon people’s ability to make good choices. “…the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

I’m not a universalist, but this what got me thinking about questioning eternal conscious torment.

KKJ,

I love your responses, and it looks like you have been willing to meet me at least half way. In the morning, I will answer you in more detail, particularly regarding the origin, nature and purpose of evil.

Love in Christ,

Richard

Your choices are not different then mine Richard. Everyone has the same choice LIFE or DEATH.

And it depends on who you yield your members to serve determines which path you are on.

I don’t believe God is the cause of everything, Jesus said the tares are of the devil. So to me it is obvious God is not the cause of the tares.

I also believe God will save all Richard and He will do it through love and we will respond to Him through love not because He pulled our strings and made us love Him but because we truly love Him.

Richard I hope you will not mind if I join in on this part of the conversation also, as I do have much to say on it.

You are more than welcome to join in.

Richard

Sorry that I have been dragging my feet. Had a very busy day today. I’ll post some more thoughts and responses tomorrow.

Blessings,

Richard

Who is the landowner? God. Who does the hiring(electing)? God. Does it say that God hires everybody? No. This is a parable of salvation using everyday human situations. In this case it’s farming labor. Ever seen a farmer hire everybody in the whole world to work in his farm? No. “Narrow is the way and few find it.” Why? God. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent draws him.” Why? God. So Universalism is just plain heresy. Get off your high horse and stop putting your pride above God. Why? Your not God. Have a nice day.

God doesn’t need to know how many times we took a crap in the toilet all our lives. Predestination is election to salvation before the foundation of the world if not the universe. It’s only about salvation and salvation by grace alone. We are just seeds to God and if God chooses not to water us then we will not grow(saved). There are New Testament parables that make this point. Without water and sunlight, plants don’t grow and can’t do anything about it. “No one can come to me, unless the Father who sent me draws him…” It’s that simple.

Hi zzap999,
Welcome to the forum. :slight_smile: We’d love to hear a bit more about yourself and your beliefs if you’re willing. You can start a thread in the Introductions section to do that. My impression from your comments above is that you are a calvinist, but I might be mistaken. In any event the introductions thread would be a good place to clarify that sort of thing.

Oh, and the comments above are more than a little bit trollish and rude. Tone it down a bit if you are really interested in being involved on this site. Accusing people of “heresy” with your first post won’t win many friends or arguments. :wink:

All the best,

Steve

That’s good to know :slight_smile:

:laughing:

Hi zzap999,

Your emphasis about God not needing to be aware of when we’re on the toilet (but only of who he wants to save) sounded to me like you’re one of them radically Arminian open theists who thinks God doesn’t know many things. Your view is welcome here, although you may get a little pushback from some of us who see God as quite omnisciently sovereign and interested in the smallest details, even being close to us in the crapper. Maybe you can give us some idea of your background that led to your view of this. Have a nice day, Bob

Btw, I agree that no one can come without being drawn, but when Jesus affirms about the cross, “If I am lifted up, I will draw every one to myself,” He is quite powerful, and I trust that he is sovereign enough to know that He can pull it off.

Zapp, As the others have said, everyone is welcome here, and everyone is welcome to expound on their views so long as they’re able to do so courteously and respectfully. The above is neither courteous nor respectful. It’s not your doctrine I object to (though I disagree). It’s your tone. So long as you can modify that successfully, you’ll have a good time here and find friends. Do give us an intro if you’d be willing. Everyone would like to know a little more about you. :slight_smile: