Predestination Theology

[William]

I don't think the false predestination god should be the one to define that seeing how he is willing to torture people eternally for conditions that he placed on them. The false predestination god is a sicko.

Q:1 Is there a "True Predestination God?"

Q2: Even if hellish experiences exist for individuals, does this mean that the god is "a sicko"?

Or

Q:2.1 Is the god only a "Sicko" if those hellish experiences last forever for said individuals?

[myth-one.com]

At this point God intervened and went to Plan B.

There was never any "Plan B."

So man was Plan A?

That's what we call dispensational theology, rather than the covenant theology taught by Scripture.

If you add "ism" you get a larger word. That's "dispensationalism."

God does not know if they will be Tom, Dick, Harry, Sally, or whomever.

Well, that's terribly incorrect. But you're not alone in thinking that, unfortunately. But it doesn't "disqualify" you from being a Christian.

If one's fate is predetermined from before the foundation of the world as you claim, then what does anyone gain by becoming a Christian?

Read Romans 9 through 11 again, maybe several more times. It's a wonderful piece of Scripture.

Romans 9 through 11 speaks mostly about God's election of the Israelites as His chosen people.

[The Tanager]

Q:1 Is there a "True Predestination God?"

By what I think you mean by that term, I would answer no.

The only thing I will say regarding these "questions" is, the concept of predestination is clearly in the Bible in multiple places (Acts 4:24-28, Romans 8:29-30, and Ephesians 1:5 and 1:11 in particular). That being the case, if one takes God (in these cases through Luke and Paul, respectively) at His word, then that person has to deal with it in some manner and come to terms with it.

Acts 4:26 quotes Psalm 2, where people are acting of their own free will against God and His Anointed. God says He is setting His King on Zion, instead of what the nations have plotted. David then instructs kings to serve God, putting their trust in Him. Acts 4:27-28 apply this Psalm to the event of Jesus' death. Herod, Pontius Pilate, Gentiles, and Israelites gather together plotting the end of Jesus. But their plans were in vain, for through their actions, this Jesus is made King. The Kingdom was always God's purpose, what God determined would happen.

I think group election fits with Rom 8:29-30 and the Ephesians 1 passages at least as much (I think moreso) than individual election. Especially when one brings verses like 2 Pet 3:9 in. These verses seem to speak about what will happen to those that are saved, not who is in and out. They will be conformed to the image of Christ, glorified, adopted, obtain an inheritance. The consequences of our choices are predestined, not our choices themselves.

I don't see how this conflicts with Romans 9. Verse 11-13 is talking about God electing which kid the promised Messiah will come through, not Jacob and Esau's individual salvation or condemnation. In verse 32, why did Israel not attain righteousness? Because they didn't seek it by faith. Not because God predestined them not to. This whole passage is about God choosing the means for salvation, faith in Christ, rather than Israelite ethnicity or following the law perfectly.

Romans 10:13, the quoting of Joel 2, is about there being no distinction between Jew and Greek. Joel 2 doesn't say all that God calls will call on God and be saved. It says everyone who calls on God shall be saved. It also says among the survivors are those whom God calls. God's call seems necessary but not sufficient here. You can't not be called and survive. But if you call on God you will be saved.

I agree with what you say about 'foreknow' here. I think it fits very well with a non-predestination position.

[The Tanager]

Q2: Even if hellish experiences exist for individuals, does this mean that the god is "a sicko"?

Or

Q:2.1 Is the god only a "Sicko" if those hellish experiences last forever for said individuals?

I don't think hellish experiences would necessarily mean The Creator is a sicko, even if it was eternal. I actually think it shows love. Love, to me, necessarily involves hating evil and cannot be forced or guaranteed. I do think eternal conscious torment seems unloving. I don't think an eternal self-inflicted loneliness kind of eternal Hell or annihilationism are unloving.

[2timothy316]

I agree with what you say about 'foreknow' here. I think it fits very well with a non-predestination position.

I think it's a good idea to define 'foreknowledge' and another word that has not been used as much in this debate, 'foreordain'. We also need to define time. As we learn more about our universe it is clear time is not linear. Movies like back to the future are Sci-fi and not based on science fact. This would mean there is no 'timeline'. With no timeline this means the future doesn't exist yet and the past doesn't exist either. There is only now and it moves in one direction. Though moves might not be the proper word either. With no timeline there is nothing to look at.

So what does the Bible mean with words like 'foreknowledge' and 'foreordain'?

Starting with 'foreknowledge'. The Greek word for foreknowledge is prognosis. Isn't that interesting? The the Greek word for foreknowledge is the word we use in English to describe the likely outcome or course of a disease. But this fits really well with theory that there is no timeline. A prognosis uses current facts to predict what is coming. Now imagine the information that God as access to. I don't think we can fathom that kind of knowledge. Everything is open to Him. He knows the hearts of all mankind. He knows how all elements work. He knows what time actually is as He created everything.

So rather than thinking that God is looking at a timeline, we should think of Him more like doing a prognosis to know what is coming. The way I see it, like a doctor's prognosis the True God Jehovah, just needs to look at the information that is available to Him to see what is coming. Though what is coming doesn't exist yet that means it can change. This would be foreknowledge.

Next though is 'foreordain'. This is different than foreknowledge. While foreknowledge is just knowledge of what is coming, to foreordain is to make something come true in the future. To actively manipulate things to get a wanted result.

Folks confuse these two words. The True God doesn't foreordain people to have faith in Him or not. However, since He knows a person's heart He can look at the person make a prognosis about the person's future. Though that future is not set in stone in some unchangeable timeline. He doesn't foreordain or decree people into a faithful or faithless existence thousands of years in advance. Since the future doesn't exist unless it is something He has foreordained the True God doesn't know what some guy born 1000 years from now because there is nothing to know. He could foreordain everything but because of His love and wisdom, He doesn't.

[PinSeeker]

Romans 9 through 11 speaks mostly about God's election of the Israelites as His chosen people.

Sure it does, but it's about God's Israel, as I said, which is not made up merely of ethnic Jews. It's made up of true Jews in the sense that Paul talks about them in Romans 2, as I said:

• "For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter." (Romans 2:28-29)

So then it should make more sense when we get to Romans 11:

• "...a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved... " (Romans 11:25-26)

God's Israel consists of more than just ethnic Jews. Much, much more.

See, this is Paul's letter to the church in Rome. It's all one letter, meaning it can't be piecemealed out into disparate sections, as some do... without even realizing it, I guess. But he repeats himself in various ways in his other letters, like the one to the church in Galatia, where he says, regarding the Israel of God:

• "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise." (Galatians 3:28-29)

Grace and peace to you.

[PinSeeker]

[Replying to 2timothy316 in post #25]

Regarding "those whom He foreknew" in Romans 8:29, the Greek word used there is the inflected 'προώρισεν,' from the root 'προορίζω,' transliterated 'proorizō.' So it's not 'prognosis,' but actually 'prioritized,' or 'prioritization.' Which should tell us all something loud and clear from the get-go. Yes, the common meaning of 'to foreknow' is to know something beforehand, in advance of its happening, but this is obviously not the apostle Paul's meaning in Romans 8:29-30 for at least three reasons:

1. God, the great I AM, foreknows everybody and everything, whereas Paul is referring to a particular group.

2. If God predestines people because they are going to believe, then the ground of their salvation is in themselves and their merit, instead of in Him and His mercy, whereas Paul's whole emphasis is on God's free initiative of grace. This makes faith out to be a work rather than the gift of God, which is totally antithetical to God's word. As Paul says in Romans 9, "...it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy... So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.."

3. The verb 'to know' as it is used here in the Greek expresses much more than mere intellectual cognition; it denotes a personal relationship of care and affection. When God 'knows' people, He watches over them and cares for them. In Hebrew it's the same thing; in the Old Testament, Israel was the only people out of all the families of the earth whom YHVH had 'known... that is, actively loved in a sovereign, distinguishing way, chosen, and formed a covenant with. The meaning of 'foreknowledge' here and elsewhere in the New Testament is intimately similar. 'Know' is used in a sense practically synonymous with 'love,' and "whom He foreknew" here in Romans 8 is synonymous with "whom He foreloved" -- sovereignly and distinguishingly chose, before the foundation of the world.

The ONLY source of divine election and predestination is divine love.

Grace and peace to all.

[2timothy316]

[Replying to PinSeeker in post #27]

All of your logic is based on time being linear so all of your reasoning starts with the wrong information.

[The Tanager]

2. If God predestines people because they are going to believe, then the ground of their salvation is in themselves and their merit, instead of in Him and His mercy, whereas Paul's whole emphasis is on God's free initiative of grace. This makes faith out to be a work rather than the gift of God, which is totally antithetical to God's word. As Paul says in Romans 9, "...it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy... So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.."

I agree with you that God doesn't look into the future, even as a very educated guess, and choose salvation based on that. However, I don't understand why you think us having the freedom to respond positively or negatively to God's free initiative of grace would make salvation depend on our merit instead of His mercy. Accepting a gift is not a "work" that earns the gift. The gift is offered regardless of whether one will accept it or not. God's sovereignty is not lessened, if this is true. God chose this method sovereignly.

[William]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #29]

The confusion is in not seeing that The Creators Mercy is the same as Our Merit.

The same thing being experienced from different perspectives.

The empathy involved is in being able to understand the 'others' perspective to the point whereby 'other' is seen as a type of illusion formed through misinformation.

However, one can go with still go along with the illusion when the 'other' is understood as being part of the self, as long as images are not formed to the point of wanting to worship the other, for that would be like wanting to worship the self.
So - any images worshiped are misinformation.

Being made "Offspring of The Creator" is more about the individual realizing this as matter of fact and understanding that the misinformation was what had been distorting that matter of fact to the point where the individual is separated in their understand of who The Creator is and how The Creator understands us to being.

[PinSeeker]

2. If God predestines people because they are going to believe, then the ground of their salvation is in themselves and their merit, instead of in Him and His mercy, whereas Paul's whole emphasis is on God's free initiative of grace. This makes faith out to be a work rather than the gift of God, which is totally antithetical to God's word. As Paul says in Romans 9, "...it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy... So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.."

I agree with you that God doesn't look into the future, even as a very educated guess, and choose salvation based on that.

Good. Thank you.

However, I don't understand why you think us having the freedom to respond positively or negatively to God's free initiative of grace would make salvation depend on our merit instead of His mercy.

That's not exactly what I'm saying, Tanager. I'm saying that the thought that God's decision to have mercy and compassion depends on our decision to respond positively is the problem. That thinking, however inadvertently, makes our faith to be a work of our own (which is antithetical to what Paul says in Ephesians 2:8) and therefore makes us meritorious -- deserving -- of His grace, and again, however inadvertently, that makes his grace out to be not really grace (unmerited favor) at all.

Accepting a gift is not a "work" that earns the gift. The gift is offered regardless of whether one will accept it or not. God's sovereignty is not lessened, if this is true. God chose this method sovereignly.

Hmmm... I'm still not sure where you really are. Okay, yes, I agree that accepting the gift is not a work that earns the gift. In the case of saving faith and salvation, accepting the gift is the inevitable outcome of the work of God in regenerating the new believer's heart. Having said that, we must discern between two things:

1. The outward call -- This is extended to every human being; it is the external call of the Gospel. Jesus and the Gospel and salvation are certainly available to everyone. Some, of course, fail to respond.
2. The inward call -- This is the effectual salvific, heart-regenerating, faith-initiating, internal call issued by God via His Holy Spirit to those whom He so chooses (His elect). God's purposes never fail.

Grace and peace to you, Tanager.