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THEOPTOMIST

Jun 20, 06 - 12:34 AM

Predestination?

What do people here think about predestination? Do you think God knows who's gunna be a christian before they are even born? Do you think we have free will?

Personally I think we have free will and that only certain things are predestined.

THEOPTOMIST

Razten

Jun 21st, 2006 - 9:06 PM

Re: Predestination?

I think that people are born to do something, but that it is up to them to decide whether or not they will do it.
For example whoever assasinated JFK was meant to do it, and chose to do it, but if he hadnt then where would we be?

Weatherstorm

Jul 25th, 2006 - 4:41 AM

Re: Predestination?

The Lord has time itself unraveled like a scroll set before Him. He sees all points at once, as if time itself was apart of only one dimension, being able to perceive and comprehend all things. On this same plane is existence, life, earth. All other planes of thought, matter, antimatter, action, physical existence, they are all unravelled as well, meshed together.

Because He knows a certain person will decide to become a Christian or fall toward folly in earthly things, it doesn't mean He forces them to do so. Many think that because He is all-mighty, all-powerful, and all-good that He has an obligation to uphold morality and justice. They usually overlook the judgment that has yet to come. God is saving His judgment for the final day. People wonder why so much evil is going unpunished, when in God's eye it already is punished!

Now regarding the things of predestination. The oh-so-popular concept of free will comes into play here. But in order to better explain that, I will quickly explain the Lord's Prayer.

In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus prays "Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven". Many people ritualistically pray this without paying heed to the meanings weaved intrinsically within.

"Thy kingdom come" -- this refers to the constant battle between Heaven and Earth. The Earth as home for wordly, sinful things (perversions of the flesh and so on). Heaven is the home for all things Godly, in God's perfect will. In between those two is a gaping chasm, which is called sin. Sin is seperation. Sin seperates this world and Heaven.

"thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"

I think of Heaven as a perfect version of earth. In Heaven, God's will is always in control. There is no imperfection, no vile acts, no sin. No seperation from God. Because man has sinned, he has created seperation from God. He increased the chasm between God's will as it is in heaven from as it is on earth. The more sin is present, the more seperated we are from His will, the less we are to be like Him.

I like to think of Heaven as always attacking Earth. As I said, Heaven and Earth are always battling against each other. Earth seeks to increase the seperation, while Heaven seeks to close the gap.

Now resuming predestination. God's will is perfect, as you have learned above, and He only desires perfect things. He desires earth to be as it is in Heaven. In His glorious will, everybody is a strong, devout Christian! This is what He determines us to be like! Now since sin has entered the hearts of many and the nations of the world, we are seperated from God's love and, in the process, God's perfect will. Jesus has said several times "Sin cannot be where the father is." And visa versa.

So as God knows all, sees all, and can have a direct influence on all, He has told us that He has given us over to our vices. He determines us to all be saved, but because of the ultimate seperation -- sin's entering into the world -- we are left to our own free will. This is why God calls us to administer His Word upon others, so that they may learn of the way to close the gap between Heaven and Earth, to be apart of His divine plan, and to secure their eternity in Heaven.

Unfortunately ... sin reigns prominently, and restoring God's love to this earth is a lot harder done than said.

Weatherstorm

Jul 25th, 2006 - 6:39 AM

Re: Predestination?

Razten, expand your thinking.

Imagine that the man who assassinated JFK was NOT meant to do it. Suppose that the Lord had put strongly in his heart not to commit the pernicious deed. But the man did so anyways, thus going directly against God's will. God had a great plan for JFK in his latter years, yet it was unexpectedly cut short by this assassin.

God never plans for sin. As He says in 1 Corinthian 10:13: "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that yuou may be able to bear it." Sin -- which is seperation -- is naturally alluring to us, as we are all born into sin. It is a struggle for us not to sin, opposed to the struggle to sin. As He says, "How can a kingdom divided against itself stand?" How can God predestine one to sin when that is completely contradicting to what He teaches? Just as Satan would not cast out demons in the name of Christ, God would not intend for us to sin in order to further His kingdom. Would you add salt to water to make it pure? Would you scrub a wound with dirt to cleanse it? Why would such things be committed by God?

Because of such sin, we would know, in this example, that had JFK not been assassinated, things would be much different and more supporting to His kingdom. Remember, sin is seperation!

Dave__s

Jul 28th, 2006 - 5:03 PM

Re: Predestination?

I agree with the popular concepts of this discussion-

That God, being all knowing, should by definition know of the future.

That, is of course fair. And thus, we are inevitably lead on to the concept for the conflict of this "knowledge" against humanity's personal decision with "free will". In other words, if everything is laid out before us, then how can we chose a different path?

The obvious answer is this - "just because God knows the decision we will make, doesn't mean that he makes them for us."

This too leads onto a difficult question however... (Hmmm.... I'm always troubled by asking questions like this in public places. It feels almost morally irresponsible. Do not take the following comments wrongly - I say this only to spark conversation, not to "prove" or "disprove" anything.)

My question is this - If God creates everyone. Moulds them, designs them, forms them... And he also knows what they are capable of... And also knows their "destiny"... why does he send people "destined" to go to "hell" to earth in the first place?

Weatherstorm

Jul 29th, 2006 - 7:48 AM

Re: Predestination?

Didn't you read what I had said?

He does have our whole future planned out, He has our perfect will planned out. Of course His perfect will and the world we are living in contrast greatly because of sin -- which is seperation. He has our whole existence molded into what He desires, but what we are living does not align with that because we are sinners, and we are devoid of one-ness with the Lord. We go on our own seperate paths, apart from the path He has picked out for us.

He knows every conceivable point of the future, not just the one that is going to happen. There is one absolute future, there are billions, trillions, maybe even an infinite amount of alternate futures. For example, if you are hard-pressed to decide between marrying one girl and marrying another girl, God knows the future stemming off of both of those decisions. Every small little thing we do in an average day has a dramatic effect on our future. We can ensure that our future be as closely lined up with His desired future if we only consider keeping Him as our priority.

He knows our future, but He doesn't cause our future. That is to say, He knows what is going to happen (despite how good or bad it is) but that isn't to say He caused any of it to happen. As humans we usually seek self-sufficiency, and plan our lives in our own best interest, often neglecting that perfect will that He has for us.

Looking back, I can see where my life could have been a whole lot better if only I had courage and taken the leap of faith. Instead, I am where I am at now. Oh, and also remember that God's Perfect Will is always changing. Once we make a decision completely aside from what He desires, He changes His will for us. It may not be as good as the original one (in fact, it never is because a "perfect" will is dependent on us being obedient and faithful every single step of the way. One stumble will throw off His will and lessed our impact).

I hope that makes sense! Feel free to ask more questions!

Weatherstorm

Jul 29th, 2006 - 7:56 AM

Re: Predestination?

Oh, and I must add further ...

He does destin us all to go to Heaven. Remember the perfect will! Because of seperation some people may neglect or even never hear what the Lord wants them to. You see, Christians are given the job of spreading the message of salvation. There are two alternatives -- either the unbeliever hears the message of salvation and neglects it (because of free will and sin), or never even hears the message of salvation because the Christian never approached them about it (because of free will and sin). You see, a lot of what goes on in this world goes on because of seperation. It's really sad. You see all of the sin and bad stuff going on out there, and that's all because of seperation. It all started with obeying that one simple rule "Do not eat the fruit which is forbidden." Since the disobedience from that rule, we've been involved in one large snowball of disobedience. Slowly and slowly it gathered together until we arrive at what we see today -- total chaos in comparison to what God had originally planned!

He could have stopped Adam and Eve in partaking from that which was forbidden, but He didn't.

Dave__s

Aug 2nd, 2006 - 1:30 AM

Re: Predestination?

The word 'destiny' is mentioned eight times in the Bible. The word 'destined' eleven and the word 'predestined' four.

By my count that makes a total of twenty-three times. Now, if we take the common total of words to be 774,746 that equates to 1 in 33,685 words. Isn't it amazing how we managed to push it to 1700 in this post alone?

Does anyone else wish that the authors of the Bible could have spent more time on 'clarification'?

I've spent a while thinking about this. I've written and deleted more responses than I care to remember. The point I've come to is this -

Predestination is dangerous.

To believe that the decision has already been made is just an excuse for us to hand over responsibility. And to point to freewill, to me, seems like we're defending God- Last time I checked, God was strong enough to look after himself.

You want my opinion about predestination? Screw it. If you spend too long looking at the destination, you'll end up missing the journey. The journey makes you who you are... your decisions, your actions, your risks, your quests, your adventures.

Call me foolish, but I'll worry about the destination when I get there.

Paratus

Aug 5th, 2006 - 5:38 AM

Re: Predestination?

I believe that God has foreordained things to happen and those events are unalterable by humans. However, we are given freewill and may chose for ourselves whether to obey His call or not. Still, God has known from the beginning what we will chose.

Razten

Aug 23rd, 2006 - 7:54 PM

Re: Predestination?

I'll expand what I think, but ask that you don't pay attention to the first post, and regard this as how I see things now, as I have most likely changed my view on this.

I think that nothing knows the future. The future is impossible to 'know', yet it could possibly be predicted by looking at current events and chosing mthe most likely outcome. Thusly I don't think that anyone's 'destined' for anything. I think that it's up to us to decide what we want to do, and that nothing, not even an alighty being, should be able to determine what it is we are going to do with our lives.

I personally feel that 'God' plays too much, if it does exist, and if 'God' knows that we will go to 'hell', is 'God' really worth worshipping?

Rachey rach

Aug 24th, 2006 - 11:24 AM

Re: Predestination?

I was thinking about this the other day. I don't think God 'controls' our every move in the predetermined sense. Rather, i think He just knows us so so well, He knows which choice we'd make every time. He knows us better than we probably do, everything that makes us us, and that influences how we make decisions, so therefore, He knows which decisions we make because He knows us so well. like my best friend doesn't ever have to ask what i want when we walk into our favourite coffee shop because she knows i always have a plate of fried egg on toast with a massive cup of coffee.without fail. she just knows me that well. I was thinking that maybe thats how God is with us, He knows that i want egg on toast and coffee, he knows what i'm worried about regarding my uni choices, he knows how i feel about him, he knows it ALL. therefore even though he doesn't control my actions, he knows what ill be doing anyway because of how well he knows me.
hope that makes sense!

ann

May 27th, 2007 - 11:22 PM

Re: Predestination?

I dont know much about religion, but recently my physio told me my brain injury was my destiny. I do feel that while i went through terrible pain i was very close to God, and he gave me a light to follow. Would God predestin my accident, i dont believe so. But i feel very lucky that i can smile because i really know hes there for me. For me, life love health are factors that change. His love does not

sis in christ

May 31st, 2007 - 3:24 PM

Re: Predestination?

awww dats really kwl ann

yeh hes always there 4 u and nothing can separate u from the love of God.

I do believe tho that God is all knowing and has known everything that will happen in this world even before He created it. We cannot possibly know everything until we meet God n then we can ask Him about complicated things like predestination! Us humans only have little brians n cant possibly understand everything the way God does or see things the way He does, so y dont we just trust Him to do wot is best?! It wud b nice to know all the answers but thats impossible...this is wot Faith is all about!!

John in Tanzania

Aug 10th, 2007 - 11:12 PM

Re: Predestination?

Hey, Theoptomist, here's something to blow your mind. if you want your question answered by Jesus, try reading John 10, right from the start but esp. vv16 & 25-30, asking this question: "Did you become Christ's sheep when you believed (heard the good shepherd's voice), or did you believe because you were his sheep?"

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Author	Comment
THEOPTOMIST Jun 20, 06 - 12:34 AM	Predestination? What do people here think about predestination? Do you think God knows who's gunna be a christian before they are even born? Do you think we have free will? Personally I think we have free will and that only certain things are predestined. THEOPTOMIST
Razten Jun 21st, 2006 - 9:06 PM	Re: Predestination? I think that people are born to do something, but that it is up to them to decide whether or not they will do it. For example whoever assasinated JFK was meant to do it, and chose to do it, but if he hadnt then where would we be?
Weatherstorm Jul 25th, 2006 - 4:41 AM	Re: Predestination? The Lord has time itself unraveled like a scroll set before Him. He sees all points at once, as if time itself was apart of only one dimension, being able to perceive and comprehend all things. On this same plane is existence, life, earth. All other planes of thought, matter, antimatter, action, physical existence, they are all unravelled as well, meshed together. Because He knows a certain person will decide to become a Christian or fall toward folly in earthly things, it doesn't mean He forces them to do so. Many think that because He is all-mighty, all-powerful, and all-good that He has an obligation to uphold morality and justice. They usually overlook the judgment that has yet to come. God is saving His judgment for the final day. People wonder why so much evil is going unpunished, when in God's eye it already is punished! Now regarding the things of predestination. The oh-so-popular concept of free will comes into play here. But in order to better explain that, I will quickly explain the Lord's Prayer. In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus prays "Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven". Many people ritualistically pray this without paying heed to the meanings weaved intrinsically within. "Thy kingdom come" -- this refers to the constant battle between Heaven and Earth. The Earth as home for wordly, sinful things (perversions of the flesh and so on). Heaven is the home for all things Godly, in God's perfect will. In between those two is a gaping chasm, which is called sin. Sin is seperation. Sin seperates this world and Heaven. "thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" I think of Heaven as a perfect version of earth. In Heaven, God's will is always in control. There is no imperfection, no vile acts, no sin. No seperation from God. Because man has sinned, he has created seperation from God. He increased the chasm between God's will as it is in heaven from as it is on earth. The more sin is present, the more seperated we are from His will, the less we are to be like Him. I like to think of Heaven as always attacking Earth. As I said, Heaven and Earth are always battling against each other. Earth seeks to increase the seperation, while Heaven seeks to close the gap. Now resuming predestination. God's will is perfect, as you have learned above, and He only desires perfect things. He desires earth to be as it is in Heaven. In His glorious will, everybody is a strong, devout Christian! This is what He determines us to be like! Now since sin has entered the hearts of many and the nations of the world, we are seperated from God's love and, in the process, God's perfect will. Jesus has said several times "Sin cannot be where the father is." And visa versa. So as God knows all, sees all, and can have a direct influence on all, He has told us that He has given us over to our vices. He determines us to all be saved, but because of the ultimate seperation -- sin's entering into the world -- we are left to our own free will. This is why God calls us to administer His Word upon others, so that they may learn of the way to close the gap between Heaven and Earth, to be apart of His divine plan, and to secure their eternity in Heaven. Unfortunately ... sin reigns prominently, and restoring God's love to this earth is a lot harder done than said.
Weatherstorm Jul 25th, 2006 - 6:39 AM	Re: Predestination? Razten, expand your thinking. Imagine that the man who assassinated JFK was NOT meant to do it. Suppose that the Lord had put strongly in his heart not to commit the pernicious deed. But the man did so anyways, thus going directly against God's will. God had a great plan for JFK in his latter years, yet it was unexpectedly cut short by this assassin. God never plans for sin. As He says in 1 Corinthian 10:13: "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that yuou may be able to bear it." Sin -- which is seperation -- is naturally alluring to us, as we are all born into sin. It is a struggle for us not to sin, opposed to the struggle to sin. As He says, "How can a kingdom divided against itself stand?" How can God predestine one to sin when that is completely contradicting to what He teaches? Just as Satan would not cast out demons in the name of Christ, God would not intend for us to sin in order to further His kingdom. Would you add salt to water to make it pure? Would you scrub a wound with dirt to cleanse it? Why would such things be committed by God? Because of such sin, we would know, in this example, that had JFK not been assassinated, things would be much different and more supporting to His kingdom. Remember, sin is seperation!
Dave__s Jul 28th, 2006 - 5:03 PM	Re: Predestination? I agree with the popular concepts of this discussion- That God, being all knowing, should by definition know of the future. That, is of course fair. And thus, we are inevitably lead on to the concept for the conflict of this "knowledge" against humanity's personal decision with "free will". In other words, if everything is laid out before us, then how can we chose a different path? The obvious answer is this - "just because God knows the decision we will make, doesn't mean that he makes them for us." This too leads onto a difficult question however... (Hmmm.... I'm always troubled by asking questions like this in public places. It feels almost morally irresponsible. Do not take the following comments wrongly - I say this only to spark conversation, not to "prove" or "disprove" anything.) My question is this - If God creates everyone. Moulds them, designs them, forms them... And he also knows what they are capable of... And also knows their "destiny"... why does he send people "destined" to go to "hell" to earth in the first place?
Weatherstorm Jul 29th, 2006 - 7:48 AM	Re: Predestination? Didn't you read what I had said? He does have our whole future planned out, He has our perfect will planned out. Of course His perfect will and the world we are living in contrast greatly because of sin -- which is seperation. He has our whole existence molded into what He desires, but what we are living does not align with that because we are sinners, and we are devoid of one-ness with the Lord. We go on our own seperate paths, apart from the path He has picked out for us. He knows every conceivable point of the future, not just the one that is going to happen. There is one absolute future, there are billions, trillions, maybe even an infinite amount of alternate futures. For example, if you are hard-pressed to decide between marrying one girl and marrying another girl, God knows the future stemming off of both of those decisions. Every small little thing we do in an average day has a dramatic effect on our future. We can ensure that our future be as closely lined up with His desired future if we only consider keeping Him as our priority. He knows our future, but He doesn't cause our future. That is to say, He knows what is going to happen (despite how good or bad it is) but that isn't to say He caused any of it to happen. As humans we usually seek self-sufficiency, and plan our lives in our own best interest, often neglecting that perfect will that He has for us. Looking back, I can see where my life could have been a whole lot better if only I had courage and taken the leap of faith. Instead, I am where I am at now. Oh, and also remember that God's Perfect Will is always changing. Once we make a decision completely aside from what He desires, He changes His will for us. It may not be as good as the original one (in fact, it never is because a "perfect" will is dependent on us being obedient and faithful every single step of the way. One stumble will throw off His will and lessed our impact). I hope that makes sense! Feel free to ask more questions!
Weatherstorm Jul 29th, 2006 - 7:56 AM	Re: Predestination? Oh, and I must add further ... He does destin us all to go to Heaven. Remember the perfect will! Because of seperation some people may neglect or even never hear what the Lord wants them to. You see, Christians are given the job of spreading the message of salvation. There are two alternatives -- either the unbeliever hears the message of salvation and neglects it (because of free will and sin), or never even hears the message of salvation because the Christian never approached them about it (because of free will and sin). You see, a lot of what goes on in this world goes on because of seperation. It's really sad. You see all of the sin and bad stuff going on out there, and that's all because of seperation. It all started with obeying that one simple rule "Do not eat the fruit which is forbidden." Since the disobedience from that rule, we've been involved in one large snowball of disobedience. Slowly and slowly it gathered together until we arrive at what we see today -- total chaos in comparison to what God had originally planned! He could have stopped Adam and Eve in partaking from that which was forbidden, but He didn't.
Dave__s Aug 2nd, 2006 - 1:30 AM	Re: Predestination? The word 'destiny' is mentioned eight times in the Bible. The word 'destined' eleven and the word 'predestined' four. By my count that makes a total of twenty-three times. Now, if we take the common total of words to be 774,746 that equates to 1 in 33,685 words. Isn't it amazing how we managed to push it to 1700 in this post alone? Does anyone else wish that the authors of the Bible could have spent more time on 'clarification'? I've spent a while thinking about this. I've written and deleted more responses than I care to remember. The point I've come to is this - Predestination is dangerous. To believe that the decision has already been made is just an excuse for us to hand over responsibility. And to point to freewill, to me, seems like we're defending God- Last time I checked, God was strong enough to look after himself. You want my opinion about predestination? Screw it. If you spend too long looking at the destination, you'll end up missing the journey. The journey makes you who you are... your decisions, your actions, your risks, your quests, your adventures. Call me foolish, but I'll worry about the destination when I get there.
Paratus Aug 5th, 2006 - 5:38 AM	Re: Predestination? I believe that God has foreordained things to happen and those events are unalterable by humans. However, we are given freewill and may chose for ourselves whether to obey His call or not. Still, God has known from the beginning what we will chose.
Razten Aug 23rd, 2006 - 7:54 PM	Re: Predestination? I'll expand what I think, but ask that you don't pay attention to the first post, and regard this as how I see things now, as I have most likely changed my view on this. I think that nothing knows the future. The future is impossible to 'know', yet it could possibly be predicted by looking at current events and chosing mthe most likely outcome. Thusly I don't think that anyone's 'destined' for anything. I think that it's up to us to decide what we want to do, and that nothing, not even an alighty being, should be able to determine what it is we are going to do with our lives. I personally feel that 'God' plays too much, if it does exist, and if 'God' knows that we will go to 'hell', is 'God' really worth worshipping?
Rachey rach Aug 24th, 2006 - 11:24 AM	Re: Predestination? I was thinking about this the other day. I don't think God 'controls' our every move in the predetermined sense. Rather, i think He just knows us so so well, He knows which choice we'd make every time. He knows us better than we probably do, everything that makes us us, and that influences how we make decisions, so therefore, He knows which decisions we make because He knows us so well. like my best friend doesn't ever have to ask what i want when we walk into our favourite coffee shop because she knows i always have a plate of fried egg on toast with a massive cup of coffee.without fail. she just knows me that well. I was thinking that maybe thats how God is with us, He knows that i want egg on toast and coffee, he knows what i'm worried about regarding my uni choices, he knows how i feel about him, he knows it ALL. therefore even though he doesn't control my actions, he knows what ill be doing anyway because of how well he knows me. hope that makes sense!
ann May 27th, 2007 - 11:22 PM	Re: Predestination? I dont know much about religion, but recently my physio told me my brain injury was my destiny. I do feel that while i went through terrible pain i was very close to God, and he gave me a light to follow. Would God predestin my accident, i dont believe so. But i feel very lucky that i can smile because i really know hes there for me. For me, life love health are factors that change. His love does not
sis in christ May 31st, 2007 - 3:24 PM	Re: Predestination? awww dats really kwl ann yeh hes always there 4 u and nothing can separate u from the love of God. I do believe tho that God is all knowing and has known everything that will happen in this world even before He created it. We cannot possibly know everything until we meet God n then we can ask Him about complicated things like predestination! Us humans only have little brians n cant possibly understand everything the way God does or see things the way He does, so y dont we just trust Him to do wot is best?! It wud b nice to know all the answers but thats impossible...this is wot Faith is all about!!
John in Tanzania Aug 10th, 2007 - 11:12 PM	Re: Predestination? Hey, Theoptomist, here's something to blow your mind. if you want your question answered by Jesus, try reading John 10, right from the start but esp. vv16 & 25-30, asking this question: "Did you become Christ's sheep when you believed (heard the good shepherd's voice), or did you believe because you were his sheep?"