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Predestination? I simply don't believe in it! The notion that Someone Somewhere has decided in advance what I shall do and where I shall go - in this world and eternity - is simply not believable. I am too much aware of the fact that I have free will. You don't believe that we HAVE free will? So you believe something like: "God knows all things. He creates people, and knows from the outset who will go to heaven and who will go to hell."? OK - He does know (for He is omniscient), but does this mean that He specifically creates and identifies some people whom He destines for Hell, and selects some whom He decides are to go to Heaven? The notion is ridiculous! God loves all equally - wills each one of us to share in His Divine life, for this is the gift that is offered to us by Jesus. As man Jesus participates in our human nature so that he can raise us to a participation in his divinity. A problem only arises if we believe that God will cruelly create people who have no chance of going to Heaven. This is to falsify the nature of God and fail to understand the nature of human freedom. Free to choose? Some say that by virtue of our environment - the 'accident' of our birth, our physiological and psychological defects - we are not capable of making a free choice. There are too many extraneous influences affecting us. We are not really free. To my mind we are free, in the essentials that matter. The circumstances of my birth and makeup will certainly affect my choices, but in essence I have a freedom that cannot be taken away from me. Such freedom is related to my nature as a human being. Because I am human I cannot fly. I do not have wings. I cannot swim underwater for long periods because I do not have the gills of a fish. I cannot run at 75 miles per hour because I am not a cheetah. But I can run and swim and walk in accord with my nature as a human being, and I can think and make decisions as a human being. Even if I suffer handicaps of mind or body that limit or threaten to destroy my functions I still possess in essence all of the attributes of a human being. Mental or physical illnesses can be cured. Even in the midst of calamitous malfunction there is always the possibility of being restored to health and to proper human decision-making and creative action; and where grievous illness or deprivation does affect the mind we - obviously - cannot be held fully responsible for thoughts and actions, just as a baby cannot be held responsible until it develops to a degree of adulthood. (Einstein at six hours old had abilities which did not flower until later in life. He and I had similar developmental problems. Fifty years ago as an emerging adult I remember regurgitating 6 pints of Export Ale in a dimly lit alleyway at the side of a Bar in Botanic Avenue, Belfast. Yes, Einstein and I have a great deal in common: we had to grow up! I only drink Hennessy Cognac now, and he - well, everything is relative.) Within the limits of our education and ability and despite social or environmental pressures and influences, there is at least a minimal capacity to choose - to do or not to do, to recognise truth and act upon it, or refuse to act. This is what we mean by free will. We cannot be something other than men or women who exist in a certain time and place. We are surrounded by, influenced by and restricted by hereditary factors, and the social, physical and financial environment; but we are still free in essence. Even if we are in prison we are free - at least free to think, to make choices about what we believe, to react to the restrictions that are imposed: free to love or hate. This is the basic freedom of choice as it affects salvation: to love or not to love, to endure or not to endure, to believe or withhold belief: to recognise truth or reject it. Even in the confines of a defective body or in the painful struggle to hold onto reason when grief and despair appear to threaten insanity, it is possible for a man or woman to grow in stature and become more truly worthy of the name human. Tested by suffering, enduring all things, a man or woman can become a profoundly loving human being, truly worthy of sharing in God's Divine love. It is also possible for the same man or woman to give way to despair and hatred, refuse to endure, refuse hope, refuse love, and refuse to recognise truth. Only God can judge who lives in love and who lives in hate. We can be mistaken. God cannot. He cannot be deceived. Heaven is living in the love of God, sharing in His life, accepting His forgiveness and forgiving ourselves, accepting with rejoicing our life in the light of His love. Hell is being caught up in this same love - incapable by our own choice of returning it. If we hang grimly onto pride in self, isolate ourselves from God's mercy and love, choose our own judgment in place of His, we are guilty of the sin that cannot be forgiven, a deliberate rejection of truth and love: the ultimate sin of pride, the living out of the original sin that separates mankind from the love of God. The choice is truly ours. God helps each of us in the search for love and truth. He has gone to the extremes of joining us in our humanity, in the person of Jesus, searching for us, sharing suffering and death in the greatest possible act of love. If we reject him, either formally or by implication, it is our free choice. PREDESTINATION AS VIEWED IN HISTORY St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, (4th century, North Africa) came late to belief in Christ, having engaged in superficial philologistic philosophy and self-gratifying sexual activities. Upon realising the truth about himself in relation to the goodness of God he realised that he had been in danger of hellfire. His subsequent thinking and teaching with respect to salvation had a great effect upon Christian practices and beliefs. The custom of infant baptism, for example, can be traced to him. To my mind he appears to have been under the illusion that there was something magical about baptism, of believing that even without the element of personal choice, impossible in the case of an infant, the very fact of being baptised would have saved him from falling into grave sin, saved him from hell. I have the impression that these views were formed out of fear, a reaction to the horror of realising how bereft of goodness he was - at the time of his self-realisation. Many, including me, have gone through a similar experience - despite being baptised as an infant - and possibly the depth of sinfulness arrived at in these cases was greater because of rejection of the great gift of eternal life given by baptism. Whatever about this - and I do tend to believe that infant baptism is a sentimental but loving practice rather than a practical necessity - I believe that Augustine was unclear about the magnitude of the love that God has for us, that he failed to understand that God, in the Person of Jesus, will take into heaven all those who do not deliberately reject Him, baptised or unbaptised - especially unbaptised children. Probably Augustine put too much weight upon Jesus saying, "He who believes and is baptised will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned". (Mark 16:16) Augustine does not appear to have allowed for what Catholic theologians later called baptism by desire: i.e. the teaching that all people of goodwill, even though they be pagan, if they look for truth and live by the truth that they know, by implication desire the baptism of Christ. In other words: such people will be saved in exactly the same way as if they had managed to arrive at the truth of Christ while on earth. Great saint and teacher though he was - and is - Augustine also firmly believed in predestination, holding that only those elected by God will attain salvation. No one knows who is among the elect, he taught, and therefore all should lead God-fearing, religious lives. I accept that the latter is advisable of course - hopefully arising out of a proper awe and love and reverence for God, with full trust in His loving mercy, and it is true that only God can take us into Heaven. Only He has the power to do so, as a free gift beyond nature. But the notion that God has already decided whom He will call introduces an element that I fail to understand. I appreciate that He knows who will accept His call and who will reject it, knows this even before and at the moment of our creation (if we can use these terms about a Being whose knowledge is not confined by the sequence of events that exist within the bounds of Time). It is certain that throughout all eternity He calls all men to eternal life, a sharing in His love, even when they reject it. This must be one of the horrors of Hell, knowing that one has rejected a perpetual, everlasting invitation to infinite love. We humans need to be able to change our minds. If we do not we cease to grow and learn. God, knowing everything totally and perfectly, does not need to do this. If God loves me (as He does) and has opened the eyes of my mind to the necessity of faith (and given it to me - which He has), and if I am determined to pray and work for my salvation, depending only upon His goodness (which I am) then I have nothing to fear. To be one of the elect I must freely choose to love God and my neighbour. There is no compulsion about this. It does not interfere with the freedom that God has given to me. It fulfills it. The truth sets me free, gives me an even greater freedom than that which I possess by nature, elevates it to a new dimension, whereby, because I place my trust in God, as revealed in Christ, and accept baptism by water and the Holy Spirit, I am taken into eternal life., even now, while in the body. I believe this on the strength of the assurances given by Jesus, who is the Lord of Life. This is the virtue of faith, and is not to be equated with the sin of presumption: which is an attitude of mind adopted by someone who believes that by Faith alone he will go to Heaven - regardless of how he behaves! This unhealthy and self-deceiving version of 'faith' tends to exist in the minds of those who are under the impression that everything has already been decided, and who make an act of faith in their own goodness rather than trust in the living God's mercy and love at all times. At the root of this attitude is the original sin of pride. Some such people do not appear to realise that all that is necessary is to admit fault and ask for pardon. Deep down they may be aware that they are unworthy, but they are perhaps so paralysed by mistaken notions of predestination and fate - and an exaggerated sense of responsibility - that they are unable to act with proper humility and a reduced, real responsibility. They may tend to excuse sin rather than seek forgiveness. In effect they believe, mistakenly, that they can make it to heaven by their own efforts. The true and healthy attitude is that adopted by St. Paul, whereby he accepts his sinfulness, and God's forgiveness, and gets on with the work that he must do - in his case the preaching of the Good News of Christ. The decent and honourable man recognises that he must continue the struggle to be moral, to live responsibly in faith and hope and love, in order to win the prize of eternal life. While we are alive in the body there are always personal choices to be made. There is no such thing as resting on laurels until the race is run, and won. There is no such thing as a pre-determined, pre-destined, fatalistic end. Again, just as I can sin by presumption, so I can sin by doubt. Wilfully doubting God's love and forgiveness can damage as much as libertarian presumption. I am free to doubt of course, but it is unwise to do so. A continuous act of faith is necessary and reasonable, despite any doubts that may arise in moments of darkness and frailty of mind. God gives me faith and love; I freely accept it. There is no unalterable destiny about it. I am not robbed of freedom by my choice. In fact, by my choice I achieve the greatest freedom possible, to become a true son of God, brother to Christ. There is no predestination involved. I simply accept God's will for me, which is the same for all mankind, that we should believe in Him and love Him, and our neighbour, through and in the power of Christ and their Holy Spirit of Love. Throughout scripture the Greek word translated as "predestination" is found in very few passages, and where an element of predetermination is indicated, such as in Old Testament prophecies, there is not the slightest justification for believing that God has interfered in human decision-making in any way other than as a loving and helpful guide (though His enemies may not see it so!). He is full of love and power, and gives enlightenment as He wishes and judges to be necessary and appropriate - vital, in fact. In the biblical accounts of His relationship with men the supreme glory and power and wisdom of God is recognised and praised. Nowhere is there an indication that God creates some people for heaven and some for hell. The notion is, in any case, anathema, to those who believe, even in theory, in the perfect love and justice of God. (At the end of this article I have reproduced some portions of scripture that illustrate the plan and the care of God, as expressed in Christ. Those who come to the conclusion, from these texts, that God preordains those who are to be saved and those who are to be lost, simply make a mistake of interpretation. They do not fully understand the personal and absolute love that Jesus and His father have for each one of us.) John Calvin & Martin Luther Many Protestant sects, notably Calvinists, exaggerated and built upon Augustine's teaching regarding predestination. They completely excluded the possibility of free will as a vital ingredient in the process of salvation, appearing to believe in a God of absolute power who pays only lip-service to the freedom that He has given to men. This attitude, in conjunction with the erroneous doctrine of justification by faith alone (no elements of behaviour and choice involved), led the French/Swiss reformer John Calvin and his German counterpart Martin Luther to deny that human beings are capable of free choice. They blamed the clouding of the minds and wills of men that occurred as a consequence of the Fall of Mankind in Adam. They have a point of course, considering the aberrations we all suffer from, but generally speaking we are not totally bereft of wit and wisdom, or freedom of choice. Calvin went farther than Luther in elaborating a doctrine of predestination - i.e. that certain persons are preordained by God for salvation, while others are not even considered - rejected even before they are created and consigned to eternal damnation from the moment of conception. Calvin wrote: "We call predestination God's eternal decree, by which he determined within himself what he willed to become of each man. For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others" (Institutes 3. 21. 5). He appears to have based this belief upon his observation that all men 'are not created in equal conditions' and extrapolated to the unwarrantable conclusion that this inequality of birth, apparently preordained, must be duplicated in eternity. This form of double predestination - God deciding in advance who will go to Heaven and who will go to Hell - was condemned as heretical and untrue by the Catholic Church during the Council of Trent (1545-63). The teaching of the Catholic Church is quite clear, according to Trent and as far back as the Council of Orange in 529 A.D.: "God predestines no one to hell. For this a wilful turning away from God (mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it till the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want any to perish, but all to come to repentance". CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (#1037). The same source points out that "Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man. We can lose this priceless gift, as St. Paul indicated to Timothy: 'Wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith.' " (1Tim1: 18-19) FATALISM Some people confuse predeterminism with fatalism. They are not the same. A fatalist believes that all events occur according to a fixed and inevitable destiny that no one can alter. This is a dangerous concept, militating against freedom of thought and action and tending to absolve people from responsibility. Events are seen as taking place in accord with some mysterious and unavoidable decree issued by some mysterious and unknown power. The Theist's version of fatalism is the acceptance of events as "God's Will", and while this may help people to survive the trauma and grief of death and other disasters it is unfair and irrational to allocate to the loving God of Life a determination on His part to inflict an inflexible, capricious and hurtful destiny upon His creatures. In many cases the causes of events can be identified as purely natural and rational, scientific if you like. Where suffering and evil exist as part of such phenomena we must look for explanations of how evil can co-exist with the goodness of God. Rational & Joyful Faith Belief in a loving God, and in His abiding presence in the minds and hearts of men through the power of His Holy Spirit should not be confused with any predeterminist or fatalistic belief. God does not rob men and women of our human dignity. Quite the contrary. He creates us, gives us life, and offers to share his own divine life with us, leads us away from death and towards eternal life. In the Person of Jesus He shows us the way, the truth and the life in a manner that is possible only to Him. Below are the scriptural extracts referred to above, chosen to reflect words and phrases (underlined) that include mention of God's predetermined plan to save mankind. You would be much better employed in reading these words than mine, provided you do not share in the erroneous interpretations of some theologians - who ought to have known better. I suppose we have to excuse such errors on the grounds that we all, individually, find ourselves on a steep learning curve. It is, however, difficult to fully excuse error when the truth is so close at hand. Error can be just another name for lies that we choose to tell ourselves (for reasons peculiar to each of us). Acts 4:28 The apostles' prayer under persecution As soon as they were released they went to the community and told them everything the chief priests and elders had said to them. When they heard it they lifted up their voice to God all together. 'Master,' they prayed 'it is you who made heaven and earth and sea, and everything in them; you it is who said through the Holy Spirit and speaking through our ancestor David, your servant: Why this arrogance among the nations, these futile plots among the peoples? Kings on earth setting out to war, princes making an alliance, against the Lord and against his Anointed. 'This is what has come true: in this very city Herod and Pontius Pilate made an alliance with the pagan nations and the peoples of Israel, against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed, but only to bring about the very thing that you in your strength and your wisdom had predetermined should happen (4:28). And now, Lord, take note of their threats and help your servants to proclaim your message with all boldness, by stretching out your hand to heal and to work miracles and marvels through the name of your holy servant Jesus.' As they prayed, the house where they were assembled rocked; they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to proclaim the word of God boldly. Romans. 8:28-30 God has called us to share his glory We know that by turning everything to their good God co-operates with all those who love him, with all those that he has called according to his purpose. They are the ones he chose specially long ago and intended to become true images of his Son, so that his Son might be the eldest of many brothers. He called those he intended for this; those he called he justified, and with those he justified he shared his glory. 1 Cor. 2:7 The Hidden Wisdom of God As for me, brothers, when I came to you, it was not with any show of oratory or philosophy, but simply to tell you what God had guaranteed. During my stay with you, the only knowledge I claimed to have was about Jesus, and only about him as the crucified Christ. Far from relying on any power of my own, I came among you in great 'fear and trembling' and in my speeches and the sermons that I gave, there were none of the arguments that belong to philosophy; only a demonstration of the power of the Spirit. And I did this so that your faith should not depend on human philosophy but on the power of God. But still we have a wisdom to offer those who have reached maturity: not a philosophy of our age, it is true, still less of the masters of our age, which are coming to their end. The hidden wisdom of God which we teach in our mysteries is the wisdom that God predestined to be for our glory before the ages began. (2:7) It is a wisdom that none of the masters of this age have ever known, or they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory; we teach what scripture calls: the things that no eye has seen and no ear has heard, things beyond the mind of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him. These are the very things that God has revealed to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit reaches the depths of everything, even the depths of God. After all, the depths of a man can only be known by his own spirit, not by any other man, and in the same way the depths of God can only be known by the Spirit of God. Now instead of the spirit of the world, we have received the Spirit that comes from God, to teach us to understand the gifts that he has given us. Therefore we teach, not in the way in which philosophy is taught, but in the way that the Spirit teaches us: we teach spiritual things spiritually. An unspiritual person is one who does not accept anything of the Spirit of God: he sees it all as nonsense; it is beyond his understanding because it can only be understood by means of the Spirit. A spiritual man, on the other hand, is able to judge the value of everything, and his own value is not to be judged by other men. As scripture says: Who can know the mind of the Lord, so who can teach him? But we are those who have the mind of Christ. Ephesians. 1:5 God's plan of salvation Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ. Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence, determining that we should become his adopted sons, through Jesus Christ for his own kind purposes, to make us praise the glory of his grace, his free gift to us in the Beloved, in whom, through his blood, we gain our freedom, the forgiveness of our sins. Such is the richness of the grace which he has showered on us in all wisdom and insight. All who hear the word of God are freely invited to share in the Glory of His love.
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