Determinism and free will, two ways of looking at a truth that is far greater than either of them.
Two godly, mature men will pray the same prayer over Romans 8 and 9, as many have before throughout history, asking God to reveal to them the correct interpretation. To one, the Spirit reveals a sort of divine foreknowledge; to the other, predestination. Is God the author of confusion? Or is the whole truth just greater than any one of us can understand? What if God only reveals to each of us the aspects of the truth that we need to best serve Him?
I do not think there will be anyone in hell who can say he is there because he was not “chosen before the foundation of the world”; nor will there be anyone in heaven who can claim that he chose Christ of his own accord without the Spirit’s quickening.
Thus no one in hell can blame God, and no one in heaven can boast in anything but God.
Why can’t both free will and predestination both be correct?
Picture a tree and it’s many branches. Your life flows up toward a fork, there you choose which branch to travel. At each fork you choose and at each choice you are predestined to a certain path.
God knows the results of each decision we make. Does He know which decision we will make? Or does He know which decision we will probably make?
But Leonard, did the tree even want to be in your story? Or did you put it their against its own will?
:)
Brooks, you lost me.
The tree is a picture of someone’s life and the many different directions (branches) after each (freewill) decision.
The tree is not a live object, but a represntation. To say the representation of a tree has freewill is the same as saying our life has a will of it’s own and we have no control over it.
If you believe this, then go do whatever you want. Then when you stand before the judgment seat and answere for your sins you can tell God, “But I had no freewill, I’m not resposible for my sins.”
Personally I don’t think that responce will be accepted.
Leonard, I could probably explain it better than I did.
What I really mean to demonstrate is that with our simple analogies we often make the choice/determinism “debate” seem to much more simple than it is. I would say that we do not understand it and we should probably admit such. In faith we recognize what Holy scripture says and trust God for our undeniable tensions therein.
To say that our life is like a tree with our life choices being its branches is just too simple. It clearly loses its bearings as soon as our life “forks” once, because you are saying our life chooses one “fork” or branch. To choose one branch in life, we deny all others. We cannot live two lives with multiple sets of choices (branches). Therefore, without all the other branches, we don’t have a tree anymore: just a stick without even leaves, and it dies. I say that just to blow up your analogy; not to blow up your effort at giving us the analogy.
Scripture says that God knows what decisions we will make. There is no passage which definitively says (unless you start questioning the writers and their philosophical influences) that God does not know what choices we will make. Therefore we must believe that God knows.
And, scripture also does not say that we have no choice. Rather, it says that we have choices and we should make the right ones, and that usually we make the wrong ones. Therefore we must believe that we have choices to make.
Brooks you also miss the point.
PERHAPS God sees our life as a tree with many branches.
Yes, at each fork the rest of the tree is lost to us, because the decisions we make have consequences. That does not mean we can’t correct bad decisions by a new fork going in the right direction. And the time between wrong and right decisions still affects our lives. In other words we are a different person than if we had made the right decision in the first place.
Now, I believe God sees the whole tree of our life, every decision and the consequences of each side of those decisions. HE knows what decisions we will make and HE knows what it will take to influence us to make the right decisions to go down the path HE has set for us.
I think we are saying the same thing, I just like the tree analogy as it helps me understand.
By the way I did catch the joke, “How many Psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?”
Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change.
Leonard, I think I understand now. The tree is a good picture of life and has traditionally been a symbol of life. Seasons come and go but the life remains. I appreciate your input. Kevin we kind of hijacked your blog my friend!
Kevin, this is completely off-topic (for which I apologize, but I know of no other way to get in touch with you), and I don’t know if you still blog or check comments here, but I saw this and immediately thought of you:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/01/09/060109sh_shouts?currentPage=1
Joe Dunn
Perhaps you aren’t talking about determinism vs. free-will as you are about general election vs. specific election.
Generally, those that become God’s adopted children inherit the determined path and fruits of freely becoming a child of God.
Some issue can also be taken with what is included by ‘all’. So, if a verse says God knows all things…what does that include? It is a slippery slope to assume from David’s estimation of God’s knowledge, or the generalization of what ‘all’ includes, that God definitively knows all our decisions prior to our decision making process.
So, I disagree with Brooks. There is no verse that definitively and specifically says that God knows all our decisions prior to our decision making process. And there are passages that suggest that God hasn’t known what people’s decisions would be.
That is, unless you believe the even more slippery slope of those just being God’s humoring our perceptions, of which there are zero passages that suggest He does that.
I know one thing for sure, God is Almighty and Sovereign.
I’m afraid Leonard that what you have proposed simply is not true and cannot be backed by Scripture.
But hey, Whitefield and Wesley vehemently disagreed and they were still friends. Why shouldn’t the Arminian and the Calvinist still try and be friends?
I mean I’m ok with being friends with Arminians even though they are wrong…
Evan is right too to shift the issue to the proper names for the things, Specific Election vs. General Election. Though I disagree that the Bible doesn’t say God doesn’t all of men’s choices, He must if He is to remain the God of order and not the God of chance.
But hey, I’m still happy to be friends with any of you (unless you are Open Theists).
And enters the Hellenistic thought with an appeal to consequences. So, just reiterate, there is no verse that definitively and specifically says that God knows all our decisions prior to our decision making process. And there are passages that suggest that God hasn’t known what people’s decisions would be. In light of this, where are the verses that you believe define meticulous control specifically of all people’s decisions?
I have responded to Evan on my blog over at http://apassionatereformation.blogspot.com/
I have “suited up” as Kevin asked to do in an email. I hope I have done so winsomely.