The Doctrine of Predestination
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”1 Arguably, this verse from Genesis is one of the most well known verses in the Bible aside from John 3:16. It is a universal Christian belief that God created the world and all of its inhabitants, making Him all-powerful. As Christians recognize God’s omnipotence, they also acknowledge that God is all-knowing. Although Christians in general recognize God’s omniscience, there is internal debate regarding how far this omniscience goes, specifically in regards to the doctrine of predestination and election. According to A Handbook of Christian Theology, written by Arthur A. Cohen and Marvin Halverson, predestination is defined as “a Christian theological doctrine developed commonly on the basis of the Old Testament conception of an elect people and the teaching... that God continues to redeem HIs people by choosing individuals to receive the gift of faith in Christ.”2 The understanding of this doctrine and the Biblical references in which it is mentioned vary greatly in the Christian community, but ultimately there are two major understandings named after two great Christian leaders, Calvanism, named after John Calvin, a French theologian who lived during the Protestant Reformation and was an incredibly influential pastor, and Arminianism, named after Jacobus Arminius, which was the Latinized name of the Dutch theologian Jakob Hermanszoon who also lived during the time of the Protestant Reformation.3 These two men were extremely influential in forming two of the leading Christian views of the doctrine of predestination. Generally, Calvin’s view leaned more towards the idea that the salvation of human beings is ultimately decided upon by God by...
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...ould ultimately reject Him. I believe that the death of Christ covered all sins and all people and that it is our choice to ultimately choose or reject this gift. I agree with the point made by Peter Laitres in his article that “believers need to spend much more time in THE Word of God, rather than reading and following men and books ABOUT the Word of God.”21 Ultimately, we are flawed beings with limited understanding. I remind myself constantly that God is totally outside of my understanding. He is outside of time, outside of gender, outside of everything that we can understand. Predestination is something that I feel we will not fully understand until we come face to face with God and until that happens, we should only focus on loving God and loving others instead of creating petty rivalry over certain doctrines which are agreed upon as unessential for salvation.
The key purpose of predestination was satisfied in both salvation and condemnation that the glory of God might be shown. According to Calvin, God’s predestination was exclusively to his will, independent of external reasons, and so was eventually mysterious to humanity. For this reason, Calvin backed the inquiry by saying the predestination confined to scripture. Calvin disagreed to the claims that predestination made God unjust, so he argued that all of sinful humanity deserved punishment—and so none were fated unjustly—and that since God’s mysterious will was righteous, we affirmed that predestination was
Calvinism taught the doctrine of determinism — that God holds absolute sovereignty over passive men; in contrast, Arminianism rejected this and presented a doctrine of free will that gave the individual personal responsibility for his or her salvation. People believed that sin was voluntary and could be rooted out of society, once acknowledged; as a result, people began to take personal responsibility for their actions and recognize their responsibility to improve society. Desire for personal redemption from sin arose from Arminianism, which taught that moral depravity was the choice of
The view of free will has been heavily debated in the field of philosophy. Whether humans possess free will or rather life is determined. With the aid of James Rachels ' article, The Debate over Free Will, it is clearly revealed that human lives are "both determined and free at the same time" (p.482, Rachels), thus, in line with the ideas of compatibilist responses. Human 's actions are based on certain situations that are causally determined by unexpected events, forced occurrence, and certain cases that causes one to outweigh the laws of cause and effect. The article also showcases instances where free will does exist. When human actions are being based on one 's emotions of the situation, desire, and simply that humans are creatures that are created to have intellectual reasoning. I argue, that Rachels’ article, provides helpful evidence on compatibilists responses that demonstrate free will and determinism actions come into play with each other.
A foundational belief in Christianity is the idea that God is perfectly good. God is unable to do anything evil and all his actions are motives are completely pure. This principle, however, leads to many questions concerning the apparent suffering and wrong-doing that is prevalent in the world that this perfect being created. Where did evil come from? Also, how can evil exist when the only eternal entity is the perfect, sinless, ultimately good God? This question with the principle of God's sovereignty leads to even more difficult problems, including human responsibility and free will. These problems are not limited to our setting, as church fathers and Christian philosophers are the ones who proposed some of the solutions people believe today. As Christianity begins to spread and establish itself across Europe in the centuries after Jesus' resurrection, Augustine and Boethius provide answers, although wordy and complex, to this problem of evil and exactly how humans are responsible in the midst of God's sovereignty and Providence.
Choices that people make have a giant place in their lives. Most of us consider that we do these choices freely, that we have free will to make these choices. The point that most of us miss is free will is not simple as is it looks like. When one makes choices doesn’t he consider that what would that choices lead him to? Therefore does he make those choices for his benefits or his desires to make those choices? Does the environment push him to make those choices or does he have the free will to ignore his own environment? Philosopher and writes splits around those questions. There is different thesis, beliefs about free will. Some say that we are conditioned from birth with qualities of our personality, social standing and attitudes. That we do not have free will, our choices shapes up by the world we born in to. Some others believe that we born as a blank paper we could shape by the occasions or choices that we make freely. Marry Midgley on her article “Freedom and Heredity” defends that without certain limitations for instance our talents, capacities, natural feelings we would not need to use free will. Those limitations lead us to use free will and make choices freely. She continues without our limitations we do not need to use free will. Free will needs to be used according to our needs but when mentioning need not as our moral need as our needs to what could we bring up with our capacities. We need to use our free will without stereotypes. Furthermore free will should be shaped by the choice that would lead us good consequences.
“Sin finds its remedy under the fourth fundamental Christian doctrine, the atonement, worked by Jesus Christ. The orthodox understanding of the atonement sees Christ’s death as satisfying the just wrath of God over man’s sins.” Generally speaking, God has provided a way for man to escape eternally death. It’s the way for his creation to be reconciled back to him. “When Christ died, the Trinity itself split, in order to fulfill the law while providing forgiveness to humans. The doctrine that God himself keeps the law-his own law-even at so a [sic] great a cost to himself, demonstrates his most profound commitment to the rule of law. All things considered, God in the person of Jesus Christ came to earth and obeyed the laws of God without deviation he accepted the Laws of
The power of acting without necessity and acting on one’s own discretions, free will still enamors debates today, as it did in the past with philosophers Nietzsche, Descartes, and Hume. There are two strong opposing views on the topic, one being determinism and the other “free will”. Determinism, or the belief a person lacks free will and all events including human actions are determined by forces outside the will of an individual contrasts the entire premise of free will. Rene Descartes formulates his philosophical work through deductive reasoning and follows his work with his system of reasoning. David Hume analyzes philosophical questions with inductive reasoning and skeptism with a strong systematic order. Neither a systematic philosopher nor a rigid thinker, Nietzsche offers his own nihilistic spin on the topic of free will. The three different approaches of free will by Nietzsche, Hume, and Descartes all obtain their strong suits as well as their pitfalls. Nietzsche insists free will is created by theologians and therefore denies its existence, while Descartes embraces free will, and Hume individualizes the meaning of free will.
Many modern day scientists argue that humans construct the concept of free will rather than free will actually existing. The dialogue on this matter will likely continue for more years. While these scientists devote time attempting to prove their theories on the issue, other scientists research the effect on people when they believe their decisions are pre-determined for them. These studies prove that, regardless of the validity of the idea, people who call free will an illusion have lower moral standards than those with a belief in free will.
On the issue of predestination Wesley held that “God has decreed that those who believe will be saved; those who do not believe will not be saved” (p. 174, Abraham). Wesley went ever farther in the “God makes the decree, but the decree does not exclude genuine human agency and freedom; indeed, it builds the exercise of such freedom into the very content of the decree” (p. 174, Abraham). He held that if one would come to God that they should have no doubts about their salvation. God has a drive for our salvation but it is an active choice that we must make, even those God knows what the decision will be from the very beginning.
... also lacks Biblical support. The Bible says in Romans 10:9, “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” John 5:24 says, “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” They are many more scripture that clearly explains that salvation is only through Jesus. The believer is asked to believe and have faith in Jesus Christ.
It seems that from all of John Calvin’s teachings, it’s quite possible that this debate over his doctrine of predestination has been argued more than any other in history. In this essay I will explore Calvin’s view of predestination, giving special attention to the justice of predestination. Secondly, I will explain the purpose of election as understood by Calvin. Third, I will discuss the purpose of reprobation.
Determinism is when a person's behavior is considered to be affected by internal or external forces while free will is an individual's ability to make most decisions. If we agree with a deterministic description of psychology, then we can precisely foretell human behavior, which results in psychology being in a similar field of science as physics or chemistry. According to Watson, (1982:2), determinism is "the view roughly, that every event and state of affairs is causally necessitated by preceding events and states of affairs." On the other hand according to Gross, (2009:210) free will is, "the common sense, laypersons understanding of the term is that the actor could have behaved differently given the same circumstances." This essay will explore the different approaches to free will and determinism from different theorists for example behaviorists, neo-behaviorists and so on.
The Doctrine of Salvation (Soteriology). God provides us with everything we need; we see this in Genesis where he provided Adam with everything he needed. Jesus became a man by reincarnation; a verse to support this is John 1:14 “
The power of a rational human being is the ability to make choices. These choices and your ability to choose, is the existence of your free will. Though this free will exists and you are able to make your own decisions, the future remains inevitable. The past is constantly being created, as the cycle of time continues. With this given past, there will only be one actual inevitable future. This notion is what philosophers call a deterministic world. How can free will be compatible with this world, is the question. I am arguing that a deterministic world can contain individuals that have the ability to make choices among a variety of options, while the actual choices made is already determined.
Is it possible to understand the gospel message, serve as an officer in a church, be sure of your salvation, and yet still not get into heaven when you die? Matthew, one of the original twelve disciples, answered this question clearly. Yes, on “that day”, many will stand before God and hear Him say, “I know you not; depart from me.” (Matthew 7:23 KJV)