Predestination

ó  Predestination  ó

         All Christians have a doctrine of predestination. They have no choice (pun intended), it’s in the New Testament. The word is used four times, twice in Romans and twice in Ephesians. The Greek word is prooridzo and it means to decide in advance, or beforehand. The question is about how to rectify God’s sovereignty and man’s free will.

         What I will try to do is to present all of the competing views, pro and con. Because the question of human destiny is of great concern to both believers and non believers alike, I will also present some secular views to help to put it all into perspective. Whenever theological or philosophical concepts are considered distinctions must be made between categories or types. This is known as taxonomy. To start with the concept of predestination is known as Determinism. Determinist break out into three categories.      (1) Hard Determinists, (2) Indeterminists, and (3) Self–Determinists or Soft-Determinists.

         Hard Determinism can be broken down into three sub- groups.

(1) Naturalists, (2) Fatalists, and (3) Theists.

          The Naturalistic position is that all of human actions are the result of genetic predilection and behavioral conditioning. They are nothing more than mechanical responses to bio-chemical functions of the brain and learned behavior. So as a result there is no such thing as free will. Man must act as he does according to these so-called scientific principles.

          The Fatalistic position is that all human action is directed by forces beyond one’s control; fate, blind chance or some other unknown and irresistible force. The result is that free will is an illusion. One’s destiny is set before one is born, and that destiny is unchangeable.

          Theistic Hard Determinism is better known as Calvinism. The position is that, God causes all actions. This is the Calvinist’s understanding of God’s sovereignty. Totally free human choice is eliminated. God beforehand determined a man’s destiny, with no consideration for any choice, action or decision of the man.

          Our concern is not with the first two positions; I only point out the obvious similarities with the third. Concerning Theistic Hard Determinism, there are four basic arguments that attempt to justify this position. Let’s consider them one at a time, first from the pro side, and then from the opposing side.

          First is the argument against any alternative possibilities. It states that man’s actions are either uncaused, self-caused or caused by something else. But nothing can be uncaused (with the exception of the eternal self-existent God) so, that’s out. Likewise, nothing can cause itself, so that’s out too. That leaves the third option as the only possibility and they see God as the “something else” that is acting.

          The opponent to this view would point out the fatal flaw in the logic of the second point. While it is certainly true that nothing can cause itself with regard to being, there is nothing contradictory about a self-caused action. Action does not have to precede itself to be caused by one-self. Only the self must precede the action. This fact is obvious when one considers the actions of God Himself.

          The second argument is back to a  first cause of all actions. In this scenario the human person himself is merely an effect in a chain of effects, his actions being only another generation of the effect of the first cause, that cause of course being God. The idea is that God causes the desire within the man to act and therefore God is the cause of the act. Free will is once again eliminated.

          In opposition it would be demonstrated that this is convoluted logic. While it is true that all actions must be caused, it does not follow that God must be the cause of all actions. All that is required is for God to create a person with the power of free will. This person would then be capable of a self-caused action since his “self ” (person-hood) exists prior to the action. As was the case in the previous argument, in order for self-action to occur, only the self must precede the action. Furthermore it would be pointed out that free choice is not doing what one desires as the affirmative position holds, rather it is doing what one decides. And one does not always decide to do what one desires to do. Therefore it does not follow that God causes all actions.

          The third argument stems from the position of God’s sovereignty. It states that in order for God to be sovereign He must be in full control of everything that happens. He must be the cause of everything that happens; or else He wouldn’t be in full control.

          The opposing position here points to the fact that God can control events in other ways besides his causal power. God can control by His omniscience. God can control events by willing in accordance with His foreknowledge of what will occur by free choice. Knowing for certain what choices people will make freely is enough for God to control the world. He does not need to make the choices, just allow them to be made in accordance with His purpose. Consider Satan and Adam.

          The fourth position argues from the omniscience of God, It states that whatever God knows must come to pass. If it did not God would be wrong. But of course God cannot be wrong. So whatever God knows is caused to happen because He knows it.

          The answer to this dilemma is argued like this. It is true that whatever God knows must come to pass. Also, everything that occurs must do so in accordance with His will. But this does not mean that God is the cause of all events. God has determined that angels and men be self-determining beings in a moral sense. Just because He knows for certain what all of His creatures will do with their freedom does not mean that He forces them to choose. All events are predetermined because God foreknows everything but God has sovereignly willed that human free choices are not determined by another. God determined the fact of human freedom but free creatures perform the acts of human freedom themselves. God causes the person that is performing the free actions. God causes the state of freedom and the power to act. But the exercise of freedom is caused by the person. The self is the first cause of personal actions. God is the first cause of all that exists (again, God Himself is uncaused and self-existent), but God by an act of His own free will has sovereignly delegated free choice to some of His creatures. So human freedom is a sovereignly given power to make moral choices. Only absolute freedom would be contrary to God’s absolute sovereignty. But human freedom is not absolute, it is limited. Man cannot choose to be God, or to levitate, or to do any number of other things that we have all discovered to be impossible to do no matter how much we will to do them.

          The next category we will consider is that of  Indeterminism. This group takes the position that few if any human actions are caused by any thing. Events and actions are spontaneous and reactionary to other spontaneous events and actions. This argument states that since free actions follow no determinate pattern, they must be indeterminate. The indeterminacy principle of subatomic particles lies at the bedrock of modern indeterminism. According to this theory and to the entire school of indeterminacy, all events are unpredictable. Freewill acts are completely unpredictable. An act must be predictable in order for it to be determinate. But they are not so they are indeterminate.

          To answer this position the opponent simply appeals to the law of causality which states that every effect must have an antecedent cause. In other words, nothing happens without a cause. The fact is that we don’t yet understand the principles of subatomic energy and particle behavior. This fact in no way gives anyone the right to say they are uncaused. This concept would render all science inoperable and would throw the entire universe into chaos. The fact remains that nothing in the universe can be uncaused. Also, indeterminacy robs human beings of moral responsibility. This theory is neither scientifically nor biblically acceptable.

          This brings us to Theistic Self-Determinism, also known as Soft-Determinism. It is perhaps most accurately known as  Compatibilism because it is compatible with both God’s sovereignty and man’s free will. Again here as in some of the other classifications there are subdivisions. The first one we will discuss is Arminianism. The position is basically this that with regards to predestination and eternal security, a believer must not only receive Christ as their personal savior but must also endure in faith to the end of their life. All of man’s actions and decisions are by his own unimpaired free will. The question of certainty regarding salvation was never really answered by Arminius himself (the founder of this doctrine) but his followers have since adopted the belief that a truly saved individual may actually loose their salvation by falling away.

          There has arisen a false dilemma among professing Christians since the Reformation. The problem is that the “either / or fallacy” has been imposed on the church by misguided zealots on both sides of the argument. The two choices they would offer are either the total uninvolvement of man in his own choices, as expressed in the hard determinism of Calvinism, whereby God is the only one who has a choice and He supplies an “alien” faith to an unwary and unconcerned individual.  Or the free will ability to seek and choose God (the position holds that the Holy Spirit must aide in some way, but this aide can be resisted) and then reject Him, thereby changing ones status from saved to unsaved, as is proposed by the Arminian camp.

          The reason that I said that this is a false dilemma is the fact that there is another alternative that the two sides do not recognize in their zeal to defend their particular accretion. This alternative is the second subdivision under Compatibilism. For lack of a better name I will call it Biblicism.

             This is the position that is clearly presented in the Bible to the objective observer. No apology is made in scripture for presenting God as completely sovereign over His creation. Also the clear affirmation is made that man must choose, and assume responsibility for whether or not he will obey God, repent of his sin and come to Christ for salvation. So we are presented with both facts, no one can deny one side or the other without exposing themselves as biased and unwilling to acknowledge the obvious truth. It is dishonest and a cop out to say that even though man is commanded to repent and come to Christ by faith, that it is actually impossible for him to do so (Calvinism). This is equivocation of the worst kind. Neither does it serve to insist that the only alternative is to resort to the so-called Pelagian error as a refuge (Arminianism). This is a straw man. One need not deny that man is helpless and dead in his sin (separated from God’s personal fellowship and guidance and condemned to physical death), and unable through any power of his own work or will to save himself, to recognize that God through His own free will has sovereignly ordained that salvation be obtained through grace by faith. Furthermore that this saving faith is not a work on the part of the man. To account faith as work is to make a categorical error. The book of James leaves no room for such a theological blunder. Nor does the apostle Paul in Romans. We must take God at His word. Both aspects of the question are true. God is sovereign and man is a free moral agent. It is not possible for man’s finite mind to fully comprehend the workings of God’s marvelous plan. But it most definitely is possible for man to apprehend what God has revealed. We must remain silent where the Bible is silent and we must believe what the Bible clearly states when it does so.

          Biblical Compatibilism  is, in my judgement, the only honest and trustworthy explanation for what determines man’s destiny. This understanding explains how and why prayer works, how and why God “changes His mind”, how God can be in full control of all things and yet allow for man to freely choose whether or not to obey Him.

It is compatible with man’s moral responsibility before God and protects God’s inscrutable justice. It explains predestination and God’s foreknowledge. It is in harmony with the bible.

         

              To restate; God has by an act of His free will sovereignly ordained that man be a free moral agent. God has presented man with a choice that man must actually make for himself (God the Holy Spirit will aide, encourage and enlighten him, but the decision is the man’s to make). What choice each man will make, of course, is known to God from all eternity and is in complete accordance with God’s purpose, will and choice by which He predestines men. God’s choosing and His foreknowledge cannot be separated, they are simultaneous, as are all of the attributes of God. God’s choice is not contingent upon His foreknowledge; it is, as He has ordained, in accord with it. This foreknowledge in no way affects the actual decision of the man in real time. No decision of any kind could be made if it were not for the fact that God has made it all possible, He created the man. He gave him the ability and opportunity to choose. He provided the object of choice, that being His own dear Son. The moral choice to trust Christ for salvation is not a work, it is an act of faith. Faith is not work (true faith, saving faith will always be accompanied by works, but they are two different things entirely). Once the choice is made, and God graciously grants eternal life, it is eternal and irreversible. God the Holy Spirit takes up residence in the heart of the man forever. His presence in the heart is God’s seal and guarantee that the man now has eternal life. He is born again. The wisdom, justice and mercy of God are beyond reproach. He is sovereign over all things. All things are as He has ordained and all things are in accordance with His will.

                                                                                                      

                                                                                                      Don Zeoli Sr. 2008