Is everything predestined??

Question

do you think everything in this world is predestined?? and how does free will fit into & work in a predestined universe? If you don't believe it's all predestined could you provide an example....

Answer 1

An omniscient god and free will cannot co-exist. Free will is the ability to think and choose and act according to one's own prerogative without being compulsorily bound to do so by any external force.

In total opposition to this concept is the omniscience of God. God knows everything, every second of your life, every thought, every action, every bat of your eyelash. God's knowledge is perfect. God is infallible. THIS KNOWLEDGE forcibly prevents you from doing ANYTHING which would contradict the flawless and absolute knowledge of God.

You will NEVER do anything that God has not foreseen... therefore you are bound by this knowledge. You cannot escape it. Whatever you do, there was never EVER anything else you were going to do.

Answer 2

God has predestined his own to salvation, which means we don't have free will, i.e. an ability to choose God. Adam brought sin into the world and therefore everyone's own sin nature gives them a "free will" to reject God.

However, you did ask if EVERYTHING is predestined, and I don't believe in double predestination, or God's predestination of the unregenerate to hell.

Answer 3

This is hard for me to fully understand, and even harder for me to try and explain, but here goes:

God does have a plan, and He does know that certain things are going to happen, and yet we still have free-will to make our own choices. How does this work? It's because God knows us better than we know ourselves, he knows our personalities and dispositions so well that he knows exactly what we would do in different situations, so He sets up the situations, and then we control ourselves.

The closest I come to this is that I know that when I go to the spaghetti factory with my husband, I know that he's going to get the clam sauce. I'm not forcing him to get it, it's still his choice, I just know my husband well enough that I can predestine the future in that regard by taking him there.

Answer 4

Four different claims keep getting confused:

1. God already has complete knowledge of what will happen in the future.
2. God has already decided which of us will be damned and which of us will be saved.
3. God has already decided what will happen in the future.
4. Every event is fully determined by prior events.

The first concerns God's knowledge. Specifically, it concerns divine foreknowledge. Arguably this follows from God's omniscience.

The second concerns the conditions for human salvation. On this view, nothing you do can affect your salvation. Good works make no difference, faith makes no difference, accepting God's grace makes no difference. Instead, your salvation is determined by one factor: God's choice to assign you to the elect or to the reprobate, a choice which was made long ago. This is the central meaning of 'predestination'.

The third is a more general meaning of 'predestination': it concerns whether God has already decided on every event that will happen. Notice that this is stronger than God merely knowing about every event that will happen. This view has God as directly responsible for every single event.

The fourth concerns contingency and necessity: whether future events are already 'set in stone' by current and past events or whether the future is still 'open'. This is the question of determinism, most broadly speaking. If the necessitation is done by laws of nature (cause and effect, like a line of dominoes), then we're dealing with causal determinism. If it is done by God's foreknowledge (#1 above), then we're dealing with theological determinism. If it is simply done by claims about the future already being true or false, then we're dealing with logical determinism.

So again: 1 is divine foreknowledge. 2 is Calvinist-style predestination of the elect and reprobate. 3 is broader predestination of the future. 4 is determinism (including causal, theological, and logical determinism).

1, 3, and 4 might pose a threat to our free will, i.e. our control over our own actions. I think 1 and 4 are actually compatible with free will, as long as our decision-making is connected with our actions in the right way. But 3 looks incompatible with free will: after all, our decisions apparently make no difference, since our actions are directly determined by God.

1, 3, and 4 might also make God responsible for our sins. I think 1 lets God off the hook: just because God knows that I'll sin, it doesn't follow that he's responsible for my sin. 4 is tougher, if we're dealing with causal determinism. If God deliberately knocked over the first domino, so to speak, then perhaps he's responsible for any sins that result. 3 is most worrisome, because God is the direct cause of every sin we perform.

2 definitely takes away our control over our own salvation. Nothing we can do makes any difference. It doesn't take away our control over our own actions. And it doesn't make God responsible for our sins. But it does leave us powerless to do anything about our own salvation. We're just stuck.

Answer 5

in the morning you truly do have a choice which shirt to wear. Since our concept of time is skewed predestination is just an attempt at helping us understand how true reality works.

Answer 6

If everything is predestined my answer is irrelevent because it's either an exercise in futility or the fulfillment of destiny.

Answer 7

No. It isn't. You still have a chance to make a difference. Both pre-destination and total free will are over-simplifications. Neither fate nor choice is absolute. In the real world, there are abundant examples of each. You could see that if you chose to see it, but perhaps it is your fate to remain in denial of the truth.
Does that shock you? Good. Be shocked into seeing reality.

Answer 8

This is an amazing question, I wonder this myself. I ask this of many Christians I know. If there is a God, then it must be true that he knows what will happen already, so we have NO freewill. We are already on the path that will take us to heaven or hell, and really there is nothing we can do about it. If there is a God, then the whole "free-will" thing MUST be a joke.

Answer 9

This doesn't answer your question, but i have to challenge other's thoughts. If there is a God who knows all ,this does not imply that you do not have free will. You can still act freely. Just because He knows what will happen, doesn't mean that you lack free will. For example, if i know that my mom wil lget in a car wreck tomorrow, this doesn't mean that I force it to happen. Plus, God's willing that none shall perish and God's will will be done, yet lots of people don't go to heaven. However, God does have His elect, but i believe this refers just to His believers, and you have to opt in to His elect, and He welcomes you in, not He has chosen His elect, as the word 'elect' would make it seem. But, those are just my thoughts. Hope this helps!!!

Answer 10

If everything is predestined why bother trying to do the right thing?

Answer 11

I think it is all predesigned...with the thought/belief of having "free will" simply part of the plan. We are urged to take the right path in life...sometimes we take the long way around, but we always end up where we are supposed to be at any given time...Does that make sense?