If He knows now that I end up accepting Him and go to Heaven, then it seems I have no choice but to make that choice so as to agree with what He knows will happen! Likewise if He knows I end up going to Hell... if He knows now that that's my fate, then nothing I do in the meantime can change it (if I could, then that would invalidate God's prior knowledge, which is impossible...!) Is predestination not inevitable given that God has 100% correct knowledge of the future???
2007-01-09 05:10:23 · 16 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Makes ya alittle crazy to try to put logic to fantasy, doesn't it?
2007-01-09 05:13:59 · answer #1 · answered by INDRAG? 6 · 1⤊ 1⤋
I love the answers by the people that state that God wants you to make you own choices, yet since God knows everything (everything that will happen from the beginning of time to the end), hence God will know exactly when you will die (year, month, day, hour, etc) and there is nothing that you can do to avoid that. Also, God therefore knows every step that you life will take (that is if God is all knowing), so therefore you have no choice but to follow that path that God knows you will follow, because if you did not follow that path then God would not be all knowing.
It is always interesting that simple logic like that confuses religious believers who contradict themselves by stating that God gives them free will, but God knows all. However, looking at their logic, their God is evil and sadistic. Look at the following example:
An innocent young girl, who always prays to God and prays for world peace, has done nothing but good in her life is kidnapped and brutalized by a rapist. Now, since God is all powerful, he could have stopped that at any time, but did not. God is all knowing, so he would have known about what was going to happen to that innocent girl before it happened, but still did nothing. God is all present (everywhere at once), so God would have been there the whole time and watched the girl getting brutalized, yet still had done nothing. And yet the religious believers state that God is also all good, which from that example God doing nothing but watching the events and knowing they were going to happen prior, God must have evil and be sadistic.
If God is all knowing you have no choice on what is going to happen in your life, however, somehow doubt that there is a God that the religious morons think is there. Their God is like the tooth fairy and Santa Claus.
2007-01-09 13:34:21 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think it's more than God just knowing who will be saved...it's loving who will be saved, therefore He can love them before they are born, and that way we can look at predestination as a positive thing instead of battling over who has the right to choose who. Look, we as Christians are no more deserving of Heaven than anyone else in history, and that puts God's own in the same predicament as those who don't know him, guilty as charged. But if He loves His own that much, couldn't that love overpower any idea of a rejection of Him? He is God, after all. As a Christian then, you don't need to focus on double-predestination, or God being the author of the sin that sends people to Hell. That's nowhere to be found in the Bible anyway. But the "unregenerate", as they're called, are that way through their own fault, left in their sins, just like us Christians would have been if it hadn't been for a love that changed our hearts around.
Now, even if that still sounds like fatalism, we don't know who is and who isn't written in the Book of Life. We get faith by hearing, and hearing from the Word of God, Romans 10:17. So, the ones who will believe, will hear of the Gospel message that comes from the Bible. But what really gives them a new heart? Grace, of course, Eph. 2:8, not our salesmanship, "lest anyone should boast".
2007-01-09 13:54:50 · answer #3 · answered by ccrider 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You have a choice. Yes God knows what you will choose but its still up to you. He does not make you make the decisions that is up to you. He knows whats in your heart or what your going to do this just means He knows the future but He does not make you do or choose what you do. Just like Jesus Christ and Judas his discipline. Jesus knew what Judas was going to do but Judas had to make the choose.Its like some of your friends. You know some people you hang out with talk about you behind your back or do things you do not like. Did you make them do these things? NO! Can you change them? NO but they may decide to change only God can see that far up the road. So just because God knows the end does not mean that you or anyone does not have a choose ,all that means is we have to make the right or wrong choices.
2007-01-09 14:16:19 · answer #4 · answered by keilahkowb 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
LOL, watch this line of thinking ... you're close to becoming a Calvinist!
Think of it this way: God exists "outside of time." In other words, God doesn't experience a progression of days, weeks, months and years. The Bible says that, to Him, a thousand years is like a day, and a day like a thousand years. So even while God was creating the universe through The Word (Jesus Christ), He already knew who would come to him OUT OF FREE WILL and who would not. So it's not that God preordained certain people to be saved and others to be damned (which is the Calvinist view); instead, He simply KNEW.
John 3:16-17 tells us that Jesus died for "the world," not for "the elect." True, He knows who will accept Him and who will not. But Scripture is clear -- He has a strict "hands off" policy when it comes to belief. Either you believe and are saved, or you reject Him and you are lost. But your choice has been known for thousands of years.
2007-01-09 13:22:37 · answer #5 · answered by Suzanne: YPA 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
You are talking about double-predestination. God has given us predestination as a comfort. Predestination says God chose me to be a believer and go to heaven. Double predestination is a fallicy. He wants everyone to be saved. It's a hard concept to get. I struggle with it every day.
2007-01-09 13:25:56 · answer #6 · answered by scriptorcarmina 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well it sounds like quite a good question to me. He KNOWS! Do you? The real question is what are you gonna do when you get there. Philosophise and try to figure out why you´re smarter than God (you AIN´T) or enjoy the wonderful glory of the fellowship of all those you dedicated your life to having brought with you? HE KNOWS!! Sionarra!
2007-01-09 13:25:59 · answer #7 · answered by Sionarra 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
this has been a millenia-old question, which is, how can divine predestination live in perfect harmony with human free-will? wikipedia has some interesting stuff on the subject of the problem of omniscience.
2007-01-09 13:21:05 · answer #8 · answered by Dayne's gal 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
For I am the truth and the light, he that believes in me shall have everlasting life. No need to worry your little mind on this just understand the phrase and you have all your answers
2007-01-09 13:26:56 · answer #9 · answered by sylviavnpttn 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I rented a DVD that offered alternate endings. I am sure God has more power than a DVD.
2007-01-09 13:17:30 · answer #10 · answered by soldoldman 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yes he knows. How does that affect YOU making the choice? Just because he created you knowing the choice you would make makes it his fault?
2007-01-09 13:18:10 · answer #11 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋