How do you feel about predestination?

Answer 1

GOD DOES NOT PICK AND CHOOSE WHO GOES TO HELL. WE HAVE THE CHOICE TO MAKE TO FOLLOW HIM OR SATAN.

However those who are called to to a work for God did he predestinate.
We can see this in the scriptures. Gods word given to the seed of Abraham.

Galatians 3:29
And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Anyone who says otherwise allows Satan to rob them of the promises of the word of God.
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God did not force me to serve him. Neither did he force me to attend the church I attend. Nor did he force anything on me ever. Looking back after several years I can see the hand of God on my life from the beginning.

God KNEW by his wisdom the choices I would make concerning him. He laid out a path for me to follow as long as I followed him. I was called of God. I was led of God. God had prepaired the way for me.

Romans 8:14
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

This is where people get confused God determines what he wants us to do and lays these choices before us in our life time. If we choose him we are following a predertermined path set forth by the Lord because he leads us.

He does not lead us to sin or make us to sin. But he leads us in the paths of righteousness.

Psalm 23:3
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.


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Romans 8:28-30
28And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
29For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
30Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

Ephesians 1:5
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

Ephesians 1:11
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

Is everybody called of God?

The Bible does not say any one is predestined to hell. It is talking about those who are called of God are predestined.

I believe the Bible and I do not omit anything it says.

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elect - 1) chosen, choice one, chosen one, elect (of God)
1) picked out, chosen

a) chosen by God,

1) to obtain salvation through Christ

a) Christians are called "chosen or elect" of God

2) the Messiah in called "elect", as appointed by God to the most exalted office conceivable

3) choice, select, i.e. the best of its kind or class, excellence preeminent: applied to certain individual Christians
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If we are the elect of God we are predestined. God knows our thoughts and decisions that we will make. Before he formed us he knew us and called us.

Jeremiah 1:5
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Isaiah 65:9
And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there.

Matthew 24:22
And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

Matthew 24:31
And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

1 Peter 1:2
Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

Isaiah 42:1
Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.

Answer 2

There are several verses that appear to support it. Most supporters like to use Romans 8, but fail to add that Romans 9, 10 and 11, the continuation, shows that it is talking about corporate Israel, not individuals.

There are way too many verses that appear to oppose predestination to put here, so I'll ask a question. Why would God, throughout the entire Old Testament and New, repeatedly admonish all people to change their ways, if He had made a short list before creating anything? See Ezekial, for example:

Ezekiel 18:23 Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?

Ezekiel 18:31-32 Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit Why will you die, O house of Israel? 32 For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD, so turn, and live.

And 2 Peter 3:9 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Does this sound like a God who has already decided He will forgive only those on the short list, and the rest of mankind will remain unforgiven from before creation? Why, then admonish us to turn away from sin and live, if we cannot?

Answer 3

The Bible says that we have the free will choice – all we have to do is believe in Jesus Christ and we will be saved (John 3:16; Romans 10:9-10). The Bible never describes God rejecting anyone who believes in Him or turning away anyone who was seeking Him (Deuteronomy 4:29). Somehow, in the mystery of God, predestination works hand in hand with a person being drawn by God (John 6:44) and believing unto salvation (Romans 1:16). God predestines who will be saved, and we must choose Christ in order to be saved. Both facts are equally true.

Answer 4

We are predestined only from the standpoint that God already has a Perfect Plan in mind for us. He desires for us is that we all be saved and go to live with Him. We are not locked into that plan, though -- thus, it is not predestination in the sense that man defines it. We are always free to choose our own path.

Answer 5

I am not religious and have no say in this spiritually, but I believe that the belief in predestination kind of defeats the point of religion. People created religion so that they would be better behaved and that they would have an idea of what would happen to them after they died(religious perpetrators could make a few bucks on the side, too). But claiming that everyone is predetermined before their birth to have salvation or damnation doesn't really make people try hard to have salvation if that has already been decided for them. Religion in general is not great for society around the world, but this belief pretty much defeats its purpose.

Answer 6

How could there be a God with it? He knows the beginning from the end. The reality of predestination only exists with the knowledge of God. We call it luck or chance or destiny or free will, etc. It only applies to humans after the fact.

Answer 7

I believe in predestination but I also believe in freewill.
Imagine yourself at a fork in the road.
If you take the fork to the right you are predestined to live through certain things. Same thing for the fork to the left.
But the bottom line is you had a freewill choice as to which path you took.

Answer 8

Everyone is limited by their genetic make up but can choose most of what they do. If you study TA (Transactional Analysis) Dr. Eric Berne M.D. in his book "What do you say after you say hello" goes into the dynamics of family and tries to explain how we have the illusion of predestination. After reading it four time I found one main error that if Dr. Berne was alive i would like to discuss with him.

Father K you are psychotic. Everything you wrote is a symptom of schizophrenia.

Answer 9

predestination is contrary to good morals!!!

it leads to the idea that one should just do what ever, because you cannot change your fate... and anything "bad" that you accomplish wasn't controllable anyway, so why bother... anything "good" that you might accomplish isn't under your control either, so why bother trying. How depressing! One might as well just try to have as much fun as possible without regard for others...

Answer 10

Many point to Romans 8:29, that 'those whom God did foreknow, He also did predestinate', and switch off at that point. But if they read it properly they see He '... did predestinate [them] to be conformed to the image of His Son, that they might be the firstborn among many brethren' (KJV).
It therefore follows that God KNOWS who will accept His Son (Jesus Christ) as God, Lord and Saviour, and therefore predetermines that they shall receive the reward of being like Christ, knowing God in an intimate, Father-child relationship, not merely restored to earth in its pre-Fall state.

Look how often Jesus wept over the lost, including Jerusalem:
'Oh Jerusalem, ... thou that killest the prophets ... how often would I [i.e. 'I was willing to']have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!' (Luke 13:34, KJV: see also Matthew 23:34).

It was the choice of the inhabitants of Jerusalem (indicating the wider Jewish/Hebrew community) not to accept God's offer of forgiveness, NOT God's predestinating them to hell.

I recommend two books on this subject:
'What Love Is This?' by Dave Hunt (published by The Berean Call)
and
'Debating Calvinism: Five Points' by Dave Hunt (anti-) & James White (pro-Calvinism) (published by Multnomah).

From a personal point of view, I became a Christian in 1987, after two years of investigation. I held off, as I didn't wish to give up promiscuity and drunkenness. One evening, a voice in my head said: "Make up your mind now, because you won't get the chance again."
I decided there and then that I would become and Christian. As for the voice, I put it down to nerves, until 2004, when, in a discussion about a friend's conversion, he stated (& I hadn't mentioned my experience to him) that he was given a deadline to choose. Intrigued, I asked others, and another friend (again without my or anyone else's prompting) said he had to make his mind up in a similar way.
So the question is, if there's no choice, what was happening with these two friends and me? Was it God messing us about? (God doesn't do that) Was it a mental 'survival function'? (possible) Or was it a last chance before God gave us up to vile lusts and strong delusion? (equally possible).

And Jesus' weeping over Israel: crocodile tears? (in which case Jesus is a liar)
Disagreement within the Triune Godhead? (in which case they aren't perfect)
Or
Genuine, heartfelt anguish from God for those who won't accept the only way to be saved? (In which case it proves man has freewill, and picks his own destiny-- eternal life with God in heaven, or eternal torment in the lake of fire).

Don't be fools: heed the offer of salvation now, while you can.

Answer 11

God has chosen some out of the human race to be saved through the finished work of Christ, thus inheriting eternal life. Others of the same human race are not chosen to eternal life and therefore foreordained to everlasting punishment.

In other words, God sovereignty ordains the eternal destiny of every human being—the lost as well as the saved.

In the case of the elect there is a divine intervention called regeneration. This is a sovereign work of God the Holy Spirit.

In the case of those who are not elect, however, there is no internal work of God. It is not God who makes them evil. They already are evil. In their case the Word of God only hardens them in their sin.

“For the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls,…“Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated’. …Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens…..Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?” Romans 9:11,12,18,21