Overview
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Predestination is used to refer to God’s unchanging plan for the world extending particularly to salvation
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Predestination allows for all people to fall in either “unconditional election” or “reprobation”
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Double predestination is the idea that not only does God choose some to be saved, he also creates some people who will be damned (this is largely rejected but there is controversy)
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For most, salvation is something that God ordained at the start of time where reprobation is something that God “just let’s be” (sounds like free will) with the basis being verses like Rom 1:28
And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done.
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TULIP
- Total depravity - a reprobate is unable to hear the word of God and respond to it. If elected, you are able to have faith and be saved
- Unconditional election - God chooses who will be saved and it is
- Limited atonement - Jesus didn’t die for all, but
- Irresistible grace - when you are elected, you always will respond to God’s word, through regeneration (no human involvement required)
- Perseverance of the saints - an elect can never be removed from God’s elect, even when apostate (reject God overtly)
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Synergism - God and man work together
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Monorgism - God alone does the work
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John 6:59-66
Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. Then many of his disciples, when they heard these things, said, “This is a difficult saying! Who can understand it?” When Jesus was aware that his disciples were complaining about this, he said to them, “Does this cause you to be offended? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascending where he was before? The Spirit is the one who gives life; human nature is of no help! The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus had already known from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) So Jesus added, “Because of this I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has allowed him to come.” After this many of his disciples quit following him and did not accompany him any longer.
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Rom 9
I am telling the truth in Christ (I am not lying!), for my conscience assures me in the Holy Spirit -
I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed - cut off from Christ - for the sake of my people, my fellow countrymen, who are Israelites. To them belong the adoption as sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from them, by human descent, came the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever! Amen. It is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all those who are descended from Israel are truly Israel, nor are all the children Abraham’s true descendants; rather
“through Isaac will your descendants be counted.”
This means it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God; rather, the children of promise are counted as descendants. For this is what the promise declared:
“About a year from now
I will return and Sarah will have a son.”
Not only that, but when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our ancestor Isaac -
even before they were born or had done anything good or bad (so that God’s purpose in election would stand, not by works but by his calling) - it was said to her, ”
The older will serve the younger,”
just as it is written:
“*Jacob I loved__,* but Esau I hated.”
What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not! For he says to Moses:
“*I will have mercy on whom I have mercy__,* and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
So then, it does not depend on human desire or exertion, but on God who shows mercy.
For the scripture says to Pharaoh:
“*For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may demonstrate my power in you__,* and that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”
So then, God has mercy on whom he chooses to have mercy, and he hardens whom he chooses to harden. You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who has ever resisted his will?” But who indeed are you - a mere human being - to talk back to God?
Does what is molded say to the molder__, “Why have you made me like this?”
Has the potter no right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special use and another for ordinary use? But what if God, willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath prepared for destruction? And what if he is willing to make known the wealth of his glory on the objects of mercy that he has prepared beforehand for glory - even us, whom he has called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? As he also says in Hosea:
“I will call those who were not my people__,
‘My people__,’
and I will call her who was unloved,
‘My beloved__.
‘And in the very place
where it was said to them__,
‘You are not my people__,
‘there they will be called
‘sons of the living God__.
‘“And Isaiah cries out on behalf of Israel, ”
Though the number of the children of Israel are as the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved, for the Lord will execute his sentence on the earth completely and quickly.” Just as Isaiah predicted,
“If the Lord of armies
had not left us descendants__,
we would have become like Sodom__,
and we would have resembled Gomorrah.”
What shall we say then? - that the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness obtained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith, but Israel even though pursuing a law of righteousness did not attain it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but (as if it were possible) by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written,
“*Look__,* I am laying in Zion a stone that will cause people to stumble
and a rock that will make them fall,
yet the one who believes in him will not be put to shame.” That was a fair bit but what does this mean? Well, the very end kind of answers that: its not that they Israel wasn’t elected, its that they pursued the law but by works - not by faith. They stumbled over truth on the way to spirit
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Eph 1:3-14
Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we may be holy and unblemished in his sight in love. He did this by predestining us to adoption as his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will - to the praise of the glory of his grace that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly loved Son. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. He did this when he revealed to us the secret of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, toward the administration of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ - the things in heaven and the things on earth. In Christ we too have been claimed as God’s own possession, since we were predestined according to the one purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, would be to the praise of his glory. And when you heard the word of truth (the gospel of your salvation) - when you believed in Christ - you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, who is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory.
History
- Predestination of the elect and non-elect was taught by the Jewish Essene sect, Gnosticism, and Manichaeism
- In Christianity, it originated with Augustine of Hippo during the Pelagian controversy in 412 AD
- Pelagius and taught that people were born without original sin and can freely choose to be perfect or a sinner
- Augustine responded by arguing that faith is a free gift from God, not something chosen
- John Calvin believed that God is just in his decision to exclude some from heaven; he did believe in double predestination
- From eastern France
- Authored Institutes of the Christian Religion (1539)
- Nowadays John Piper and John MacArthur , RC Sprawl are the two big spokespersons for Calvinism
Arguments For
- This removes man from the equation, which gives God all the credit for salvation — versus saying man has anything to do with it
- God is believed to work in all things, in all ways, all the time
- Parable of the sower: sometimes the word lands on dry ground
Arguments Against
Let’s start with the three passages that are used most often:
- John 6
Read the part in the parenthesis. Sometimes these are added after the fact by scholars but, in this case, it indicates that Jesus was talking specifically about Judas Iscariot
“(For Jesus had already known from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) ” [v71] ”(Now he said this about Judas son of Simon Iscariot, for Judas, one of the twelve, was going to betray him.)”
- Rom 9
when you believed in Christ - you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, who is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory. Well that right there says it already: when you believe, you are saved. It’s not a “default” state or a thing that can never happen, it’s based solely on your response to the Gospel and Christ — repentance and faith
- Eph 1 Just like in John, the very next verse can add some clarity: Eph 1:19 “For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your Love for all the saints” This means that they weren’t truly predestined but again demonstrated faith through repenence
More generally:
- Why does God need to harden people’s heart if they cannot be saved anyway
- Faith is not a work, so being faithful does not make us part of the salvation act
- Salvation, and by extension faith, is not something we earn. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and grace is offered to all through faith, lest any boast (Rom 3:23, 27)
- Salvation IS totally of God, but it requires repentance and faith in Christ which is 100% on man. We are responsible to repent and return to Christ (think of the prodigal son, who humbly returned home and was shown grace by his father)
- God knows the end from the beginning in the sense of the “Eternal now” — referring to the idea of omniscience. That is, God knows what is going on at every second because he is there in that second
- He lives outside of time because he lives outside of space, being in all places at all times
- If a man and woman meet while out, and hit it off, we’d all deem that as “fine”. If a man sneaks in a Love potion into a woman’s drink and then they hit it off, we’d all argue that there was likely nothing there
- So, too, does God allow free will to dictate whether or not we accept him
- If God declares from birth whether or not they are saved, and you take pity on them, you are showing more grace than God - does that really make sense
- If God “forces” someone to reject him, would that not make him to blame for their eternal punishment, how is that just?
- It also allows one to easily dismiss people. What do we learn from the “Good Samaritan” if not that we should go out of our way. If we get to busy for someone, rather than accepting responsibility and doing better, we can shift blame to God saying in our heart “well, God predestined that I wouldn’t preach to them”