Can predestination and free will both exist?

[Dr. L.T. Ketchum]

please make your case.

I have made my case.

See the following three studies:
http://www.disciplemakerministries.o...omans%2063.pdf
http://www.disciplemakerministries.o...omans%2064.pdf
http://www.disciplemakerministries.o...omans%2065.pdf

One of the most difficult aspects of dealing with these kinds of issues is that people want one sentence answers to complex questions and they are not even willing to read the indepth answers it has taken hundreds of hours of study to provide. Then, even if they read them, they just skim through without really reading. That has always been the problem with these discussion/debate boards.

 

[Dr. L.T. Ketchum]

rpniman, I just want you to know you are not alone. I am struggling with some of the same issues. Maybe we should pray for each other?



Thank you for posting this. It is what I've always believed and what I was always taught. I am beginning to wonder if I'm even a Baptist anymore.
aptist (with a capital B)
Dee

Predestination does not refer to lost people being predestined to be saved. Predestiniation refers saved people being predestined to glorification.

This is what most Baptists believe the text teaches, because that is PLAINLY what the text teaches.

See the following three studies:
http://www.disciplemakerministries.o...omans%2063.pdf
http://www.disciplemakerministries.o...omans%2064.pdf
http://www.disciplemakerministries.o...omans%2065.pdf

I certainly am a Baptist.

 

[skypair]

I have been struggling with this question and I need help coming to a correct understanding. My father, being a Baptist minister, has always taught a human has free will to answer God's call or to reject it. As I've dug into scripture more on my own I have discovered several points (primarily in John and Romans) that have really planted seeds of confusion in my mind concerning the whole issue.

That is, you don't know enough to refute him -- just enough to have doubts. Do you see that as Satan's usual work?

Here's the diffference: God's foreknowledge regards who will CHOOSE Jesus. God THEN elects them -- predestinates them -- to His/God's purposes. Put another way, God knows who will be JUSTIFIED by Him and it is them that He comes to abide in --- SANCTIFIES with the Holy Spirit indwelling

First off, I see evidence all through scripture of God's forceful calling of servants (like Moses, Mary, and Paul for example). The scripture also has many references to God being the one that chooses us (John and Romans) for salvation and subsequently service to him.

When you want to know what the gospel is that EVERYONE has a chance to respond to, go to passages like Acts 2:38-40 or 1Cor 15:1-4. Don't look to the "exceptions" you seem enamored with.

Matthew 22:14 even states, “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

This is a parable, rpniman. Those who are invited are OT Israel -- those who are "chosen" as "bride" are the church.

The Bible also says that the book of life has already been written. This is really convincing evidence to support my understanding of predestination, which I was always taught was not a correct belief.

Both foreknowledge and predestination DO come before creation. That is where Calvies get confused to begin with.

Here's what it boils down to --- you are saved eternally by choosing as your Savior whereby God justifies you in Him. This was the part that was foreknown by God.

You are saved in this life daily unto PURPOSE by trusting in Christ as Lord. This is the part that God predestines for you and then, by His Spirit, leads you in His way.

skypair

 

[webdog]

before the 1st day

Scripture that it means "before the 1st day"?

 

[webdog]

Web,

Listen, I'll give you this man....you have come a ways your your time thing. But...you still don't have it bud.

The usual understanding of "eternity" is atemporal or timeless existence, that is, existence in which there is no temporal succession or duration. If there is no temporal succession or extension in God's being, then you have a lot of thinking and clarifying to do.

"Omnitemporal" simply means "existing at all moments of time." It is not the same as "sempiternal," for a sempiternal entity can come into existence at a time and then continue without end, while an omnitemporal entity cannot fail to exist at any time.

Therefore, to be omnitemporal one has to have time. Do you see the problem? If God is omnitemporal and omnitemporal only, then He was not around till time was made.

Generally, an entity described as "outside of time" is considered timeless or atemporal, while an entity which is omnitemporal is still a temporal entity. Both are ways of being eternal--the first, timelessly eternal; the second, everlastingly eternal.


Therefore we must have both.....right?

omnitemporalness encompasses atemporalness...therefore your theory holds no water.

 

[webdog]

Not to beat a dead horse, but this line thing is NOT how one should view time.

We get this idea from a "timeline"....but it is not a good view of time and God. In fact it will lead to a bad understanding of God.

All pictures of God have their problem, for God can never be fully shown. However..I think this is a better view of God and time.

Take a basketball and spin it on your finger. Your view of the basketball is a omnitemporal view of God in time. Let the ball fall and the space that once held the ball is a atemporal view of God. Time is change. While the ball is spinning change happens. God is there with each change...with each time frame.

When there is no ball, there is no time and God is atemporal...or no changing

I like the paper analogy better...as your basketball analogy makes no sense

I agree that God can never fully be shown, and my analogy was not intended to do that, but that works for me.

 

[PreachTREE]

these debates will never end. For right now I consider myself a high Calvinist. But for those of you that do not like the rigidness of both Calvinism and Arminianism, I think a study on Molinism would be beneficial.

 

[Aaron]

I think the problem I am witnessing (and maybe I'm wrong) is your use of predesination really meaning predetermining. Remember, those phrases are time phrases (pre and fore), and God is not bound by time, as He is truly omnipresent (omnitemporal is included in omnipresence). Since God exists in the past, present and future...all at the same time, there truly is not "pre" or "fore" attached to God, but these phrases are used to give us finite beings bound by time the slightest glimpse of God's awesomeness.

Take a piece of paper, draw a line in the middle of it. At the left write "beginning of creation"...and at the end write "end of time". Imagine that piece of paper is all eternity, and remembering God exists in all places on that piece of paper (omnipresent)...tell me where on that paper God is not present. There truly is no "fore" and "pre" in what God does, or how God does things. He is the great "I Am".

Very good. And your still an Arminian?

 

[rpniman]

That is, you don't know enough to refute him -- just enough to have doubts. Do you see that as Satan's usual work?

Here's the diffference: God's foreknowledge regards who will CHOOSE Jesus. God THEN elects them -- predestinates them -- to His/God's purposes. Put another way, God knows who will be JUSTIFIED by Him and it is them that He comes to abide in --- SANCTIFIES with the Holy Spirit indwelling

When you want to know what the gospel is that EVERYONE has a chance to respond to, go to passages like Acts 2:38-40 or 1Cor 15:1-4. Don't look to the "exceptions" you seem enamored with.

This is a parable, rpniman. Those who are invited are OT Israel -- those who are "chosen" as "bride" are the church.

Both foreknowledge and predestination DO come before creation. That is where Calvies get confused to begin with.

Here's what it boils down to --- you are saved eternally by choosing as your Savior whereby God justifies you in Him. This was the part that was foreknown by God.

You are saved in this life daily unto PURPOSE by trusting in Christ as Lord. This is the part that God predestines for you and then, by His Spirit, leads you in His way.

skypair

Thank you Dr. Ketchum, Skypair, and Dee for your responses on this subject. Skypair, it could be Satan trying to confuse or it could be the Holy Spirit leading me to real understanding. But your point is well taken.

I think I understand now what I've been missing. The predestination is referring to what happens in general AFTER you accept Christ. He has predestined what will happen to those that accept Christ (salvation, opportunities for service, glorification, etc). He has foreknowledge of who throughout humanity's existence is going to accept that salvation, and who is going to reject it. He has also predestined the paths that we might take, but it's our free will to follow his call down a path or follow our own desires.

But what do I do with passages like Romans 9:18 "Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden."? Because this leads me to believe that sometimes God supersedes a person’s free will as he did with Pharaoh and exercises his divine sovereignty to prevent them from softening and accepting his grace.

Your insights are very helpful. I appreciate your help in coming to an understanding on this subject.

 

[EdSutton]

Can predestination and free will both exist?

Obviously the answer to question in the thread title is "Yes!"

Why, on the Baptist Board, alone, they are both 'cussed' and 'discussed' back and forth, almost every day. :thumbs:

:laugh:

Ed

 

[Tom Butler]

Regardless of one's view of foreknowledge, the result of each view is that a fixed number have been elected by God to salvation.

If God bases election on foreknowing who will believe for salvation, then once He chooses, no one else will have a chance for salvation. Since God is omniscient, he will know all those who will choose him, and will know that no one else will do so.

If God elects, and that is the basis of foreknowledge (he knows because he decided it would be that way), the result is still the same. He has chosen a fixed number, and no one else will be saved.

So all talk about everyone having a "chance" to be saved is meaningless.

Once God elects, no one else will have a "chance' to be saved.

All talk of "convincing" people to trust Christ is meaningless. The elect will not have to be convinced. Our job as believers is to present the gospel to all, and leave the results to God.

 

[webdog]

Very good. And your still an Arminian?

...I've never been an arminian

 

[EdSutton]

FTR, and by my count, in 32 posts in this thread, exactly 15 Scripture verses are given as references, and a couple of partial quotes of verses, beyond just two or three, or so, "buzz-words' are to be found among all 32 posts.

That is an average of roughly one half of a verse per post, by all.

It does therefore appear, to this old country-boy, at least, that the overall interest here is "What does (a given) 'theology' say?", more so than "What does Scripture say?", frankly.

Ed

 

[Jarthur001]

omnitemporalness encompasses atemporalness...therefore your theory holds no water.

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

I'm going to save that one. I may put it in my book..."Yes he really said that"

how can all of time cover no time? The key is TIME. One has it..one does not.

 

[webdog]

:laugh: :laugh:

I'm going to save that one. I may put it in my book..."Yes he really said that"

how can all of time cover no time? The key is TIME. One has it..one does not.

Be sure you add this to your book...

how can all of time cover no time? The key is TIME. One has it (omnitemporalness)..one does not (atemporalness).

That's rich....one does not deal with time. :laugh: :laugh: (I had to delete 2 of your smileys so mine would fit)

I would suggest some reading by William Lane Craig.

 

[Dr. L.T. Ketchum]

Settled In Eternity

See the following post:
http://www.disciplemakerministries.org/PDF Files/Romans/Romans 66.pdf

 

[TCGreek]

1. In our debates we might end up on either side of this issue: Whether predestination and human responsibility can coexist?

2. Well, according to Scripture, they do coexist (Lk 21:21; Acts 2:23; 4:27, 28).

 

[Rippon]

1. In our debates we might end up on either side of this issue: Whether predestination and human responsibility can coexist?

2. Well, according to Scripture, they do coexist (Lk 21:21; Acts 2:23; 4:27, 28).

But , to remind folks -- free will is not equivalent to human responsibility .

 

[JustChristian]

But , to remind folks -- free will is not equivalent to human responsibility .

I was going to say the same thing but I'm not certain what you mean when you say that. I suppose this could mean that we have free will but no responsibility. I doubt that this is what you mean. Or that we have responsibility but no free will. Or maybe that we have both in different measures. Could you explain?

 

[TCGreek]

But , to remind folks -- free will is not equivalent to human responsibility .

Thanks, Rippon.

IMO, the idea of free will is only theoretical, so that is why I elected to say human responsibility.