A couple hours ago I picked up some AWAKE! mags . ( Better me than an unsaved person, right ? ) . AWAKE! usually doesn't get too theological -- the WATCHTOWER concerns itself with weightier matters . But in this AWAKE! ( do I have your attention ? ) mag from May of 2007 there is a doctrinal article entitled : "Is Your Life Predestined ?" Some selections follow .
Does God really ordain ahead of time what our actions and our final destiny are going to be ? What does the Bible teach ?
Some who believe in predestination reason basically as follows : God is omniscient . He knows everything , even what is going to happen in the future . He knows what each person is going to do with his life , and he already knows the exact moment and manner of each person's death . So , according to their thinking , when the time comes for an individual to make a decision , his choice cannot be other than the way God has forseen and foreordained it ; otherwise , God would not be all-knowing . Does this reasoning seem sound to you ? Consider what its logical consequences would be .
If God chooses to foreknow everything , than even before he made Adam and Eve , he would have known that they would disobey him . But when God told Adam that he must not eat from "the tree of the knowledge of good and bad" or he would die , did God already know that Adam would eat from it ? ( Genesis 2:16, 17 ) When God told the first couple : " Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it , and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth ," did he know that their wonderful prospect of life in a pardise was doomed to failure ? Of course not . -- Genesis 1:28 .
Taken to its logical conclusion , the idea that God foreknows all decisions would mean that he is responsible for all that happens -- including wars , injustices , and suffering . Is that possible ?
Does God really ordain ahead of time what our actions and our final destiny are going to be ? What does the Bible teach ?
Some who believe in predestination reason basically as follows : God is omniscient . He knows everything , even what is going to happen in the future . He knows what each person is going to do with his life , and he already knows the exact moment and manner of each person's death . So , according to their thinking , when the time comes for an individual to make a decision , his choice cannot be other than the way God has forseen and foreordained it ; otherwise , God would not be all-knowing . Does this reasoning seem sound to you ? Consider what its logical consequences would be .
If God chooses to foreknow everything , than even before he made Adam and Eve , he would have known that they would disobey him . But when God told Adam that he must not eat from "the tree of the knowledge of good and bad" or he would die , did God already know that Adam would eat from it ? ( Genesis 2:16, 17 ) When God told the first couple : " Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it , and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth ," did he know that their wonderful prospect of life in a pardise was doomed to failure ? Of course not . -- Genesis 1:28 .
Taken to its logical conclusion , the idea that God foreknows all decisions would mean that he is responsible for all that happens -- including wars , injustices , and suffering . Is that possible ?
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