Predestined or Doctrine of Freewill
September 15, 2007 by TJM Admin
Certainly, you can not have it both ways. This is just one of the problems that I have whenever I speak with a Christian with regards to their faith. The amount of double talk that they use just baffles me. (Yet, they will be the first to point the finger when a theory is changed, refined or abandoned.) Hopefully someone out there can shed a little light on this.
We are told constantly that we posses freewill and that, in fact, God designed it to be that way. We are told that he did not want a bunch of “robots,” that he wants us to “choose” to serve him. I have a hard time swallowing this right from the first book of the Bible. In Genesis, we are told that Adam and Eve were given only one fruit of the garden that they must not partake of:
Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Of course, we are told that it was due to Adam and Eve’s ability to exorcise their freewill that they were able to disobey God’s command. In reality, was this a punishable crime? What I mean by this is wouldn’t you have to KNOW the difference between good and evil in order to realize that you should not disobey this command? Did they know that it was wrong to do so? How would you discipline your child for an offense that they did not understand was wrong? Would it be this severe? Can you honestly make an educated choice when you simply do not understand the concept of right and wrong, good vs evil? And if we are to simply obey without that knowledge, how is that any different than creating a robot? But the plot thickens.
1Peter 1:19-20 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
Foreordained before the foundation of the world. What does this verse tell us? It’s quite simple, really. The death of Jesus for the sins of mankind was plotted out before God even created the world. God knew that his command would fall on deaf ears. It seems as though the deck was stacked against us before the game had even started. Seems that Jesus knew this as well:
Matt. 7:14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Few there be that find it. Which brings us back to the question at hand; predestination or freewill? Some have tried to counter this question with an answer something like this, “You have freewill and the ability to exorcise it, God just simply knows the outcome.” To me, this is a complete cop out. If the outcome is already known to God, then freewill is simply an illusion. Your idea of freewill in this instance is nothing short of a Magician’s Choice.
Even Christians seem to get confused in their own jargon. “God gave you freewill,” and in the next few sentences you hear the old phrase, “God has a plan for your life.” These two statements are diametrically opposed to one another. If God has a plan for my life, it would appear that freewill is little solace. Yet, if I have freewill, what good is God’s plan? After all, surely God did not plan for Adam to fall, thus making all of mankind face original sin, thus having to sacrifice himself to himself to appease himself all the while knowing that many of us would not receive salvation, thus damning those souls to eternity in hell, right? Oh, wait. He did plan on that. That’s why Jesus was preordained to die before the world was created. What a loving God!
Okay, this has not much to do with free will, but here’s a thing I never understood.
A Christian friend lost her little daughter to cancer a few years ago. It was quite tragic to see this little girl waste away and die at such a young age. My friend found comfort in the fact that hers was a special child and that’s why God wanted her to be with him. How egotistical is that? God, Almighty, gives you a child. Then he realizes that “Wait a minute… I like this child much better than you. So I’ll take it back.” and kills it(and this child died a slow and painful death) so it can be with him. This is the good and loving god that everyone speaks about? In his infinite wisdom he knew nothing better to do than take this special child away from its parents?
And what does it say about all the other children who don’t die? They’re not all that special?
Drives me nuts every time I think about it.
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Well, in the case of the child it may have to do with free will or the lack thereof. Most certainly this little girl did not exercise free will when she was lying on her death bed.
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Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
This is a nail in their coffin. We are not allowed to know about good and evil?
Of course it’s all in the “interpretation” - and clergy choose to interpret it so glorify a dictator.
If there was a creator, and he wanted us to live according to his will, why not give us clear and precise instructions? Instead we have an old book full of nonsense written by people who believed the earth was flat.
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As far as those writing the Bible believing in a flat earth, Isaiah 40:22 describes God as “He who sits on the circle of the earth…” Medieval man may have believed the earth was flat, but he did so without reading his Bible very carefully.
My boss today had a plan for my life. He wanted me to clean out my in-box, send out ten letters, talk to five people on the phone and pretty much earn the reward of my paycheck. I exercised my freewill and surfed and played games on the internet all day. I could have exercised my freewill and done all that he wanted me to do in my own style and flavor instead, and succeeded in doing his will and exercising my own.
I tend to think of all this in these terms: Predestination refers to the destiny or where my journey would best end. God’s will or plan or purpose for my life is the easiest way to get to that destiny. My freewill is my choice whether to go there at all, or whether to go there on his path, or whether to short circuit it all and do my own thing.
Or as the comic once said: Predestination is where you are when your flight is cancelled.
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So why is it said then that you have to “surrender your will to God…”? Do you still have freewill?
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** There’s always a “third” way **
Xians love to indulge in the fallacy known as ‘false dilemma.’ For example, “Jesus was God or he was insane.” “It’s total free will or predestination.” That’s just BS.
Find a third way — Jesus is a mythical being largely concocted by a small group of radical Jews between about 50 and 100 CE. (This is after all a site called TJM!)
Predestination is a religious doctrine. Causal (or materialist) determinism is a discredited philosophical viewpoint. Indeterminism as part of quantum mechanics is not free will. Free will is another religious doctrine.
To reject “free will” does not amount to an endorsement of predestination or of universal determinism.
Nietzsche rejects the xian doctrine of “free will” since it makes all persons totally responsible for their behavior. The xian god doesn’t care much about those variables over which you have no control: ancestry, DNA weaknesses, place of birth, social status at birth, child abuse, inadequate food, poor education . . . . No one has “free will.”
From this N attacks the rationality of “sin” “guilt” and “punishment.” This accords with N’s view that the criminal, for example, is mentally ill.
The text is “Twilight of the Idols”, The four great errors, The error of free will, sections 7-8. In Kaufmann’s “Portable Nietzsche” pp. 499-501.
You’ll never get a firm grasp of why xianity is a bad religion and a worse philosophy without devoting time to learn about other religions, philosophies, modern science, anthropology . . . worldwide.
bipolar2
copyright asserted 2007
Note on materialism. Indeterminism is an irreducible part of quantum mechanics. “God” does play dice with the universe. Epicurus’ “swerve” was a logical assumption and a fortuitous outcome.
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dbeau,
Not a person here has mentioned the “flat earth” idea in this post at all. However, since you brought it up, I will be more than happy to address it.
Furthermore, there are far more evidences in the bible that the thinking of the time was that the earth was indeed flat, had edges, was held up on pillars, could not be moved, that the sun revolved around the earth (as did the moon) and had four corners. (please reference the following: Isaiah 11:12, Revelation 7:1, Job 38:13, Jeremiah 16:19, Daniel 4:11, Matthew 4:8, Psalm 104:5, Psalm 93:1, 96:10, Ecclesiastes 1:5, Job 9:6, Job 38:4, Job 38:13, Job 37:3, Job 28:24)
bipolar2, thank you for your alternative! Quite happy to see that there are some people that will think outside the box.
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Luci wrote above my post about the Bible written by people who believed the earth was flat. I did not bring it up first.
If the “circle of the earth” means only a flat circle, then why did they use the phrase “four corners” as well? I tend to think much of the writing about the “shape” of the earth in the Bible is “poetic” more than “scientific”.
And there is much documentation in literature during “modern” times of the same “four corners of the earth”, etc, to suggest to those in the future that we believed in a flat earth too.
I suggest somewhat “poetic” language about the earth, whether in ancient manuscripts or modern literature, is no basis for determining this.
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Also, MissPDX asked about “surrendering your will”. I think the person who says you have to give up all of your free will to be a Christian has totally misunderstood the Bible. There are those who are “robots” and many leaders who prefer this, but this is far removed from what I understand Christianity to be. Christianity should never mean surrendering your will to what some human says the Bible said Jesus said God said…
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