PREDESTINATION IN SHORT

PREDESTINATION IN SHORT

Virgil Warren, PhD

Choice, act, consequence (free vs. fixed)

1.     The choice itself is free, but the act is not necessarily free.

2.     The act may be free, but the consequences are fixed.

Permeable, semi-permeable, impermeable

A.   We choose our thought (permeable limit), but God may intervene between our choice and its fulfillment (semi-permeable; Abraham’s choice to sacrifice Isaac).

B.    We may fulfill our chosen act, but God determines the consequences (impermeable).

The principle is true for individual acts, the sum total of life, and the whole of history.

            The broad-arrow idea is that we have power to choose (freedom; cp. freedom to eat from any tree in the Garden), but there is a limit to our freedom of choice (determinism; cp. we cannot eat of “the tree of knowledge”). We cannot choose not to flow with the progress of time; we cannot choose to head in whatever direction we want or move beyond the set limit.

Nature

Revelation

Intervention

            Predestination has to do with what destinies there are, rather than who is going to choose one destiny or another. Predestination has to do with what destinies there are, more than who is going to one destiny of another.

EXAMPLE: We can choose what plane to get on, but we cannot choose where it is going. We cannot say, “This looks like a prettier plane; it is bigger and will have an easier ride; it has more amenities; we do not have to wear seat belts on this plane; the seats are more comfortable; etc.”

                           We can choose what destiny we want, and then do the things appropriate to that destiny, but we cannot choose the destiny and then choose whatever acts we want to do on the way there (“knowing good and evil”). We need to conform to second Adam (1 Corinthians 15:22, 45), not first Adam.

             Good and bad are always determined by purpose.

                           It is obvious that we do not determine our own ultimate purpose (meaning) because we die. We choose only whether we are going to conform to the behavior appropriate to that given purpose—only whether we are going to “conform to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29).

Romans 1

            We want to harness God and make him like four-footed beasts (cp. Genesis 1:1: “more subtle than all the creatures of the field”). We recognize our own weaknesses, and we want the strength of a horse. So, we worship false gods and try to replace the glorious God with the likeness of corruptible man, beasts, etc. We do it to tame and harness for ourselves the power that is greater than ourselves so we can achieve the security and meaning we want (but love and innocence is lost).

            In this scenario, we try to determine good and evil by choosing our purpose for ourselves. But we die. (We are put out of the Garden and cut off from the tree of life.) Death is the inescapable reality and boundary which shows that we do not have that ability or right: we do not choose our own destiny, fate, or purpose. We cannot decide what is good or evil for ourselves.

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