freeandfun1
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- Feb 14, 2004
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Put into its simplest terms, the predestination mentioned in the New Testament provides much ammunition for controversy and very little for consensus.
St. Augustine, one of the great Church fathers, interpreted it to mean that we are all predestined for salvation through grace.
That concept was turned on its head by Martin Luther, however, the father of the Reformation and the one who unwillingly founded "Protestantism." Luther loved the Catholic Church and never intended to separate from it. He did intend to reform it however when he came to object to a concept that it was the Church and not Christ that was the vehicle through which salvation by grace was obtained.
Grace by definition is a gift from God. It cannot be earned nor merited. You can't work for it. You can't deserve it because we are all sinners. It is a gift from God freely given.
So Luther developed the doctrine of predestination to mean that you can't even ask for grace as that would be 'earning' grace through works rather than as a free gift from God.
Calvin took that doctrine to the extreme. We cannot do anything to achieve grace as it is God's perogative alone. Therefore it is a fact that some will be born predestined for heaven and some predestined for hell which is the core of Calvinist theology.
Those who reject Calivinism--and that would be me--simply cannot reconcile a God we have experienced as love and a God who would allow people to be born knowing they were headed straight for hell. Nor do we believe that we are puppets manipulated by some sadistic being who forces us into unwise choices and suffering.
Without free will there cannot be love. And free will implies choice--choice to choose wisely. Choice to choose badly. Perhaps even choice to choose heaven by allowing God to take us there or refusing that option and therefore choosing hell, whatever that is.
Very good reply. I would only add that people often mistake and confuse "predestination" with "foreknowledge".
He knows what choices we're going to make (even the ultimate choice), but that does not mean he predestines such choices.