Predestination

[Beleg]

Do you believe in predestination?
If yes, why do you believe in it?
Is each and every second of our life pre-arranged and pre-ordained?
If not, then why not?

[omnipotent_elf]

sorry, what is meant by predestination

but i dont believe in fate, if thats what you mean. I believe in choices

[Ciryaher]

I don't believe in predestination. There would be no point to life if we were all machines pre-programmed to do whatever we do. It really doesn't make an ounce of sense to me.

[Maeglin]

I believe whole-heartedly in predestination, God has a plan for everyone. However, I also believe in choices....I think that based on the decisions you make God will choose what to do with you from there, and so on....

[Thorin]

Predestination means that God has already determined who will be saved and who will be lost. Calvin espoused this theory and was condemned by Protestant and Catholic authority alike.

I do not agree with predestination because then we are already playing out a useless charade. Our fate is determined no matter what we do. Kind of like grading on the curve. Even if I live a good life and get in the good books, my fate may be determined to be in hell. This takes away my freedom of choice to make my decision to be saved or lost. It also gives a sense of hopelessness ("Does it really matter what I do or how I live? If God has already condemned me to hell, why bother?")

I do believe in the foreknowledge of God, however. That is, that God knows who will be saved and lost due to the choices we will make. Though some will think that is not much different, it is. It is the reason why God didn't destroy mankind and Satan right from the beginning. Satan's charges against God in front of the angels was that He was unfair and controlling. After Satan was thrown down the angels were watching. Why didn't God destroy Him? He probably knew Satan wouldn't change?

But the heavenly hosts didn't.

They would have seen Satan's charges as true. A vindictive God who destroys His creation but uses His foreknowledge as justification. ZAP! "Don't worry guys, he wasn't going to change anyway." To show that God does give chances and respects free will, He allowed (and allows) sin and mankind to take its course to show the universe that Satan was wrong. Christ even came and died to further prove that.

God knows I'm going to choose X over Y not because He is forcing me to, but because He knows my decisions. The decisions are still mine and I make them according to what I feel. I do not know the future and must live in the present. Therefore, the decisions I make are made with full understanding and responsbility here and now regardless of whether God knows from the start. My freedom of choice is intact.

[reem]

predestination is too stiff a concept. yes i believe in fate, but that's not predestination. fate is when your time and place of death are fixed. when u're date of birth is fixed. if you're to have a horrible desease, or give birth to your children, or the general flow of your life. but God gave us the freedom of choice. if he hadn't then the concept of a fair God would be false. yes God knows everything that has, is and will happen, but that doesn't mean he fixed it. he simply knows the choices we will make, but he didn't 'make' us make them. otherwise he would have been a very cruel God if we're to believe that the sinners go to hell and the do-gooders are sent to heaven, because that would mean the sinners had no choice but to sin. but they do have a choice and that's the whole point. or so i believe because thus i was taught since i was a kid, and it makes pretty good sence to me.
reem

[Bethelarien]

Abraham 3:22-23

22 Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the aintelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones;
23 And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born.

Abraham was chosen, and predestined, before the world was. God has a plan for each of us. Therefore all of us are predestined to do great things.

[Beleg]

Therefore all of us are predestined to do great things.

So those people who commit rape or assasinations and go to the gallows for them, do they also perform great things?

[Bethelarien]

Just because we are predestined to do something does not mean that we do it.

God gave us agency. So even though he has planned great things for all of us, it is ultimately our choice what we do.

But I suppose it depends on your definition of predestination.