How does the Presbyterian idea of the "Elect" make sense?

[Aslieas]

Hello,

In a discussion with a Presbyterian friend of mine, she provided me with her article of faith so that I could better understand her religious points of view, and Presbyterianism. The article she provided me with is called “Westminster Confession,” which she said pretty much summed up the information in her Catechism as a profession of faith.

Unfortunately, I became more confused about Presbyterianism through reading this article than I was before.

My friend (and the article) explained that in her belief, God knows who will come to Heaven and who will go to Hell before they are even born, and that salvation only comes to the “Elect.” She said that the people who are not Elect will never go to Heaven because God’s grace through the Holy Spirit will never come to them. So, In a nutshell, if you are destined to be saved by God’s grace (if you are Elect) then you will go to Heaven. This is something you are fated to before you are even born. But some are destined not to be saved by Christ and will go to Hell. Heaven being a place for those whose sins have been taken away, i.e. the Elect. Hell being a place of punishment for sin.

So, here is my proposition and my question. If something is chosen for you before you are born, if it is how you are going to be (call it fate or destiny if you wish), then that is not something that you can ever change. You have absolutely no control over it. If I am not of the Elect, because at the beginning of time God decided He does not want me in Heaven, then nothing I can do or believe or feel or think or pray will ever change that.
So if I can’t do anything to change myself, then how can I be held accountable for myself? It was something chosen for me, without me having any sway.
How does Presbyterianism believe that Heaven and Hell are places of eternal reward and punishment, if no one can properly be held accountable for themselves?

 

[Thomas63116]

I’ll leave it up to some of our Presbetyrian friends on this board to explain their understanding of the concept of “The Elect” as it pertains to the Westminster Confession.

But the larger question you raise is hardly limited to Presbyterians, namely how do we reconclie God’s omniscience and omnipotence with human free will? If God knows all that we will do before we do it (really before we even exisit), then how can we really be free to choose what we choose?

 

[Aslieas]

I’m sorry to disappoint, but I am not in this thread to discuss whether omniscience or omnipotence amount to being “destined” or “fated” for a particular outcome.

While it is interesting, it is too far from the intent of this thread for me to follow it here.

 

[Aslieas]

Let me refine my last post:

The question that I am raising for Presbyterians is in regards to the idea that God chose who he will take into Heaven and who will go to Hell at the beginning of time.

The reason that your question regarding omniscience and omnipotence is not something I want to address, is because it does not explicitly mean that God chose what actions he knows you will take, it just means he knows them. It’s a different sort of question, and it is very broad, and I am not willing to get into that argument here.

 

[SyCarl]

The terms elect and predestined are biblical. Those who are elect being those predestined to salvation. The question is what exactly is meant by these terms. The Westminster Confession of Faith, based on Calvinism, is a subordinate standard of Presbyterian Churches. Calvin relied greatly on Augustine. One of his statements on predestination is:

These are the great works of the Lord, sought out according to all His pleasure, and so wisely sought out, that when the intelligent creation, both angelic and human, sinned, doing not His will but their own, He used the very will of the creature which was working in opposition to the Creator’s will as an instrument for carrying out His will, the supremely Good thus turning to good account even what is evil, to the condemnation of those whom in His justice He has predestined to punishment, and to the salvation of those whom in His mercy He has predestined to grace. .-Augustine (The Enchiridion, Chapter 100)

newadvent.org/fathers/1302.htm

I would suggest reading Augustine’s On the Predestination of the Saints, where he argues that God predestines people not on what He foreknows they will do but on what He foreknows He will cause them to do.

I would also suggest Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, Part 1, Question 23 where he sets out his views on election and predestination including how freewill operates when God has chosen according to His own will.

Differing from Aquinas’ view is the Molinist view of how God’s omniscience and man’s freewill relate.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

The terms elect and predestined are biblical.

And the Bible is full of both. So is the natural world: “Anthropoids have I loved, but the saurians have I hated”. Or even, “Earth have I loved, but Antares & Rigel have I hated”. From one POV, “nature” is prodigiously “wasteful”. Election & predestination are indissolubly related, not only together, but also to anything claiming to be Christian doctrine.​

The question is - how far is this to be taken ? Can one rightly say that God “might not have” created at all ? Once there is creation, there is a choice of alternatives; so, does a doctrine of election not perhaps imply that God is subject to some kind of necessity, like Homer’s Zeus ? Just wondering aloud. Or does this seem so, only because of the limitations of thought & language ?

 

[Aslieas]

God predestines people not on what He foreknows they will do but on what He foreknows He will cause them to do.

So then you are saying that to be “predestined” is to have certain things happen to you that God chose to happen to you at the beginning of time. You are not saying that every event or decision in a person’s life is laid out ahead of them, and they simply follow the act. Am I correct in this? Is this what you were saying?

I haven’t read those documents yet, but I will. I just want to understand what you have to say about it first.

I am not sure that this entirely clears up my dilemma. The idea that one is predestined for Heaven or Hell seems to be an obstacle against Heaven and Hell existing, or at least operating in the way that my Presbyterian friend agreed that they do.

 

[NDfan]

So then you are saying that to be “predestined” is to have certain things happen to you that God chose to happen to you at the beginning of time. You are not saying that every event or decision in a person’s life is laid out ahead of them, and they simply follow the act. Am I correct in this? Is this what you were saying?

I haven’t read those documents yet, but I will. I just want to understand what you have to say about it first.

I am not sure that this entirely clears up my dilemma. The idea that one is predestined for Heaven or Hell seems to be an obstacle against Heaven and Hell existing, or at least operating in the way that my Presbyterian friend agreed that they do.

Aslieas I’m not a presbyterian but I have a presbyterian family. My father-in-law was an elder for their church in PA. The claim is followed by the notion of efficacious grace. Presbyterians believe that man is so dead to the spirit of GOD that they cannot do anything to even recognize who GOD is much less even profess a faith in Christ. Predestination is GOD’s sovereign involvement in things before they happen. It’s doesn’t mean getting hit by a bus today at 3pm means GOD willed it ahead of time. It’s more related to GOD’s selection of certain people ahead of time for salvation.

This goes to the heart of the grace alone doctrine which states that GOD first takes action to regenerate you spiritually. Or to awaken you spiritually. Once this happens you then cooperate with HIS plan of salvation. Free will is out of the equation initially as the teaching of efficacious grace states that the infusion of the Holy Spirit, for lack of a better way to state it, is so powerful that you cannot resist. Some Presbyterians, Baptists, and Non-denoms have taken it a step further to now include this OSAS doctrine. Once saved always saved. Which states that it’s impossible for you to lose your salvation once granted by the grace of GOD. Not all presbyterians believe this as SyCarl will attest to.

If you study the Methodist movement they countered the notion of efficacious grace with the doctrine of prevenient grace. Prevenient grace was also taught by Augustine and the Arminians. The doctrine basically states that GOD spiritually re-generates everyone. But once this re-generation happens you have to exercise free will and choose to follow Christ. Not everyone will do that but everyone gets a fair shot per se.

The presbyterian view is that GOD chooses only certain people that will be saved called the elect. The Arminians have a big problem with this because it implies that GOD will not give everyone a fair chance to choose HIM. Presbyterians will argue that GOD already knows who will choose him and they are the ones he awakens spiritually.

If you read Romans Paul uses the term elect a lot to refer to what appears to be GOD’s chosen people. Also in John chapter 6 verse 65 Christ states “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.

Predestination is not an obstacle for the existence of Heaven and Hell. Hell is the absence of GOD and Heaven is to be with GOD. You still have to go somewhere right? Predestination just means that GOD already knows where you are going. Wouldn’t HE have to know this to be an Omniscient GOD?

Anyway hope this helps.

 

[Aslieas]

Predestination is GOD’s sovereign involvement in things before they happen. It’s doesn’t mean getting hit by a bus today at 3pm means GOD willed it ahead of time. It’s more related to GOD’s selection of certain people ahead of time for salvation.

That’s actually something that I did understand, though it is not within my own perspective. Your post was very helpful to me, though these few things are still problematic. (Problematic because I can’t make sense of them, for reasons I will name below.)

The presbyterian view is that GOD chooses only certain people that will be saved called the elect. The Arminians have a big problem with this because it implies that GOD will not give everyone a fair chance to choose HIM. Presbyterians will argue that GOD already knows who will choose him and they are the ones he awakens spiritually.

My friend mentioned that. It’s a foreign concept to me, but so far it makes sense. However, it still brings up a pretty large conflict for my understanding. I’ll try to show you why.

Free will is out of the equation initially as the teaching of efficacious grace states that the infusion of the Holy Spirit, for lack of a better way to state it, is so powerful that you cannot resist.

If the infusion of the Holy Spirit is something that one cannot resist, then why would God be concerned with who will choose Him?

It seems more reasonable that God could more simply (and more directly) do one of three things:

1. Decide to “choose” everyone at the beginning, since everyone will have faith and be irresistibly drawn to Him.
2. Not bother to “choose” anyone at the beginning of time, for the similar reason that He can simply grant them this faith through grace sometime in their lives (since no one of them can resist Him anyway)
3. Give us free will, which creates more of a reason to have a conscience (which the Presbyterian church teaches we have), and let us come to Him through some other grace.

While your post did help me understand more about Presbyterianism in general, it doesn’t clear up the issue of how people can be held accountable (put in a place of punishment or reward) for their actions, if their actions are caused by the choices of God.

P.S. Something aside from my actual issues is this: Where is the verse that you mentioned in John? I have never heard it translated that way. It would be interesting to take a look at that and perhaps cross-reference.

 

[NDfan]

If the infusion of the Holy Spirit is something that one cannot resist, then why would God be concerned with who will choose Him?

Well that’s a great question. Infusing someone with the Holy Spirit will not necessarily force you to choose GOD. It just means that you are awakened per se to HIM. You still have to exercise free will from the point of regeneration to cooperate with GOD.

It seems more reasonable that God could more simply (and more directly) do one of three things:

1. Decide to “choose” everyone at the beginning, since everyone will have faith and be irresistibly drawn to Him.

Yes but then is that allowing you to exercise free will to actually choose GOD? Remember GOD wants a real relationship with us not one that is forced. Compare it to a pre-arranged marriage. Is the love really there if it’s not your choice?

1. Not bother to “choose” anyone at the beginning of time, for the similar reason that He can simply grant them this faith through grace sometime in their lives (since no one of them can resist Him anyway)

Yes but again compared to #1 GOD would still be forcing a relationship instead of letting us choose one.

1. Give us free will, which creates more of a reason to have a conscience (which the Presbyterian church teaches we have), and let us come to Him through some other grace.

Well the preaching of the Presbyterian church does say you have free will. But the issue is around the belief of what type of state you are born in. The belief is you are born so spiritually dead your free will cannot choose GOD. GOD needs to spiritually re-generate you first so then you can choose HIM. Keep in mind no one is dismissing free will. It’s just free will is initially out of the equation when GOD infuses you with the Holy Spirit.

While your post did help me understand more about Presbyterianism in general, it doesn’t clear up the issue of how people can be held accountable (put in a place of punishment or reward) for their actions, if their actions are caused by the choices of God.

Well I think you may be a little confused here. Again Presbyterians don’t believe GOD is the cause of all actions. GOD will intervene in our lives which is something everyone believes. But GOD does not cause us to commit murder, rape, adultery etc. etc. This is still accomplished through our free will.

P.S. Something aside from my actual issues is this: Where is the verse that you mentioned in John? I have never heard it translated that way. It would be interesting to take a look at that and perhaps cross-reference.

Yes John 6 verse 65. Also verse 37, and verse 39.

These are ESV renderings:

37: All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

39: And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

65:And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

These are NLT renderings:

37: However, those the Father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them.

39: And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them up at the last day.

65 Then he said, “That is why I said that people can’t come to me unless the Father gives them to me.”

These are NAB renderings:

37: Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me

39: And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it (on) the last day.

65: And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”

These are Douay Rheims renderings:

37: All that the Father giveth to me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me, I will not cast out.

39: Now this is the will of the Father who sent me: that of all that he hath given me, I should lose nothing; but should raise it up again in the last day.

In the DR Bible it is verse 66: And he said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father.

As you can see the overall theme here in all versions is that Christ seems to imply we don’t go to HIM unless GOD sends us or unless GOD gives it to Christ. It’s interesting.

PEACE

 

[Contarini]

My friend (and the article) explained that in her belief, God knows who will come to Heaven and who will go to Hell before they are even born,

Nearly everyone believes that. Do you think God doesn’t have foreknowlege? It’s true that some modern Christians deny universal foreknowledge, but they are in clear disagreement with all traditional forms of Christianity.

and that salvation only comes to the “Elect.”

Again, that’s not controversial. It’s a tautology (i.e., by definition the elect are those whom God has chosen to be saved). The question is whether election is based on foreknowledge. Most of the great Western Catholic theologians have agreed with the Calvinists (i.e., Presbyterians etc.) that it is not. However, Catholicism refuses to draw the apparently logical conclusion that reprobation (i.e., God’s choice to reject certain people) is also independent of foreknowledge. And in modern times more and more Catholics have based predestination on foreknowledge, to the point that many folks like you think that this is *the *Catholic position.

She said that the people who are not Elect will never go to Heaven

Again, that’s a tautology.

because God’s grace through the Holy Spirit will never come to them. So, In a nutshell, if you are destined to be saved by God’s grace (if you are Elect) then you will go to Heaven. This is something you are fated to before you are even born. But some are destined not to be saved by Christ and will go to Hell. Heaven being a place for those whose sins have been taken away, i.e. the Elect. Hell being a place of punishment for sin.

So, here is my proposition and my question. If something is chosen for you before you are born, if it is how you are going to be (call it fate or destiny if you wish), then that is not something that you can ever change. You have absolutely no control over it.

Not if what God has decreed is your very free choice. If you choose to eat potatoes for dinner this evening, then (according to Catholic theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas) then obviously God knew from all eternity that you would do so. And if Aquinas is right, God’s knowledge is causative. By knowing that you will do this, God causes you to do it, but does not violate your free will at all, because what He knows/causes is a free choice.

The problem with Aquinas’s view is that he has trouble explaining (in my opinion) how this doesn’t make God also the cause of evil actions. But I don’t have a problem with the paradoxical claim that God can effectively cause us to act freely. It seems naive and odd to assume that God’s action within us is the same kind of action as our influence/control over other things and people. It seems quite likely that the one who created us and causes our existence in every moment might be able to cause us to act freely. The main evidence that he doesn’t do so is the fact that people choose evil.

If I am not of the Elect, because at the beginning of time God decided He does not want me in Heaven, then nothing I can do or believe or feel or think or pray will ever change that.

Or rather, if God has not chosen you, then you will not do or believe or feel or think or pray any of the things that will change that.

In other words, if you repent and believe you will be saved. If God has not chosen you, you won’t repent and believe. So in that sense it is up to you. If you repent and believe, then obviously God chose to cause you to do that.

Again, at this level of the argument your objection applies to Augustine and Thomas Aquinas just as much as to the Westminster Confession.

Edwin

 

[spoiltvictorian]

What’s the CCC say about predestination and free will?

 

[Contarini]

Let me refine my last post:

The question that I am raising for Presbyterians is in regards to the idea that God chose who he will take into Heaven and who will go to Hell at the beginning of time.

The reason that your question regarding omniscience and omnipotence is not something I want to address, is because it does not explicitly mean that God chose what actions he knows you will take, it just means he knows them. It’s a different sort of question, and it is very broad, and I am not willing to get into that argument here.

But I don’t think you can separate them like this. What you think about predestination will depend in large measure on what you think about omniscience and omnipotence.

Just how does God know the future choices of free beings? Aquinas says that it’s because His knowledge causes things to exist (which Aquinas thinks does not violate free will). Molina argued that God has “middle knowledge” by which He knows what potential beings would do in any set of hypothetical circumstances. This is an appealing concept but raises all sorts of philosophical difficulties. Some argue for “simple foreknowledge,” by which God knows only what free beings will actually do. Others (the “open theists” who are a major presence in the evangelical Protestant theological scene right now) argue that by definition the future choices of free beings are unknowable because they don’t exist yet, so God can be omniscient even though He doesn’t know them.

Where you stand on this is going to shape how you think about predestination. If you aren’t sure (I’m not quite sure, and I’ve given a good bit of thought to this), then that should affect the certainty with which you endorse or denounce certain views of predestination.

Of course you can start from the other end–from the principle that God wants all to be saved and genuinely offers grace to all. But you didn’t do that. You made philosophical claims, and now you seem to be wanting to shut off discussion of their implications.

Edwin

 

[SedesDomi]

Whatever the present-day Presbyterian churches might teach on God simply knowing (via foreknowledge) whether someone will choose salvation or not, it is clear the Calvin himself explicitly denied that predestination was simply a result of foreknowledge and affirmed that predestination was just that: God pre-destining someone for either election or reprobation.

Personally, I believe in predestination of both the elect and reprobate, with the former class being of infinite number and the latter class being null and void of numeration. So, I consider myself a Calvinist of the Universalist variety.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

That’s actually something that I did understand, though it is not within my own perspective. Your post was very helpful to me, though these few things are still problematic. (Problematic because I can’t make sense of them, for reasons I will name below.)

My friend mentioned that. It’s a foreign concept to me, but so far it makes sense. However, it still brings up a pretty large conflict for my understanding. I’ll try to show you why.

If the infusion of the Holy Spirit is something that one cannot resist, then why would God be concerned with who will choose Him?

It seems more reasonable that God could more simply (and more directly) do one of three things:

1. Decide to “choose” everyone at the beginning, since everyone will have faith and be irresistibly drawn to Him.
2. Not bother to “choose” anyone at the beginning of time, for the similar reason that He can simply grant them this faith through grace sometime in their lives (since no one of them can resist Him anyway)
3. Give us free will, which creates more of a reason to have a conscience (which the Presbyterian church teaches we have), and let us come to Him through some other grace.

While your post did help me understand more about Presbyterianism in general, it doesn’t clear up the issue of how people can be held accountable (put in a place of punishment or reward) for their actions, if their actions are caused by the choices of God.

P.S. Something aside from my actual issues is this: Where is the verse that you mentioned in John? I have never heard it translated that way. It would be interesting to take a look at that and perhaps cross-reference.

I’m not a Calvinist - however:​

God’s Grace is called “irresistible”, because no obstacle can, in the end, prevail against it. He is more than able to turn obstacles to its working into means of its working. Saul the persecutor did not seek to be converted to Christ: far from it - he “breathed threats and slaughter” (he had already been a party to the death of Stephen) against the church in Damascus, & set out to go there, to destroy it; but his original purpose was turned into the means of his conversion, for that was what God intended to do with Him. So Saul’s hatred of the Name he persecuted so bitterly
was made the means by which he was made one of its most outstanding servants.

That is irresistible grace in action: & it has to be irresistible, if God is to be gracious to men despite the greatest efforts that they, other men, or the devil, or all three together make against it. If God’s Word is to go forth and accomplish all His Will and not return empty, it has to be irresistible. If anything in this world is certain, it is that this Word is opposed and rejected - & is God to sit down & fold His hands & let Himself & His Purpose be overcome ? Where in the Bible or in human nature is there any hint that man seeks to be converted ? He doesn’t - for he can’t; if he could, that would mean that man does God the favour of seeking to be converted before God puts it in his heart to “repent and [to] believe the Gospel”. Men are not forced to be converted - God works “within” & through their rebelliousness & their unconverted hearts, & makes them willing to be converted, despite all that they can oppose to Him.

As for men’s actions & responsibility: the universally active causality of God the Cause of causes is not one cause among others, but transcends and “contains” & creates & energises them all, each in its own mode & according to its capacities - it is not one of them. IOW, there are created, non-transcendent causes, of many & very varied kinds. So, the activity of an acorn in growing into an oak is caused, by God - but, in a way that fully involves the life that is in the acorn. God is not a substitute for natural or other created processes; on the contrary - they are real & effective, not because God replaces or does away with or “swamps” them, but because He does nothing of the kind: instead, He gives them being and efficacy and fruitfulness & maintains them.

Just as He does not replace natural processes, neither does He replace in man what is proper to man. Such as the perception, however dim, of a difference between good & evil. Man was made a responsible being - he remains one. Sin does not & cannot alter this. God works in & upon men in countless ways - but this does not shift the responsibility of the being on whom He works. Sinful man is in a very sorry state - but he remains man; he does not cease to exist. He is still a creature, still able to perceive some sort of difference between good & evil, still able, however cloudily, to know that he is a wrongdoer, & that he cannot honestly shift the burden of responsibility. What he can in no way do is heal the problem.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Nearly everyone believes that. Do you think God doesn’t have foreknowlege? It’s true that some modern Christians deny universal foreknowledge, but they are in clear disagreement with all traditional forms of Christianity.

Again, that’s not controversial. It’s a tautology (i.e., by definition the elect are those whom God has chosen to be saved). The question is whether election is based on foreknowledge. Most of the great Western Catholic theologians have agreed with the Calvinists (i.e., Presbyterians etc.) that it is not. However, Catholicism refuses to draw the apparently logical conclusion that reprobation (i.e., God’s choice to reject certain people) is also independent of foreknowledge. And in modern times more and more Catholics have based predestination on foreknowledge, to the point that many folks like you think that this is *the *Catholic position.

Again, that’s a tautology.

Not if what God has decreed is your very free choice. If you choose to eat potatoes for dinner this evening, then (according to Catholic theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas) then obviously God knew from all eternity that you would do so. And if Aquinas is right, God’s knowledge is causative. By knowing that you will do this, God causes you to do it, but does not violate your free will at all, because what He knows/causes is a free choice.

The problem with Aquinas’s view is that he has trouble explaining (in my opinion) how this doesn’t make God also the cause of evil actions.

A few thoughts on this :​

Good & evil are not comparable entities - for one has being, but the other has no being at all; it is not an entity. So evil can’t be caused by God, because there is “no thing” to be caused. Evil (to steal a thought from C.S. Lewis ) is “unbeing”. It isn’t anything, so it can’t really be discussed - unicorns have being, in their way, but evil does not. I think it was also Lewis who suggested that evil is like a minus number on a graph - it’s not like a positive integer.

Evil is not an absence of existence, in the way that a unicorn is absent from the Primary World we live in, when (presumably) a unicorn could in principle exist in the PW, even though no such being ever has - the lack of being of evil is not the sort of lack of being of a thing “could have been” created, but has not been. IMHO evil “is” a mis-relation between entities; Aquinas has a lot to say about relations.

Is evil like a black hole ? Maybe part of the trouble is in finding out how to talk about it.

Isaiah 45.7 & similar passages are not - AFAICS - against this, because they are not discussing metaphysics, but asserting Divine Providence & its universality: even evil is not “beyond” God’s Providence; He is in absolute charge of everything, without exception.

But I don’t have a problem with the paradoxical claim that God can effectively cause us to act freely. It seems naive and odd to assume that God’s action within us is the same kind of action as our influence/control over other things and people. It seems quite likely that the one who created us and causes our existence in every moment might be able to cause us to act freely. The main evidence that he doesn’t do so is the fact that people choose evil.

Or rather, if God has not chosen you, then you will not do or believe or feel or think or pray any of the things that will change that.

In other words, if you repent and believe you will be saved. If God has not chosen you, you won’t repent and believe. So in that sense it is up to you. If you repent and believe, then obviously God chose to cause you to do that.

Again, at this level of the argument your objection applies to Augustine and Thomas Aquinas just as much as to the Westminster Confession.

Edwin

 

[Aslieas]

Well that’s a great question. Infusing someone with the Holy Spirit will not necessarily force you to choose GOD. It just means that you are awakened per se to HIM. You still have to exercise free will from the point of regeneration to cooperate with GOD.

So, from the point of regeneration we are able to exercise our free will? I have a feeling I am interpreting that incorrectly, so if I am just tell me.

Well the preaching of the Presbyterian church does say you have free will. But the issue is around the belief of what type of state you are born in. The belief is you are born so spiritually dead your free will cannot choose GOD. GOD needs to spiritually re-generate you first so then you can choose HIM.

Thank you! That was a very helpful thing for you to tell me. If I understand the perspective something is coming from, I can better understand the reasons for believing it.

Well I think you may be a little confused here. Again Presbyterians don’t believe GOD is the cause of all actions. GOD will intervene in our lives which is something everyone believes. But GOD does not cause us to commit murder, rape, adultery etc. etc. This is still accomplished through our free will.

No, I’m not confused here. I just didn’t articulate my thoughts well enough, and I confused you. I already understood this (actually, I understood this before I started the thread). What I meant to say, and should have said, goes something like this:

If accepting/embracing/following God is what one must do to go to Heaven, but there are some who never have that opportunity because the grace/awakening is not granted to them, then why should they go to Hell? Obviously, if God knows you won’t choose Him, then it’s true (because God couldn’t know something to be true if it wasn’t true). What I don’t understand is, why would that grace/awakening not be granted to everyone regardless of this truth? If it’s true I shall fail, then I shall fail, but failing without the opportunity to succeed is like failing falsely.

As you can see the overall theme here in all versions is that Christ seems to imply we don’t go to HIM unless GOD sends us or unless GOD gives it to Christ. It’s interesting.

Yes, it is interesting! And thank you for putting these references here on the thread. I have had a hectic week, and haven’t been able to attend to the thread or this argument at all until today.

I appreciate the way you are explaining these things. You are being very patient with me.

 

[Aslieas]

Nearly everyone believes that. Do you think God doesn’t have foreknowlege? It’s true that some modern Christians deny universal foreknowledge, but they are in clear disagreement with all traditional forms of Christianity.

Again, that’s not controversial. It’s a tautology (i.e., by definition the elect are those whom God has chosen to be saved). The question is whether election is based on foreknowledge. Most of the great Western Catholic theologians have agreed with the Calvinists (i.e., Presbyterians etc.) that it is not. However, Catholicism refuses to draw the apparently logical conclusion that reprobation (i.e., God’s choice to reject certain people) is also independent of foreknowledge. And in modern times more and more Catholics have based predestination on foreknowledge, to the point that many folks like you think that this is *the *Catholic position.

Again, that’s a tautology.

All three of these replies to my initial post were unhelpful. What you are replying to is not my question, nor is it anything I am presenting a problem with. I was letting everyone know the background knowledge that I have on the subject, before asking my question. Again, I have nothing against this information I got from my friend. I was simply informing readers what my limited knowledge of Presbyterianism consisted of. Thank you for trying to help, but this part of your post doesn’t really.

And in modern times more and more Catholics have based predestination on foreknowledge, to the point that many folks like you think that this is *the *Catholic position.

I’m not sure why you think this is what I believe. I haven’t said anything either way about my views on predestination, foreknowledge, omniscience, or omnipotence. Can you tell me why you think this?

 

[Aslieas]

Or rather, if God has not chosen you, then you will not do or believe or feel or think or pray any of the things that will change that.

In other words, if you repent and believe you will be saved. If God has not chosen you, you won’t repent and believe. So in that sense it is up to you. If you repent and believe, then obviously God chose to cause you to do that.

Thank you, that is useful for me to keep in mind when I think about the Presbyterian perspective.

Again, at this level of the argument your objection applies to Augustine and Thomas Aquinas just as much as to the Westminster Confession.

So many people on this thread seem to expect me to approach this as a philosopher. I may philosophize, but I am not a philosopher and I never want to be one. The circulars and formal arguments and word nit-picking is too irritating to me. But thank you for pointing this out, because now I have more references to use if I ever get the urge to try and reason predestination out for myself. That would be very unlikely, but thank you just the same.

 

[Aslieas]

But I don’t think you can separate them like this. What you think about predestination will depend in large measure on what you think about omniscience and omnipotence.

Just how does God know the future choices of free beings? Aquinas says that it’s because His knowledge causes things to exist (which Aquinas thinks does not violate free will). Molina argued that God has “middle knowledge” by which He knows what potential beings would do in any set of hypothetical circumstances. This is an appealing concept but raises all sorts of philosophical difficulties. Some argue for “simple foreknowledge,” by which God knows only what free beings will actually do. Others (the “open theists” who are a major presence in the evangelical Protestant theological scene right now) argue that by definition the future choices of free beings are unknowable because they don’t exist yet, so God can be omniscient even though He doesn’t know them.

Where you stand on this is going to shape how you think about predestination. If you aren’t sure (I’m not quite sure, and I’ve given a good bit of thought to this), then that should affect the certainty with which you endorse or denounce certain views of predestination.

Good point, it will shape how I think about other views, because it would be a bias. Do you think I can learn what a view is, down to every detail, regardless of that bias? I do. My bias may keep me from agreeing, but it won’t keep me from understanding if I ask the right questions and hold the appropriate perspective when I get the answers.

What do I think about how God’s foreknowledge? I suspect that God knows all that can be known (and if something is not true, God wouldn’t know it as true), and that God has this knowledge of all of time. I don’t think that God’s knowing something will happen makes it happen, but it will or God wouldn’t know it as true. Does that answer your question?

Of course you can start from the other end–from the principle that God wants all to be saved and genuinely offers grace to all. But you didn’t do that. You made philosophical claims, and now you seem to be wanting to shut off discussion of their implications.

Edwin

What claims? I have to say, you surprised me with this one.