Pilate's Responsibility

[Sugar_Ray]

In explaining Pilate’s role in Jesus’ death to my 8th grade Religous Ed class one young man asked “but if it was God’s plan all along then it wasn’t Pilate’s fault”

I explained that simply because God knew what was going to happen (what Pilate would do) doesn’t mean God is responsible. Pilate is still responsible for his actions.

They had a tough time grasping this.

Any suggestions on how to explain it more fully?

Thanks in advance

 

[JRKH]

In explaining Pilate’s role in Jesus’ death to my 8th grade Religous Ed class one young man asked “but if it was God’s plan all along then it wasn’t Pilate’s fault”

I explained that simply because God knew what was going to happen (what Pilate would do) doesn’t mean God is responsible. Pilate is still responsible for his actions.

They had a tough time grasping this.

Any suggestions on how to explain it more fully?

Thanks in advance

You’ve bitten into the whole predestination vs free will thing eh?

Well I don’t know if this will help much but it’s like watching two boys getting into an argument on the playgorund. You know there is going to be a fight, and you know you could step in between and stop it but you don’t. Are you responsible because you didn’t stop it or are they still responsible for their actions.

Not a great analogy but the best I can come up with.

James

 

[jmcrae]

You’ve bitten into the whole predestination vs free will thing eh?

Well I don’t know if this will help much but it’s like watching two boys getting into an argument on the playgorund. You know there is going to be a fight, and you know you could step in between and stop it but you don’t. Are you responsible because you didn’t stop it or are they still responsible for their actions.

Not a great analogy but the best I can come up with.

James

I think that’s a good analogy.

Another way to look at it is to think of watching a movie. If you’ve already seen the movie before, then you already know how it ends. The characters in the movie don’t, though, because those events have not yet happened to them, on their time line.

God exists outside of time, so He views time in the same way that we look at a movie. He can rewind it and watch it as many times as He wants to, but we can only experience it once. So, God already knows what decisions we are going to make tomorrow - but we haven’t yet made those decisions - from our point of view, we can still choose other things. The fact that God already knows what our choices will be doesn’t take anything away from our freedom to make that choice.