Predestination and freewill: Are they compatible?

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Predestination and freewill

Are these two concepts logically compatible.
 
Predestination and freewill
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Are these two concepts logically compatible.
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No,
if you think predestination is John Calvin’s version,
God chooses who will be saved and who will be damned and man has no choice in the matter.

But as we discussed on another thread just a few days ago,
predestination refers to God giving every man a head start towards working out his salvation,
through grace, and the Holy Spirit who helps us etc etc etc.
Even so,
man can refuse to accept this head start and damn himself anyways,
but those who are damned were not predestined to it.

The thread was “Aquinas on Predestination”
Here, I bumped that thread up to the top for your convenience.

Who’s your friend, Linux? 😃
 
empther said:
No,
if you think predestination is John Calvin’s version,
God chooses who will be saved and who will be damned and man has no choice in the matter.

But as we discussed on another thread just a few days ago,
predestination refers to God giving every man a head start towards working out his salvation,
through grace, and the Holy Spirit who helps us etc etc etc.
Even so,
man can refuse to accept this head start and damn himself anyways,
but those who are damned were not predestined to it.

The thread was “Aquinas on Predestination”
Here, I bumped that thread up to the top for your convenience.

Who’s your friend, Linux? 😃
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Then why is it called predestination?
 
Then why it is called predestination?
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From Romans 8
  1. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
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  1. “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
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  1. “Moreover** whom he did predestinate, them he also called**; and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”
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Now where does it say God predestined some to be damned? Nowhere. He calls those who have worked to achieve their salvation, whom God knew from eternity.
He does not call those who will be damned.
The damned are not predestined to damnation. This was the understanding of the term by Aquinas and everybody,
until John Calvin gave the term a new meaning.

It is John Calvin’s false interpretation of the term that you’re thinking of now.

“Get over it! Think for yourself.” 😃 I wrote that on the other thread. 👍

I don’t know how to put it in plainer English than that. But I know it won’t be good enough for you. 😦
 
I have a question that seems to only have one answer and I want to know if it is compatible with RC dogma.

If God is all powerful and if he created all that there is and he is omniscient, knowing the end from the beginning; how can it not be said that he predestined some to be saved and some to be condemned? It seems that to say he did not predestine some would necessarily lead to us denying one or more of his essential attributes.

I grant that this is a very broad view of God’s sovereignty, but it is at the core of this issue. Notice that I am not taking God’s love and our will into account; not because I do not believe in them, or that they are not absolutely essential to our faith, but my question needed to be direct.
 
Wouldn’t predestination based on the foreknowledge of God as to who will except him and who will not be one way to explain predestination without taking away a persons freewill ?
 
Linux said:
Predestination and freewill

Are these two concepts logically compatible.
Click to expand...
Sure - it just depends on the perspective you wish to take - the human perspective or God’s perspective…
From God’s perspective - well He knows all the choices we will make so the end is - from His view - preordained.
From the Human perspective - I don’t know the future - I don’t know what decisions or actions I will take and I can choose between various options…Therefore I have free will.

Perfectly compatible.

Peace
James
 
CRCGadfly said:
I have a question that seems to only have one answer and I want to know if it is compatible with RC dogma.

If God is all powerful and if he created all that there is and he is omniscient, knowing the end from the beginning; how can it not be said that he predestined some to be saved and some to be condemned? It seems that to say he did not predestine some would necessarily lead to us denying one or more of his essential attributes.

I grant that this is a very broad view of God’s sovereignty, but it is at the core of this issue. Notice that I am not taking God’s love and our will into account; not because I do not believe in them, or that they are not absolutely essential to our faith, but my question needed to be direct.
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Consider that a God with the attributes you describe can have foreknowledge of every possible outcome of every possible decision made by every human being who had, does or will exist. Now THAT is an Almighty God!!! 👍
By taking this view into account - one can see that God has foreknowledge of who will be saved and who will not - but He does not “predestine” them to hell…
Se what I mean??

Peace
James
 
Hey Linux,
Hopefully i’m not just repeating what everyone has already said, and anyone let me know if this is not consistent with the Church.

As 1st Timothy 2:4 states, God “desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” We are all predestined to heaven, that is God’s plan. However, God gave us freewill, God gave us the ability to choose right or wrong. Because we have free will, we are able to reject God’s plan for our salvation. Just because God knows someone is going to Hell does not mean that he is causing it. If we reject God’s grace, then it is God’s subsequent will that we go to Hell because He respects our free choice. That doesn’t mean that he chooses specific people to go to Hell ( which is the Calvinist idea of double predestination), and of course it doesn’t mean that God wants us to go to there.

Keep in mind that Hell was created for the bad angels who chose themselves instead of God, it was their choice just as it is ours. Also, a good definition of Hell is, “complete union with oneself.” God does not predestine anyone to be in complete union with themselves. We were created for complete union with God. Only our rejection of God’s grace can bring us to Hell, and only our cooperation with His grace can bring us to Heaven.

Check out this episode of Catholic Answers Live, it addresses how predestination and free will are compatible:

catholic.com/radio/shows/are-you-predestined-4713

Hope this helps!
 
Linux said:
Predestination and freewill

Are these two concepts logically compatible.
Click to expand...
I don’t know by what definition of logic you mean, but both concepts are true, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t know if I can say the idea of the Trinity is “logical” but it’s true anyway.
 
Linux said:
Predestination and freewill

Are these two concepts logically compatible.
Click to expand...
Theologians in the Catholic Church have thought about this for hundreds and hundreds of years…so I think the matter is pretty much settled: yes, they are compatible.

And yes, it is an argumentum ad auctoritatem, but a valid one, since in all these centuries they would have found any logical flaw and addressed it, and instead we read wonderful things on our free will and on our predestination, hand in hand.

Then again, who can wrap his mind around omniscience and omnipotence? Because predestination is a result of omniscience, and free will a result of omnipotence. Go figure.
 
CRCGadfly said:
I have a question that seems to only have one answer and I want to know if it is compatible with RC dogma.

If God is all powerful and if he created all that there is and he is omniscient, knowing the end from the beginning; how can it not be said that he predestined some to be saved and some to be condemned? It seems that to say he did not predestine some would necessarily lead to us denying one or more of his essential attributes.

I grant that this is a very broad view of God’s sovereignty, but it is at the core of this issue. Notice that I am not taking God’s love and our will into account; not because I do not believe in them, or that they are not absolutely essential to our faith, but my question needed to be direct.
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Here is an odd analogy that might help:

Think of God as an NFL official who is also a football commentator for ESPN. It is the end of the season, and the Super Bowl is over. God is giving a report on the season in review.

Since all the games have been played, God knows every score, every play, and the outcome of every down. He knows who caught the ball, and who failed to make a tackle. He can analyze every aspect, or watch it in slow motion. God has knowledge of everything that happened that season.

As an NFL official, God also constructed the rules of the game. He picked the people who would officiate, and used the “instant replay” when necessary to overturn a few bad decisions, in order to make sure that the rules that he set came out the way they were intended.

Now, that said, God did not actually interfere in any of the plays, nor did he play the game for the people. Each coach, and player could have made any decision they chose. In a given situation, a quarterback could have opted to run the ball, make a pass, take a knee, or, heaven forbid, even throw the game. God did not make any of these decisions. He granted the players free will to play however they desired. This, however, does not in any way impact the fact that God still knows what happened, since it’s the end of the season, nor does it change the fact that God provided the rules to the game.

Eternity is a difficult concept, and it works a bit like that. Imagine God sitting at the end of time looking back at everything that has happened and knowing the outcome. He was able to construct rules… a plan… but still give us free will. It is a daunting concept to wrap one’s mind around.
 
I am a little rusty on this but does an unsaved person still have the ability to choose properly ? Is his will totally free ? Are we not told we were once slaves to sin ? Can a slave free himself ? Certainly he can be ransomed and receive freedom, but he is not free to free himself.
 
pocohombre said:
I am a little rusty on this but does an unsaved person still have the ability to choose properly ? Is his will totally free ? Are we not told we were once slaves to sin ? Can a slave free himself ? Certainly he can be ransomed and receive freedom, but he is not free to free himself.
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God gives the grace to empower the will to do good. It is Christ who frees us, who frees the will which otherwise could not do good.
 
It depends entirely by what you mean by Predestination and Freewill.

If you take the Catholic Church’s position on Freewill, then it is definitely not compatible with John Calvin’s Calvinism. It doesn’t really appear to be compatible with some versions of Thomism, such as those advocated by John Salza or debated in Fr. Most’s book. If you take predestination according to the thomism of Fr. Most or of Molinism, then yes, they are compatible.
 
R_C said:
Theologians in the Catholic Church have thought about this for hundreds and hundreds of years…so I think the matter is pretty much settled: yes, they are compatible.
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Perhaps you are right, but i don’t see how hundreds of yes of debate and thinking amounts to evidence of a rational solution.
 
JRKH said:
Sure - it just depends on the perspective you wish to take - the human perspective or God’s perspective…
From God’s perspective - well He knows all the choices we will make so the end is - from His view - preordained.
From the Human perspective - I don’t know the future - I don’t know what decisions or actions I will take and I can choose between various options…Therefore I have free will.

Perfectly compatible.

Peace
James
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There are several argument against compatibility of these system of thoughts:
  1. Suffering argument: Why we should be in state of suffering, physical, mental and spiritual if God knows our final destiny. Why doesn’t God create us in the final state of beings, since he knows our final destinations and his love for us beyond imagination.
  2. How could God prove his omniscience?: How God could prove his omniscience to us, without allowing us to be God?
  3. How does God know the result of our decisions?: We are either simple mechanical objects from God point of view or not. By mechanical, I mean that our decisions in all possible situations for all creatures are known by God. We are then reduced to entities that our decisions solely depend on the situations in this point of view and are not responsible for our actions, otherwise our decisions depend on us as well which means that our decision is not determined from God’s point of view, simply we have free will.
 
A weary pilgrim approached the Pearly Gates of Heaven where the sign on the gate read, “Well done, for you have chosen to serve me” (Joshua 24;15). On passing thru the gate on the other side the sign read, “You have been chosen, predestined” (Eph. 1:11).
 
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