Why is predestination wrong

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Because no believer is guaranteed salvation in this life. He has to earn it. *If *it comes, it’ll come on Judgement Day, after he has died and finds himself standing before God. As long as we are alive, we can sin. We can act improperly on our free will, and damn ourselves in the eyes of God. It’s the height of arrogance to believe that we can *sin *and *still *be ‘saved’ in this life, simply because we ‘believe’ or for any other reason. That reduces Christian discipleship to a ‘cake-walk’, and actually mocks it in an egregious way. What we do in this life matters, and if we commit our lives to doing bad things, we will not find salvation in the after-life. Predestination only takes effect as long as we act properly on our free will.:mad:
 
The church does, in a limited way and in the same manner as St Paul, teach that some follow a predestined path to salvation.

One way in which predestination is WAY wrong is when people start talking about ‘negative’ or ‘double’ predestination - the idea that some are predestined to be damned :eek:

which goes flatly against the numerous scripture passages that speak of God desiring the salvation of all and the condemnation of none.
 
KingAlfred said:
Because no believer is guaranteed salvation in this life. He has to earn it. *If *it comes, it’ll come on Judgement Day, after he has died and finds himself standing before God. As long as we are alive, we can sin. We can act improperly on our free will, and damn ourselves in the eyes of God. It’s the height of arrogance to believe that we can *sin *and *still *be ‘saved’ in this life, simply because we ‘believe’ or for any other reason. That reduces Christian discipleship to a ‘cake-walk’, and actually mocks it in an egregious way. What we do in this life matters, and if we commit our lives to doing bad things, we will not find salvation in the after-life. Predestination only takes effect as long as we act properly on our free will.:mad:
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Good point about free will, but you aren’t saying that one earns salvation, are you?
 
No. Nobody ‘earns’ salvation. But as St. James reminds us, “Faith without works is dead”. And God is God of the living.
 
Then how do you interpret these verses:

11for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that (D)God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls,

12it was said to her, “(E)THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.”

13Just as it is written, “(F)JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.”

14(G)What shall we say then? (H)There is no injustice with God, is there? (I)May it never be!

15For He says to Moses, “(J)I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.”

16So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who (K)runs, but on (L)God who has mercy.
 
zhangxupage said:
Then how do you interpret these verses:

11for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that (D)God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls,

12it was said to her, “(E)THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.”

13Just as it is written, “(F)JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.”

14(G)What shall we say then? (H)There is no injustice with God, is there? (I)May it never be!

15For He says to Moses, “(J)I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.”

16So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who (K)runs, but on (L)God who has mercy.
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Let’s see the whole thing, shall we (Romans 9)?
1: I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie; my conscience joins with the holy Spirit in bearing me witness
2: that I have great sorrow and constant anguish in my heart.
3: For I could wish that I myself were accursed and separated from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kin according to the flesh.
4: They are Israelites; theirs the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises;
5: theirs the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, is the Messiah. God who is over all be blessed forever. Amen.
6: But it is not that the word of God has failed. For not all who are of Israel are Israel,
7: nor are they all children of Abraham because they are his descendants; but “It is through Isaac that descendants shall bear your name.”
8: This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.
9: For this is the wording of the promise, “About this time I shall return and Sarah will have a son.”
10: And not only that, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one husband, our father Isaac –
11: before they had yet been born or had done anything, good or bad, in order that God’s elective plan might continue,
12: not by works but by his call–she was told, “The older shall serve the younger.”
13: As it is written: “I loved Jacob but hated Esau.”
14: What then are we to say? Is there injustice on the part of God? Of course not!
15: For he says to Moses: “I will show mercy to whom I will, I will take pity on whom I will.”
16: So it depends not upon a person’s will or exertion, but upon God, who shows mercy.
17: For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “This is why I have raised you up, to show my power through you that my name may be proclaimed throughout the earth.”
18: Consequently, he has mercy upon whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills.
19: You will say to me then, “Why (then) does he still find fault? For who can oppose his will?”
20: But who indeed are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Will what is made say to its maker,“Why have you created me so?”
21: Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for a noble purpose and another for an ignoble one?
22: What if God, wishing to show his wrath and make known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction?
23: This was to make known the riches of his glory to the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared previously for glory,
24: namely, us whom he has called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles.
25: As indeed he says in Hosea: “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’
26: And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they shall be called children of the living God.”
27: And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the Israelites were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant will be saved;
28: for decisively and quickly will the Lord execute sentence upon the earth.”
29: And as Isaiah predicted: “Unless the Lord of hosts had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom and have been made like Gomorrah.”
30: What then shall we say? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have achieved it, that is, righteousness that comes from faith;
31: but that Israel, who pursued the law of righteousness, did not attain to that law?
32: Why not? Because they did it not by faith, but as if it could be done by works. They stumbled over the stone that causes stumbling,
33: as it is written: “Behold, I am laying a stone in Zion that will make people stumble and a rock that will make them fall, and whoever believes in him shall not be put to shame.”
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zhangxupage said:
Then how do you interpret these verses:

11for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that (D)God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls,

12it was said to her, “(E)THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.”

13Just as it is written, “(F)JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.”

14(G)What shall we say then? (H)There is no injustice with God, is there? (I)May it never be!

15For He says to Moses, “(J)I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.”

16So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who (K)runs, but on (L)God who has mercy.
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Though God is soverign and can certainly choose certain individuals for certain purposes (he can harden Pharo’s heat, he can choose Jacob over Esau, he can choose those who will be prophets (his choice, not theirs), in terms of salvation, the general plan of salvation as revealed in the scriptures in unmistakably one of choice (our choosing to respond to God’s grace - his call). We can’t earn salvation through works without faith, but we choose whether to respond to the Holy Spirit - and then, once we have faith, then our works are important (faith without works is dead).

The Hebrew scriptures and New Testament all speak to the voluntary choice of repenting and believing - not a forgone conclusion obviating free will.

Now - there is of course predestination in the sense that God stands outside of time - so to Him, everything happens at once and he knows what we will choose to do. In that way, he preordained since the foundation of the world who would be His and who would be not (but in our linear time line of thinking, it is our choice to choose Him or not).

Blessings,

Brian
 
Robbinson said:
Though God is soverign and can certainly choose certain individuals for certain purposes (he can harden Pharo’s heat, he can choose Jacob over Esau, he can choose those who will be prophets (his choice, not theirs), in terms of salvation, the general plan of salvation as revealed in the scriptures in unmistakably one of choice (our choosing to respond to God’s grace - his call). We can’t earn salvation through works without faith, but we choose whether to respond to the Holy Spirit - and then, once we have faith, then our works are important (faith without works is dead).

The Hebrew scriptures and New Testament all speak to the voluntary choice of repenting and believing - not a forgone conclusion obviating free will.

Now - there is of course predestination in the sense that God stands outside of time - so to Him, everything happens at once and he knows what we will choose to do. In that way, he preordained since the foundation of the world who would be His and who would be not (but in our linear time line of thinking, it is our choice to choose Him or not).

Blessings,

Brian
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Dos he call or give grace to EVERYONE?
 
zhangxupage said:
Dos he call or give grace to EVERYONE?
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I believe that God calls all. Scripture explicitly tells us that he desires that all be saved - thus for this statement to make sense, he must make salvation possible for all. This is consistent with the constant urging in the Hebrew scriptures and New Testament for people to repent and seek God. Sadly, a small percentage will respond to the movement of the Holy Spirit.

Blessings,

Brian
 
Does He call or give grace to everyone?

Yes. He does.

However, some will (freely) choose not to accept the grace at some point–to actively ‘reject’ it.

Now, God does not exist ‘in time’ (Time is a creation. God is a Creator–He does not exist in a creation.)

Some will argue that because God knew “ahead of time” (as they put it) that a given person would reject His grace ‘in the end’, that God thus ‘created’ a person for whom grace was never intended, or that if the person ‘never accepted’ grace, God never gave it. That is false reasoning. The grace is offered; the person rejects. Never is there a case where God ‘never offers’ grace to begin with. Even those righteous who died before Christ’s saving resurrection were, on that resurrection, taken to heaven. They had accepted grace, and thus they received grace at the appointed time.

But again, God exists ‘out of time’. It is never God, it is always the individual person, who has time after time, choice after choice, the opportunity to accept grace. Some never do… .but because it is their free choice. And God has a reason for this ‘happening’ which we cannot see or understand now (since we have only ‘human’ understanding and He has divine understanding.)

Do you remember how Jesus told His disciples that He was going to be crucified and die, and how St. Peter said, “Lord forbid this happen?” Peter was thinking like a human being–and a loving human being at that. . .not wishing His master to suffer, especially unjustly. What did Jesus say? Jesus rebuked St. Peter and told him, “You are thinking as a human being, and not as God thinks.” Obviously Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection were a far greater ‘good’ for humanity that St. Peter would have foreseen (remember, this conversation took place before the resurrection!) but a normal human being would not consider the unjust death of another human being–especially one that he considered sacred, even divine!–to be a ‘good thing’ in the eyes of normal humans.
 
Or to turn the question around:

Can you give an example of a person to whom you can explicitly prove that God did not offer grace to that person?
 
zhangxupage said:
Dos he call or give grace to EVERYONE?
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If my son and daughter are playing in the park with the neighbor kids. I open the door and yell ‘Dinner’s ready’! Do all the children hear my voice? Do all the children respond to my call?

The answer to the first ‘all’ is yes.
The answer to the second ‘all’ is no.

What I have just done is present a simple analogy of the difference between what James Akin writes about in “A TIPTOE THROUGH TULIP” posted on catholic.com.

Sufficient Grace -
Being as much as is needed.

Efficacious Grace-
Producing or capable of producing a desired effect.

The desired effect of me calling my children, and no one else, is that they came home for dinner.

Likewise, isn’t the life\death\resurrection of Jesus known by all the Atheist\Buddist\Hindos\Islamist\Jews?

However, not all men are going to come to a knowledge of Christ. The bible teaches that only a few are. Jesus’ resurrection produced the desired effect within His Family.
 
fewnotmany said:
If my son and daughter are playing in the park with the neighbor kids. I open the door and yell ‘Dinner’s ready’! Do all the children hear my voice? Do all the children respond to my call?

The answer to the first ‘all’ is yes.
The answer to the second ‘all’ is no.

What I have just done is present a simple analogy of the difference between what James Akin writes about in “A TIPTOE THROUGH TULIP” posted on catholic.com.

Sufficient Grace -
Being as much as is needed.

Efficacious Grace-
Producing or capable of producing a desired effect.

The desired effect of me calling my children, and no one else, is that they came home for dinner.

Likewise, isn’t the life\death\resurrection of Jesus known by all the Atheist\Buddist\Hindos\Islamist\Jews?

However, not all men are going to come to a knowledge of Christ. The bible teaches that only a few are. Jesus’ resurrection produced the desired effect within His Family.
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Great analogy!!!
 
Newbie2 said:
Well there ya go…“predestination is not wrong”. I guess all these prayers and such that we’ve been doing all these years were wasted. :rolleyes:
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I’m sure Jay means that that Catholic understanding - as opposed to the Calvinist understanding - of Predestination is not wrong, since Catholicism does teach predestination, but not as Calvin taught it. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange’s explains all. 🙂
 
zhangxupage said:
Why is predestination wrong?
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That’s like asking when Americans came to Earth from Venus - the question assumes the truth of something that has not been shown to be true; that is in fact not true at all. (Though sometimes one wonders…)​

The same applies here. Predestination (of which there are several conceptions) is taught by St.Paul. Even the CC teaches it, as does its theological tradition.

Predestination does not = the doctrine that God predestines (better: pre-ordains) the reprobation of the non-elect by a positive Divine decree. Aquinas held a doctrine of reprobation; it differs from Calvin’s in not being brought about by a positive Divine act. For Calvin, reprobation is (almost) symmetrical with election - they are different aspects of the same Divine action. For Catholic theology they are not symmetrical. That’s the basic difference.
 
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