Curious what the beliefs are of the Christians here. If it becomes a lengthy discussion thread, then so be it, BUT I'd prefer just a simple emoticon vote.

Predestination: vote with the smiley grin-face emoticon
Free will: vote with the blue question mark emoticon

WCF 3.1

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God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

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Doesn't seem like an either/or to me.

chuckd said:

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WCF 3.1

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God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

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Doesn't seem like an either/or to me.

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That's all semantics. Either God foreknew who would come to know Him or He did not.

Hickory High said:

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chuckd said:

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WCF 3.1

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God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

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Doesn't seem like an either/or to me.

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That's all semantics. Either God foreknew who would come to know Him or He did not.

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He did, "yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."

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Acts 2:22 Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: 23 Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.

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In this passage, we are taught God determined for Jesus to be crucified and the men of Israel carried it out by wicked hands. Predestination and free will are both at work.

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Phil. 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

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In this passage, we are taught God works in us according to his good pleasure, yet charged to work out our salvation. Predestination does not remove free will.

I'm with chuck on this one

chuckd said:

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Hickory High said:

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chuckd said:

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WCF 3.1

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God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

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Doesn't seem like an either/or to me.

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That's all semantics. Either God foreknew who would come to know Him or He did not.

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Predestination does not remove free will.

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I would say that's not truly free will then. Freedom to choose from a predetermined list of options is not truly a "free choice".

"Let me try to put this in a different register. America is the exemplification of what I call the project of modernity. That project is the attempt to produce a people who believe that they should have no story except the story that they choose when they had no story. That is what Americans mean by "freedom." The institutions that constitute the disciplinary forms of that project are liberal democracy and capitalism. Thus the presumption that if you get to choose between a Sony or Panasonic television, you have had a "free choice." The same presumption works for choosing a President. Once you have made your choice you have to learn to live with it. So there is a kind of resignation that freedom requires." -Dr. Stanley Hauerwas

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Of Free Will they teach that man's will has some liberty to choose civil righteousness, and to work things subject to reason. But it has no power, without the Holy Ghost, to work the righteousness of God, that is, spiritual righteousness; since the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, 1 Cor. 2:14; but this righteousness is wrought in the heart when the Holy Ghost is received through the Word. These things are said in as many words by Augustine in his Hypognosticon, Book III: We grant that all men have a free will, free, inasmuch as it has the judgment of reason; not that it is thereby capable, without God, either to begin, or, at least, to complete aught in things pertaining to God, but only in works of this life, whether good or evil. "Good" I call those works which spring from the good in nature, such as, willing to labor in the field, to eat and drink, to have a friend, to clothe oneself, to build a house, to marry a wife, to raise cattle, to learn diverse useful arts, or whatsoever good pertains to this life. For all of these things are not without dependence on the providence of God; yea, of Him and through Him they are and have their being. "Evil" I call such works as willing to worship an idol, to commit murder, etc.They condemn the Pelagians and others, who teach that without the Holy Ghost, by the power of nature alone, we are able to love God above all things; also to do the commandments of God as touching "the substance of the act." For, although nature is able in a manner to do the outward work, (for it is able to keep the hands from theft and murder,) yet it cannot produce the inward motions, such as the fear of God, trust in God, chastity, patience, etc.

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Augsburg Congession, article 18

I believe in predestination, I tried to click the arrow. Since , I am an lolpoor, I don't have stars and can't select the arrow, which means it must be true...

1) foreknowledge does not mean predestination or determination
2) predestination does not mean lack of free will
3) A finite, temporal man does not have the ability to conceptualize an eternal, omniscient, omnipotent God. The existence of such a being is offensive to logic and rationality.

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CCC 600 To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of "predestination", he includes in it each person's free response to his grace: "In this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place." For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness.

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I would say that's not truly free will then. Freedom to choose from a predetermined list of options is not truly a "free choice".

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What's "truly" free? I freely responded to your post. I also believe God ordained it by the mere fact that it happened. The fact that I can't peer into the mind of God before responding to your post does not mean I didn't "truly" will it.

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I freely responded to your post. I also believe God ordained it by the mere fact that it happened. The fact that I can't peer into the mind of God before responding to your post does not mean I didn't "truly" will it.

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You're both defining free will/predestination differently. Yours is perspective-based and his is more global.

I believe that absolute free will doesn't exist, but relative free will does (or the illusion of free will). As in, we don't know if we have free will or not, so we act like we do. To me, this is satisfies the apparent contradiction adequately.

The concept of sin makes no sense without free will.

Free willy!

AstroAg17 said:

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OP made a poll where only people with stars could vote one way.

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What?

he meant to say without stars.

Only subscribers have an arrow.

You should redo the thread in the manner I suggested

swimmerbabe11 said:

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he meant to say without stars.

Only subscribers have an arrow.

You should redo the thread in the manner I suggested

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Oh gosh, I'm a dumb. I'll change it.

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The concept of sin makes no sense without free will.

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This is why we get these complicated statements of faith on the subject. There's serious implications whichever you choose and they try their best to say "it's both" because of them.

I think our actions should dictate a free will model, and our understanding of sin and what to do with it should follow suit. This makes whether things are really as they are described to us less important. The command is clear. Now, one can say "well, God's a liar and I don't want to follow a liar". I can't be upset with that logic if that's one's choice.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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The concept of sin makes no sense without free will.

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The classic example is the judge and the hangman. The judge ordains the execution of a murderer and the hangman carries it out. What if the hangman is the victim's husband and executes the man with resentment in his heart? The judge did not ordain the sin. It sprung from the creature.

If the judge is all-knowing, all-powerful and the Creator the hangman...then your analogy has issues.

diehard03 said:

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If the judge is all-knowing, all-powerful and the Creator the hangman...then your analogy has issues.

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The analogy is used to show how actions are ordained and not sin. The sin originates with the person who willed it. If you take the analogy beyond its intent, it will have issues.

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The analogy is used to show how actions are ordained and not sin. The sin originates with the person who willed it. If you take the analogy beyond its intent, it will have issues

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My point is that the ordination becomes unclear when you put the attributes I have included on it. If a God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and created the being, how does one determine that the resentment wasn't ordained by this God?

Our issue in this is that it's not known whether something is ordained or not.

Predestination is not predetermination

Would you be offended if this became debate thread and we made a new vote thread that is more user friendly?

AstroAg17 said:

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OP made a poll where only people with stars could vote one way.

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You could almost say he predetermined only certain people could vote a certain way.

Edit: Drum beat me to it.

Edit: Frok beat me to it. At least my picture was better.

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Predestination is not predetermination

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Predestination assumes predetermination, but not the reverse. So, for the sake of this discussion, it is.