Are we Predestined?

[TedT]

God does not infringe on the choice that our first parents made. The effects of that choice puts us where we are now.

Doug

So HE manifested HIS perfect love for us by putting us under the effects of their choice to sin before we were even created....but that does not infringe our free will, sigh.

 

[TibiasDad]

So HE manifested HIS perfect love for us by putting us under the effects of their choice to sin before we were even created....

God did not put humanity under the effects of sin, the first human did. Think of it as a flaw in the spiritual DNA. Every person born of Adam inherits that flaw that separates us from God. We will all sin at some point, we are all self-centered creatures from birth and that will show itself in time.

but that does not infringe our free will, sigh.

How are we infringed? God does not make us do anything; we do whatever we want to do. He doesn’t ultimately infringe upon our freedom, but allows us to accept or reject his authority and desires for us.


Doug

 

[TibiasDad]

So HE manifested HIS perfect love for us by putting us under the effects of their choice to sin before we were even created....but that does not infringe our free will, sigh.

P.s. He manifested his perfect love in spite of Adam and Eve’s choices.

Doug

 

[Presby02]

The future is open and unsettled because it is libertarian and incalculable and doesn't exist yet to know. Only the (progressive) present exists because God didn't create the future yet.

Your objection only works if foreknowledge requires a substantive future that already exists.
It doesn’t.
God just knows, because God cannot be wrong.

God exists for no exterior reason at all, ie self-exists. So does His exhaustive (simple) foreknowledge.

If its open and unsettled the God is not omniscient.

 

[Presby02]

No, God is only bound by his own character and being. God created free beings and he does not infringe upon that freedom, though he knows (by means beyond our understanding) what we will do with our freedom.

Doug

If God has not determined the future, yet forsees it, then He is bound by His foreknowledge. Can He change what He forsees? If He coukd why not change it so everyone is saved as you love to claim He so wants to do but does not.

God does not have to infringe on your freedom to determine what you do with your freedom. Acts 4:27, 28 is a great example.

 

[civic]

If God has not determined the future, yet forsees it, then He is bound by His foreknowledge. Can He change what He forsees? If He coukd why not change it so everyone is saved as you love to claim He so wants to do but does not.

God does not have to infringe on your freedom to determine what you do with your freedom. Acts 4:27, 28 is a great example.

God says there are things that happen which have never crossed His mind.

 

[atpollard]

God says there are things that happen which have never crossed His mind.

What do you think that means?
God is not really OMNISCIENT???? OMNIPOTENT????
[We should probably look at the verse.]

 

[Kampioen]

The future is open and unsettled because it is libertarian and incalculable and doesn't exist yet to know. Only the (progressive) present exists because God didn't create the future yet.

Your objection only works if foreknowledge requires a substantive future that already exists.
It doesn’t.
God just knows, because God cannot be wrong.

God exists for no exterior reason at all, ie self-exists. So does His exhaustive (simple) foreknowledge.

If its open and unsettled the God is not omniscient.

No. Because the future is open and unsettled and God knows that. God is still omniscient.

But He knows what it will be.

 

[atpollard]

No. Because the future is open and unsettled and God knows that. God is still omniscient.

But He knows what it will be.

Ummm ... the future is open and unsettled and I know that. So I am also omniscient?

 

[civic]

Ummm ... the future is open and unsettled and I know that. So I am also omniscient?

Except you do not know where I will be on Friday at 3pm whereas God does.

 

[TibiasDad]

If God has not determined the future, yet forsees it, then He is bound by His foreknowledge. Can He change what He forsees? If He coukd why not change it so everyone is saved as you love to claim He so wants to do but does not.

God does not have to infringe on your freedom to determine what you do with your freedom. Acts 4:27, 28 is a great example.

He is not bound by foreknowledge in any way; God chose to allow mankind to have freedom of choice and will, and he acts within that protocol willingly and purposefully. We all have a limited ability with those whom we know very well; we can know or predict how someone will respond in a certain circumstance and manipulate things to create that reaction. The arrogance of Herod and Pilate were used purposefully to achieve what God wanted, as if preparing a recipe to bake a cake. A+B will always equal C. If we can do that, why can’t God?

Jer 19:5 puts the matter to rest:

They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.

Now if God has predetermined every act of man, how can something happen that ‘never entered his mind’?


Doug

 

[TedT]

God did not put humanity under the effects of sin, the first human did.

That HE supposedly did NOT make us individuals with no racial sinfulness like HE did with the angels but supposedly instead chose to create us burdened by the effects of Adam's sin means HE chose to burden us with our enslavement to sins.

Why are we enslaved to sin in Adam if it was not how GOD willed us to be created!!!

Michael was not so burdened by Satan's fall, nor Gabriel etc, so why were we not created this way with an individual right to self determination NOT supposedly under the power of another's fall???

I know you cannot abide solving the doublethink of HIM being loving and holy yet creating sinners by rejecting the concept that HE created us sinful, suffering and under the sentence of death in Adam but your theology says just that, stubbornly standing against HIS revealed nature, sigh!!!!

How are we infringed?

A free will cannot be under a coercive power or constraint of another person's will when making the choice. Christ told us that to be a sinner was to be enslaved to sin. However you define enslavement it refers to an infringement of our free will, and your theology says GOD made us this way by having us to be created in to Adam's sin when HE did not have to create us this way at all!

 

[TedT]

P.s. He manifested his perfect love in spite of Adam and Eve’s choices.

Doug

Of course HE did: every sinner became enslaved to sin by their own free will decision ot rebel against HIM or HIS command...no one is enslaved to sin due to another's fall, and every sinner who is saved is freed from the consequences of their own choice to be enslaved to sin by HIS loving patience.

We agree on salvation, just not on how we fell into our enslavement to sin, the infringement of our free will.