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Predestination has been the issue of debate since the founding of . The first Christians tried understand how has chosen us before the beginning of and why we as Christians and people of God . A brief introduction to the theological and philosophical definition of predestination and free will to begin

There are various implications for metaphysical libertarian free will as consequent of theological and its philosophical interpretation.

• Strong is not compatible with metaphysical libertarian free will, and is a form of hard theological determinism (equivalent to theological below). It claims that free will does not exist, and God has control over a person's actions. Hard theological determinism is similar in implication to , although it does not invalidate compatibilist free will. [7] Hard theological determinism is a form of theological in . • Weak theological determinism is either compatible or incompatible with metaphysical libertarian free will depending upon one's philosophical interpretation of - and as such is interpreted as either a form of hard theological determinism (known as theological fatalism), or as soft theological determinism (terminology used for clarity only). Soft theological determinism claims that humans have free will to choose their actions, holding that God, whilst knowing their actions before they happen, does not affect the outcome. The belief is that their God's providence is "compatible" with voluntary choice. Soft theological determinism is known as theological compatibilism

A rejection of theological determinism (or divine foreknowledge) is classified as theological in compatibilism also is relevant to a more general discussion of free will.

The basic argument for theological fatalism in the case of weak theological determinism is as follows; 1. Assume divine foreknowledge or omniscience 2. Infallible foreknowledge implies (it is known for certain what one will do) 3. Destiny eliminates alternate possibility (one cannot do otherwise) 4. Assert incompatibility with metaphysical libertarian free will

This argument is very often accepted as a basis for theological in compatibilism: denying either libertarian free will or divine foreknowledge (omniscience) and therefore theological determinism. On the other hand, theological compatibilism must attempt to find problems with it. The formal version of the argument rests on a number of premises, many of which have received some degree of contention. Theological compatibilist responses have included;

• Deny the truth value of future contingents, as proposed for example by (although this denies foreknowledge and, therefore, theological determinism). • Assert differences in non-temporal knowledge (space-time independence), an approach taken for example by , , and C. S. Lewis. • Deny the Principle of Alternate Possibilities: "If you cannot do otherwise when you do an act, you do not act freely". For example, a human observer could in principle have a machine that could detect what will happen in the future, but the existence of this machine or their use of it has no influence on the outcomes of events.

This topic was widely discussed after the explanation of St. Augustine which became the foundation of western theological thought on pre-destination.

"Therefore God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, predestinating us to the of children, not because we were going to be of ourselves holy and immaculate, but He chose and predestinated us that we might be so. Moreover, He did this according to the good pleasure of His will, so that nobody might glory concerning his own will, but about God's will towards Himself.” St. Augustine In the writings of St. Augustine there is nothing that should suggest the elimination of free will or any indication that works are not needed for .

• As a result of Adam's fall, man is totally depraved (). He is absolutely unable to do anything good or to save himself. In fact, he's even unable to believe or have in God.

• Therefore, humans can believe in God or have faith in Him only if by grace He first gives them this faith or belief. Man has no free will to choose either to believe or not to believe.

• God's decision to save one person and condemn another, to give faith to one person and withhold it from another, is totally arbitrary. There's nothing we can do to influence God's choice.

• Before the creation of the world, God arbitrarily predestined (not simply foreknew) who would be saved and who would be damned. There's nothing we can do either in this life or the next to change these matters.

• The elect, those who were predestined for salvation before the creation, cannot possibly lose their salvation. Those predestined for cannot possibly be saved.

• No one can know whether or not he or she is of the elect. God gives many people the gift of faith so that they believe, are baptized and walk in ' commandments. However, some of them haven't been predestined for salvation and ultimately won't persevere. The gift of perseverance is a separate gift from that of faith. We have no way of knowing who in the church has been given the gift of perseverance.

Calvin's key writings presuppose a belief in the absolute sovereignty of God (that nothing happens apart from the will of God). The sovereignty of God is also held in conjunction with notions of God's all-powerfulness (omnipotence), God's total knowledge of everything that has and will happen in the world (omniscience) and God's universal presence in the world (omnipresence). From these central themes Calvin developed his . Also according to Calvin, because of human depravity (Original Sin) all knowledge of God can only be found in God's Word (the ). We can also only know God if God first chooses us to respond to his grace (). Pardon and of sin (salvation) are therefore only possible by the grace by God and has chosen (elected/predestined) us this means that 'once saved, always saved' (what is also called the perseverance of the Saints). Additionally, the fact that not everyone in the world is a Christian means that God must have chosen (elected) only some to salvation. This also means that the death of Jesus was only for those few, and not the many (). The core of was this understanding that gave rise to “The Doctrine of the Living Saints,” commonly held as protestant predestination. Calvin brought in the idea of spiritual elitism; he taught that people are “elected” for salvation by God. The “elect” were to become the Calvinist Church. Calvin felt that no one could choose salvation, except God. This belief of Calvinist predestination is in direct contrast to the Catholic belief that man’s is judged according to their deeds. This belief of judgment based on free will has its literal and explicit foundation in the Gospels.

I am the door: by me if any man enters in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. John 10: 1, 9

Calvin overlooked this passage of scripture when he formed his doctrine of the living saints. He wanted to believe that all the “elect” were chosen by God could live out their lives as they choose because their providence is entirely God’s plan. Furthermore, the Catholic idea of repentance and confession was lost in the mix with the new found “living saints.” G.K. Chesterton was frequently boggled by this Calvinist idea and wrote about it in:

The Thing: Why I am a Catholic: "Of the idea of Predestination there are broadly two views; the Calvinist and the Catholic; and it would make a most uncommon difference to my comfort, if I held the former instead of the latter. It is the difference between believing that God knows, as a fact, that I choose the devil, without my having any choice at all."

Paraphrasing: God told to live in the Garden of Eden, and to enjoy everything but the tree of knowledge of God and Evil. He gave them free will; he knew the outcome of their actions; but God did not deign our first parents to sin. It was their choice, and the resolution that gave each man the stain of original sin.

G.K. Chesterton On Predestination

Chesterton was very uncomfortable with the Calvinists’ belief that he did not have self-governance. For a man of great learning and understanding freedom was at the heart of his belief. Liberty to choose God is the core of faith. Rather by having no option in the matter one would deny faith, because faith is deciding to believe in God.

This predestination leads to another theological problem. This ideal gives an alternate understanding of who God is. This transforms Him from all Just to a Father who favours one child over another “the elect.” Christ came for all! Died for all! He knew that not all would choose Him, but in Chesterton’s own words “that I choose the devil.” God could never choose the devil for me. Predestination in the Catholic understanding is the plan that God has for us, but the key difference is we freely choose to follow it. There is no impalement of our will or self-rendering to a higher being who chooses our destiny for us like a marionette jostled along by a puppeteer. Reason and free will are at the core of personhood. Chesterton wanted all men to live as God had intended them to live, on their own. He felt that the faulty understanding of no free will was incorrect. Chesterton wanted to make his understanding of predestination in relation to faith and sovereignty of will abundantly clear in his writings. He said: “"A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things." Chesterton also wrote: “The Puritan substituted a God who wished to damn people for a God who wished to save them."

He was speaking against predestination and the Calvinist notion, that man can have free reign over the earth and still attain without answering for their actions. Again this model is in direct contrast to the first principle of , Sola Scriptura, because scripture points to taking responsibility for one’s actions as Christ did on the cross for us. He gave the apostles direction to preach to all the nations. Chesterton claimed that "The genuine Protestant creed is now hardly held by anybody--least of all by the Protestants. So completely have they lost faith in it, that they have mostly forgotten what is was." He wrote this because the idea of predestination is not scriptural, and denies the benevolent nature of God. The Creator is all good and cannot destine anyone to commit evil, so in the Catholic understanding of predestination the “elect” has an alternate meaning. The Catholic elect are those whose earthly deeds mirrored the scripture and best revealed God’s plan for the world. They are the church triumphant in heaven compiled of all who aspired to live the gospel; no one being excluded from the power to seek God.

Another interesting perspective on Predestination and the free will debate was the minister Spurgeon who spoke on Calvinism - “Salvation is of .” [Jonah 2:9.] That is just an epitome of Calvinism; it is the sum and substance of it. If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, “He is one who says, Salvation is of the Lord.” I cannot find in Scripture any other doctrine than this. It is the essence of the Bible. “He only is my rock and my salvation.” Tell me anything contrary to this truth, and it will be a heresy; tell me a heresy, and I shall find its essence here, that it has departed from this great, this fundamental, this rock truth, “God is my rock and my salvation.”

Spurgeon believed that Jesus died triumphantly for all whom the Father had given Him through predestination.

‘We hold that Christ, when He died, had an in view; and that object will most assuredly and beyond a doubt be accomplished. We measure the design of Christ’s death by the effect of it. If anyone asks us, “What did Christ design to do by His death?” we answer that question by asking him another—“What has Christ done?” or, “What will Christ do by His death?” For we declare that the measure of the effect of Christ’s love is the measure of the design of the cross. We cannot so belie our reason as to think that the intention of Almighty God could be frustrated, or that the design of so great a thing as the atonement, can by any way whatever, be missed.’

‘John Newton used to tell a whimsical story, and laugh at it, too, of a good woman who said, in order to prove the doctrine of election, "Ah! sir, the Lord must have loved me before I was born, or else He would not have seen anything in me to love afterwards." I am sure it is true in my case; I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love. So I am forced to accept that great Biblical doctrine’

Calvin's belief in the uncompromised "sovereignty of God" spawned his doctrines of providence and predestination. For the world, without providence it would be "unliveable". For individuals, without predestination "no one would be saved".[7]

Calvin turned to the teachings of Jesus for a theological interpretation of the diversity that some people accept the "covenant of life" and some do not. Pointing to the Parable of the Sower, Calvin observed, "it is no new thing for the seed to fall among thorns or in stony places".[11] In Jesus’ teaching in John 6:65 that "no one can come to me unless it has been granted him by my Father", Calvin found the key to his theological interpretation of the diversity.[12] For Calvin's biblically-based theology, this diversity reveals the "unsearchable depth of the divine judgment", a judgment "subordinate to God's purpose of eternal election". God offers salvation to some, but not to all. To many this seems a perplexing subject, because they deem it "incongruous that... some should be predestined to salvation, and others to destruction". However, Calvin asserted that the incongruity can be resolved by proper views concerning "election and predestination".[13]

Thus, Calvin based his theological description of people as "predestined to life or to death" on biblical authority and "actual fact".[14] Calvin noted that Scripture requires that we "consider this great mystery" of predestination, but he also warned against unrestrained "human curiosity" regarding it.[15] For believers, knowing that "the cause of our salvation did not proceed from us, but from God alone" evokes gratitude.

Free will in the Bible

The biblical ground for free will lies in the” Fall” into sin by Adam and Eve that occurred in their “wilfully chosen” disobedience to God. [10]

“Freedom” and ‘free will” can be treated as one because the two terms are commonly used as synonyms. [11] However, there are widespread disagreements in definitions of the two terms. [12] Because of these disagreements, Mortimer Adler found that a delineation of three kinds of freedom is necessary for clarity on the subject, as follows:

(1) Circumstantial freedom is "freedom from coercion or restraint" that prevents acting as one wills.[13]

• In the Bible, circumstantial freedom was given to the Israelites’ in The Exodus from slavery in Egypt.[14]

(2) Natural freedom (a.k.a. volitional freedom) is freedom to determine one’s own “decisions or plans.” Natural freedom is inherent in all people, in all circumstances, and “without regard to any state of mind or character which they may or may not acquire in the course of their lives.”[15]

• The Bible, paralleling Adler, views all humanity as naturally possessing the “free choice of the will.”[16] If “free will” is taken to mean unconstrained and voluntary choice, the Bible assumes that all people, unregenerate and regenerate, possess it.[17] For examples, “free will” is taught in Matthew 23:37 and 22:17.[18]

(3) Acquired freedom is freedom “to live as [one] ought to live,” a freedom that requires a transformation whereby a person acquires a righteous, holy, healthy, etc. “state of mind or character.”[19]

• The Bible testifies to the need for acquired freedom because no one “is free for obedience and faith till he is freed from sin’s dominion.” People possess natural freedom but their “voluntary choices” serve sin until they acquire freedom from “sin’s dominion.” The New Bible Dictionary denotes this acquired freedom for “obedience and faith” as “free will” in a theological sense.[17] Therefore, in biblical thinking, an acquired freedom from being “enslaved to sin” is needed “to live up to Jesus’ commandments to love God and love their neighbours as themselves.”[20]

• Jesus told his hearers that they needed to be made “free indeed” (John 8:36). “Free indeed [ontós]” means “truly free” or “really free,” as it is in some translations.[21] Being made “free indeed” means freedom from “bondage to sin.”[22] This acquired freedom is “freedom to serve the Lord.”[23] Being “free indeed” (i.e., true freedom) comes by “God’s changing our nature” to free us from being “slaves to sin.” and endowing us with “the freedom to choose to be righteous.”

Mark R. Talbot,[24] a “classical Christian theist,”[25] views this acquired “compatibilist freedom" as the freedom that “Scripture portrays as worth having.”[26]

William Hasker’s words, regarding any action it is always “within the agent’s power to perform the action and also in the agent’s power to refrain from the action.”[28] Although open generally contradicts classical theism’s “freedom to choose to be righteous without the possibility of choosing otherwise,” Hasker allows that Jesus possessed and humans in heaven will possess such a freedom. Regarding Jesus, Hasker views Jesus as “a free agent,” but he also thinks that “it was not really possible” that Jesus would “abort the mission.”[29] Regarding heaven, Hasker foresees that as the result of our choice we will be “unable to sin” because all sinful impulses will be gone.[30]