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Predestination & God's omniscience debunking arguments

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  1. Predestination Debunking Arguments
  2. Scriptural Proof
  3. Foundation of the World
  4. Limitations of Free Will
Other words for predestination: foreknowledge, foreordination, fate.



The predestination argument leads to dishonoring God –
to attributing bad motives to him.

 
It implies that God knew beforehand, when his creative effort first commenced, that Satan would become Satan and that God didn’t take steps to prevent this! . . .didn't take steps to prevent all the extraordinary suffering that creation has suffered.

It implies
  • that God’s works are imperfect! 
  • that Adam couldn’t have resisted the Resistor because Adam was created to fail since God knew all the while that he would without fail fail.
  • that from the moment of contemplating creating the universe, God knew the present outcome! 
a. Thus the implication is that all the evil seen today was present within God himself and that he condoned this evil!  A teaching totally contrary to the Holy Inspired Scriptures. 
b. It implies that everything seen is a rerun of a movie-like reality.
It ignores the admonitions by God to chose life or death. (Deuteronomy 30:15-20)  Why admonish, if in every instance the outcome is assured?  Nonsense !

In Deuteronomy God tells us by means of Moses to choose life or death. 30: 19,  "I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you: life and death have I set before you, blessing and cursing: choose then life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed, 20in loving Jehovah thy God, in hearkening to his voice, and in cleaving to him--for this is thy life and the length of thy days." (Darby))
 
Such a divine given choice implies that God gives this choice freely and fully.  Thus, if God already knows what the person is going to choose then there can be no choice – none at all, the outcome is already guaranteed.  Such dogma is against the scriptures and against all logic.


It ignores the instructions in Matt 24:13 and 2 Timothy 2:15-16:
But he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved. (KJV)

Be diligent to present thyself approved to God, an irreproachable workman, correctly traversing the word of truth. (ACV)
It ignores the numerous admonitions for individuals to do something positive! (Rev 1:3) Why admonish if the result is a given!  It implies that God is unjust!  Why judge those that cannot help what they do!  Insanity!  It makes a farce out of God's mercy, his judgment, his love, his wisdom – everything that God is.

The warning in Hebrews becomes void since it is already known what each will do; for that reason there is no reason to test anybody! (Hebrews 10:26-27)

It voids Christ’s sacrifice since his actions were predetermined, and not a personal choice.
  For that reason the challenges that Satan made to God in Job were never met by Christ.


Scriptural Proof


According to Predestination, God is omniscient and knows all things.  One wonders then why such an all-knowing God needs to do what he did in 2 Chronicles and the subsequent scriptures! 

Obviously, God's omniscience is not quite as omni as the proponents of predestination want us to believe.
2 Chronicles 32:31
God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart. (NJB)

God left him,—to prove him, to take note of all that was in his heart. (Rotherham)

Revelation 2:10, Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil will cast [some] of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful to death, and I will give thee a crown of life. (Webster)

Job 34:36 Would that Job might be tested to the uttermost . . . (Rotherham)

Ecclesiastes 9:11
because time and unforeseen occurrence befall them all. (NW)
for time and chance happen with them all.  (YLT)

This fact is brought out in the next two scriptures.  However, the fact that God is not totally omniscient is not a matter of ability; rather, it is God's way of enabling free will since what God foretells about the future must happen! (Matt 5:18)  The two scriptures shown below confirm that God isn't 100 percent omniscient!

Gen 18:20-22 And the Lord said, The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah has been increased towards Me, and their sins are very great. 21 I will therefore go down and see, if they completely correspond with the cry which comes to Me, and if not, I will know. (AB)

Gen 22:11, 12  But the Angel of the Lord called to him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, Behold, I am here. 12And He said, Lay not your hand upon the child, neither do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, and for My sake you have not spared your beloved son. (AB)

Foundation of the World

Some who think to quote the 'foundation of the world ' scripture need to realize that the foundation is from the birth of Cain and Abel!  Thus, 1 Pet 1:20  refers to the prophecy given before the birth of children, to the time right after the sin was committed when the first prophecy was uttered!  (Gen 3:15,16)

(ACV)

Luke 11:50-51 so that the blood of all the prophets that was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation, 51from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zachariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I say to you, it will be required of this generation.

1 Peter 1:20 Christ, 20 who was indeed foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was manifested in the last times because of you.
Logically, according to normal common sense, it seems obvious that if all decisions, all actions, have been predetermined then likewise all atoms, their interactions, and the totality of the constituent parts of the world, need all movements and interactions to be predetermined!  It would demand a universe written in cement from the start of the BOOK to the end of the BOOK because that would be what the universe would equal.

Anyone writing such a book would be insane if claiming that such a literary work exhibited the author's love toward his fictitious stick-figure creatures. The predetermined actions of the stick-figure Son, angels, and other creation would have nothing to do with love or hate, or any other conceivable emotion.  To claim otherwise, the author would have to be insane, god or not.  Everything, even the scientific butterfly effects that cause catastrophes would have to be part of the predetermination. How else would God know how people would react in the various crisis occurring during each person's life? 
 
On the net, one site claims that in a single human male's ejaculation there are in excess of 40 million spermatozoa per ejaculate.   Each potential spermatozoon potentially represents a unique human being far more different from each other than individual snowflakes. Thus the predetermination argument actually demands that God predetermines which of these at least 40 million spermatozoa links with a particular ovum  for each human in existence.  As if God normally has any interest in controlling which genetic combination is given life.  If he had, he would only have made one kind of  spermatozoon per ejaculation -- This he didn't.

Not only that, the concluding assertion thus accuses God of creating evil people, genetic mutations, and genetic monsters.

IT IS AN EVIL TEACHING INSPIRED BY DEMONS !

The implication of the predestination claim is beyond the ridiculous.  It's pure insanity from a common sense perspective!  The claim that such a god could be a god of love would be ridiculous since he would be loving non-living matter, having predetermined all actions, decisions, and so forth. 

When I say that my dog is alive, the listener knows this implies random unpredictable activity within the scope that dogs operate under.  Nobody expects any dog to fly; though, most everybody would readily expect a dog to bark at strangers!  Thus, for an organism to be considered to be alive usually refers to some independent action of some kind!  In this, a scientific uncertain principle disproving all of claims of predestination is established.


Limitations of Free Will


Eccl 9:11 kj, time and chance happeneth to them all

The area of free will is shown to be “the arrangings of the heart.” 

Exactly how that restricts each individual is too complex for me to totally grasp!  Most people when looking at the conclusions below would probably agree that most of the restrictions stemming from one's family and economic circumstances have their root in cause and effect, local history mostly.  Thus a person's 'bad luck ' in being born with a lot of negative problems resisting him from birth has very little, or nothing, to do with God's will even though God lets things happen according to time and unforeseen circumstances.

Starting with people's birth, we see that:
  • A person does not decide whom to be born to, or if that person is born male or female.
  • A child does not decide most factors controlling its childhood:
  • How affluent its parents are - is beyond its control.
  • How well the parents get along together is a matter of luck.
  • Their state of physical and mental health is similarly a random factor. 
  • Neither does a child have any say in the state of physical and mental health it is born with. 
  • Nor can a child decide to be born with high intelligence instead of with a mental defect.
Already, the world is forced upon us; we merely get the choice, perhaps, of what ice-cream flavor, what kind of lunch, which color shirt and what shoes to wear.  The important things, like do I live in a country at peace or at war, in a third world country full of woes or in an affluent country. These factors are outside our individual control.  Such factors force choices upon us in our lives, in regard to deciding for or against going for higher education, and for going out into the working man’s world.

For those in poor countries, some of these choices are probably more terrible than most westerners can adequately imagine and the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph may not exist.  Childhood, its education and economic status thus bears greatly upon the adult’s health, job, and expectations in life.

Free will, the choice of heart, is not a choice of step or life. In deciding one’s life, free will is mostly unreality, an illusion deceiving most of us by the magic of its promise, fooling us because we have the free will to have ice-cream or cake, coffee or tea, to cry or to laugh -- fooling us because we may be able to go for a walk when we have time off, etc.

Of course, we have the free will, the choice of heart, to decide to study hard in school, to work hard at some profession.  Most have the choice of mate, or of religion.  Still,  the former limitations weigh in heavily in restricting our choices.  Many of these choices are shaped greatly by random occurrences - luck, the lack there off, or even worse, bad luck.

Summary

1. We have the choice of heart.
2. God does the directing of our steps.
3.The boundary between One and Two seems very gray occasionally.
4.We may chose to be righteous, a decision of heart.
5.We may chose to be wicked, a decision of heart.
6.God pays us back our deeds. If we chose 5 then we die.
7.Free Will shows itself to be very limited.

(7) The limitations of free will
Did you choose your parents?
Did you choose if you were born male or female?
DId you choose if your parents were rich? If you have birth defects? mental retardation? high intelligence?
Did you choose what elementary school to go to?  what clothes to wear there at first?
Did you choose to make any of the wars happen in the world?  if your country is rich or poor?  if the economy offers any jobs?
If you are married
Did you choose what sex your children were born with?  how intelligent they are? their attitude?
Did you choose if your spouse has good healt or poor health?
If you don't have a job, do you choose if you can get one?  do you choose how nice you boss, your fellow workers are?

etc.

 

Christians know that apart from God directing their steps, random occurrence, and free will -- prayers and God's answers to prayers affect their lives in many ways. 

Still, that does not impede their exercise of their divine right to the choice of heart.How God directs our steps beyond what has been written above needs more thought!  I have some personal experience with it, but it is difficult to be more detailed than the above.

I will conclude with a few scriptures:

Proverbs 19:21 Many are the plans in the human heart, but the purpose of Yahweh that stands firm. (NJB)

Proverbs 16:9, The heart of earthling man may think out his way, but Jehovah himself does the directing of his steps. (NW) 

(NJB) The human heart may plan a course, but it is Yahweh who makes the steps secure.


 
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