Was Adam's wilful choice was preordained? There are countless questions like that throughout history up to the present day's moment to moment decisions. How about Judas' betrayal of Christ? Was that also preordained even though nobody forced Judas into it?
Juxtaposing Free Will against Divine Predestination is the topic of this entry, an inherent conflict that is as mysterious as the ineffable magnificence of God. There are many brilliant people who have consider this very conflict. One concluded that "[k]nowing the outcome is not the same thing as forcing the outcome." [3] Another concluded this: "I believe that God directs history. However, I do not believe that He micro-manages history." [4] One used an example to illustrate: "We have freewill, but since God is well omnipotent and omniscient he already knows what choices we will make. It['s] like asking a 6 year old if they want broccoli or ice cream. We know that they are going to want the ice cream." [5] Yet another gave a sophisticated but confusing (as least to this blogger) explanation [6] which either avoided stating the obvious or obfuscated it with irrelevant statements and skillful writing (which this blogger hopes that he had never done, not that there is even a hint of skill in his writing, and will never do in this blog -- if he had, he apologizes, and apologizes for all future pretentious posts). What is obvious to this blogger is that the inherent conflict between Free Will and Divine Predestination is a mystery that cannot be comprehended by the human mind.
Having just concluded that the conflict between Free Will and Divine Predestination is not for the human mind to ponder, this blogger is going to contradict himself right off by pondering it. Perhaps it is a defect to present Free Will and Predestination as a conflict to start out with since they do not have to be in conflict in the first place. Going back to the Garden of Eden, if Adam and Eve had obeyed God, by choosing to reject the Serpent's temptation and not eat the Forbidden Fruit, then their respective Free Will would have coincided with God's Will which would have been for them an eternity of youth and fulfillment in Paradise.
Since that did not happen, then Predestination and Free Will supposedly came into conflict. In a perfect world, they do not conflict. Even now, Free Will and Predestination can be one and the same, provided that every single person chooses not to sin and conform everything he/she chooses to do and does to the Will of God. This is not likely to happen; nonetheless, there is still Predestination.
Predestination does not change. If it can change, then Predestination is not Predestination but a "pre-estimation," a made-up term. Predestination, as defined here, is the sum of all individual Free Wills, plus God's very own Free Will, culminating in large scale events that had occurred and will occur in the world. Since Predestination does not change, and it is equated here to the sum of all Free Wills (man's and God's), therefore the sum of all Free Wills also does not change.
No man knows precisely what will take place in the future and when, but God does. Man, however, can look to the past to know what took place.
For example, the 9-11 tragedy did not occur because several men decided to wake up one morning and thought it would be fun to commit suicide by hijacking airplanes and fly them into skyscrapers in the United States. This blogger does not know the truth behind their concerted action but thinks that it was not a random act out of spontaneity. Human behavior, this blogger postulates, is similar to a law of physics (applied loosely). For there to be a reaction there has to be an action (or sometimes a series of actions) that precedes it, even though the initial action(s) is (are) sometime difficult to isolate, and even if isolated, would be denied or otherwise deemed as justified, moral or normal behavior. This event was preordained not by God alone but by the Free Will of God and the aggregate Free Will of man over time. There is not the least bit of doubt in this blogger's mind that this tragic event was predestined long before it occurred.
Some may be upset as to why God did not exercise His Free Will and override the combined Free Will of man in events such the one on September 11, 2001, that would lead to tragedy? Man cannot tell God what God should and should not do. In this case, perhaps God had decided to let man's Free Will take the lead without intervening, to let man suffer the result of his own predestiny. Were there not innocent by-standers and heroes trying to save others who perished? If so, why did God not save them from other people's predestiny? Were not some saved from dying in this tragedy? How can any sinner be absolutely innocent? Can innocence be relative? Is the laying down of one's life for another an act that one should blame God for? Did Christ not lay down His life to save sinners?
One ought to accept that Predestination is not a punishment but a product of Free Will.
The foregoing example looked to the past. A forward-looking example could be the advancement of biotechnology. The long-term consequences of consuming genetically-modified (Satanically-transformed) and artificial (Satanic) foods that are not God's original creations by people and creatures of every kind can lead to new diseases and incurable cancers as well as the destruction of life cycles of creatures that support the very existence of mankind. A further example could be the decentralization of the Catholic Church without the Vatican and a pope as a result of conflicting choices among clerics regarding sex abuse, sex abuse cover-up, divorce, gay marriage and adoption, chastity and on and on. When the Catholic churches, clerics and laities around the world are no longer under the dictates of the Vatican, and when serious and unresolvable conflicts arise among different religions within a community, then not only will the local police force be called into action, but also military forces will eventually be at war with one another should such conflicts become large-scale and spread like wild fires around the world. While these examples are imagined, the possibility that they may become reality is not foreclosed entirely. Only God knows if such events will come to pass. If they do, they will be subsumed under Predestination. The ultimate Predestination is contained in the Book of Revelation with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Some may be upset as to why God did not exercise His Free Will and override the combined Free Will of man in events such the one on September 11, 2001, that would lead to tragedy? Man cannot tell God what God should and should not do. In this case, perhaps God had decided to let man's Free Will take the lead without intervening, to let man suffer the result of his own predestiny. Were there not innocent by-standers and heroes trying to save others who perished? If so, why did God not save them from other people's predestiny? Were not some saved from dying in this tragedy? How can any sinner be absolutely innocent? Can innocence be relative? Is the laying down of one's life for another an act that one should blame God for? Did Christ not lay down His life to save sinners?
One ought to accept that Predestination is not a punishment but a product of Free Will.
The foregoing example looked to the past. A forward-looking example could be the advancement of biotechnology. The long-term consequences of consuming genetically-modified (Satanically-transformed) and artificial (Satanic) foods that are not God's original creations by people and creatures of every kind can lead to new diseases and incurable cancers as well as the destruction of life cycles of creatures that support the very existence of mankind. A further example could be the decentralization of the Catholic Church without the Vatican and a pope as a result of conflicting choices among clerics regarding sex abuse, sex abuse cover-up, divorce, gay marriage and adoption, chastity and on and on. When the Catholic churches, clerics and laities around the world are no longer under the dictates of the Vatican, and when serious and unresolvable conflicts arise among different religions within a community, then not only will the local police force be called into action, but also military forces will eventually be at war with one another should such conflicts become large-scale and spread like wild fires around the world. While these examples are imagined, the possibility that they may become reality is not foreclosed entirely. Only God knows if such events will come to pass. If they do, they will be subsumed under Predestination. The ultimate Predestination is contained in the Book of Revelation with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Whether the Second Coming of Jesus Christ is God's plan alone or in combination with man's collective Free Will over time is not in question based on the conclusion to this blog entry. The Second Coming of Jesus Christ is a combination of God's Free Will and the collective Free Will of man which together form Predestination. In other words, man by his God-given Free Will is co-author of his own predestination alongside God, the first and main author of Predestination Who has created and permitted man to be Predestination's co-author.
[*] This statement conflicts with and corrects two wrong assertions made in a post entitled The Beginning, The Past, The Present, The Future And The End published on August 29, 2018. This blogger apologizes for those errors.
[1] http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis/2, 16-17.
[2] http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis/3, 11-12.
[3] https://www.wake-up.org/salvation/predestination-free-will.html,1st section, 3rd paragraph.
[4] http://www.godandscience.org/doctrine/predestination.html, last section.
[5] http://www.islamicity.com/forum/printer_friendly_posts.asp?TID=11918, 1st reply. It is interesting to find that Islam has this question as well.
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