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Are we Robots or Freewill beings?
Does God know our future choices? (Thando Mlalazi)
If God knows our future choices, does that mean we’re ”predestined” to act a certain way? or even controlled?
This question has been pondered by many. Some argue that “free-will” is only possible if our choices are hidden from the almighty. They quote Gen 6:6 ‘And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart’, and argue that this scripture as well as others, prove God as “reactive”, therefore caught unaware.
However, others believe that God knows everything, including our future choices without necessarily interfering with our free will. These say “God is not bound by time and space, so he doesn’t experience time-events in a chronological way like we do”. Verses like Gen 1:1 show God as beyond time and space, and Mat 19:26 shows God’s awesome ability to do the impossible, ’with God all things are possible.
…What do you think? How does God provide free-will?
This question is too deep! I live in Geneva, the home of Calvin. Calvin was a reformer who first came up with the idea of predestination (or Calvinism, as its sometimes referred to). There are many (really, many) verses in the Bible that support both ways of thinking, so it has remained a ‘grey area’ in Christian doctrine for years.
And its not something that can go away easily – big questions that impact on our personal salvation can arise. Why did Jesus pick Judas, knowing that Judas would eventually betray him, and hang himself? Was Judas unwittingly a ‘guinea pig’ in the grand plan of salvation, used only to lead Jesus to His death? If so, then what does Judas get out of it? Seems a pretty rough deal for him, don’t you think?
Then there’s me. Am I unwittingly working for God, only to be later ‘cast aside’ for the benefit of God’s purposes? What’s the point in making choices to serve him if He already has my outcome – if i actually have no control over my own destiny? (I don’t actually think this way, but i know its how where people arrive to following Calvinism).
Or is life like a modern video game. Video games of old used to always end the same way, no matter how many times you made bad choices or ‘died’. Nowadays, videos games often have multiple ending scenarios, which you play out depending on the choices you made earlier in the game. I personally favour this way of thinking. That every choice I make today affects the path i take tomorrow, and in the process, taking me closer to or further from GOD, and that finally, on judgement day, my choices will take me to ‘everlasting damnation’ or onto ‘everlasting life’.
I prefer this way of think because I feel I have the power to choose. That power, that option, motivates me to ‘depart from that which is evil and cling to that which is good’. I have the knowledge that I can appreciate GOD’s amazing gift of salvation everyday by choosing to live for Him.
I think that this is a question of monumental importance and one which very few people have managed to think through properly – for no other reason than that there are some tools required to think in certain planes – and not everyone has had access to the kind of education which makes that easy.
At the same time, the Holy Spirit can, does and will inspire many, many people who have never managed to get the same type of formal education as some other people. Sio it is not about ‘education.’ It is about being willing to follow God where He leads – and God can empower an uneducated person to achieve the kinds of heights that would not be possible otherwise.
These are preliminary comments to the main thrust of what I am about to say: God is not an object of knowledge. Salvation is neither art nor science; those are human disciplines. God transcends all of humanity by definition, so everything we make a theological statement, we need to recognise that a statement is not an argument, and so no-one should necessarily believe a statement. But when a person presents an argument, that argument must be based on coherent premises, and a defense may be required.
The idea of humanity possessing free will is not an idea that God needs us to defend for Him. It is a choice that we make depending on the picture of God that we develop through the study of His Word.
It was in fact the legendary Roman Catholic scholar Augustine who first taught the doctrine of predestination – LONG before Calvin. As I type this, I recognise that I have no time right now to do justice to this response. So I will in fact pledge to return to this blog and finish off this answer – as soon as possible. And I will continue right from where I leave off and link the two together.