"How can I be blamed for something that God knows ahead of time I'm going to do anyway?"
Good question. Those of you who believe in Predestination are welcome to take a crack at it. I, however, think the doctrine of Predestination is the kind of trip people put over on God because they don't stop to think that the Author of Time is not bound by Time.
Time consists of one dimension only, and we move along it in one direction only - but only in this Universe. Since the Creator of this Universe is not stuck in this Universe, the Creator is not constrained like a bead moving on the wire of Time. So, "knowing everything in advance" and Predestination are human ideas that may have nothing to do with the way God relates to us.
God's relation to us seems to involve kenosis, a Greek word meaning the "emptying out of oneself." I think God comes all the way into our lives to experience them as we do. I think God gives up any priveleged position (comes down off God's "Throne") to do so.
Predestination and "knowing everything in advance" are human philosophical constructs that have no meaning in this context. Since this is all the context we know, it is meaningless to speak of any other. But we can still speculate, and I speculate that in the Universe to come all of our Time is Redeemed and made whole.
In the meantime, God lives and co-creates our lives with us. And Predestination is just a fourteen-letter word.
1 comment:
Judd,
You caught me in my imprecision! A quick check at CRTA's Calvinism/Sorteriology page shows that what people often think of as "Predestination" is actually "Unconditional Election" in which God is stated to have chosen those who will be saved and those who will be damned from before the foundation of the world. There is no need in this doctrine for God to "look ahead" through time, which is what I was criticizing from my perspective as a physicist.
In other words, I find no conflict between the doctrine of Unconditional Election and my understanding of the Physical Universe. I stand corrected on that point.
On the other hand, to construct such a doctrine to explain Romans 9:15,21 and Ephesians 1:4-8 seems to me a stretch to satisfy our human need for definiteness and closure.
I prefer to think that Salvation is open to everyone, but that some of us insist on working out our damnation. That is, the Incarnation-Crucifixion-Resurrection of Christ is sufficient to redeem the entire Universe, but God does not force Salvation on the unwilling.
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