So God is okay with predestination to having cancer? I don’t know. I feel God choices certain people but not everyone. John 3:16 makes it clear. So I feel maybe that calls on people and the predestination part is when people accept or reject this call
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Dear Dale,
I believe that God reveals Himself through His creation and through the Word. There is little to no evidence of time travel or the multiverse in either places. There is evinced of the physical world and the spiritual world - two worlds. Jesus’ Kingdom is the latter and we are in the former. There is plenty of evidence of these two, but no others. I would suggest that time moves differently as suggested by 2 Peter 3:8.
Best Wishes, Shawn
Hi,
I formed some ideas of free will and predestination after I had read a book about the concept of time in quantum physics (by Rovelli) and another review-type book focusing on the debate about free will in philosophy. There is nothing novel in these ideas, some parts have already been lifted up in previous comments. It would still be nice to get some feedback.
First something about time and predestination:
Although time is understood as a directional chain of events, it is still tied to the material universe. The creator is not bound to the structure of His creation. Figuratively speaking, the artist can look at his creation from outside. This gives a possibility to see the whole at once, without being tied to the time within the creation. So, He can see the end at the beginning, and everything between. If needed, He can also modify something so that the path and the endpoint changes. From this viewpoint, I don’t see any fundamental conflict between the ideas of free will and that God knows our fate before we are born. If God modifies things during our life so that we end up being saved or get an answer to a prayer, it can be viewed as a dynamic relationship or as ‘predestination’, depending on the content one gives to the words. But much of what happens in our lives is probably caused by a combination of other external factors and our way of life. I assume that God does not manipulate every small detail in our lives.
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We believe in a personal God because persons can think one thought after another and make statements putting one word in front of another. They can make plans and carry them out. All are things which God does in the Bible and all of which uses time.
Having the ability to use time is not the same as being confined to time. And while you are so busy propping up your theology with thoughts of God being an “eternal now” incapable of time appealing to magic and mystery to explain away any logical inconsistencies, as a physicist I have already left the antiquated notion of absolute time far behind me and know that none of such rhetoric as you employ is necessary.
This means for example that there is no need to ask what God as been doing for an infinite amount of time before the creation of the universe. That is thinking trapped in the notion of absolute time as something which God must be confined to. But there is no absolute time and God only uses time as He desires, so there is no time before whatever time God chooses to employ. This way God can do all the same things that we can do as a person and much much more.
So the truth is that those stuck with this timeless “eternal now” God are the ones who have confined God and made Him smaller, incapable of putting one thought before another or of carrying out plans as God does in the Bible. The “I am” does not mean God is any such thing but refers to God’s necessary non-contingent self-existent nature. It most certainly does not mean that God is incapable of doing the things that any human being can do because he cannot put one thing in front of another.
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Something about free will:
Our free will is strongly constrained by our past. If we walk along one path, we cannot make a decision to be on a separate path in the next second. In addition, much of our actions seems to be automated or semiautomated consequences of our previous actions or external input. Within a given moment, our freedom to choose seems to be limited to very few options. However, every decision affects the future. So, the free will can be viewed as a chain of small decisions that determine the direction of our path. In this sense, we can have free will to select whether we move towards God or away from Him.
One philosopher suggested something similar, but I cannot remember who it was or what label has been given to this hypothesis.
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Yes! Our free will is not a freedom to be or accomplish anything we choose. That is confusing free will with omnipotence. Free will is only the ability to choose among options we are aware of to guide whatever portion of our body and mind we have control over. There is nothing absolute or universal about free will. It can vary greatly with many different factors such as awareness of what is possible, and it can be affected by drugs, medical conditions, and even our own habits.
Thus I have explained above that it is one of the characteristics of sin (i.e. self-destructive habits) that it destroys free will and makes us very predictable. “Destroys” as in progressive erosion, not absolute exclusion. It is frequent experience of those with a substance abuse problem that their freedom of will slips farther and farther away as the habit takes more and more control of their body and mind.
This highly quantitative nature of free will is also why this is not and never has been a black and white, either-or magical attribute of mankind alone. Rather free will is a universal characteristic of all life and is its very essence. But clearly the free will in the simplest living organisms is extremely limited to point of insignificance compared to human beings.
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My free will allows me to choose to believe that Father was and is in providential control of all things, including evolution and the timing of my kidney cancer. He “planned” for those to play out the way they did. Precisely. Every molecule. My Father is that big. His thoughts are instantaneous, they don’t need to be “sequential” to be personal. The Bible, please recall, actually does use words like predestined and elected, chosen and ordained. Deny them to your own detriment.
Can we choose to believe in God? Or is that already choice the moment we are born? I mean why should a child be planned to get cancer? Sorry this is confusing at times.
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Dear Dale,
you forgot all about our free will in your last statement, and of course “judge not, lest ye be judged.”
Do you think it is to your advantage to deny things that God has said?
Dear Dale,
I believe that it is to your disadvantage to shame others for not believing what you do. That is the only point I was trying to make. Free will is God’s gift to everyone.
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There is no question that SOME things are predestined, elected, chosen, or ordained. The question is what things. There is NOTHING in the Bible that says EVERYTHING is predestined, elected, chosen, or ordained.
Yes, God predestines people for a role in His providence, elects people for tasks, chooses them for something He wants them to do, ordains all kinds of blessings and challenges. But do things always happen as God plans or desires? It is a demonstrable FACT in the Biblical narrative that this is not so! There are plans which go awry, people which fail their appointed tasks, desires of God which are unfulfilled, things which people do which disappoint God and grieve Him to the very core. Could God control absolutely everything? Easily! But is God such a shallow person that He must control everything? No. Is God incapable of making anything which He does not control? A God incapable of this looks too pathetic to me to be called God. Looks like a control freak to me and a creation of those obsessed with power and control, too convenient for those who use religion for the manipulation of others. Sorry… no offense… but that is what I think.
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Do you believe those words are not in the Bible? That is not about what I believe.
That’s pretty funny. 
God’s timelessness and the depth of the dynamism of his instantaneous relationship to his creation is evident in scripture and through his workings in providence, and there is nothing shallow about it. Providential events have to be “planned” (I use scare quotes because it is a tensed word) and their independently occurring aspects frequently have nothing to do with free will (again, the events in the sequence of my kidney cancer illustrate that well.) Please reflect on that detail.
The story of God’s plan to save the family of the patriarch Israel, and thus the nation of Israel, in his providence through Joseph, included all kinds of “planning” and illustrates nicely Father’s moment by moment and year by year sovereignty. “Sovereign” is not just a title for God, it is also a description.
The Lord actively holds the universe together every sequential nanosecond that passes. Please don’t make him out to be less than he is.
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Just a reminder from the forum guidelines:
The purpose of discussions here is not to judge the legitimacy or efficacy of anyone’s faith or lack of faith.
Let’s stay focused on ideas and not on making insinuations about other people’s faith.
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IF God controls everything that means there wouldn’t need to be a satan. Not only that but that means many people who are evil don’t always get punished until later in life. Wouldn’t make it impossible for mean to get justice if that means God already planned for people to escape their crimes?
I delight in God’s providence. Enslaved by it? Hardly.
Here’s an example of one that was just fun. My Co-instants Log entry for the date shown:
Here is a map illustrating the location:
Here is a Google Maps Street View:
And here is a photo of a building being moved, not the actual building involved, but just one from online to give the approximate size for perspective, and for those who may not have known about buildings being moved:
Try and imagine all of the details that had to work together to set up that scenario – they would be myriad. That is how sovereign God is over instants and actions, and no one’s free will was violated. It may bend your mind, but that is the way it is and that is what scripture teaches.
I think that misrepresents the reality, and it is not an unusual misperception. It portrays God as a puppetmaster and individuals, including satan, as having no free will. You really have to accept “both and” and not “either or” – God is sovereign and we have free will.
It is way counterintuitive, and I think it takes some humility before scripture to accept it, but that is what the Bible teaches. It is a case of our insistence that we have to be completely comfortable and have God within the box of our understanding.
Very kind of you to say, @Dale. Unfortunately, I’m now entering the busiest period of time in our church calendar. I’ll still be lurking in the background reading and liking posts, but my own time to post - especially anything useful, let alone, articulate - about theology will be considerably limited. Sorry champ, I’m afraid I’m on the bench for this one.
With you in spirit 
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