everything is predestined?

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Oct 2, 2021
32
18
8
#1
I tend to believe everything happens because it suppose to happen. What are your guys thoughts on that?
 
Jun 12, 2021
416
91
28
#2
I tend to believe everything happens because it suppose to happen. What are your guys thoughts on that?
We have a will but it is not free. It's better to form a picture of a conveyer belt. If God didn't choose some people to be saved, everyone would go to the lake of fire.
 

Evmur

Well-known member
Feb 28, 2021
5,219
2,618
113
London
christianchat.com
#3
I tend to believe everything happens because it suppose to happen. What are your guys thoughts on that?
that is fatalism ... should a blind man then simply accept his blindness? did Bartimeus? was sin "supposed" to happen? but God forbade it.

Are all hospitals houses of rebellion and every doctor or nurse a rebel?
 

Rondonmon

Senior Member
May 13, 2016
1,304
183
63
#4
I tend to believe everything happens because it suppose to happen. What are your guys thoughts on that?
This comes from LACK OF KNOWLEDGE

We have a will but it is not free. It's better to form a picture of a conveyer belt. If God didn't choose some people to be saved, everyone would go to the lake of fire.
As does THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSS....................

Both of your understandings of what Paul is referring unto would be quenched if you would dig in, God says only those who seek Him with all their hears will find Him ad thus understand His ways. By reading the bible and looking at God's Spirit an ESSENCE of who He is it would soon come to most God is not a slave driving God who seeks to rule over "Computer Generated Beings" or else that is what He would have already done and you would be under His ALL POWEFEUL WILL, repeating just what He wanted you to say, soo your logic is lacking at best, it is nonsensical, tbh.

So, what does Paul mean via this Predestination? He is simply saying God PREDESTINATED us all unto life evermore via Jesus Christ, THE SACRIFICE that takes away the sins of all the world, but of course if men choose not to receive that FREE GIFT, they can, because God gave us free will, you can choose God or chose Satan, who won our Kingdom by tricking Adam & Eve. That's right, God GAVE Adam Dominion over this whole world, and Satan tricked him out of his Birthright and dominion.

So, God CHOSE US ALL......The bible tells us that also, but we must dig it out "here a little, there a little, line upon line", that is how the bible must be read in order to understand it......Thus the bible CLEARLY STATES that God WOULD NOT that any man should perish but that ALL MEN would have everlasting life through Jesus Christ. Do you get that sirs? It says God wants EVERY MAN to repent but you are inferring that God CHOOSES certain men, but that would make God a liar, and we all known He is not a liar.

I wonder if everyone understands why God told Abraham to Sacrifice his child !! God was showing Abraham and all mankind that God loved the world so much He was going to have to Sacrifice his only begotten Son in order to save mankind from their sins. That is what Paul meant by God PREDESTINED Jesus as a Sacrifice long go, before the Foundations of the world God knew He was going to have to send His son Jesus to redeem mankind. If pnev reads that Old English very carefully, they can finally see that is what Paul means, God PREDESTINED a Sacrifice for us because God foreknew we would need one. Thus He PREDESTI9NED us all unto life, not JUST some men, but ALL MEN.........................but sadly ALL MEN will not accept that free gift, of life. Some Condemned men are tricked by Satan who cleverly lies unto them until he captures their darkened souls.
 
Jan 14, 2021
1,599
526
113
#5
The parable of the sheep and goats or wheat and tares seems to speak to a predestination based on spiritual nature. You could use these types of passages in support of a predestiny interpretation. You could just as easily look at passages about spiritual transmutatiom and argue that because a rock can be turned into a descendant of Abraham that goats and sheep are able to be transmuted between what they are.

Here's one for you: what if time isn't linear? What if our frame of reference for time is day by day between the periods of sleep but that we have already experienced days of the future to come and have yet to experience any number of the days of our life that have chronologically passed? Would it really be a weird progression of time for an etermal creator outside of the bounds of time?

We see this kind of time jumping with visions and prophesy such as John in Revelation. What if the timeframe that John visited already happened?

Here's the white rabbit question: if the future can change, what if the past can change? E.g. Mandella effect taken to the extreme.

I tend to believe everything happens because it suppose to happen. What are your guys thoughts on that?
Tangents aside, and to your point: like your other thread pointed out, God determines how the dice fall and therefore this too seems like a logical conclusion drawn from that principle.

And since the next chain in that thought is "does that mean He creates some people intentionally to be damned or destroyed or to be the subject of wrath?" The answer would be yes, and we see that in the latter half of Romans 9.
 

p_rehbein

Senior Member
Sep 4, 2013
30,747
6,913
113
#6
I tend to believe everything happens because it suppose to happen. What are your guys thoughts on that?
I tend to believe that makes you a follower of Calvin. As well, I tend to believe it is completely unBiblical. His TULIP thingy does not fly with me.

Hey, don't get upset with me...........blame it on Calvin! After all, according to him, I was predestined to disagree with your beliefs.
 
Jun 12, 2021
416
91
28
#7
The parable of the sheep and goats or wheat and tares seems to speak to a predestination based on spiritual nature. You could use these types of passages in support of a predestiny interpretation. You could just as easily look at passages about spiritual transmutatiom and argue that because a rock can be turned into a descendant of Abraham that goats and sheep are able to be transmuted between what they are.

Here's one for you: what if time isn't linear? What if our frame of reference for time is day by day between the periods of sleep but that we have already experienced days of the future to come and have yet to experience any number of the days of our life that have chronologically passed? Would it really be a weird progression of time for an etermal creator outside of the bounds of time?

We see this kind of time jumping with visions and prophesy such as John in Revelation. What if the timeframe that John visited already happened?

Here's the white rabbit question: if the future can change, what if the past can change? E.g. Mandella effect taken to the extreme.



Tangents aside, and to your point: like your other thread pointed out, God determines how the dice fall and therefore this too seems like a logical conclusion drawn from that principle.

And since the next chain in that thought is "does that mean He creates some people intentionally to be damned or destroyed or to be the subject of wrath?" The answer would be yes, and we see that in the latter half of Romans 9.
You are either
1. sheep=wheat=God's elect=God writes in the book of life all of God's elects names before world is created=God creates the world=Some point in all of God's elect life, God gives the Holy Spirit to them and sinful nature is removed. God replaces it with God's holy nature. They spiritual grow mature and character becomes like Christ.

2.goat=wolf=tare=nonelect=only nonelects receive the mark of the beast because their names are not in the book of life.

Sinful flesh and sinful nature all inherited from Satan=Adam and Eve=Mankind.

You can't change a goat to a sheep.
 

Adstar

Senior Member
Jul 24, 2016
7,600
3,624
113
#9
I tend to believe everything happens because it suppose to happen. What are your guys thoughts on that?
God foreknows what is going to happen from the biggining to the end.. Nothing catches God by surprise..
 
May 22, 2020
2,382
358
83
#10
I tend to believe everything happens because it suppose to happen. What are your guys thoughts on that?
Nothing happens without God's allowing such to happen. Be guided by the book of Job.
 
May 22, 2020
2,382
358
83
#11
We have a will but it is not free. It's better to form a picture of a conveyer belt. If God didn't choose some people to be saved, everyone would go to the lake of fire.
You are advocating ...predestination. That is not biblical.
 
May 22, 2020
2,382
358
83
#12
The parable of the sheep and goats or wheat and tares seems to speak to a predestination based on spiritual nature. You could use these types of passages in support of a predestiny interpretation. You could just as easily look at passages about spiritual transmutatiom and argue that because a rock can be turned into a descendant of Abraham that goats and sheep are able to be transmuted between what they are.

Here's one for you: what if time isn't linear? What if our frame of reference for time is day by day between the periods of sleep but that we have already experienced days of the future to come and have yet to experience any number of the days of our life that have chronologically passed? Would it really be a weird progression of time for an etermal creator outside of the bounds of time?

We see this kind of time jumping with visions and prophesy such as John in Revelation. What if the timeframe that John visited already happened?

Here's the white rabbit question: if the future can change, what if the past can change? E.g. Mandella effect taken to the extreme.



Tangents aside, and to your point: like your other thread pointed out, God determines how the dice fall and therefore this too seems like a logical conclusion drawn from that principle.

And since the next chain in that thought is "does that mean He creates some people intentionally to be damned or destroyed or to be the subject of wrath?" The answer would be yes, and we see that in the latter half of Romans 9.
Your correlation is lacking common sense.
 
May 22, 2020
2,382
358
83
#13
I tend to believe that makes you a follower of Calvin. As well, I tend to believe it is completely unBiblical. His TULIP thingy does not fly with me.

Hey, don't get upset with me...........blame it on Calvin! After all, according to him, I was predestined to disagree with your beliefs.
Be careful...the wording in that post includes..... God's plan will...and is suppose too happen.
 
May 22, 2020
2,382
358
83
#14
I tend to believe everything happens because it suppose to happen. What are your guys thoughts on that?
If you are saying....because it is God's plan.........agreed. If by happenstance...no.
 
Nov 23, 2021
502
105
43
#16
absolute predestination of all things.
Be careful...the wording in that post includes..... God's plan will...and is suppose too happen.
Brohamus, I just spent 6 years on Facebook messanger trying to show scripture to a dyed-in- the wool Calvinist the errors of his theology. My experience is you can quote scripture till your'e blue in the face but the Calvinist cannot see the Bible except through the filter of T.U.L.I.P. Their mind is made up. They were chosen and that's it . They were hardly ever lost. Heck they didn't need freewill because they couldn't respond to God if they tried. So God has do everything for them . Who are they to reply against God choosing them . Those unchosen ? Don't waste your time trying to convince them He is the propitiation for our sins and not ours only but for the sins of the whole world. They'll just give you something they read somewhere or interpreted for them . God is not longer impartial so instead of God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all . He is transformed into a respecter of persons. Namely the elect Those He chose , not whosover believes due to the influence of the gospel which is the power of God unto salvation and The ministry of the Holy Spirit . Those unchosen . well they are S.O.L. God only works with the elect.. After 6 years of listening to this nonsense if offence is taken oops. I concluded that my friend had "another Jesus".. Because my Jesus doen't do robots. I would say don't waste your time.
 

lamad

Well-known member
Apr 14, 2021
1,293
107
63
#17
I tend to believe everything happens because it suppose to happen. What are your guys thoughts on that?
Read Hebrews chapter 11: people CHANGED the world they lived in by their faith.
 
Jan 14, 2021
1,599
526
113
#18
Brohamus, I just spent 6 years on Facebook messanger trying to show scripture to a dyed-in- the wool Calvinist the errors of his theology. My experience is you can quote scripture till your'e blue in the face but the Calvinist cannot see the Bible except through the filter of T.U.L.I.P. Their mind is made up. They were chosen and that's it . They were hardly ever lost. Heck they didn't need freewill because they couldn't respond to God if they tried. So God has do everything for them . Who are they to reply against God choosing them . Those unchosen ? Don't waste your time trying to convince them He is the propitiation for our sins and not ours only but for the sins of the whole world. They'll just give you something they read somewhere or interpreted for them . God is not longer impartial so instead of God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all . He is transformed into a respecter of persons. Namely the elect Those He chose , not whosover believes due to the influence of the gospel which is the power of God unto salvation and The ministry of the Holy Spirit . Those unchosen . well they are S.O.L. God only works with the elect.. After 6 years of listening to this nonsense if offence is taken oops. I concluded that my friend had "another Jesus".. Because my Jesus doen't do robots. I would say don't waste your time.
Hard determinism (especially from the perspective of epiphenomenalism) is like watching a video or reading a finished book that has a definite duration, content, and every time you watch it the content never changes.

Soft determinism is the concept that there are certain events that necessarily will happen but the means by which those things are reached is subject to freewill. There are varying degrees of soft determinism. The Bible through its prophesies of the end of times is seemingly somewhere on the spectrum of at least being softly deterministic.

Can scripture be interpreted through hard determinism? Yes.

"But what about all the passages that speak about losing salvation?"

The answer would be that in as much as "God repented" in the OT is figurative for the purpose of helping our human understanding (God never sins and never changes therefore can't literally repent), so too would lines about individuals "losing salvation" or having their names "blotted from the book of life" would also be figurative. The argument for this focuses around passages that say apostates or infidels that don't end up staying in Christ were "never really one of us to begin with."

"But if we're all just automatons, scripted robots, or other deterministic clockwork, how can we possibly have souls?"

Epiphenomenalism is the concept that there is an "observer" of life exeriences / qualia that basically does not interact with the happenings of life. In the same way that a film watcher or book reader doesn't change the happenings of the film or book. This observer would be the real "you" in this model.

// (end of the interpretation summary)

All of that said, I'm just stating that there is an internally consistent model for hard determinism and scripture. I personally don't find it compelling, but I have my own hairbrained theories for why someone would find scriptural hard determinism appealing. If we look at people that have experienced acute shock and trauma (a loss of control), one of the symptoms that can come from that is "floating" above one's self or having other detachments from truly being in the moment. The sense of control and autonomy of actions may not seem as tangible as they should be. This state goes well with a perception of epiphenomenalism where there too there is a detachment between state of being and existential experience. My conclusion or running assumption is that people with a pathos based attachment to hard determinism are suffering from a psychological injury that they are trying to heal from, and that this manifests as an expression of ranges of philosophical preferences that speaks to the nature of their injury. It's like a call for help. It's a call for recognition that "my pain and detachment are real". I don't think people like that are a lost cause, I think there is just a very particular way that they need healing.

"Jesus doesn't do robots"

I like that phrase! No offense to any singularity AI reading this (Jesus loves you too). But I think the trick at that point is to convince people that they aren't actually robots. And when that fails, at least hold their beliefs accountable to scripture and let God do the rest of the work to let their thinking line up the way it is intended.

If their belief system includes the interpretation that being part of a denomination is a signal that someone is saved, that's a bit of a different topic ("the saved were predestined to currently be members of my denominational faith, and anyone outside will never be saved"). That type of interpretation is worthy of hard criticism and rebuke. Scripture speaks against relying solely on outward labels in many cases and that what seems one way might be another when it comes to people's appraisal of one another as good or evil.

Great topics.
 
Nov 23, 2021
502
105
43
#19
Hard determinism (especially from the perspective of epiphenomenalism) is like watching a video or reading a finished book that has a definite duration, content, and every time you watch it the content never changes.

Soft determinism is the concept that there are certain events that necessarily will happen but the means by which those things are reached is subject to freewill. There are varying degrees of soft determinism. The Bible through its prophesies of the end of times is seemingly somewhere on the spectrum of at least being softly deterministic.

Can scripture be interpreted through hard determinism? Yes.

"But what about all the passages that speak about losing salvation?"

The answer would be that in as much as "God repented" in the OT is figurative for the purpose of helping our human understanding (God never sins and never changes therefore can't literally repent), so too would lines about individuals "losing salvation" or having their names "blotted from the book of life" would also be figurative. The argument for this focuses around passages that say apostates or infidels that don't end up staying in Christ were "never really one of us to begin with."

"But if we're all just automatons, scripted robots, or other deterministic clockwork, how can we possibly have souls?"

Epiphenomenalism is the concept that there is an "observer" of life exeriences / qualia that basically does not interact with the happenings of life. In the same way that a film watcher or book reader doesn't change the happenings of the film or book. This observer would be the real "you" in this model.

// (end of the interpretation summary)

All of that said, I'm just stating that there is an internally consistent model for hard determinism and scripture. I personally don't find it compelling, but I have my own hairbrained theories for why someone would find scriptural hard determinism appealing. If we look at people that have experienced acute shock and trauma (a loss of control), one of the symptoms that can come from that is "floating" above one's self or having other detachments from truly being in the moment. The sense of control and autonomy of actions may not seem as tangible as they should be. This state goes well with a perception of epiphenomenalism where there too there is a detachment between state of being and existential experience. My conclusion or running assumption is that people with a pathos based attachment to hard determinism are suffering from a psychological injury that they are trying to heal from, and that this manifests as an expression of ranges of philosophical preferences that speaks to the nature of their injury. It's like a call for help. It's a call for recognition that "my pain and detachment are real". I don't think people like that are a lost cause, I think there is just a very particular way that they need healing.

"Jesus doesn't do robots"

I like that phrase! No offense to any singularity AI reading this (Jesus loves you too). But I think the trick at that point is to convince people that they aren't actually robots. And when that fails, at least hold their beliefs accountable to scripture and let God do the rest of the work to let their thinking line up the way it is intended.

If their belief system includes the interpretation that being part of a denomination is a signal that someone is saved, that's a bit of a different topic ("the saved were predestined to currently be members of my denominational faith, and anyone outside will never be saved"). That type of interpretation is worthy of hard criticism and rebuke. Scripture speaks against relying solely on outward labels in many cases and that what seems one way might be another when it comes to people's appraisal of one another as good or evil.

Great topics.
Yeah Buddy, that's a whole lot of confusion . Especially to new believers. I like the "short gospel"
1 John 5:12

“He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”
 

Pilgrimshope

Well-known member
Sep 2, 2020
14,654
5,908
113
#20
I tend to believe everything happens because it suppose to happen. What are your guys thoughts on that?
remember when Satan deceived man and led him astray ? Was it Gods Will that they ate the fruit and died ? Or did he explicitly forbid it and earn them of danger ? And the. They had a choice to believe Gods word and live or believe satans word and die ?

if everything is Gods Will the. All the evil everyone commits is his will and they have no choice when they kill it’s just gods will when they lie and cheat well that’s Gods mysterious fault yet he punishes them for his Will ?

why destroy the creation he loves ? Was it his Will to create man call him good and the. Say it repents me that I even made mankind ?

“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭1:31‬ ‭KJV‬‬

“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.”
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭6:5-7‬ ‭KJV‬‬

somGods plan was to create a good creation have man turn evil
And the. Be grieved in his heart and destroy them for carrying out his will ?

it doesn’t make sense it makes sense that God gave man the earth and we corrupted it and now through Christ he is working to save us from our sins and bad decisions on who to believe