my friend's theory on predestination

edited December 1969 in Faith Issues
Hey everyone,

So I have this friend of mine that has a very philosophical mind, and he makes a lot of very well thought out arguments about life. He has this one argument about predestination, and his conclusion does not agree with Christianity, but it makes a lot of sense.

So, his argument is that every single thing in our entire lives, and all our choices that we make in our lives, and who we are right now is predestined. He says that what happens to you in your life shapes who you are, and who you are will decide what you do when an event occurs and how you react to it.
Who you are is predestined because where you're born is obviously predestined, and since the environment/family/friends shapes your personality, then your personality is predestined. So, you don't get to choose any of your beliefs or how you think. And, if we don't choose who we are, and if who we are is what we use to get through the day, then we don't have any choice in our lives.
So, since no one had any choice on who they are going to be in their lives, then they should not be held responsible for their actions. So, those who sin should not be held responsible for their sins. Everyone is as equal as everyone else, and no one can be judged, and no one is wrong, and no one is right.


This is his argument. Now, I know that the Bible says that predestination exists, but does it exist to this extent?

Thank You

Comments

  • hey,
    if that made sense to you, it didn't to me! i am sorry!
    so if everyone is not resposible for their own actions! then we shouldn't have any laws! and we can have people running around killing each other and they won't be responsible for their actions! so every one can do what ever they want! any-time they want and whenever they want!!! and won't be responsible! so let's say john has a kid and he just through him away cuz he is not resposible for him??
    wow........ i should give your friend a pat on the back!
    NOT!
    everyone is responsible for their own actions, and every move and every action has a consequences! wether on earth or in heaven!
    GBWU
    pray for me
    mira
  • predestination, what does that mean..

    maybe ill understand it once i understand the word..

    sorry for the inconvience!!
  • Why:
    Predestination means that everything is pre-destined to happen - i.e. everything that happens has already been decided.

    In response to esakle: It is true that we cannot chose how, when and where we are born. But that does not mean we cannot chose how we react to these things.

    Two people can be born into exactly the same type of family, having exactly the same IQ, physical ability, etc. and still end up making completely different choices.

    So whilst these uncontrollable factors have great influence upon us, they do not altogether negate choice and free-will.
  • this is a strange topic
    i dont really know how these people come up with these things.
    in a way yea god did make ur life as planned he knows already but we dont so we have to make choices to our best ability.
    every choice opens a new choice or another problem and so on.
    the never ending cycle is the reason why this theory is incorrect.
    if u decide one thing one day it could change the rest of ur life.
    u decide to pick a different major it could make u or brake u.
    well i guess thats what i have now.

    [coptic][/coptic]se nerompi
  • [* I have reposted a previous rebuttal to this argument against the compatibility of God’s omniscience and human free will]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Your friend's point is well taken.....however it is girded upon credulous suppositions. He is presuming the following argument; if God is omniscient in all things, knowing how men will behave in the future, then it is pointless to give men freedom. In essence, his argument is propounding that if God knows any given proposition p then necessarily p must occur. Now, if p must necessarily occur then we really aren't as "free" as we believe to be...freedom is existentially misconstrued. Therefore, it is meaningless for God to imbue men with freedom. The argument must proceed with such premises and conclusion, otherwise, I can easily retort that for any given proposition p there would be nothing coercing p into actuality. P would be solely dependent upon the will of men and God would theoretically be inculpable of
    the professed accusation.

    Thus, assuming your argument is as stated above, I believe that there is one major logical fallacy your friend has committed. In lieu of the argument:
    "Necessarily, If God knows p then p"
    "God knows p"
    "then Necessarily p"

    ...necessity becomes conflated with absolute certainty. A person may be absolutely certain that if God knows p, then p will occur. However it is fallacious to assert that p must necessarily occur. While it is true that the conclusion "God knows p" necessarily emanates from the argument's premises, the conclusion itself is not predominated by necessity. The conclusion would not result with "then necessarily p" but only "then p".
    For instance, for the given proposition that God already knows Joe will mow his lawn next Thursday, you can conclude with absolute certainty that Joe will mow his lawn. You may not, however, state that Joe must necessarily mow his lawn. I find that many people often tend to conflate the attributes of certainty with the properties of necessity in arguments regarding the omniscience of God and free will. Since certainty is a property of mind and necessity is a property of truth you can be absolutley certain that something will occur and still find yourself wrong in regard to the actual outcome. It may be possible that with any given possible world, under the exact same circumstances as listed above, Joe would or would not mow his lawn. The notion of middle knowledge surfaces as one considers that God holds knowledge of any given truth p and the counterfactual truth none p.

    While it is true that in a deductive argument the conclusion must follow necessarily from the premises, the premises themselves are not to be ascribed with necessity. The misnomer is exhumed as one carefully reviews the second and third premises. Granted, that one assumes the correctness of Preimse1, the following is what should ensue logically;
    Premise 1: Necessarily, if God knows P then P
    Premise 2: God knows P
    Premise 3: then P

    It does not follow from Premise 1 and 2 that necessarily God knows P. All that ensues from the initial premise is the certainty one may have that P will indeed occur. The problem consists of the conflationary attempt on the part of the skeptic to mix absolute certainty with necessity. Absolute certainty is a component of the reasoning taking place while necessity is a component of the actual premise. One may be absolutely certain that an event will occur, yet the event must not be consigned to necessity of occurrence.
    God’s knowledge of an event, hence, does logically induce one particular outcome to any event. An event may hold a whole range of possible outcomes in different possible worlds, before the divine decree to create this world. The counter-reformation theologian Louise Melina consigned to this realization and using the Anselmian conception of God, ascribes three particular traits to God’s omniscience. According to Moulina, God posses not only knowledge of everything that could happen, but also knowledge of everything that would happen in any particular set of circumstances. This, he referred to as God’s “middle knowledge”. God’s natural knowledge is that which conceives all necessary truths, the range of all possible worlds he may have created. He knows that in some possible world Peter freely denies Christ three times and that in another world Peter freely affirms Christ under identical circumstances.
    On the other hand, God’s middle knowledge is His knowledge of all contingently true counter-factual propositions …including those of men’s free actions. For example, prior to His creative decree God knew that if Peter were in circumstances C, he would freely deny Christ three times. Counter-factual knowledge allows for God to limit the range of possible worlds; worlds that are feasible for God to actualize. There is a possible world where Peter freely affirms Christ in precisely the same circumstances he would deny him in. However, given the counter-factual truths that if Peter were in precisely those same circumstances he would freely deny Christ, then the possible world where Peter affirms Christ is not feasible for God. God could make Peter affirm Christ, but then his confession would not be free.
    By means of His middle knowledge God knows the proper ensemble of possible worlds which are feasible for Him, given the counterfactuals that are true. God then decrees to create men in certain circumstances and on the basis of His middle knowledge and the knowledge of His decree, God has foreknowledge of everything that will happen. Given these three characteristics, particularly knowledge of possible counter-factual truths, it logically follows that merely because God knows an event, the event is not a necessity, in regard to occurrence."

    Ultimatley, a Molinistic perspective would define God's absolute control only over the end result of any given action. However, God would not exercise absolute control over the will that leads to such a result. If the sovereign Lord acted forcefully upon men's willpower then I would agree.....freedom could be deemed to be meaningless. However, given that you are not following a Calvinistic doctrine, you are free to hold a Molinstic perspective that purports God's absolute control over the end result of an action but not the will that incites such action. It therefore follows, that we are meaningfully given the ability to choose our own destiny although God has sovereignly decreed what that destiny will inevitably turn out to be. Freedom holds intrinsic meaning by the very inspiration and glory of God's majesty.

    Now, granted that where we are born is a predestined factor on the part of God, I do not believe that this evokes further argumentation for the very influence brought about by our friends and family to also be predestined. You would first need to assume that the relational rapport with our families and friends remains undisturbed all throughout our psychological and physical growth. Now I believe from experience that this is a blatantly false perspective to imbibe. The influence of our environment is far less potent the more mature and wiser we become. As we age, influence is generally prescribed as emanating more from our own worldviews then from the worldviews of our surrounding neighbors and relatives. From an experiential viewpoint the argument profoundly holds even less ground. For, there most certainly have been numerous instances where individuals have abandoned their childhood beliefs in light of a conceivably more veracious or adequate systems of beliefs….just take Hitler or Muhammad’s life as prime examples.
        The skeptic must first give reason to believe that the external influence of man holds far more greater potentiality then the influence of either Divine or Natural revelation that encompasses the existence of man. Then the skeptic must incontrovertibly demonstrate a collinear or consecutive chain of cause and effect external circumstances that alone lead to the individuals’ given persona (This alone would require a sense of omniscient skill girdled within omnipresent capability.) Only after establishing the incredulity of both, can the skeptic confidently assert that external forces are primordially responsible for our behavior—our behavior ensuing from predestined environmental factors. Now if the skeptic retorts that our internal perspective on life is ultimately shaped by our extrinsic environmental circumstance --thus equivalently influenced by a predestined prescription-- then the he must give support for such a metaphysical assertion. For, how can one be certain that man’s internal beliefs are not more dominant then the external forces enacting upon those beliefs?
        Secondly, recall the skeptic’s claim that our beliefs are ultimately beyond our decisive reasoning and scope of intuition. The argument presented proports that man does not hold any actual decision in the thoughts and actions he promotes. Yet, doesn’t this same line of argumentation hold true for all of the skeptic’s thoughts and bleliefs as well? Therefore, the very belief that beliefs are beyond our reasoning and cognitive scope is one that has been forced upon the skeptic’s mind. The very argument he is presenting would only be as intelligible as the morning cereal he digested for breakfast! The skeptic’s line of reasoning would not be able to breach his own subjective and innate predestined reasoning. Ultimately, reasoning and intelligence becomes meaningless….for all thoughts are forced upon the minds of men and thoughts can not breach the limited perspective of man. The atheistic argument advocated becomes meaningless according to the skeptic's own conclusion….it becomes a self-defeating statement. I find no compelling reason to follow suit with your friend's belief in the meaninglesness of men's free-will and hold that the meaningfulness of God's will is much more convincing; much more worth extrapolating.
       

    God bless.
  • [quote author=gmankbadi link=board=1;threadid=4359;start=0#msg59987 date=1156987825]

    Now, granted that where we are born is a predestined factor on the part of God, I do not believe that this evokes further argumentation for the very influence brought about by our friends and family to also be predestined. You would first need to assume that the relational rapport with our families and friends remains undisturbed all throughout our psychological and physical growth. Now I believe from experience that this is a blatantly false perspective to imbibe. The influence of our environment is far less potent the more mature and wiser we become. As we age, influence is generally prescribed as emanating more from our own worldviews then from the worldviews of our surrounding neighbors and relatives. From an experiential viewpoint the argument profoundly holds even less ground. For, there most certainly have been numerous instances where individuals have abandoned their childhood beliefs in light of a conceivably more veracious or adequate systems of beliefs….just take Hitler or Muhammad’s life as prime examples.
        The skeptic must first give reason to believe that the external influence of man holds far more greater potentiality then the influence of either Divine or Natural revelation that encompasses the existence of man. Then the skeptic must incontrovertibly demonstrate a collinear or consecutive chain of cause and effect external circumstances that alone lead to the individuals’ given persona (This alone would require a sense of omniscient skill girdled within omnipresent capability.) Only after establishing the incredulity of both, can the skeptic confidently assert that external forces are primordially responsible for our behavior—our behavior ensuing from predestined environmental factors. Now if the skeptic retorts that our internal perspective on life is ultimately shaped by our extrinsic environmental circumstance --thus equivalently influenced by a predestined prescription-- then the he must give support for such a metaphysical assertion. For, how can one be certain that man’s internal beliefs are not more dominant then the external forces enacting upon those beliefs?
        Secondly, recall the skeptic’s claim that our beliefs are ultimately beyond our decisive reasoning and scope of intuition. The argument presented proports that man does not hold any actual decision in the thoughts and actions he promotes. Yet, doesn’t this same line of argumentation hold true for all of the skeptic’s thoughts and bleliefs as well? Therefore, the very belief that beliefs are beyond our reasoning and cognitive scope is one that has been forced upon the skeptic’s mind. The very argument he is presenting would only be as intelligible as the morning cereal he digested for breakfast! The skeptic’s line of reasoning would not be able to breach his own subjective and innate predestined reasoning. Ultimately, reasoning and intelligence becomes meaningless….for all thoughts are forced upon the minds of men and thoughts can not breach the limited perspective of man. The atheistic argument advocated becomes meaningless according to the skeptic's own conclusion….it becomes a self-defeating statement. I find no compelling reason to follow suit with your friend's belief in the meaninglesness of men's free-will and hold that the meaningfulness of God's will is much more convincing; much more worth extrapolating.
       

    God bless.



    gmankbadi,

    is it possible for you to explain what you wrote here so that i can fully understand what you are trying to say so that i can explain it to my friend? i'm sure you are making a lot of extremely good points, but i just don't understand them...

    thanks
  • The problem presented by eskala's friend has little do with pre-destination and more to do with the theory of determenism. It is not really concerned with the concept of God's omniscience forcing one to act a certain way; it is concerned with the concept of one's environment, upbringing, social affiliations etc. determining one's mode of willing and course of action.
  • [quote author=esakla23 link=board=1;threadid=4359;start=0#msg59890 date=1156833491]
    He says that what happens to you in your life shapes who you are, and who you are will decide what you do when an event occurs and how you react to it. Who you are is predestined because where you're born is obviously predestined, and since the environment/family/friends shapes your personality, then your personality is predestined. So, you don't get to choose any of your beliefs or how you think. And, if we don't choose who we are, and if who we are is what we use to get through the day, then we don't have any choice in our lives.


    This statement about your friend's belief seems fairly interesting to me. We had a discussion about this in my, what you can call, a philosophy class. I don't think it is true that one's personality is completely based on what environment and family and friends he/she is exposed to. It is how the person chooses to react to the environment etc... that he/she is exposed to. If what your friend was saying was true then we function just like an automaton, or a robot, and in that case we don't have a free will or the ability to make decisions and choices which we obviously do everyday. We may only be influenced by the factors your friend mentioned if we allow them to influence us and I think, please correct me if I am wrong, where the free will that God gave us comes to play. If this is true, then your friend's whole argument falls apart.

    Please pray for me always,
    Believer in God
  • Quote From: Believer In God
    "This statement about your friend's belief seems fairly interesting to me. We had a discussion about this in my, what you can call, a philosophy class. I don't think it is true that one's personality is completely based on what environment and family and friends he/she is exposed to. It is how the person chooses to react to the environment etc... that he/she is exposed to. If what your friend was saying was true then we function just like an automaton, or a robot, and in that case we don't have a free will or the ability to make decisions and choices which we obviously do everyday. We may only be influenced by the factors your friend mentioned if we allow them to influence us and I think, please correct me if I am wrong, where the free will that God gave us comes to play. If this is true, then your friend's whole argument falls apart.

    Please pray for me always,
    Believer in God"



    Well, I used this same argument against him, but he just said that the way we choose to react to the environment/family/friends that we are exposed to is based on who we are and what kind of person we are. And so, his argument just goes in circles.
    He says that if we keep asking why we make a certain choice enough times, then it will come down to where we were born and who gave birth to us and how we are raised by that family. Since we have no control over these things, then we have no control over what kind of choices we will make.

    However, I think that Orthodox11 has a good point
  • [quote author=esakla23 link=board=1;threadid=4359;start=0#msg59999 date=1156995133]
    Quote From: Believer In God
    "This statement about your friend's belief seems fairly interesting to me. We had a discussion about this in my, what you can call, a philosophy class. I don't think it is true that one's personality is completely based on what environment and family and friends he/she is exposed to. It is how the person chooses to react to the environment etc... that he/she is exposed to. If what your friend was saying was true then we function just like an automaton, or a robot, and in that case we don't have a free will or the ability to make decisions and choices which we obviously do everyday. We may only be influenced by the factors your friend mentioned if we allow them to influence us and I think, please correct me if I am wrong, where the free will that God gave us comes to play. If this is true, then your friend's whole argument falls apart.

    Please pray for me always,
    Believer in God"



    Well, I used this same argument against him, but he just said that the way we choose to react to the environment/family/friends that we are exposed to is based on who we are and what kind of person we are. And so, his argument just goes in circles.
    He says that if we keep asking why we make a certain choice enough times, then it will come down to where we were born and who gave birth to us and how we are raised by that family. Since we have no control over these things, then we have no control over what kind of choices we will make.


    This is probably going to sound really complicated but please try to follow what I am about to say. How we are raised by our family is a combination of what the family tries to teach us and what we choose to accept. If that is so then how we are influenced by family and environment and friends, which is based on how we are raised, is originally based on what we chose to accept.

    Please pray for me always,
    Believer in God
  • That actually makes a lot of sense.

    Thanks.
  • This idea doesn't even work today.
    A person is shaped by much more than the environment now adays and this is a fact.
    The internet connects us to the world and all its cultures (i think that makes our environment the world)

    "The wages of sin is death"
    This statement that your friend made is in my opinion ridiculous
    It is used by many people as an excuse to keep sinning without worrying about salvation, which we should be working for (Ph2:12 "work out your salvation in fear and trembling")
    I pray for your friend because the statement he made blinds many people to ignore the sweet words of the Bible
    The word of God reaches the end of the world.
    "you have no excuse"
    St. Anothony only had to spend a few minutes to hear a statement that changed his life. When he went to the desert, the only environment he had was nature ( there isn't much nature in the desert, but the little nature that was in the desert gave him so much knowledge about God and the evil of sinning)

    This is a statement the devil likes to play with so be very careful. Your friend is no philosopher with that statement.

    There needs to be more respect for the spirit that is inside a human. The human body as we all know has an end. Why is there a time limit? Because knowledge is given to us and we have to use it to know more about the ways of God. Why does time whip us on our backs? Because we shouldn't be wasting it. Stop wasting time with sin. Strive for the goal of heaven without wasting your time in excuse.
  • Now, granted that where we are born is a predestined factor on the part of God, I do not believe that this evokes further argumentation for the very influence brought about by our friends and family to also be predestined. You would first need to assume that the relational rapport with our families and friends remains undisturbed all throughout our psychological and physical growth. Now I believe from experience that this is a blatantly false perspective to imbibe. The influence of our environment is far less potent the more mature and wiser we become. As we age, influence is generally prescribed as emanating more from our own worldviews then from the worldviews of our surrounding neighbors and relatives. From an experiential viewpoint the argument profoundly holds even less ground. For, there most certainly have been numerous instances where individuals have abandoned their childhood beliefs in light of a conceivably more veracious or adequate systems of beliefs….just take Hitler or Muhammad’s life as prime examples.

    My major points seem to have eluded many readers. Basically, if where we are born is predestined this doesn't mean that our family's influence on us is also predestined. In order to conclude that our familiy's and friend's inlfuence on us is deterministically imposed upon us you must first jump to the assumption that all of our behavior is shaped by our external surroundings (for where we are born is an external factor of our lives).
    My argument goes as follows; man is not merely shaped by external enviornments, but also by his internal reaction to such enviornments. Your friend must prove that God has predetermined our internal reactions as well. If your friend denies the premise that we are comprised of both internal and exteranl factors, then he needs to validate such a claim. For there is existential, psycholgical and philosophical reasons to suggest that we are externally and internally molded...yet none to suggest that we are preponderatley molded by exteranl factors alone.

    Secondly, you freind must also prove that our external enviornment is more influential then our internal spirtual identities. That is to say, your friend needs to give reasons to believe (for the Christian) that the Spirit of God within us or (for the atheist) that the spirit within man is weaker then our external envioprnments. For, even if God predetermines our external enviornment what's to say that our internal willpower is insufficent to overcome the external beliefs we encounter?


       

    Secondly, recall the skeptic’s claim that our beliefs are ultimately beyond our decisive reasoning and scope of intuition. The argument presented proports that man does not hold any actual decision in the thoughts and actions he promotes. Yet, doesn’t this same line of argumentation hold true for all of the skeptic’s thoughts and bleliefs as well? Therefore, the very belief that beliefs are beyond our reasoning and cognitive scope is one that has been forced upon the skeptic’s mind. The very argument he is presenting would only be as intelligible as the morning cereal he digested for breakfast! The skeptic’s line of reasoning would not be able to breach his own subjective and innate predestined reasoning. Ultimately, reasoning and intelligence becomes meaningless….for all thoughts are forced upon the minds of men and thoughts can not breach the limited perspective of man. The atheistic argument advocated becomes meaningless according to the skeptic's own conclusion….it becomes a self-defeating statement. I find no compelling reason to follow suit with your friend's belief in the meaninglesness of men's free-will and hold that the meaningfulness of God's will is much more convincing; much more worth extrapolating.

      
    Thirdly, I brought forth an argument against traditional epiphenominalism; the belief that our minds are physically limited and dominated by our temporal sesnes. Well your friend's argument runs along the same logic used to contradict such a belief. If every decision we make is not our own, then neither is every belief we express to others made by our own decisions. This suggests that your friend's beliefs are also not his own to choose. He unintelligibly believes, by force, that our thoughts have been predetermined by God. So his argument is meaningless, since it ramificates from an stagnantly thought out worldview. Afterall, it is an argument that he can not help but accept.... no matter how compelling the evidence against it seems. The argument is as meanigful as our digestive system which we have no potential decsison over. One day it churns, the next it burns.

    God bless.

  • Who you are is predestined because where you're born is obviously predestined, and since the environment/family/friends shapes your personality, then your personality is predestined.

    Tempting me to smile! I have just enough time to reply shortly and simply on the quoted text (not a short reply sorry!). In fact these arguments do not make any sense because it was the parents decision to have their children in the first place. In the case parents did not plan it at the time of having children they must at least had known there were some chances of having a baby. This friend of yours does not think at all and his mind is manipulated. Tell him to free his mind and try to detach from the restrains of the environment!

    We live in environments and communities formed, maintained or altered by other people before us or still with us, as we will do ourselves with next generations. We all interact together, each one contributes with her/his own thoughts, words and actions in time and space.

    The real situation is this: God allows us FULL freedom of thought, faith, motion and action etc, within the scope of and as much as our nature can take. It is humans and their deeds who make the situations as we see in all types of environments, and they do misuse many things. But God because His Nature is Divine is present and felt whether they believe in Him or not. Sometimes there are things that He may not permit or things He wants to happen.

    God who is Love seeks us Himself even if we don't seek Him but He never forces anything on us unless it is to save us (because we prayed Him earlier for His graces even if we forgot that, or someone else prayed for us).

    He has the fullness of Righteousness and all the Wisdom. Being so, He knows everything visible or hidden and every thought, even every atom in the universe, but it does not mean He "programs" our thoughts or actions, otherwise we will be "robots" and worse than animals. He only helps us when we pray Him asking for His Divine support, at first glance sometimes we do not understand His wisdom.

    God loves us all to be His children and to have His blessings, His graces and to inherit His heavenly Gifts, essentially willingly but NEVER forcifully. Everyday He teaches and shows everybody the right path to obtain these Gifts, does He force people to believe or follow Him?

    If you analyze carefully, you can find similarity to the above in most situations, please correct me if mistaken.

    God has put and built a great global plan to save all humanity. Those who love Him and seek to be part of His great plan know how because He showed them. So they willingly decide they must (or would better) follow His righteous commands as closely as they can. Does he force any one? He does encourage people to His direction yes.

    I hope my reply is clear enough.
    I need of your prayers a lot. GBU
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