Was Man Set Up to Fail? A Look at Predestination and Fate (Article III)

Introduction: Is Man Predestined to Be Saved or Damned?

There is an old joke concerning John Calvin, who is credited with creating the idea of Predestination in Christianity.  He took a terrible fall down the stairs, and at the bottom, he was heard to remark, "Thank God I got that over with."

Now this joke is of course an exaggeration of what Calvin believed, but it seems to be a good way to introduce the subject matter for the article today.  Given that God knows the things which happen to us, does it mean we are fated to do these things?

This article approaches an objection which is the opposite of the other objections.  While most people argue that God should have stopped man from sinning but did not (that is, we should have been made free to do good but not evil), this objection is based on the claim we are not free to reject sin to begin with.

The similarity to the other objections is that the sin of man was known by God in advance. The difference is that here God is directly responsible for man being unable to resist sin.

So from the perspective of the one who believes in Fate or Double Predestination, the answer to the question “Was Man set up to fail?” would have to be “Yes.”

It is tragic that God gets the blame for foolish heresies, instead of the creators of the heresies.

What Is Fate?

Fate is a term which can be understood in the sense of "the development of events outside a person’s control, regarded as predetermined by a supernatural power" according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Thus we see the belief that if something is prophesied to be, or God knows a thing is to be, it means the person could not avoid doing a thing.

Christians have to reject this view of course.  Belief in wrong and in sin indicates a belief there is a right to compare to the wrong and good conduct which is to be compared to sin.  If one cannot help what they do, because it is fated for them to do it, how can it be an act of evil?

The Pagan Idea of Oedipus

The Greek myth of Oedipus (memorialized by Sophocles) gave us a story of a person whom the oracle said was fated to kill his father and marry his mother.  To avoid this, his father abandoned him in the woods.  However, Oedipus was found by a passing shepherd who took him in.  When he grew up, he consulted the oracle and found he was fated to kill his father and marry his mother.  To avoid this, he left home.  He ended up killing a man on the road, going to a city, freeing it from the Sphinx and marrying the recently widowed queen.  Eventually he discovered the man he killed was his father and the woman he married was his mother.

Essentially under this view, one cannot escape an evil destiny even if one wills to reject it.  Oedipus had no idea that the people who took him in were not his real parents.  He had no idea that the man he killed was his father and the woman he married was his mother.  In seeking to avoid doing the evil he was horrified by, he ended up carrying it out.  Trying to avoid one's fate becomes futile.  This can lead to the idea of fatalism (which derives from fate), which is: "the belief that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable."

Indeed, in the ancient world, astrology was used as a way of seeking to determine one's own fate while magic was often seen as a possible way to escape a fate which was otherwise inevitable.

Fate and the Will of God

Some individuals do look at the Bible with this mindset.  Events where prophecies of evil befalling the Israelites are given, people assume that these people who persecuted the Israelites did so because God commanded.  Jesus, as God, knew He was to betrayed and handed over to be crucified.

Does this mean Judas, Pilate and those members of the Sanhedrin responsible could not avoided the tasks set out for them by God's decree?

The answer is simply NO.

The fact that God knows of things which are outside of our ability to know does not mean He decrees a person will do a thing regardless of whether he wants to or not.  Rather, God can permit a thing which men do for an evil intent for the purpose of our benefit.  Because God's knowledge is infinite, He knows the choices we will do before we do them of course, but this doesn't mean He forces our hand to act.

Let's look at it this way.  God knows whether I will wind up in Heaven or Hell.  He knows what I will do in the future.  However, this does not mean I am not responsible for what I do.  It is my willing actions which makes me either cooperate with God's grace or refuse to do so.

It is wrong to say I will do evil because God wills me to be damned. Indeed, claims that man is compelled to act indicate that doing good or evil holds no meaning: It would be wrong to say that God predestined me for Heaven… for this would mean it was irrelevant what I did which was wicked.  It would be wrong for me to say that God predestined me for Hell.  Then it would also be irrelevant what I did.

The Eternal Nature of God and the Knowledge He Possesses

While sometimes God does speak through the prophets with a warning of what is to come if the wicked do not change their ways, men often speak of foreknowledge, saying God has advance knowledge of what we are to do.

The problem with this view is that it views God with the same limitations as man.  It sees God as being in time, but merely existing without an end, something similar to the lifespan of the elves in JRR Tolkien.  This is an error.

God is entirely outside of time itself.  What happened yesterday, today or tomorrow, God sees from a perspective we who are inside time cannot see.  The prayers of Moses, of a person in Christ's time on Earth, of a person today, and even a person 10,000 years from now (assuming humanity exists so long before the Second Coming) are heard by God, who is outside time.  Hence Scripture speaking of a thousand years being like a day and a day being like a thousand years (see 2 Peter 3:8).

Because of this, He can see plainly what each man will do in his life just as plainly as we can see what we did yesterday.  None of us can say we were fated to do what we did yesterday.  We did what we did through our own fault.  God can see today and tomorrow just as we can see yesterday.  The choices we will freely make tomorrow, He sees.  Not because He foreknows what we will do, but He knows what we will choose to do.

God's knowledge of what we will freely choose today, tomorrow or fifty years from now does not mean we are compelled to act in a certain way.  To argue otherwise is actually to make use of the post hoc fallacy: God knew I would act in this way; therefore His knowledge caused me to act this way.  Knowledge of what another man will do does not mean causing a thing.

The Consideration of Prophecy and Fate

So what of prophecy?  What of those wicked men who end up fulfilling something God has said, through the prophets, would happen? Do these not mean that man was fated to continue to sin and could not help it? Does it mean those who did the evil acts mentioned in prophecy were caused by God? Here we have to remove some confusion.

The fact that God knows certain men will behave in an evil nature, and for their evil motives they will afflict the Israelites or the Christians does not mean that such evil men act because God compels them to do so. Rather such men would have acted earlier had God not protected us. If God removes His protection, the wicked afflict the Israelites or the Christians.

Calvin’s Bad Idea

Unfortunately, certain Christians in the 16^th and 17^th centuries adopted such fatalism, misinterpreting the prophecies as inevitable, they have said that God causes the wicked to sin and then punishes them for their deeds. John Calvin, in his Institutes of Christian Religion describes his belief this way:

The covenant of life is not preached equally to all, and among those to whom it is preached, does not always meet with the same reception. This diversity displays the unsearchable depth of the divine judgment, and is without doubt subordinate to God's purpose of eternal election. But if it is plainly owing to the mere pleasure of God that salvation is spontaneously offered to some, while others have no access to it, great and difficult questions immediately arise, questions which are inexplicable, when just views are not entertained concerning election and predestination. To many this seems a perplexing subject, because they deem it most incongruous that of the great body of mankind some should be predestinated to salvation, and others to destruction. How ceaselessly they entangle themselves will appear as we proceed. We may add, that in the very obscurity which deters them, we may see not only the utility of this doctrine, but also its most pleasant fruits. We shall never feel persuaded as we ought that our salvation flows from the free mercy of God as its fountain, until we are made acquainted with his eternal election, the grace of God being illustrated by the contrast--viz. that he does not adopt all promiscuously to the hope of salvation, but gives to some what he denies to others. It is plain how greatly ignorance of this principle detracts from the glory of God, and impairs true humility. (Institutes: Book III Chapter 21)

In seeking to give assurance to the believer that he could not be separated from God, Calvin tends to skim over the problem that others rightly object to: In order for punishment to be just, it must be over a thing which man has control over.

Double Predestination: Attempting to "Christianize” an Unjust Idea

Now, as I understand it, Calvin’s idea was formed with the intent of reassuring the Christians that if they were behaving as a Christian, it was a sign they were of the elect. Fair enough. To a limited extent, one can interpret some of the writings of Paul in such a way. The problem is with the idea if DOUBLE predestination, which not only asserts God wills men to be saved, but also wills some to be damned.

Double Predestination could be considered "Fate" in the pagan view.  In this view, before the world begins, God has determined some will be saved and some will be damned.  Neither the saved nor the reprobate will be able to change from one category to the next.

The 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia describes it as follows:

Predestinarianism is a heresy not unfrequently met with in the course of the centuries which reduces the eternal salvation of the elect as well as the eternal damnation of the reprobate to one cause alone, namely to the sovereign will of God, and thereby excludes the free co-operation of man as a secondary factor in bringing about a happy or unhappy future in the life to come.

Double Predestination is promoted by some because it is feared that man’s refusal to accept God’s ultimate authority indicates God is not all powerful. Because God is all powerful, and some people refuse to accept Him as Lord, the argument is that God chose not to save Him. Jesus died on the cross only for those who were predestined to be saved. The end result is that the person who holds this position has to do some interesting verbal gymnastics to explain why a suddenly arbitrary version of God is really good, in deliberately refusing to save Person X.

Limited Love from a Limitless God?

Of course, God, as Lord of all creation is free to save us or not as He wills. From a perspective of justice, humanity lost its right to original grace, and He is under no obligation to save any of us. However this is not the same thing as saying God chooses to save one person and absolutely refuses to save another.

Double Predestination would be like a man on the river bank who sees a number of people drowning. He has the ability to offer rescue devices to all of them, but arbitrarily chooses only some of them, leaving the rest to drown. Such a God is either limited or petty

Now, theoretically the elect could live like a porn star and be saved, while the reprobate could live like Mother Teresa and still be damned, but supporters of this view would tend to object, arguing that how a person acts shows which side of the line they are most likely on. Thus the person who lives morally upright is probably a member of the saved, while the person who lives immorally is probably a member of the reprobate.

Of course there is always the problem of the backsliding Christian. Making use of the No True Scotsman fallacy, if such an upright person is discovered having a secret sinful life; it means he was really one of the reprobates all along. If a total sleaze has a change of heart and becomes a Christian, it means he was always a member of the elect.

All of this is necessary for the believer in double predestination, because such a believer must deny free will. Because he cannot understand how God can permit a thing without causing a thing, he or she reasons that God must cause the person to be saved or damned.

Now of course this is a minority view among Christians, mostly among those branches influenced by Calvin. However, I find myself wondering how many people who rejected Christianity as being unjust were influenced by this awful view which made God into such a monster.

Since God Is Perfectly Just, We Must Reject This View

Double Predestination assumes that God wills certain people to go to Heaven and certain people to go to Hell regardless of what they may want to do on their own.  The problem is that if God is perfectly just, which Christians must believe, then Hell — which is a place of punishment — is only just if a person who goes there is there because of his own actions, which he had responsibility for.  If the person could not avoid behaving in such a way because he was fated to act this way, then the putting of such a person in hell is unjust. If a person is directly willed by God to go to Hell regardless of what he would want to do, this is also unjust.

Since Christians must believe God is perfectly just, such a view is incompatible with God. Therefore we should reject the nonsense of Double Predestination. Can God give special graces to help people to receive His salvation? Yes. Does this mean whoever does not receive these graces are hated by God? No. If we are determined to do evil, sometimes God will give us what we demand: to be left alone.

Is The Alternative Pelagianism?

Some may accuse me of Pelagianism here. Because I say that Double Predestination is false,  They might misinterpret me as saying that God does not matter and only our own works will save us or damn us. This would be an error however.  The rejection of Double Predestination does not mean a belief that man has the power to save himself.

Pelagianism is described as:

Doctrinal system associated with Pelagius and others, based on the inherent created goodness and innocence of human beings, the efficacy of the human will to achieve salvation, and sinless perfection without divine help…

…It held that every soul is created sinless, that the will is absolutely free, and that the grace of God is universal but not indispensable.

Kurian, G. T. (2001). Nelson's new Christian dictionary: The authoritative resource on the Christian world. Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Pubs.

In other words, Pelagianism holds that man can get to Heaven by his own efforts, and while God helps, He isn't necessary.  This is not true.  Because man has lowered himself into a pit, as it were, he cannot get out of it by his own efforts.  God would be like a person offering us a rope to get out of the pit.  Without His help, we cannot escape the pit.  However, we can refuse to accept His help and remain in the pit.

So, to say man can be ungrateful and refuse the help God offers is not Pelagianism. Nor does it mean that God is not all powerful if a person refuses to accept His salvation.  It means God will not force us to accept His gift. He made us free to be good, but to be free means we can do wrong with our free will.

We need God if we are to be saved, but we are damned for our own actions which we are free to perform and can blame on no other person.

Denying Double Predestination Does Not Mean God Owes Us Anything

Let’s be clear on this. God does not owe us salvation. Our fallen nature comes because Adam and Eve, by their freely chosen sin, corrupted the nature God gave them. The children born to them in their fallen state share the same nature as their parents, as nothing can give a greater form of existence than one has (since Adam and Eve had lost their original grace, they could not pass it on to their offspring).

The fact that God sent His only Son so we might be saved is a gift we could not merit and did not deserve. However, there is a vast difference between not being able to merit a thing and not being able to refuse the free gift of God.

We believe God loves all of us, and desires all of us to be saved. However, because He has given us free will, we can use it to turn against Him. If we do, He is not obligated to override our Free Will.

Being Fated to Fall Is Not a Christian View, but a Sectarian View

We do know that Calvin’s claims of this being the correct interpretation of Scripture to the contrary; other Christian faiths do not accept this claim. People who think this view of God is unfair and unjust should know they are not alone in it.

The Second Council of Orange said in AD 529:

According to the Catholic faith we believe this also, that after grace has been received through baptism, all the baptized with the help and cooperation of Christ can and ought to fulfill what pertains to the salvation of the soul, if they will labor faithfully. We not only do not believe that some have been truly predestined to evil by divine power, but also with every execration we pronounce anathema upon those, if there are [any such], who wish to believe so great an evil. (Denzinger 199)

Against Calvin, the Church decreed in the Council of Trent,

Can. 17. If anyone shall say that the grace of justification is attained by those only who are predestined unto life, but that all others, who are called, are called indeed, but do not receive grace, as if they are by divine power predestined to evil: let him be anathema (Denzinger 827).

Finally, Augustine — so often cited by those who support Double Predestination — has had this to say in his Letter to Jerome, circa AD 415:

5. I am, moreover, fully persuaded that the soul has fallen into sin, not through the fault of God, nor through any necessity either in the divine nature or in its own, but by its own free will; and that it can be delivered from the body of this death neither by the strength of its own will, as if that were in itself sufficient to achieve this, nor by the death of the body itself, but only by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and that there is not one soul in the human family to whose salvation the one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, is not absolutely necessary. Every soul, moreover, which may at any age whatsoever depart from this life without the grace of the Mediator and the sacrament of this grace, departs to future punishment, and shall receive again its own body at the last judgment as a partner in punishment. But if the soul after its natural generation, which was derived from Adam, be regenerated in Christ, it belongs to His fellowship, and shall not only have rest after the death of the body, but also receive again its own body as a partner in glory. These are truths concerning the soul which I hold most firmly.  (Emphasis added)

If every soul can depart from life apart from the grace of God, it stands to reason a person cannot claim predestination to be saved or predestination to be damned.

So before condemning God or Christianity for the idea that man was set up to fail because he was fated to fall, one needs to remember this is a view which is not universally Christian.

Was Man Set Up to Fail? A Look at Predestination and Fate (Article III)

Introduction: Is Man Predestined to Be Saved or Damned?

There is an old joke concerning John Calvin, who is credited with creating the idea of Predestination in Christianity.  He took a terrible fall down the stairs, and at the bottom, he was heard to remark, "Thank God I got that over with."

Now this joke is of course an exaggeration of what Calvin believed, but it seems to be a good way to introduce the subject matter for the article today.  Given that God knows the things which happen to us, does it mean we are fated to do these things?

This article approaches an objection which is the opposite of the other objections.  While most people argue that God should have stopped man from sinning but did not (that is, we should have been made free to do good but not evil), this objection is based on the claim we are not free to reject sin to begin with.

The similarity to the other objections is that the sin of man was known by God in advance. The difference is that here God is directly responsible for man being unable to resist sin.

So from the perspective of the one who believes in Fate or Double Predestination, the answer to the question “Was Man set up to fail?” would have to be “Yes.”

It is tragic that God gets the blame for foolish heresies, instead of the creators of the heresies.

What Is Fate?

Fate is a term which can be understood in the sense of "the development of events outside a person’s control, regarded as predetermined by a supernatural power" according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Thus we see the belief that if something is prophesied to be, or God knows a thing is to be, it means the person could not avoid doing a thing.

Christians have to reject this view of course.  Belief in wrong and in sin indicates a belief there is a right to compare to the wrong and good conduct which is to be compared to sin.  If one cannot help what they do, because it is fated for them to do it, how can it be an act of evil?

The Pagan Idea of Oedipus

The Greek myth of Oedipus (memorialized by Sophocles) gave us a story of a person whom the oracle said was fated to kill his father and marry his mother.  To avoid this, his father abandoned him in the woods.  However, Oedipus was found by a passing shepherd who took him in.  When he grew up, he consulted the oracle and found he was fated to kill his father and marry his mother.  To avoid this, he left home.  He ended up killing a man on the road, going to a city, freeing it from the Sphinx and marrying the recently widowed queen.  Eventually he discovered the man he killed was his father and the woman he married was his mother.

Essentially under this view, one cannot escape an evil destiny even if one wills to reject it.  Oedipus had no idea that the people who took him in were not his real parents.  He had no idea that the man he killed was his father and the woman he married was his mother.  In seeking to avoid doing the evil he was horrified by, he ended up carrying it out.  Trying to avoid one's fate becomes futile.  This can lead to the idea of fatalism (which derives from fate), which is: "the belief that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable."

Indeed, in the ancient world, astrology was used as a way of seeking to determine one's own fate while magic was often seen as a possible way to escape a fate which was otherwise inevitable.

Fate and the Will of God

Some individuals do look at the Bible with this mindset.  Events where prophecies of evil befalling the Israelites are given, people assume that these people who persecuted the Israelites did so because God commanded.  Jesus, as God, knew He was to betrayed and handed over to be crucified.

Does this mean Judas, Pilate and those members of the Sanhedrin responsible could not avoided the tasks set out for them by God's decree?

The answer is simply NO.

The fact that God knows of things which are outside of our ability to know does not mean He decrees a person will do a thing regardless of whether he wants to or not.  Rather, God can permit a thing which men do for an evil intent for the purpose of our benefit.  Because God's knowledge is infinite, He knows the choices we will do before we do them of course, but this doesn't mean He forces our hand to act.

Let's look at it this way.  God knows whether I will wind up in Heaven or Hell.  He knows what I will do in the future.  However, this does not mean I am not responsible for what I do.  It is my willing actions which makes me either cooperate with God's grace or refuse to do so.

It is wrong to say I will do evil because God wills me to be damned. Indeed, claims that man is compelled to act indicate that doing good or evil holds no meaning: It would be wrong to say that God predestined me for Heaven… for this would mean it was irrelevant what I did which was wicked.  It would be wrong for me to say that God predestined me for Hell.  Then it would also be irrelevant what I did.

The Eternal Nature of God and the Knowledge He Possesses

While sometimes God does speak through the prophets with a warning of what is to come if the wicked do not change their ways, men often speak of foreknowledge, saying God has advance knowledge of what we are to do.

The problem with this view is that it views God with the same limitations as man.  It sees God as being in time, but merely existing without an end, something similar to the lifespan of the elves in JRR Tolkien.  This is an error.

God is entirely outside of time itself.  What happened yesterday, today or tomorrow, God sees from a perspective we who are inside time cannot see.  The prayers of Moses, of a person in Christ's time on Earth, of a person today, and even a person 10,000 years from now (assuming humanity exists so long before the Second Coming) are heard by God, who is outside time.  Hence Scripture speaking of a thousand years being like a day and a day being like a thousand years (see 2 Peter 3:8).

Because of this, He can see plainly what each man will do in his life just as plainly as we can see what we did yesterday.  None of us can say we were fated to do what we did yesterday.  We did what we did through our own fault.  God can see today and tomorrow just as we can see yesterday.  The choices we will freely make tomorrow, He sees.  Not because He foreknows what we will do, but He knows what we will choose to do.

God's knowledge of what we will freely choose today, tomorrow or fifty years from now does not mean we are compelled to act in a certain way.  To argue otherwise is actually to make use of the post hoc fallacy: God knew I would act in this way; therefore His knowledge caused me to act this way.  Knowledge of what another man will do does not mean causing a thing.

The Consideration of Prophecy and Fate

So what of prophecy?  What of those wicked men who end up fulfilling something God has said, through the prophets, would happen? Do these not mean that man was fated to continue to sin and could not help it? Does it mean those who did the evil acts mentioned in prophecy were caused by God? Here we have to remove some confusion.

The fact that God knows certain men will behave in an evil nature, and for their evil motives they will afflict the Israelites or the Christians does not mean that such evil men act because God compels them to do so. Rather such men would have acted earlier had God not protected us. If God removes His protection, the wicked afflict the Israelites or the Christians.

Calvin’s Bad Idea

Unfortunately, certain Christians in the 16^th and 17^th centuries adopted such fatalism, misinterpreting the prophecies as inevitable, they have said that God causes the wicked to sin and then punishes them for their deeds. John Calvin, in his Institutes of Christian Religion describes his belief this way:

The covenant of life is not preached equally to all, and among those to whom it is preached, does not always meet with the same reception. This diversity displays the unsearchable depth of the divine judgment, and is without doubt subordinate to God's purpose of eternal election. But if it is plainly owing to the mere pleasure of God that salvation is spontaneously offered to some, while others have no access to it, great and difficult questions immediately arise, questions which are inexplicable, when just views are not entertained concerning election and predestination. To many this seems a perplexing subject, because they deem it most incongruous that of the great body of mankind some should be predestinated to salvation, and others to destruction. How ceaselessly they entangle themselves will appear as we proceed. We may add, that in the very obscurity which deters them, we may see not only the utility of this doctrine, but also its most pleasant fruits. We shall never feel persuaded as we ought that our salvation flows from the free mercy of God as its fountain, until we are made acquainted with his eternal election, the grace of God being illustrated by the contrast--viz. that he does not adopt all promiscuously to the hope of salvation, but gives to some what he denies to others. It is plain how greatly ignorance of this principle detracts from the glory of God, and impairs true humility. (Institutes: Book III Chapter 21)

In seeking to give assurance to the believer that he could not be separated from God, Calvin tends to skim over the problem that others rightly object to: In order for punishment to be just, it must be over a thing which man has control over.

Double Predestination: Attempting to "Christianize” an Unjust Idea

Now, as I understand it, Calvin’s idea was formed with the intent of reassuring the Christians that if they were behaving as a Christian, it was a sign they were of the elect. Fair enough. To a limited extent, one can interpret some of the writings of Paul in such a way. The problem is with the idea if DOUBLE predestination, which not only asserts God wills men to be saved, but also wills some to be damned.

Double Predestination could be considered "Fate" in the pagan view.  In this view, before the world begins, God has determined some will be saved and some will be damned.  Neither the saved nor the reprobate will be able to change from one category to the next.

The 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia describes it as follows:

Predestinarianism is a heresy not unfrequently met with in the course of the centuries which reduces the eternal salvation of the elect as well as the eternal damnation of the reprobate to one cause alone, namely to the sovereign will of God, and thereby excludes the free co-operation of man as a secondary factor in bringing about a happy or unhappy future in the life to come.

Double Predestination is promoted by some because it is feared that man’s refusal to accept God’s ultimate authority indicates God is not all powerful. Because God is all powerful, and some people refuse to accept Him as Lord, the argument is that God chose not to save Him. Jesus died on the cross only for those who were predestined to be saved. The end result is that the person who holds this position has to do some interesting verbal gymnastics to explain why a suddenly arbitrary version of God is really good, in deliberately refusing to save Person X.

Limited Love from a Limitless God?

Of course, God, as Lord of all creation is free to save us or not as He wills. From a perspective of justice, humanity lost its right to original grace, and He is under no obligation to save any of us. However this is not the same thing as saying God chooses to save one person and absolutely refuses to save another.

Double Predestination would be like a man on the river bank who sees a number of people drowning. He has the ability to offer rescue devices to all of them, but arbitrarily chooses only some of them, leaving the rest to drown. Such a God is either limited or petty

Now, theoretically the elect could live like a porn star and be saved, while the reprobate could live like Mother Teresa and still be damned, but supporters of this view would tend to object, arguing that how a person acts shows which side of the line they are most likely on. Thus the person who lives morally upright is probably a member of the saved, while the person who lives immorally is probably a member of the reprobate.

Of course there is always the problem of the backsliding Christian. Making use of the No True Scotsman fallacy, if such an upright person is discovered having a secret sinful life; it means he was really one of the reprobates all along. If a total sleaze has a change of heart and becomes a Christian, it means he was always a member of the elect.

All of this is necessary for the believer in double predestination, because such a believer must deny free will. Because he cannot understand how God can permit a thing without causing a thing, he or she reasons that God must cause the person to be saved or damned.

Now of course this is a minority view among Christians, mostly among those branches influenced by Calvin. However, I find myself wondering how many people who rejected Christianity as being unjust were influenced by this awful view which made God into such a monster.

Since God Is Perfectly Just, We Must Reject This View

Double Predestination assumes that God wills certain people to go to Heaven and certain people to go to Hell regardless of what they may want to do on their own.  The problem is that if God is perfectly just, which Christians must believe, then Hell — which is a place of punishment — is only just if a person who goes there is there because of his own actions, which he had responsibility for.  If the person could not avoid behaving in such a way because he was fated to act this way, then the putting of such a person in hell is unjust. If a person is directly willed by God to go to Hell regardless of what he would want to do, this is also unjust.

Since Christians must believe God is perfectly just, such a view is incompatible with God. Therefore we should reject the nonsense of Double Predestination. Can God give special graces to help people to receive His salvation? Yes. Does this mean whoever does not receive these graces are hated by God? No. If we are determined to do evil, sometimes God will give us what we demand: to be left alone.

Is The Alternative Pelagianism?

Some may accuse me of Pelagianism here. Because I say that Double Predestination is false,  They might misinterpret me as saying that God does not matter and only our own works will save us or damn us. This would be an error however.  The rejection of Double Predestination does not mean a belief that man has the power to save himself.

Pelagianism is described as:

Doctrinal system associated with Pelagius and others, based on the inherent created goodness and innocence of human beings, the efficacy of the human will to achieve salvation, and sinless perfection without divine help…

…It held that every soul is created sinless, that the will is absolutely free, and that the grace of God is universal but not indispensable.

Kurian, G. T. (2001). Nelson's new Christian dictionary: The authoritative resource on the Christian world. Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Pubs.

In other words, Pelagianism holds that man can get to Heaven by his own efforts, and while God helps, He isn't necessary.  This is not true.  Because man has lowered himself into a pit, as it were, he cannot get out of it by his own efforts.  God would be like a person offering us a rope to get out of the pit.  Without His help, we cannot escape the pit.  However, we can refuse to accept His help and remain in the pit.

So, to say man can be ungrateful and refuse the help God offers is not Pelagianism. Nor does it mean that God is not all powerful if a person refuses to accept His salvation.  It means God will not force us to accept His gift. He made us free to be good, but to be free means we can do wrong with our free will.

We need God if we are to be saved, but we are damned for our own actions which we are free to perform and can blame on no other person.

Denying Double Predestination Does Not Mean God Owes Us Anything

Let’s be clear on this. God does not owe us salvation. Our fallen nature comes because Adam and Eve, by their freely chosen sin, corrupted the nature God gave them. The children born to them in their fallen state share the same nature as their parents, as nothing can give a greater form of existence than one has (since Adam and Eve had lost their original grace, they could not pass it on to their offspring).

The fact that God sent His only Son so we might be saved is a gift we could not merit and did not deserve. However, there is a vast difference between not being able to merit a thing and not being able to refuse the free gift of God.

We believe God loves all of us, and desires all of us to be saved. However, because He has given us free will, we can use it to turn against Him. If we do, He is not obligated to override our Free Will.

Being Fated to Fall Is Not a Christian View, but a Sectarian View

We do know that Calvin’s claims of this being the correct interpretation of Scripture to the contrary; other Christian faiths do not accept this claim. People who think this view of God is unfair and unjust should know they are not alone in it.

The Second Council of Orange said in AD 529:

According to the Catholic faith we believe this also, that after grace has been received through baptism, all the baptized with the help and cooperation of Christ can and ought to fulfill what pertains to the salvation of the soul, if they will labor faithfully. We not only do not believe that some have been truly predestined to evil by divine power, but also with every execration we pronounce anathema upon those, if there are [any such], who wish to believe so great an evil. (Denzinger 199)

Against Calvin, the Church decreed in the Council of Trent,

Can. 17. If anyone shall say that the grace of justification is attained by those only who are predestined unto life, but that all others, who are called, are called indeed, but do not receive grace, as if they are by divine power predestined to evil: let him be anathema (Denzinger 827).

Finally, Augustine — so often cited by those who support Double Predestination — has had this to say in his Letter to Jerome, circa AD 415:

5. I am, moreover, fully persuaded that the soul has fallen into sin, not through the fault of God, nor through any necessity either in the divine nature or in its own, but by its own free will; and that it can be delivered from the body of this death neither by the strength of its own will, as if that were in itself sufficient to achieve this, nor by the death of the body itself, but only by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and that there is not one soul in the human family to whose salvation the one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, is not absolutely necessary. Every soul, moreover, which may at any age whatsoever depart from this life without the grace of the Mediator and the sacrament of this grace, departs to future punishment, and shall receive again its own body at the last judgment as a partner in punishment. But if the soul after its natural generation, which was derived from Adam, be regenerated in Christ, it belongs to His fellowship, and shall not only have rest after the death of the body, but also receive again its own body as a partner in glory. These are truths concerning the soul which I hold most firmly.  (Emphasis added)

If every soul can depart from life apart from the grace of God, it stands to reason a person cannot claim predestination to be saved or predestination to be damned.

So before condemning God or Christianity for the idea that man was set up to fail because he was fated to fall, one needs to remember this is a view which is not universally Christian.

Reflections on Limited Salvation

^16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ^17 For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. (John 3)

I've encountered among certain groups of Christians a sense of fatalism.  The idea is that God has already decided who will be saved and who will be damned before they even came into being.  This is not a view of God's omniscience, where He knows who will and who will not accept His mercy.  Rather, this view holds some people were created with the intention that they be saved and some people were created for the intention of being damned.

Under such a view, there is nothing we can do.  If we are predestined to be saved, it does not matter what we do.  If we are predestined to be damned, all our longing for God is of no avail.

It really makes me shake my head in sadness.  When did these Christians make a loving and merciful God, calling for His people to return to Him into an arbitrary tyrant?

I believe this view is not due to defending the justice of God, but defending a flawed view of God which must call injustice "just."

Free Will and God

One of the things which seem to be the cause of such a view is a fear that if man has free will to decline God's grace it means God is not all powerful.  Since we as Christians do believe that God is all powerful and His will cannot be thwarted, these people have to create a view which denies free will can refuse God's call.

The problem I have with such a view is that God made man with free will to accept Him or to reject Him, and even though God desires our good, some will not accept it.  He permits us to go our own way, as the Father permitted the Prodigal Son, yet welcomes back the repentant (Luke 15:11-32).

The Fear of Language Implying a Weakness of God

Unfortunately, some Christians fear any sort of language that seems to imply God is bound so He cannot do something.  For example, the idea that God cannot do evil seems to imply that God is not free.  After all, if we can do evil but God cannot, does this not mean we are more free than God?  So to get around it, they say "Well, God can lie, but He won't lie."  Unfortunately, this is nonsense, even if it is widely held.

Why do I call this nonsense?

Because it shows a failure to understand what evil is.  Too many people tend to have a Manichean view of Good and Evil.  Good is a real thing.  But to too many, so is evil.  So from this kind of view, people hold that God is all powerful, therefore He would have the power to do evil, otherwise a being which could do evil would be more powerful than God.

The problem is, evil is not a presence of a thing, but an absence of good.  A deficiency.  So the evil of Hitler would be understood as a lack of those things we are called to do in the service of God: A lack of mercy, justice and compassion.

When we remember this, to say "God could do evil but chooses not to" is to actually say that God is not perfect, but flawed, and merely covers these flaws with self control.

Such a view of God is of course blasphemous.  Yet those who fear that language which they think makes God seem limited, do indeed make these views associated with God.

Must We Have No Freedom if God Is To Be Entirely Free?

One problem people have is if a person is free to accept or reject God's grace, it seems to make God's ability to save less.  Double predestination and "Faith Alone"

The 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia describes the problem with the view this way towards both the so-called elect and the so-called reprobate:

…the absolute will of God as the sole cause of the salvation or damnation of the individual, without regard to his merits or demerits; as to the elect, it denies the freedom of the will under the influence of efficacious grace while it puts the reprobate under the necessity of committing sin in consequence of the absence of grace. The system in its general outlines may thus be described: the question why some are saved while others are damned can only be answered by assuming an eternal, absolute, and unchangeable decree of God. The salvation of the elect and the damnation of the reprobate are simply the effect of an unconditional Divine decree.

But if those who are predestined for eternal life are to attain this end with metaphysical necessity, and it is only such a necessity that can guarantee the actual accomplishment of the Divine will, God must give them during their lifetime efficacious graces of such a nature that the possibility of free resistance is systematically excluded, while, on the other hand, the will, under the influence of grace, is borne along without reluctance to do what is right and is forced to persevere in a course of righteousness to the hour of death. But from all eternity God has also made a decree not less absolute whereby he has positively predestined  the non-elect to eternal torments.

God can accomplish this design only by denying to the reprobate irresistibly efficacious graces and impelling their will to sin continually, thereby leading them slowly but surely to eternal damnation. As it is owing to the will of God alone  that heaven is to be filled with saints, without any regard to their merits, so also it is owing to that same will of God that hell is to be filled with the reprobate, without any regard to their foreseen sins and demerits and with such only as God has eternally, positively, and absolutely destined for this sad lot.

In other words, this interpretation of God makes Him arbitrary.  He gives His life for some, but for others, He is the spiritual equivalent of the person who will not even bother to lift His hand to save a drowning man.

The question is, how is this just?

The Double Predestination Argument

The argument for Double Predestination has been explained by RC Sproul as:

Another significant difference between the activity of God with respect to the elect and the reprobate concerns God's justice. The decree and fulfillment of election provide mercy for the elect while the efficacy of reprobation provides justice for the reprobate. God shows mercy sovereignly and unconditionally to some, and gives justice to those passed over in election. That is to say, God grants the mercy of election to some and justice to others. No one is the victim of injustice. To fail to receive mercy is not to be treated unjustly. God is under no obligation to grant mercy to all — in fact He is under no obligation to grant mercy to any. He says, "I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy" (Rom. 9). The divine prerogative to grant mercy voluntarily cannot be faulted. If God is required by some cosmic law apart from Himself to be merciful to all men, then we would have to conclude that justice demands mercy. If that is so, then mercy is no longer voluntary, but required. If mercy is required, it is no longer mercy, but justice. What God does not do is sin by visiting injustice upon the reprobate. Only by considering election and reprobation as being asymmetrical in terms of a positive-negative schema can God be exonerated from injustice.

There is a problem with this.  We need to consider God punishes the guilty for their own sins, but forgives the one who turns back to God.  Consider Ezekiel 18:

^20 The soul that sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

^21 “But if a wicked man turns away from all his sins which he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. ^22 None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness which he has done he shall live. ^23 Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? ^24 But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and does the same abominable things that the wicked man does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds which he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, he shall die.

^25 “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? ^26 When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he shall die for it; for the iniquity which he has committed he shall die. ^27 Again, when a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is lawful and right, he shall save his life. ^28 Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions which he had committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die. ^29 Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, are my ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?

Now, if a man cannot turn from sin without grace from God AND God only gives that grace to a limited number, then how can the wicked man turn from sin and save his life?  If God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (verse 23), how can He stand aloof when men in need of salvation are dying in damnation.

Also consider this line from Sproul: "God grants the mercy of election to some and justice to others. No one is the victim of injustice."

However, if all of us are guilty and worthy of damnation, but God only chooses to punish some of us, this is an arbitrary and unjust act.  It smacks of favoritism, and The Bible tells us in Acts 10:

^34 And Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, ^35 but in every nation any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him."

Sproul's comment in fact contradicts what the Bible tells us about God.

Is It Just That a Man Be Punished For Something He Cannot Control?

Consider this.  Suppose a law be passed that all men shall live in houses, and anyone living as a vagrant will be severely punished.  The problem is the vagrant cannot choose to live in a house without the means to acquire a house.  Punishing a man for not living in a house when he does not have the means to gain some sort of shelter in a house is in fact an unjust law.  The vagrant is doing no more than it is possible for him to do, and he is being punished for not doing the impossible

Likewise, if the only way a man can avoid committing sin is the Grace of God (which is true), and a man does not receive that grace (what the proponents of Double Predestination call the Reprobate), what justice is it for that man to be damned for sinning?  This man is doing no more than is possible for him (under the view of Double Predestination), and is being punished for what is impossible for him to do.

Romans 9 and Double Predestination

Romans 9 is often cited as a justification for the view that God picks some people to be saved and others to be damned.  For example:

^19 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” ^20 But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me thus?” ^21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial use?

Such things are used to say that God made some people to be saved and others to be damned.  Yet, in context, we can see the issue Paul is addressing: Why is it some Jews are not accepting the Gospel while Gentiles are?  The Jews were the chosen ones of God after all.

Paul seems to address this at the end of Chapter 9:

^30 What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith; ^31 but that Israel who pursued the righteousness which is based on law did not succeed in fulfilling that law. ^32 Why? Because they did not pursue it through faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, ^33 as it is written,

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make men stumble,

a rock that will make them fall;

and he who believes in him will not be put to shame.”

The faithful who is saved is indeed still making an act of faith, and the promised who fail are not acting, but are presuming that because of their observances of the Law their salvation is assured.

We are seeing in this, something that negates the theory of Double Predestination.  We are seeing a difference made between certain Gentiles who come to Christ because they believe, while certain Jews are not attaining righteousness because they approach it from an attitude that because they keep the law, they are owed salvation.

Of course Paul is right in saying that one who pursues salvation based on what he does is not owed salvation.

Are We Owed Salvation?

However, there is a difference between saying it is unjust to punish a man for something he cannot avoid and saying God owes us salvation, and this is an error many have made in misrepresenting the teaching of the Catholic Church, which has wrongly been accused of Pelagianism. 

What we are speaking of is the idea of what is just.  If one is finite in nature, it makes sense to say it is not unjust to save only some in keeping with limited resources.  However, if God is infinitely powerful, the question is justly asked "Why does God not only refuse to save some, but it is His positive will that those men be damned… even before they are born?"

Atheists have asked, with validity, where the justice is in bringing people into existence if they are only going to be damned.  A just answer can only be given if we understand that God provides the necessary grace for salvation, but some men refuse the gift.  When we look at Romans 9 from this perspective, the section of the potter and the vessels makes more sense and shows the justice of God.  He does indeed know who will accept His grace and who will refuse it, but those who will ultimately refuse it cannot claim it was unjust that they were created, because God sent His Son for all of us.

The Bible Tells Us We Are To Act

Consider John the Baptist, who is seeking to preach a message of repentance and a baptism for the forgiveness of sins.  People are coming to him with a question:

^10 And the multitudes asked him, “What then shall we do?” ^11 And he answered them, “He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise.” ^12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” ^13 And he said to them, “Collect no more than is appointed you.” ^14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Rob no one by violence or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.” (Luke 3)

Indeed, in the same chapter, we see him rebuking the crowds for wanting salvation without a change of behavior:

^7 He said therefore to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ^8 Bear fruits that befit repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. ^9 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

If we repent, we will show it in our actions.  Or to take the opposite tact, if our actions do not show contrite behavior, we are not sincere in our atonement.  Now if God actually wills for some of us to be damned, what good is a prophet who is sent to tell us to repent and to turn to God?  If they are predestined to be saved, such a message is unnecessary.  If they are predestined to be damned, such a message is futile.

Consider too Matthew's parables on those who enter the Heavenly Kingdom and those who are cast outside of it.  Consider Matthew 25:

^31 “When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. ^32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, ^33 and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. ^34 Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ^35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ^36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ ^37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? ^38 And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? ^39 And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ ^40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ ^41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; ^42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, ^43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ ^44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?’ ^45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ ^46 And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

This is not a message of predestination.  This is a message of telling people not to presume their salvation, reminding them that they need to act on what they profess and not to assume that their profession of faith is enough.  How we behave to our fellow man on earth reflects whether we are doing God's will.

Also consider Mathew 7:

^1 “Judge not, that you be not judged. ^2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. ^3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? ^4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? ^5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Such a message is futile if one is already predestined to be saved and another damned.  If one is already saved, how can he be judged by the measure he gives to others?

The Fruits of Double Predestination

The fruits of this idea are negative for Christians.  It creates an attitude of judgment which is to be directed towards whoever disagrees with the Christian judging.  I know I have personally encountered some believers of this error who sought to write off my objections by saying my view "proved" I was one of the reprobate.

It also negates the need for the missions.  Christ told us to preach the Gospel to all nations, but really why bother when God has already decided who is saved and who is damned?

It negates the need for proper living.  Luther's infamous letter to Melanchthon gives us the hyperbole of even if one commits fornication a hundred times a day and murders a thousand times a day it cannot separate us from the grace of God has indeed led to the error of Once Saved, Always Saved which has been abused by those who think it does not matter when we do fall into sin.

(In contrast, the Catholic view would hold that God is indeed always ready to forgive no matter what sins we commit… but we are required to repent and turn back to Him if we would receive His forgiveness).

The view of Double Predestination is very similar to the view of "Fate" among the ancient pagans.  If a man was fated to do a thing, no matter how he struggled, his path was set, and even seeking to avoid this fate would lead to the final conclusion (Consider the story of Oedipus for example). 

Likewise, if one is predestined to be damned, life is nothing but despair.  If one is predestined to be saved, there is nothing we need concern ourselves with

I believe such a view is unworthy of Christians to consider, giving a blasphemous view of the justice, mercy and love of God.