For a while earlier this year I was really struggling with the whole free will versus pre-destination thing.
It really perplexed me and frustrated me. It called almost my entire belief in God into question.
It bothered me so much. I listened to a bunch of people's different opinions even my pastor. I honestly don't remember much of anything that they said.
I just stopped thinking about it because I figured that this was really not an important thing. Since I stopped thinking about it I seem to be figuring out what I really do think.
What I discovered is that I am definitely NOT a Calvinist. I do not believe in pre-destination.
Rather than go into crazy detail about it I just found one verse that kinda backs up what I think. (Besides there are still pieces I'm trying to mentally place together to support my view)
1 Timothy 2:4 "who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth"
Calvinism believes that people are predestined to be saved by excepting Christ as their savior and believing in His truth.
In the same sense this means that people would be predestined by God to go to hell. :O
I can't and will not believe that.
This verse says that God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
Thus God wouldn't predestine someone to go to hell and then put in His book (the Bible which is what Christianity finds it's validity in) that He want people to choose Him and His truth. It doesn't line up at all.
This in itself drives away all the speculations and opinions I have heard to support predestination.
Maybe I will add to this another time but for now I'm off to bed.
1 comment:
Ah, the Calvinism argument. I hate how "important" this argument is becoming. Though I think it's important to know what you believe, I think it's also important to realize we can't know the mysteries of God. There are so many arguments in the church these days, I think it's separating the church.
If I had to identify myself as something I guess I'd be called a 3-point Calvinist. However I absolutely hate labeling my faith. Especially naming it after a man. I don't want to identify my faith with any man but Jesus Christ. What I believe does not come from some other man, but from what I think the Bible says. Before I even knew who John Calvin was, I had my beliefs about predestination and free will. I think believers need to focus more on what unites us rather than what separates us.
I do believe in predestination (but not all the points of Calvinism). To believe in predestination to me is to believe God has a will and a plan. Predestined salvation is touchy and it is something we cannot know for sure. One of the mysteries of God. So I think to completely deny predestination is to deny God has a will and plan. And to completely deny free will almost seems to defeat the whole purpose of God creating the plan for salvation, or a reason to live at all. So I find myself somewhere in the middle. It would take a whole book to completely explain my views on the topic. Sorry I didn't back up anything with verses, that would have made this way too long!
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