PREDESTINATION & FREE WILL PCOM, June 23, 2010 If you ask assorted Christians (Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics) what Presbyterians believe, 9 times out of 10 they will reply: predestination. The word predestination occurs in only two passages in the New Testament. Acts 4:28 Here the one who is predestined is Jesus. What happened to Jesus in Jerusalem during Holy Week (arrest, trial, scourging, death) was no accident of history, nor was it merely the result of human hostility; it was decided beforehand (predestined) by God: Jn 3:16 Romans 8:28-30 Here, it s persons who are who are the objects of God s predestination. God predestined us, Paul says, for inclusion in the Savior s large family. How does predestination operate? And how does it affect our free will? (For if we are predestined, what choice have we?) People usually associate the doctrine with John Calvin in the 16 th century, but it emerged many centuries before. In the 5 th century, Augustine taught that God chose from all eternity those who would enter the Kingdom of God to replace the fallen angels and fill the ranks of the heavenly choir.
Augustine, following the Bible, taught that no one has any claim on God. We have all sinned and deserve condemnation. Through the work of Christ, God shows mercy by saving whose whom he has chosen; God also chooses to allow others to remain in their sins, unsaved, to show God s justice. This was unpopular among many that followed Augustine. They didn t like the implication that we don t have any say in our salvation. Some theologians taught that God chooses to save people based on God s foreknowledge of their faith. So whether a person is saved or not depends on that person s choice about God s gift, whether to accept it or reject it. This preserves free will, and will reappear centuries later in the teaching of Jacob Arminius. John Calvin Calvin returned to Augustine s belief regarding predestination, but didn t make it a central doctrine. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin emphasized God s grace which enables us to respond in faith, which in turn leads to our justification and salvation. Grace is the central doctrine in Calvin, not predestination. His treatment of predestination comes only after he writes about God s grace, and only after explaining that we are justified by faith alone. He offers his view of predestination as a way of explaining why some respond to God s grace while others do not. He is trying to explain the puzzle of nonfaith: why do some resist the free gift? By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or
other of these ends, we say that he has been predestined to life or to death. Some call this the doctrine of double predestination, since some are predestined to eternal life, others to eternal death. And he writes: I confess that this decree must frighten us. Those that followed Calvin made a subtle shift in their approach. Whereas Calvin began with God s grace in Jesus Christ and then tried to explain why some didn t believe, his followers began with predestination as their controlling principle around which everything else in theology revolved. The result was five point Calvinism, established by the Synod of Dort in 1619: T total depravity; all humans are sinful and cannot be saved by their own efforts. U unconditional election: we are not predestined on the basis of any foreseen merit, quality or achievement, but only by God s decree. L limited atonement: Christ died only for the elect. I irresistible grace: the elect are infallibly called & redeemed. P perseverance of the saints: those who are truly predestined by God cannot in any way lose their salvation. Jacob Arminius objected to much of this. For him, Christ died for all, nor merely for the elect. In response to five point Calvinism, Arminians issued the following Remonstrance in 1610:
God, by an eternal and unchangeable decree in Christ before the existence of the world, determined to elect from the fallen and sinful human race to everlasting life all those who, through God s grace, believe in Jesus Christ and persevere in faith and obedience Christ the Savior of the world died for all and every human being, so that he obtained, through his death on the cross, reconciliation and pardon for all, in such a way, however, that only the faithful actually enjoy the same. Note that Arminians hold on to predestination (eternal & unchangeable decree) but it encompasses only those who believe in Jesus Christ, not those who are elect beforehand. Calvin s view is found in the Westminster Confession of Faith, (1649) one of eleven theological statements in the Book of Confessions of the Presbyterian Church (USA): Those of mankind that are predestined unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of his free grace and love alone, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto; and all to the praise of his glorious grace. III.5 The rest of mankind, God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice. III.7
This a clear statement of double predestination. In 1903, the United Presbyterian Church added a Declaratory Statement to the Westminster Confession of Faith: With reference to Chapter III of the Confession of Faith: that concerning those who are saved in Christ, the doctrine of God s eternal decree is held in harmony with the doctrine of his love to all mankind, his gift of his Son to be the propitiation for the sins of the whole world, and his readiness to bestow his saving grace on all who seek it; that concerning those who perish, the doctrine of God s eternal decree is held in harmony with the doctrine that God desires not the death of any sinner, but has provided in Christ a salvation sufficient for all, adapted to all, and freely offered in the gospel to all; that men are fully responsible for their treatment of God s gracious offer; that his decree hinders no man from accepting that offer; and that no man is condemned except on the ground of his sin. So, at the beginning of the last century, our church backed away from Calvin s limited atonement. When the statement speaks of holding in harmony God s eternal decree and God s love for all, AND holding in harmony God s eternal decree and our being fully responsible, it is saying, in effect, there is a paradox here which we cannot fully explain. In the 20 th century, Karl Barth offered a fresh understanding of predestination. His belief about predestination is based on two affirmations: 1. Jesus Christ is the electing God; 2. Jesus Christ is the elected human being.
Here is how he lays it out: 1. God has chosen to be the friend and partner of humanity. 2. God chose to demonstrate that commitment by giving Christ for our redemption. According to the Bible, this was what took place in the incarnation of the Son of God, in his death and passion, and in his resurrection from the dead. 3. God rejected Christ (on the cross) in order that we might not be rejected. Christ bore totally the pain and cost of redemption. Thus rejection cannot again become the portion or affair of humanity. Insofar as predestination contains a No, it is not a No spoken against humanity. In so far as it involves exclusion and rejection, it is not the exclusion and rejection of humanity. In so far as it is directed to perdition and death, it is not directed to the perdition and death of humanity. The only one who is predestined to condemnation is Jesus Christ who from all eternity willed to suffer for us. The paradox of God s sovereignty and our free will is illustration in Philippians 2:12-13. You are free to work out your own salvation AND God sovereignly is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. There seems to be a contradiction, but in fact both are true: we are able to work out our salvation because God is at work in us.
Conclusion: God s sovereign love is a mystery beyond the reach of man s mind. (Confession of 1967, 9.15)