Predestination: A Response
posted by Amy on September 24, 2008 at 02:09 PM in Christianity, Religion, Personal, Faith
At some point in the life of many (but not all) Christians, they will be forced to struggle with the thorny subject of Predestination. Kimberly wrote very poignantly on the subject, and it has once again made me reflect on how I have dealt with the idea in my own life.
As a Catholic, for most of my life Predestination was taught to me as heretical nonsense thought up by some Protestant Revolters who for no discernible reason wanted to make God sound like a despotic jerk, perhaps because their wicked disobedience had warped their minds, or maybe because their fathers had not loved them enough when they were children. Whatever the reason, Predestination was the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad doctrine and was totally dismissed out of hand.
Fast forward to about two and a half years ago, I had gone through a rather traumatic experience in my life (WAY LONG STORY) that left me a convinced agnostic. I met the man who would eventually become my husband, who was a devoted follower of Christ, still Catholic, but realizing that what he read in the scriptures and experienced of God was not lining up with Catholicism anymore. Together we read and prayed and fought and struggled with reality, with each other, and with the Word of God. I eventually found my faith in Christ restored, but I was very resistent to the direction Jim was moving in towards Reformed theology, especially Predestination. Heck, I rejected Predestination as strongly as I ever had as a Catholic.
Jim suggested that I just read the book of Romans from beginning to end. This was something I had never done before, and even if I had, it would probably not have made as much sense to me prior to this time in my life. So I did it, I read Romans. The next day I went over to Jim's house, and when he asked me what I thought, I began to weep and wail and scream at the top of my lungs in terror and rage and despair. For about an hour. God suddenly seemed like a monster, arbitratily dooming some human beings to an eternity of torment and anguish with no hope of escape with no way of having prevented it. And I was supposed to be happy that I was saved (maybe?) while I looked around at all my non-Christian friends and family and imagined them suffering forever in hell? That is the Good News? It was traumatic, and I can honestly say it was one of the most existentially terrifying moments of my life.
In the days and weeks that followed, I continued to read scripture, with a new sensitivity to how it talked about the way we are saved. What dawned on me was that Predestination was not the invention of John Calvin or any other theologian with a stick up his spiritual backside. As I continued to study scripture more and more, I found the language of Predestination all over nearly every page of the Bible. I was even dismayed to discover that even St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas accepted Predestination as true. My ability to deny Predestination over the next few months grew weaker and weaker as the evidence mounted, while my feelings of fear, sorrow, distrust and despair also grew stronger and stronger.
I eventually shared my tormented heart with the members of my weekly church community group, accompanied by many embarassed tears. They lovingly tried to comfort me with encouraging scripture passages that didn't really help at all. One lady named Dorothy, an elder woman of my church who is very kind, gentle, and not the least bit self-righteous or judgmental, asked if I would spend time with her talking this over. I agreed, and one evening we sat on her couch and read some scripture together and chatted - and while everything was not all solved in a blink, that conversation was the beginning of restored peace.
Dorothy reminded me that the most perfect revelation of God's character is the Incarnation of Jesus, and especially in His death and resurrection. So what does this tell us about God? That first of all, before anything else, that He is good and that He is loving. God's loving goodness has to be the starting point. Whatever the consequences of His sovereignty, whatever the decisions of his inscrutable will, whatever the nature of our human freedom or lack thereof, WHATEVER the rest of the whole bloody mess turns out to be, we know first and foremost that God is good. And we have to trust that, because, whom else can we trust, where else can we go?
But while we know that God is good, we also know that He is sovereign and that nothing happens apart from His will, whatever the heck that might mean. That is why Predestination is and must be true - though our understanding of it may be very poor.* That is why I am so so so so glad that my salvation does not depend on my understanding things - there will not be a theological exam at the pearly gates. My salvation depends on the Grace and Mercy and Love of God, through Jesus, by His death and Resurrection.
Like Kimberly, I also have a tattoo on my ankle. My tattoo is the word יהוה - which is YHWH in Hebrew, the word we transliterate as Yahweh or Jehovah - God's name which He revealed to Moses, which roughly can be translated "I Am Who I Am." I got the tattoo maybe 5 years ago. I knew I wanted a tattoo that meant something important to me, and always would - the most important thing to me in the world. And I realized that the most important thing to me, the most important thing to the whole world, is that God IS, and that He is who He is, not who we might want or fear Him to be. He just IS. And when everything else gets scary and confusing, I take rest and refuge in that. I rest in God's name.**
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*While I do think Predestination is true - and I think its impossible to say otherwise without having to ignore or twist certain passages of the Bible - I also know that what we choose and what we do matters very much, and that God wishes for all people to be saved. Both of those truths are also taught by scripture, and how they mesh up with Predestination, I do not know. The reality is somewhere between absolute free will (there is no such thing, we are not free, out freedom is hampered by all sorts of things, not the least of which is our sinful nature) and absolute control (which would make God nothing more than a Puppetmaster, which would make both scripture and our experience of reality into a lie and a farce).
Also, not only is Scripture mixed on the subject of Predestination, so is John Calvin. He wrote the following, which basically says that if not for OUR sins, ALL people would be saved.
"For were it not that the reprobate, through their own fault, turn life into death, the Gospel would be to all the power of God to salvation, (Romans 1:16)
but as many persons no sooner hear it than their impiety openly breaks
out, and provokes against them more and more the wrath of God, to such
persons its savor must be deadly, (2 Corinthians 2:16.)"
Not exactly the same as saying God creates people just to send them to hell.
**There is so much more intellectually that I could say about all this,
but there are many books written by smarter people than me who say it
better
than me. I just wanted to share a small part of what has gone on in my
heart and mind when it comes to this very difficult issue.
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