Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!sun-barr!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ejalbert@phoenix.princeton.edu (Edmund Jason Albert) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Predestination (again ... ) Message-ID: Date: 17 Nov 89 09:11:13 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Princeton University, NJ Lines: 51 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article plaisted@cs.unc.edu (David Plaisted) writes: >However, it does seem that one point has not been emphasized enough. >The rationale for predestination is that nothing we do makes us worthy >of salvation. The assumption is, that if you believe in free will, >then you believe that something you do makes you in some degree worthy >of salvation. I believe that this is false. > All we can do is to submit to God. We can freely choose to >submit or not to submit. However, there is no merit in submission. My understanding of predestination was that we had no choice as to whether or not we submitted, but that God elected us through no merit and that we had no right of refusal. I believe in free will. I do not believe that I can do anything that merits salvation; however, I believe when Jesus said he came for all men that He caused salvation to be open to all. Our free will comes in our right to refuse. I cannot believe that God condemned men before their births to damnation. Certainly I believe God is omnipotent and omniscient; however, on salvation He has left the choice up to us because what makes our love valuable to God is that we give it freely, not through coercion. Jason Albert Princeton University [What what it's work, the Reformers' reaction to your position would be roughly this: while you certainly don't claim to merit salvation, you do claim that the reason you are saved and someone else is not is because of something you have done. So in some sense this still makes salvation depend upon you. You say, "but it's not like I am claiming to do some great meritorious act. All I have to do is say yes. The rest is up to God." Luther's answer is that this is even worse. If you are going to make salvation depend upon something you do, it least it should be something great and lofty. I guess ultiamtely the difference is that they take a more radical view of the consequences of sin. They believe that if God leaves anything to us -- even just the right to say yes or no -- we'll blow it. This is not just a negative point. For Luther at least, predestination was a great consolation. He could never quite bring himself to have confidence in anything he did. To realize that salvation depends completely on God's action was a great relief to him. I do understand the problem with this: how can depending upon God only be a relief if we can't be sure whether he's chosen us or not? I'm not sure quite why this didn't bother them. It seems that Luther's great anxiety was not so much over whether he was going to be saved, but over whether he had done all he needed to. However for later Calvinists, the big existential question became how they could be sure that they were one of the elect. The only way to combine the good points of both views seems to be to believe in predestination, but to believe that everyone is elect... --clh]