Well, ladies and gentlemen, my post now is a result of a couple of circumstances. It is unlikely that I will be posting between now and thanksgiving, and secondly, I desperately need break from my religion essay. I have a couple more weeks to writ this, but due to the nature of the essay, I am very much in the thick of it already. For those of you to whom I have not already complained about this essay, all you need to know is that I find myself in the only section of Religion 102 that requires a 15 page research paper, which is due prior to thanksgiving, and I, for some reason deemed it a good idea to write it over the doctrine of Predestination, specifically the Calvinist view thereof. As I’m sure you can imagine the research material dealing with predestination and election is not exactly the easiest stuff in the world to read, in fact I’ve had to keep a dictionary with me… not something I’ve had to do in a while. The following is the last few sentences that I have written. They might very well not make it into the final essay, but I have been trying to write something in response to each couple pages I read in order to make sure I understand what I’m reading… I leave you with this:
John Calvin defines predestination under terms that limit its extent to include only a determinate domain on the issue of salvation. He states “All men 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 of to death.” That is to say, Calvin is not talking about God having a foreknowledge of those which, within mankind, will choose Him and those which will choose to deny Him, but rather he claims God set out beforehand those that He would choose to be His and those that He would deny. The universality of God’s knowledge and omnipotence, residing without the constraint of time, is not at question here, I would never endeavor to bring questioning doubt upon such an established and inherently necessary truth. However, I do question whether Christianity, indeed the entire existence of mankind from the very beginning to the end, would be, or necessarily could be, anything other than futile if we do not have the ability, moreover the responsibility, to choose chose God through an act of our own free will, given to us by our creator from the beginning of time. How can the church, operating within its intended function of glorifying God, be an establishment bringing glory to God, proving His manifold wisdom, if our very base act of worship and glorification, that is our salvation through Christ Jesus, is determined beforehand, coerced and not a free choice?
