Official Predestination and Calvinism Post

[spaminator101]

So i can clear up all the misconceptions and questions about predestination and calvinism. If you have a question about something just post it here and I'll try my best to answer it.

[udontknowmickey]

As sort of a bump,

You might want to define your terms and lay out what you mean by "predestination"

[spaminator101]

In response to what youdontknowmickey said, I mean predestination as in the choosing of God before the foundations of the world who would be saved.

[sexdrugsmoney]

I'll put out a few questions for you, and I promise they are asked 'in good faith' and not to covertly attack the doctrine of predestination.

1) If I am saved (if), how and why did God choose me and not someone else?

2) If God chose people to be saved before the foundation of the world, then why didn't God have the foresight to see stuff like the 'rebellion in heaven', and 'eating off the tree of knowledge in the garden of eden'?

Cheers,
SDM

[spaminator101]

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1) If I am saved (if), how and why did God choose me and not someone else?

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The only way I can reply to this is to say that God knows things that He does not reveal to us in scripture. There are somethings that He knows would be better if we did not know.


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2) If God chose people to be saved before the foundation of the world, then why didn't God have the foresight to see stuff like the 'rebellion in heaven', and 'eating off the tree of knowledge in the garden of eden'?


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First of all, God did know that these things would happen. Now youdontknowmickey will disagree with me on this one but God gave man some free will. Man was able to sin. I beleive He created Angels the same way.

[sexdrugsmoney]

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[ QUOTE ]
1) If I am saved (if), how and why did God choose me and not someone else?

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The only way I can reply to this is to say that God knows things that He does not reveal to us in scripture. There are somethings that He knows would be better if we did not know.

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Plausable, human's do get distracted easily, and God does seem to function on a 'need-to-know' basis.

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2) If God chose people to be saved before the foundation of the world, then why didn't God have the foresight to see stuff like the 'rebellion in heaven', and 'eating off the tree of knowledge in the garden of eden'?


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First of all, I believe God did know that these things would happen. Now youdontknowmickey will disagree with me on this one but God gave man some free will. Man was able to sin. I beleive He created Angels the same way.

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FYP. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

I'm not so sure about this answer, to me it doesn't make sense.

It seems the 'war in heaven' may have been a result of God's naivity, in not being able to see a rebellion happening from someone so close to him. (Lucifer - his 'right-hand man', "the light bearer")

Similarly, Genesis 6 talks about "The sons of God" leaving their posts in heaven to become mortal and have sex with human women, thus creating the Nephilim - a hybrid breed of man and fallen angel who are abnormally strong and have an above average height. (ie- Possibly Goliath was a Nephilim)

The psudephigraphical Book of Enoch claims that a certain number of angels in positions of authoriity made a pact with each other to 'fall' to take women, and once they did so, they started teaching humans things such as astrology, numerology, artistry etc.

If this book was true, it would shed some light on some on of the things in the ancient world that scientists have a hard time dealing with today.

The great pyramid at Giza and Stonehenge for example are 'wonders' and experiments to recreate their contruction today using ropes and manpower have failed.

If a hybrid race did exist called the Nephilim who were abnormally stronger than humans (Goliath) and their father's were able to teach this techniques far beyond the years of prehistoric human learning, it would account for this.

Ofcourse the Bible has gaps regarding these Nephilim, but generally it seemed God was displeased that some of his angels would leave heaven to become human, and after this God announces "my spirit will not always be with man, he will now only live to 120". (where before 700-900 was the average apparently)

It is also thought that the flood largely came about as God saw too many Nephilim and knowledge he didn't want humans to have and decided to 'cleanse' the world, all but Noah and the animals he wished to keep on earth from beyoned that point. (sorry dinosaurs, no soup for you)

Yet after the flood a couple of references to Nephilim being alive are still made (David-Goliath, and in Jeremiah I believe) which may have mean't a handful of angels were still able to leave heaven and opt for a life on earth. (perhaps David's story is God symbollically telling angels who continued this practice that they will recieve no assistance from him, and that the world was for humans, not them?)

Obviously today, there are no Nephilim (outside the NBA [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img])
so if this practice ever occurred it clearly was stopped around the time of Christ, probably sometime before Maccabean times.

But these examples do put a dent in the "God has total foresight" argument. Perhaps when God obtained his position of power, Lucifer was a candidate for Godhood and harboured resentment, and thought the naivity of the newly appointed (!) God would make him an easy target.

Ofcourse this opens up speculation to nature of heaven, origin of God, whether any other Gods exist etc etc.

Some Christians will say this is blasphemous of heretical, yet the Catholic church in times past used to consider anybody that went against the geocentric belief of earth to be a heretic.

I don't believe we are the only intelligent life (perhaps in this universe, but certainly other dimensions must exist which could be mirrors of Earth, each with a different appointed God and a different history and futue?) created, and believe it's somewhat arrogant to believe we are.

Likewise, I don't rule out (though I don't necessarily believe) that other God's could exist and be in charge of different jurisdictions. (1 Universe per God for example)

Perhaps Polytheism was but one of the things the fallen angels told humans about, that the place they came from had not one God but many?

If this was so, it is natural our God was pissed at this, because it served to be nothing but a distraction and an insult that subjects in his rightful jurisdiction were opting to worship any other gods that either:

a) Were 100% fake (didn't exist outside the imagination)
b) Were partially fake (partially existed outside the imagination/possibly based on a real 'god' in another jurisdiction that our God may know of)
c) Were real (existed either as a fallen entity like Satan, or was a real god but in another jurisdiction and thus had no power in earth or interest as he/she/it had their own dimension/universe/planet/creation etc)

All of this may be true, some of it may be true, none of it may be true ... seldom are things 'certain' in this life.

But as I have said before, if God reported everything to man, the Bible would exceed the size of all the tax legislations of the world combined and nobody would be able to read it all. (and if they did, it would only create more ways for people to reject god in favour of other gods/powers and reduce the aspect of faith - which you have to believe God enjoys observing)

So there you go, food for thought.

If you have any scripture that you'd like to quote during our conversation, I'm all for that. (I don't read the Bible as much as I should, so quoted scripture is an easy way for me to get some in without effort [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img])

Cheers,
SDM

[spaminator101]

I am going to take your posts in parts as it is a little too much for me to take in at one time.

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I don't believe we are the only intelligent life (perhaps in this universe, but certainly other dimensions must exist which could be mirrors of Earth, each with a different appointed God and a different history and futue?) created, and believe it's somewhat arrogant to believe we are.



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Neither do I. I beleive that it is possible that there is inteligent life out there. I do not think that they have the same qualities of humans but i do think they may be out there

[spaminator101]

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Similarly, Genesis 6 talks about "The sons of God" leaving their posts in heaven to become mortal and have sex with human women, thus creating the Nephilim - a hybrid breed of man and fallen angel who are abnormally strong and have an above average height. (ie- Possibly Goliath was a Nephilim)

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Personaly I beleive that when talking about the sons of God the Bible is talking about Man not angels.

There could possibly be a genetic trait that has died out that caused them to be this way.

[udontknowmickey]

sexdrugsmoney -

If you're willing to do a little reading (with a lot of Scripture interspersed) I would highly suggest checking out James Spurgeon's blog at The Howling Coyote. He touches upon many of the issues you touch on regarding election and predestination, and answers them in a fairly biblical and consistant (Scriptural) manner. The validity of preaching, free will in angels, the like. You can probably just start in the archives and see which blog titles you like.

Hope it helps a little.

[sexdrugsmoney]

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sexdrugsmoney -

If you're willing to do a little reading (with a lot of Scripture interspersed) I would highly suggest checking out James Spurgeon's blog at The Howling Coyote. He touches upon many of the issues you touch on regarding election and predestination, and answers them in a fairly biblical and consistant (Scriptural) manner. The validity of preaching, free will in angels, the like. You can probably just start in the archives and see which blog titles you like.

Hope it helps a little.

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Any relation to Charles Spurgeon?