Good News for All

If everything is predestined then why should I be accountable for my life?

The Bible does talk about predestination. In Greek the word is pro-orizo meaning to establish boundaries beforehand, like the word horizon which is a boundary to our vision. To help understand, we ought to look at the few Bible verses that refer directly to what is predestined. Here they are:

• Acts 4:28 says that what happened to Jesus, in terms of him being betrayed and then crucified by the Romans at the behest of the Jewish leaders, was pre-planned. Many prophecies confirm this in some detail according to the gospel writers and early Christian teachers.
• Romans 8:28-30 says that God has a purpose according to which he forenew, predestined, called, justified and glorified a certain group of people who love him.
• 1 Corinthians 2:7 says that certain hidden wisdom of God was destined before the world began for the glory of that same group of people.
• Ephesian 1:5 says that God has a plan to unite everything in Christ, and according to that plan a certain group of people were predestined and chosen.
• Ephesians 1:11 basically repeats and restates the idea of verse 5.

The certain group of people includes those to whom Paul is writing, specifically those who believe in Jesus as Messiah and Saviour. The Jewish writings also reference predestination in connection with Israel as God's chosen people (eg. Deuteronomy 4:20, 14:12). They also refer to a preformed plan (eg. Isaiah 25:1), so the general concepts are similar. From Jeremiah 1:5 we learn that God planned for Jeremiah to be a prophet before he was born (possibly before he was conceived), and Psalm 139:13-16 makes a similar claim for David, and that the extent and possibly also the details of his life were pre-planned.

What is Predestined?

These scriptures mean that because God has a purpose in mind, before he created anything he used prior knowledge to form a messianic plan to unite everything in Christ. Some people believe this plan details the choice of specific individuals for faith, justification and glorification. That would mean God has chosen who will be saved and who will not. From this it is logical to generalise the statements about David and Jeremiah to mean that all of the details of all of our lives are foreordained by God, and to consider that this pre-planning goes back to before creation.

These references can also be understood in a more general sense. It may be that, knowing free agents might oppose his authority, before God created the universe he made contingency plans to deal with the possibility of a rebellion. Those plans included the death and resurrection of a Messiah, the justification and glorification of all who chose to trust and follow him, and the reunification of all things under the leadership of that Messiah. As for Jeremiah and David, God can recognise the potential of a person before their birth, and will actively intervene to use events in individual lives to further his plans in detail. The Bible abundantly illustrates this idea in the lives of the patriarchs and numerous other individuals, including a few Gentiles such as Cyrus and Nebuchadnezzar.

What is Time?

Theologians refer to the omnipotence of God (he can do anything) and his omniscience (he knows everything). Together these imply that God is in total control of everything that happens, which is a necessary logical foundation for strict predestination. According to physical science, if you have complete knowledge of the starting conditions and the physical forces and laws involved, you can predict the exact outcome. Accordingly, the majority of physics opinion tends toward a theory of the universe in which space-time is an essentially static monolith. This makes time a dimension of the continuum, solves the problem of duration and persistence, and simplifies all sorts of mathematics. It is called the B-theory of time. Under this theory our experience of time is a subjective consequence of the forward momentum, from past to future, of our conscious journey of life.

Scripture says that God cannot lie, which appears to create a limit to his omnipotence. We could therefore redefine the omnipotence of God to mean he can do anything doable that he wants to do. We might then define his omniscience to mean God can know anything knowable that he wants to know. According to quantum theory a degree of uncertainty is an essential characteristic of the material world. This would result in an unstable universe with an indeterminable future that requires continuous active involvement by God to intervene in support of his plans. Our conscious experience of time consists of the moment by moment changes taking place in the universe around us. This is a minorty view among philosophers and scientists known as the A-theory of time. So, is either correct, and if so, which?

We measure time by setting a clock to do something ('tick') at standard intervals we all agree on in order to measure the local rate of flow of events. We use this measurement to record when, in the past, certain events occurred. We use calculation, measurement and natural laws to predict when, in the future, certain other events will occur. This leads us to think of time as a dimension like up and down, left and right, forward and back, that has a future and past. But this is an illusion. Our universe only has a simultaneous now in which no location is privileged. Locally, the past is a memory of what was, and one of many possibilities becomes the future, but only the universal present is real.

When we use a ruler to measure distance, we think of the space between two points as continuously divisible. We think we can improve accuracy by making the measurement intervals smaller without limit, but this is false. There is a physical limit for the smallest particle size. Time is measured using the interval length of a causal loop, such as the pendulum of a ticking clock, or the frequency of an atomic oscillator. The shorter the loop, the more accurately we can measure, but since h/λ=mc a material clock is constrained by the speed of electromagnetic propagation ‐ the speed of light ‐ which represents a limit leading to granularity in causation.

The B theory of time is a model convenient to the mathematics of physics, but we must not confuse the model with the universe it attempts to represent, which is actually a field of events in space that is continuously changing state. It has forward momentum (past to future) because of the causal nature (cause to effect) of events. We refer to the measurement of the rate of change of events as time. It has a past and future from the viewpoint of any local observer experiencing change from inside the field. Granularity of causation provides for duration of state, and the rate of propagation of causation supports persistence of events for local observation.

Predestination and Justice?

The effort to reconcile strict predestination according to the B-theory of time with the justice of God is not a new one. It is called the theodicy, harking back to the writings of Liebniz (1710CE) who coined the term. It is a question dating from at least the time of ancient Greece. Many philosophers and theologians of various faiths have struggled with this issue and sought to provide answers.

Predestination can be understood in ways that are less strict within the context of the A-theory. Thought is a causal process, with one thought leading to another. That God has thoughts means the consciousness of God contains and constrains the causal stream within which we exist and function. Free will may introduce uncertainty into this causal stream, but that does not mean the flow of effects is out of control with respect to the general will and purpose of God.

When God predestines those who believe in Christ to rise from the dead and receive an eternal inheritance, it means that he has chosen that those who believe should obtain this end, not that he has selected only certain specific individuals to obtain it and others to not do so. Predestination of this more general kind, expressing only purpose and planning, would not be in conflict with the judgement of beings created with unconstrained free will. Rather, it could be the expected end product of a well governed creation permitting the existence and expression of free moral agents.

In Summary

God predicts what he will do, then he does it. We recognise these things as predestined when we hear about them before seeing them happen, as in the case of prophecy. We also tend to say, of things that appear highly coincidental from our point of view, that they were predestined. Predictions attributed to God which have not yet occurred because they relate to the future are also thought of as predestined.

This is not the same as fate, with everything determined beforehand in detail, and in which we have no choice of action. Predestination can be general without being particular. Even if God intervenes to promote good it does not negate our right or ability to choose, and we remain responsible for our choices and their outcomes. God is surely right to hold us accountable. We cannot hold out predestination as an excuse.