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Why not both?
Published on August 2, 2007 By Jythier In Religion
A lot of people seem to struggle with the concept of free will vs. destiny in Christianity. A lot of times, I think that people refuse to admit just how big God really is. A lot of times, free will is thought of as the ability to make your own decisions. You have that, for sure. God said so, in His book. But he also said some other things which sounds very contradictory to that. He mentions, in His book, that He knows all the names of those who will be saved. Every saved person is known to God before they make the decision.

If your decision is already decided for you, who made the decision? Did you make it, or was it just destiny?

God, the God that I serve, knows everyone in this world better than they know themselves.

Have you ever started a sentence, and had someone who knows you really well finish the sentence for you? Because they knew what you were going to say before you said it? Well, God knows you better than that. In fact, He knows you SO well, that he not only knows what you're going to say, but also the outcome of EVERY decision you are going to make in your life.

Does this mean you are not in control of your own life? Of course not! Knowing what you will do does not make it someone else controlling you. You still are doing what you decide, He just knew that you would decide to do it before you did. He's that big.

The only person to ever walk this Earth with full knowledge of where he was heading in life, and what would happen, is Jesus Christ, and he was for not changing it. He wanted the story to go the way it was foretold, and do everything he was supposed to. Everyone else, however, has no idea where they're going to be in the next five minutes. Sure, you could make a decision to leave work, and go out and get a new job. But God knew I would be writing this article, that you would be reading it right now, and how you would react to it. You can't fool him, or mess up his plan - it's laid in such a way that he even knows how people will respond to his movement on Earth.

So, yeah, your fate is sealed. Absolutely. But not because someone else decided it for you - you decide what that fate will be. But God already knows what that final decision will be.

Comments (Page 8)
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on Aug 18, 2007
Because he doesn't talk about it. I don't think it's all that important, really, once you're saved... you've been elected... or free-will chose it... either way, Pastor doesn't care, you're saved. I mean, he may care, but he cares less about whether God chose or you chose, and more about the fact they ARE saved... you know?


yes, I understand that...but if he's reading scripture from the pulpit expositionally he's going to run right into it. If he's doing topical sermons it's much easier to avoid it. But say he's going thru Romans or Ephesians, he can't help but preach on it.

The problem of a pastor from one denomination being so differently aligned on believing in one "election" or the other "free will" is telling. There is only one Holy SPirit guiding and directing us when reading to understand Sacred Scriputre. How can there be so many different interptetations of the same key passages that would lead one pastor to believe in election and another one reading believe in free will?


First off there isn't "many" but two. Election or freewill? Both are correct but one comes before the other. But what's happening is many are looking at the freewill verses and applying them to election and that's incorrect. It comes election first, freewill second. It's not even about denomination. You can have two Catholics beliving the same as well, or two priests or two Popes for that matter.

they are both very stubborn in their positions and impossible to move, especially KFC because she has already moved from free-will to election.


It's not stubborn so much as it's like telling me that 1+1=3. Am I stubborn when I insist it's 2? I can't move back to the freewill position (for salvation) because it's not in scripture. I'm talking years of studying this here. It's not a quick off the top of the head belief. The supposed freewill verses are clearly AFTER salvation. Otherwise, it's impossible to reconcile them all together.

But Lula's right, it's the essentials that count. This is not an essential and I consider those regenerated believers who believe in freewill as brothers and sisters in Christ regardless.

Sometimes, my replies seem rather hard on others beliefs, but do not regard it as my being hard on them for it's not meant to be. Not one word is intended to hurt personally. This is especially true of KFC.


same here. Sometimes Lula and I get frustrated with each other, but thru it all we love each other, right LULA? The bigger lesson here is how a Protestant and a Catholic can disagree, mostly on the non-essentials, but still get along smashingly well. I consider her one of my biggest friends here on JU.






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