Predestination: Omniscience means you dont have a choice of heaven/hell!

[§outh§tar]

DIFFERENT WAYS OF INTERPRETATION

The word 'predestination' occurs several times in the Bible, but there are two main lines of thought about the understanding of this term.

*

The first is predestination on the basis of foreknowledge. Predestination is the eternal decision of God, arising from love, by which he sets out a historical plan of Salvation giving every person the possibility to receive eternal Salvation. God predestined Jesus to be the only and absolute mediator between Himself and mankind.
*

The second is the belief that God is sovereign and decides everything that will happen regardless of the will of man and that what God determines no man can change. Within this line of thought there are two directions of understanding: "single predestination", which some Lutherans believe in and "double predestination", which the Calvinists believe in.

Single predestination means that God elects in advance those who will come to heaven.

Double predestination means that God determines in advance who will be in heaven and who will go to hell.

http://christians.port5.com/pred.html#bib
------------

So you are forced to go to heaven/hell? Damned to a life of poverty? Where does free will start and where does it end?

 

[okinrus]

When you say that predestination occurs several times in the bible, I think you should look up the Greek meaning of the word in question.

 

[Dr Lou Natic]

It does imply in the bible that although we can make choices god knows what choice we will make, and so that is predestination, and free-will only feels like free-will to the person experiencing it, thus being an illusion.
This is one of those rare cases where what the bible says is supported by science.

Still it follows that if the bible is correct, god is ultimately creating some people for hell and some for heaven. Why? Very bizarre.
Oh and it seems he wants alot more people to be in hell than he does heaven. I don't blame him, heaven just wouldn't be heaven if it was crowded would it?

 

[okinrus]

It does imply in the bible that although we can make choices god knows what choice we will make, and so that is predestination, and free-will only feels like free-will to the person experiencing it, thus being an illusion.

Not necessarily. You can believe in free will but also believe in God's complete knowledge of what will occur. It is then simply a matter of knowing the final outcome of what we will chose.

This is one of those rare cases where what the bible says is supported by science.

I'm uncertain how you can say that predetermined world is more scientific than a undetermined world? Both seem equally likely?

 

[Dr Lou Natic]

Human free will is considered to be an illusion. Choices being the sum of genetics + experience + environment.
The preparation of mental activity feels like free will to the organism it is occurring in.
Everything anything does is predictable, it would take a god to actually predict it though.

Not necessarily. You can believe in free will but also believe in God's complete knowledge of what will occur. It is then simply a matter of knowing the final outcome of what we will chose.

I don't see how that makes sense at all. If there is a set outcome that 'god' is aware of then free will simply can not exist. The idea of free will means you could equally choose any option at any time. If this were true, it could not be predictable. The whole concept revolves around being completely unpredictable.
Its a flawed concept for many scientific reasons. Whats interesting is even from a religious perspective it is flawed.

 

[okinrus]

Human free will is considered to be an illusion. Choices being the sum of genetics + experience + environment.

Free will, like the existence of God, is unable to be determined by science alone.

The preparation of mental activity feels like free will to the organism it is occurring in.
Everything anything does is predictable, it would take a god to actually predict it though.

How or what purpose does the illusion of free will occur when nothing in the natural world has free will?

I don't see how that makes sense at all. If there is a set outcome that 'god' is aware of then free will simply can not exist. The idea of free will means you could equally choose any option at any time. If this were true, it could not be predictable. The whole concept revolves around being completely unpredictable.

I don't think free will means complete unpredictability, only we as an entity are capable of making decisions. If God knows the future, then he is capable of knowing the outcome of our free willed decisions.

 

[§outh§tar]

If God knows the future, then he is capable of knowing the outcome of our free willed decisions.

Does that mean He is not the one who ordained our actions, if He knows the OUTCOME?