Predestination

I came across an article recently by William Lane Craig presenting the idea of Molinism which I found interesting. Basically, Molinism is the idea that given all the possible realities that might have existed if various choices and circumstances had been put into place and set into motion with man's free-will in full operation, God examined all these and chose the best one to be the actual reality.

I think Molinism is a nice way to approach the idea of how God might have decided to make things the way they are, but still doesn't address what I have always seen as the most pressing issue which is the relationship of God's and man's responsibility to choice. If God is sovereign or does any kind of predestination at all on what men will choose which the Bible clearly indicates that he does (even if he chooses a particular set of choices that I might have chosen to be the ones that I actually choose as Molinism indicates) then isn't God really the one doing the choosing and not man? How can we escape the idea of being robotic drones with only an illusion of choice in our lives?

After thinking about this I came up with a way of understanding simultaneous predestination and free-will that I think makes sense. I believe to comprehend predestination, free-will and who the Bible says God is in relation to this we must rid ourselves of the idea of singular ownership of choice. God and man have shared ownership of choice with moral statuses attributed independently not to the choice, but to the choosers. So, a choice exists that was made by person X and is owned by person X as well as by God. There is no moral status that can be attributed to the choice in and of itself, but rather a moral status regarding the choice is attributed to the choosers of it. The moral status attributed to God is always good, but the one attributed to the person is sometimes good and sometimes evil. God's act of ordaining the choice does not mean the person loses responsibility for the moral status attributed to him or her in relation to it. This is precisely because of the existence of a dual ownership of the choice. While the choice can be attributed to two owners the moral status of the owners is in relation to their motives for the choice. This idea of dual ownership of choice is made possible because of two different perspectives of reality that are involved here.

God and man have different perceptions of reality and in a sense can be said to live in two different realities, although I think more accurately we might say that their is one reality which God has a perfect ultimate and infinite perception of and which we only have a limited perception of. From now on however, I will refer to God's reality meaning his unique infinitely perfect and all-knowing perspective of it and our reality as man's limited view of it. Though we can come to somewhat of an understanding regarding the shape of God's reality we can never actually enter into it ourselves. One of the things that defines God's reality as it is, is his ability to perceive the particulars of fates which he has predestined for men and all things. Though we in our human reality can understand that he knows these particulars, we can never ourselves know them until they have actually occurred for us. It is precisely our lack of knowledge that enables the reality we live in to have the shape that it has. So, in other words the existence of free-will for us is dependent on our lack of knowledge regarding the particulars of our ultimate fate.

I can become consumed with the idea that all actions are futile, because of a false perception that I understand my fate. However, because I don't know my fate I can pray for God to change some circumstance I see in the world or in my life and then in my reality I can perceive God answering that prayer as though my original perception of the fate of this circumstance had been altered, however in God's reality the overall fate of that situation remained the same from beginning to end outside of time despite my lack of knowledge concerning the particulars of it. It is this lack of knowledge in us that makes our free-will possible. Granted we have a perception of free-will, but this perception is more than just a simpleton's deception it is an actual inescapable reality for us that God intended for us to live in. We know this because we are told that we will be held responsible for the choices we make according to this perception of free-will that we have and live in. If God is solely responsible for choices we make then punishing or rewarding us for them contradicts the justice attributed to him in the Bible. Christ sacrificed himself for the world. God wouldn't ordain this to happen for something that is a mere illusion. Clearly, our choices are real and the consequences for our choices are very real. So, the moral status attributed to us and judgement due us because of it in regards to the choices we've made are dependent and directly related to our motives and perception in the reality we live in made possible by our lack of knowledge regarding the particulars of fate. God is responsible for our choices in relation to his reality and motives which are ultimately good. Nothing I do can change what God has fated to happen to me. My choices in life are decided by God in one sense and by me in another. One choice, with two choosers. Although it may be difficult to see immediately how a clearly evil choice that I choose to make could ever have been chosen by God we know that all things work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. (Our ability to judge the over-all goodness or evilness of a choice especially with respect to God in his infinite all-knowing perspective from our own limited one is clearly prone to the possibility of error.) So, we have individual choices with two choosers in relation to them.

There is a danger in thinking about predestination that we will begin to believe it does not matter what you or I do because it is fated. If I knew precisely what my fate was then I would agree any attempts to circumvent it would be futile, but I don't. The fact that it exists as disconcerting as that may sometimes seem is not enough to bring about the loss of my free-will to me in my reality because I don't know the particulars of what that fate actually is. The moment I know that I know the particulars of my destiny regarding something, any choice I have in that matter is forfeit. It is important I think to realize that there are some elements of our destiny that we do know by faith and therefore have lost choice in. But this is a good thing. For example, I know by faith that when I accepted Christ in baptism and chose him to be my Lord and Saviour that my fate as one of God's elect was sealed and my choices no longer affect this matter with one condition. The condition exists because this is true only as long as my choices in life don't lead me to a loss of my foundational faith that is saving me. Notice that when my belief is completely lost, my knowledge of my fate of salvation is freed and in effect my fate of salvation may never have really existed in the first place, but only God in his reality can know the truth regarding that.