Ok. It is about time to move past suicide putty. May I humbly offer a couple attempts to provoke beneficial blog interaction?
A while back a friend and potentially a member of this blog posed the very good and though-provoking question (an action typical of this individual). It followed as such: how can a God in a religion such as Christianity as it is set forth by Presbyterians justify the combination of original sin and predestination? Where, basically as he put it, an individual not among the chosen would basically be born damned since he/she is born in sin and is also damned by not being predestined to enter into eternal life.
Over a year of occasionally considering this potential deal-breaker, I have a couple of thoughts, but my hope would be to hear some others.
First, although God is full of grace, I believe that he is also perfectly just (If he isn’t then forget Christianity altogether). With this in mind, it would follow that the problem here stems from either our imperfect understanding of justice or our imperfect understanding of predestination… or, as Daniel would say, “it is probably an lack of understanding of justice… and probably also a lack of understanding of predestination”
We have, I believe, a natural intuition of what justice is because a lack of justice or fair play is enraging. So, what are we missing here?
Also, predestination/election, if God is perfectly just and Christ death atones for our sin, satisfying God’s perfect justice, how is it only for the elect?
I know that most of these trails lead to this thing called faith. I have also been told that free will and predestination are like to pillars holding up Christian faith that are wholly separate but somehow coexist. I don’t know. I’m just trying to evoke responses touching any aspect here.
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A few thoughts....
ReplyDeleteFirst off, in responding to the later post, riddles are not and will never be gay. They are super awesome. I think I have the first three but the fourth one is giving me trouble.
Second, I'm not sure if I fully understand one of your comments in the second to last paragraph that salvation is only for the elect... Is that claiming that God's offer did not extend to the non-elect?
I'm unsure of our starting point here. Did Jesus's death extend only to the elect or did it extend to all and only the elect were predestined to accept it?
Also, the bringing up original sin brings its own issues. Are we born with original sin and predestined for eternal damnation or are we sinful creatures that are not responsible for our sin until an "age of accountabilty"? How can this God who loves justice ignore our original sin and allow souls into heaven that never made the choice to accept Christ? Or do the billions of children, mentally handicapped, unborn children, and fertilized eggs all go to hell?
Confusing stuff.....