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Post by Josh on Feb 4, 2007 20:59:18 GMT -8
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Post by elizabeth on Feb 4, 2007 21:01:02 GMT -8
Originally posted 4/8/06:
When I was thinking about God's "will" I kept thinking about all of the miricles that happen. I can't help but wonder about when things go wrong or when things have a happy ending. What was God's will in those situations? Did he change his mind? What about situations that are going so wrong then suddenly go right, why? Why such a dramatic change? Is it will?
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Post by dattaswami on Nov 25, 2007 4:35:01 GMT -8
The Lord is controlling all the souls as per Veda “Aatmeshwaram”, which means that all the souls are ruled by the Lord. Gita also says the same “Bhuthanaam Eeswarah”. But this does not mean that there is no independence for the soul. When the king rules the kingdom, all the people in that kingdom are independent in their activities, but they are within the rules of the king. Thus a short span of independence in the human life exists under the control and supervision of the Lord. A cat caught a rat by its jaws. It leaves the rat after a bite for a short span of time. In that span the rat gets independence and runs in any side as it likes. But the cat is watching the rat and catches it again whenever the rat is out of the limits of the supervision. Similarly the Lord called “Kaala” (death) catches a human being and bites. The bite is the illness of the human being. The repeated diseases are the repeated bites of the ‘Kaala” or the Lord. During the bite the rat looses completely its independence. Similarly any human being, which is attacked by the disease becomes a patient and looses its independence completely. The cat plays with the rat for sometime like this and finally swallowes the rat. Similarly, the human being is swallowed by the Lord at the end. The whole creation itself is like a rat for the cat like Lord, which is told in Brahmasutra “Atta Charaachara Grahanaat”. Thus the short span of independence of human beings under the supervision of the overall controlling Lord, creates the full game and entertainment for the Lord. The entertainment is the basic reason of the creation by the Lord as said in Veda (Ekaaki Na Ramate) and as said in Brahmasutra (Lokavattu). Within the limits of the supervision of the cat, the rat will receive the result of the direction in which it runs. In one direction there may be fire and the rat may receive the heat. In another direction there may be cold water and the rat will receive the coolness in that direction. The rat is independent to receive the result of the direction and has full independence to go in any direction. The final death of the rat shows that the rat is under the control of the cat during its choice of direction also, which is not interfered by the cat. Similarly the human life is with full of independence but the final end proves that the independence is under the control of the Lord. Yet, since there was no interference of the Lord during the human life, the human being receives the results according to its actions. Thus the “whole game is perfectly justified in any angle”. |
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Post by Josh on Nov 25, 2007 16:01:29 GMT -8
Hmmmm... You bring up some points I would agree with, some I'm a bit unsure about, but others that I would disagree with. The part I'm unsure about is whether any metaphor can truly capture the paradox of free will and predestination. Still, some metaphors can be helpful toward understanding certain aspects of the paradox. The disagreement I find with your post has less to do with predestination and more to do with the nature/ existence of good and evil. Your cat metaphor fits more with an Eastern view of the non-existence of absolute good or evil. But in the Christian view, there is a fixed line between good and evil and good is always attributable back to it's source, God, while evil can never be attributed directly to God. God did not create evil in the Christian worldview. Since the topic of "good and evil" is a bit different from "predestination and free will", if any of you are interested in pursuing that further, take this link please: Good and Evil in Various Religions |
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Post by Josh on Apr 30, 2008 16:18:33 GMT -8
Originally posted 4/10/06 as a reply to Elizabeth's post above:
Well, the Bible seems to indicate two different definitions of God's will.
One definition seems to be "What God desires" and the other seems to be "What does, in fact, happen" (or, depending on your theology "What God allows to happen)
These can be very different according to Scripture. For instance, Scripture says in various places that God does not desire the death of any soul- He wishes that all come to repentence. In this sense, it is His will that all come to Him, that all find their true meaning in obedience to Him, that all choose Him over evil.
But, of course, that's not what actually happens. People do choose against Him, but that is also His will in another sense, in the second sense above: though God wills (desires) that none should perish, He at the same time wills (causes or allows: this is a matter of debate) that people be made with the ability to choose Him freely or reject Him freely.
Now, so far I have been speaking about choices, not just about 'situations' which you specifically brought up-- like when circumstances work out well for individuals or turn out horribly.
Some think God has chosen to allow randomness to work in the universe- that is, God set up the universe to operate according to pre-set laws- so that bad things happen to both good and bad people based on statistical averages and not necessarily based on their actions. He does sometimes intervene in special ways for specific purposes, but normally he allows the 'chips to fall where they may'. This is not to say that God doesn't generally reward good actions and bring negative consquences to bad ones- it's just to say that He's already worked that into the fixed laws of the universe. He may also intervene supernaturally to punish and reward in this life- but not always, and we don't always know why (this side of heaven) why He does in some circumstances and not in others.
Others don't see it this way: they focus on God being directly responsible for every event- every tsunami or car accident or whatever. They don't leave a place for random events (by the way, I don't mean truly random, I mean events that follow a statistical pattern but happen 'randomly' to individuals.
Forrest Gump summed up the dilemma this way:
"Jenny, I don't know if Momma was right or if, if it's Lieutenant Dan. I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time."
I tend to agree with him intuitively. I think there is randomness AND that ultimately God is the behind everything that is not evil. I mean, even if you say that there are random events, if you believe in God you have to admit that He not only knew how things would 'randomly' work out, but He caused the whole show in the first place. There's no getting away from His involvement. But I still think His way of acting through randomness is different than His necessarily directly sending catastrophies our way.
And on top of all this paradox which we'll never fully understand while we're trapped in these space-time-dimensions, we do have the promise that somehow "God works all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His good purpose" (Romans 8:28).
This isn't meant to be an "ANSWER" but just food for further thought, or perhaps just some comments in the way of clarifications. It may not have accomplished that. Please, anyone, feel free to continue this dialogue.
One last thought if someone is not convinced of the paradox theory: I really don't think either Determinism/ Absolute Predestination or Free Will/ Randomness by themselves are enough to explain what we call life. If you think only one is accurate, you will not be able to account for many realities- like God's sovreignty or true love or many other things...
So before anyone knocks the paradox because it doesn't seem to make sense, try imagining the world without it- without one side of this coin. It would be sheer madness.
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Post by Josh on Sept 19, 2008 11:27:25 GMT -8
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Post by rbbailey on Dec 6, 2009 21:34:29 GMT -8
I have not read through this thread yet, but the topic came to me while lying in bed the other night.
Maybe predestination is very real. But maybe it doesn't pose the puzzle to us and the idea of free-will we think it does. Maybe some people are predestined, but not all.
I'll leave it at that for now because I have lots of homework I need to be doing.
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