I've been having a semi-crisis of faith recently. My church has been doing a series on doubt, which has really gotten me thinking. I've found it on the whole to be quite interesting, honest, and thought provoking. But I feel like there are fairly good answers to most of the difficult questions that have been raised. What keeps me up at night is the question of freewill and predestination. See, I'm starting to think God is a Calvinist, and I am very uncomfortable with that idea. It makes grace so much more amazing, and yet makes God seem fickle and preferential. This would all be so much simpler if St. Paul hadn't gone a written Romans. I'm going to over-simplify this because it's late and I don't even know if I fully understand the problem. I simply don't understand how a loving God could knowingly create condemned people. Maybe I'll just have to talk myself into open theism, an idea that, 2 years ago, I would have told you I would never even seriously consider. We change in ways we can never predict.
By the way, for those of you not familiar with the TULIP acronym, it is often used to summarize the beliefs of five-point Calvinists.
Total Depravity
Unconditional Election
Limited Atonement
Irresistible Grace
Perseverance of the Saints
I'm not even going to try to cover all of my struggles with TULIP here, because on the one hand it's absurd (for instance, what is the point of the Great Commission if there is Irresistible Grace), and yet incredibly logical and Biblical.
Here's to someone digging up Jesus' Systematic Theology somewhere near Bethlehem. In the meantime, I'll just keep slogging it out, even though it's unclear if I'm gaining ground, or losing it.
1 comment:
I have no idea what you are talking about. But semi-crisis of faith is good, as is doubt. They will only strengthen your convictions once you resolve your questions. I may be completely off base here, but here I go anyway:
As for predestination, I've always had a hard time subscribing to this view of our time on Earth. I also find it difficult to reconcile free will with predestination. A loving God allows His creations to choose their own path. I have trouble believing that a just and caring God will predetermine one's fate (which includes the afterlife). Such a conception of God's relation to man also makes God the author of sin; though he may not commit the sin, he wills it to happen through the individual. Another artifact of this view is that God has pre-selected those who will go to Heaven. By what means does he separate the worthy from the unworthy?
My thought, though, is that an omniscient God will know the outcome of all His creations, and this may be confused for predestination. Knowing one's destination, though, God may not interfere, for in His love he has gifted man with free will.
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