Predestination?

The doctrine of Predestination has been debated, embraced, rejected, and debated again for centuries. Some refuse to accept that the Bible teaches predestination (even though it's actually in there). Others take it to places it was never intended to go (like the absolute removal of any ability to make choices). Some take up arms for their position, arguing that anyone who believes the opposite is a heretic or worse. People have actually died over the concept.

Odd. It is a part of Scripture. The word is in there. The doctrine is biblical. Of course, there are a variety of perceptions on it, some supportable and some not. I suspect, however, that the conclusions regarding the doctrine come from a prior position. Calvinists who hold to predestination don't start there. They start with the condition of Man. We hold that Man is sinful by nature, "that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Gen. 6:5). We believe that "the flesh profits nothing" (John 6:63). We start from the "bad news", the position that Man is spiritually dead and incapable of doing anything to make himself alive again. If we start there and nothing or no one intervenes, that would be the end of the story. All of mankind would sin himself into Hell. All of his choices would be sin and the only possible outcome would be the damnation of all human beings.

That, of course, isn't the end of the story. God became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, lived a sinless life, died in our place for our sins, and rose again. "There," they say, "that provides us all the opportunity we need to be saved." Well, not exactly. You see, we're still stuck with the condition of Man. God has done all that to put us in good stead with Him, but we lack the capacity to respond ... because we're dead. Something else is required. What is required should be clear -- life. We need spiritual life, a change in nature, to be able to respond to the offer.

That's where predestination comes in. God has to choose apart from our choice to quicken -- give life to -- some people. Left to our own choices, we will never do it. He has to intervene. Predestination doesn't say that God forces us to choose Him. It says that He enables us to choose Him. And we do. Of our own free will.

It is my suspicion that the objections are anchored somewhere else. There is a root of autonomy in every human being. We don't want to think that we are under anyone else. Self-sufficiency is the aim of everyone, it seems. Yeah, yeah, Paul calls himself a "bond-servant", but that's not us. And, sure, the Bible says natural Man is dead in sin (Eph. 2:1), hostile to God (Rom. 8:7), blinded by the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4), unable to comprehend spiritual things (1 Cor. 2:14), and all that, but surely we're able to do all that is necessary to come to Christ. Of course, "autonomy" is a euphemism. It is the equivalent of "I will be like the Most High" (Isa. 14:14). That's a problem.