Fate at a car wash
In class today we debated Determinism vs. Free Will. Let me first say this. And by say i mean type. I'm not really sure where i stand on this. I know that i believe in some form of free will because i think the problem of evil is just too strong if you are a pure Determinist (yeah that's you Luther...bring it). But there are verses that clearly point to some form of predestination. I believe the answer lies somewhere in the mystery of God being outside of space-time, something our minds cannot comprehend. Yes he saw it before it happened, but not so much before, because he sees everything at once, all time and all space. As you can tell one's mind starts to hurt. Kind of like getting a labotomy...nurse Ratchet was scary.
One event today, brought to mind all the factors that go into a small event in life. This morning i decided i was going to wash my car after i finished tutoring(you must understand that this is an event in itself. In the 2+ years i drove the ole E-clipse i only washed it twice).I usually tutor for an hour after school 345-445. Today i only ended up tutoring for half an hour, so i made it to the car wash around 410 (we started at 330). A few blocks away, a certain female friend of mine was at soccer conditioning. It went til about four and she was riding with he rmom in a filthy van. Suddenly mom perks up "Hey, lets wash the car." Who does that? Now in the city of topeka there have to be a couple dozen car washes, so back to me. I am pulling into the car wash and i think " hey that girl at the change machine looks familiar." She turned around and sure enough, it was my friend (she remains nameless for her own protection. i realize that thousands of people will be reading this and i want to protect her identity). I waved, she looked confused, i got out to get change, she realized who the heck that weirdo in the Taurus was who just waved at her, we smiled and proceeded to wash our respective cars.
Didn't this have to be predetermined? I mean no one could have set that up. I should probably just go ask her to marry me right? (o goodness, i am walking a fine line here) I guess what i was trying to illustrate is all the outside factors that go into events in our lives, and that maybe God is up there looking at the choices we have made, and looking at the choices everyone has made and, like a master puzzle-solver, saying "ok, this will all fit together into my plan like this!" and bang, prophecy's are fulfilled, Satan is defeated and even though we had a choice, God fit it into his plan. Adam had a choice, he chose poorly, but God fitted it into his plan. No one would say that God willed Adam and Eve to fall, but they did, and God is still goign to dominate. I'm done.
posted by Pureblood Prince @ 7:09 PM
3 Comments:
"God fitted it into his plan"
As a quasi-engineer my mind is quasi-boggled by God's ability to take lemons and make lemon-aide. I feel good about myself when I can take vanilla ice cream and make chocolate by stirring in syrup (yes!). But not so with God.
I'm guessing that as soon as Adam and Eve sinned, God knew exactly what had to be done. God's plan, in all of it's complexities (thousands of years of preparation, prophecies, fullfillment of prophecies) was set into motion the moment he kicked them out of the garden.
The amazing thing is: his plan is the only plan that would solve the problem. Is there any other sacrifice that we can claim as worthy payment for our sins and wayward ways?
No.
So I'm rather comfortable knowing that God continues to have a eternal, global plan and that in his engineering Godness (omni-this, omni-that) his plan is going to be done.
So the question becomes: what is my role in this amazing plan?
How 'bout this one, T. In the OT, God elects Israel. That's clear from Genesis, where one theme is that God selects his people from out of the nations to extend blessings or curses to the nations. So God curses Sodom and Gomorrah. So Abimelech in Gerar gets cursed when he gets in a tangle with God's chosen couple, Abraham and Sarah (Gen 20:18). But blessings also go out to the nations via God's chosen. So Abraham prays to God, and Abimelech's curse is lifted (Gen 20:18). Or, so Joseph's situation in Egypt, from Genesis 37 on, has the fate of God's chosen family all tangled up with the fate (blessings and curses) of Egypt.
But later, God seems almost to un-elect Israel before the nations. At any rate, God whacks his people Israel, and pretty severly, too. And because the impact of God's election of Israel in Genesis is basically, in terms of blessing or curse, the fact that he curses his people very nearly, if not in fact, puts them in the group of people who are not his people. Isaiah 40-48 is a huge courtroom drama where Israel and the nations are both on trial. Then there comes a surprise testimony, however: a suffering servant Israel appears as a "light to the nations." The self-same nations who are in the process of being sentenced will receive God's law just as Israel did from Moses. Thus Israel, in the process of getting whacked by God, getting cut back, is at the same time on an outward trajectory to the nations, also standing judgement.
I'm not sure I'm explaining this well, and I'm stealing a big chunk of it, too, from a book I'm reading. Let me try to sum. God elected Israel as part of a covenantal plan to extend his blessing to the nations. When God punished Israel by having them dragged of to exile among the nations he actually paradoxically fulfilled part of the covenant.
The book I'm reading sums it this way: >>By becoming the sinful goy in judgement, but being sent forth into the hands of the nations who carry them away, there stands the paradoxical and unexpected fulfillment of the promises to Abraham.<< (C Seits, Figured Out, 155.)
To bring it back to (the usually tired conversation about) predestination. God chose Israel. Israel chose not to follow God, so God cursed Israel. In cursing them because of their disobedience (read, free will), God providentially fulfilled promises made in his initial choosing of Israel. He had is sovreign way, in other words, via Israel's willful disobedience.
Go figure.
One guy (Ephraim Radner) who sees this pattern with Israel in the OT asks if it applies to the church in the NT. "Does the church as the body of Christ and the Israel of God bring light to the nations by bearing witness to God's judgement over it, as well as to God's blessing, as did Israel of old?" (Seitz, 157). Now there's a thought at once strange and spooky. If it turns out to be true, let's just hope the 5-pointers haven't been in charge of our defense, or we're screwed.
T, I remember my favorite description of free will vs. determinism from Great Ideas. The author described God as a chess master. The man tried some "classical" techniques, but God countered his every move. So the man tried some unorthodox techniques (what does that mean? sweeping your opponenet's pieces off the board?), but once again God would take the man's move in stride and incorporate it into His plan. I think that's the best illustration of this issue I've ever heard. We have freedom to make decisions, but God is so powerful and amazing that whatever we do He WILL accomplish his purpose out of it.
P.S. I got Daniel's email about his bog and suddenly I discovered all these other blogs: you, the schneiders, paul, etc.....awesome! -- Seth
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