A Supporting Story

If God knows what we will do before we do it, how can we be held accountable for our actions? This is the question most Christians ask themselves often. All through the entire history of Christianity, the theologians and philosophers have tried to answer if God will save all people or only particular people. Christians believe that “God is omniscient and omnipotent. Therefore, every human action is known to God and thus predestined.” This means God foresees people choices and actions before it is committed. Augustine's Confessions and Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy both deal with this question by narrowing it to three of this categories: original Sin, free will and predestination.

We make the decision on whether or not we are going to do good in the world or evil. If he made us all only have the choice to do good in the world then everyone would be perfect and it would be like we are just going through the motions of life. No one would get the experience you gain from overcoming evils. There are also other evils in the world that include illnesses, natural disasters with whether and etc. No one will know when it’s there time to go so in order to make it into heaven you need to be living your life according to God’s standards. Even though he has our life planned out he wants to make sure you’re making the right decisions in your life on your

A fictional character can be copyrightable separate from the content of the work (despite the lack of its appearance in §102). To determine whether or not a fictional character is copyrightable courts have gravitated towards two distinct tests. The “character delineation test” (2nd Circuit) holds that a character may be copyrightable if it is sufficiently and precisely defined. Because this looks at how precise the character is defined, it is possible for non-central characters to be copyrightable (Titan Sports v. TBS).

If God knows what we are going to do, he has no right to reward the good and punish the wicked. Discuss

The idea of predestination is not one that is so easily grasped. Many people have different ideas and understandings of what predestination is and what it looks like. Predestination is merely the concept that God already knows every decision a person makes before they make it, and that they are following a path laid before them. This is hard for people to accept, especially those who do not believe in any supreme ruler or being. John Boykin, Baylor graduate with his masters in Divinity and professor at all six Southern Baptist Seminary Extension Centers, puts the view

Per Genesis God created humans on the 6th day out of his own image. Some people believe this refers to characteristics, while others believe this refers to physical likeness. The fall of humanity started with Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit. They were banished from the garden, and humans were cursed by God from that day forward. He made work hard, allowed us to feel suffering and die, made childbirth painful and more. Many people question why God gave us the ability to sin if he is so good and gracious. The answer is God gave us free will to make our own decisions. Adam and Eve had free will but were not sinful by nature. After the fall, God

As time passed, and the human race grew and developed on the earth, G-d realized that they are extremely flawed, and “that every imagination of the thoughts of [their] heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6.5). G-d “repented” (Gen. 6.6) for creating flawed individuals; “it grieved him at his heart” (Gen. 6.6). At this point, The Bible presents G-d as more human. G-d’s regret for creating the human race serves as a way to make him more relatable, showing that even G-d can regret his own actions. Therefore, humans can feel more connected to G-d, therefore being more likely to follow his will. Conversely, because humans became so fallacious, G-d no longer desired to preserve them. This interpretation completely opposes the idea that G-d is being

=predestination, predetermined out lives in a causal sense. Doesn’t the benevolence of God require that we should indeed be free to choose

choice in what God knows he will do, since God already knows that he will do it,

In God everything is spontaneous, all persons have the freedom to do what he wills when said persons are conscious, and this is a volition. Volition stems from “to do it” and the ability “to do so.” When conditions are par with the will to do something and equally par with the will to not do something no violation occurs (pg1 para1). This equilibrium causes a balance of indifference. Accepting that all conditions are primed for action, the willing still remains stagnant if conditions are equally contrary to conditions weighed prier (pg1 para2).

Many people want to know what God is like. One of his characteristics is that he is the supreme ruler, who created everyone and everything in this world (Psalm 97). This is the Christian worldview of God. He is three persons: God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Houdmann). He is also just, merciful, and loving towards all his creatures. Because he is all these things, God has given us humans, his creation, free will. With this free will, comes decisions that can either make us good or evil. Depending on if someone was good in life, he will go to heaven, or if he was evil, he will go to hell (Ezekiel 18). Now with the free will, humans decide what they want to do, and it is in their nature to be selfish. They will always strive to make their life better, choosing choices in which they will be benefited before others.

There is no guarantee that a free moral agent will never choose wrongly. For a person to say that God should not have created people with the ability to choose sin, is saying he should not have created people at all. J.L. Mackie contends that God could have indeed created beings that would act freely (but always right). If this had happened we would not be free, but more like robots. If God had created creatures of superior moral character but lacking the ability to choose, these creatures would not be what we call human beings.

Predestination, in the dictionary, is said to be "the doctrine that God in consequence of his foreknowledge of all events infallibly guides those who are destined for salvation." Scripture has 2 very good passages for defining what predestination is: Jeremiah 1:5 which says "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." God is talking about Jeremiah in this passage and how God chose him before time; he was predestined for his job. Romans 8:28-30 "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed

Adam and Eve, as we all know, of course disappoint him. The avid church going individual will ask “Didn’t God know this was going to happen, being omnipotent and all?” This is the first contradiction to the assumption that God is acting with a plan. It seems more likely that he is acting out willy-nilly to fulfill whatever desire strikes his fancy. It is also the first example of mankind evolving by explicitly ignoring God, which I’ll come back to later.

God lets mankind fail through their own choices. At the start of the epic, Milton asserts that Paradise Lost will display “Man’s first disobedience” (1.1). Right from the get-go, Milton claims that the fall is mankind’s fault, so we know that Man must have made their ill-fated decision on their own free will. Jumping forward to Book Three, God discusses the future of mankind with the Son. Being all-knowing, God can see the choice Adam and Eve will make: “Man will hearken to [Satan’s] glozing lies… [and] will fall” (3.93-95). Despite knowing what is to come for the pair, God recognizes that mankind’s fall is a result of their own choices. God could have easily intervened and made the right choice for them, but he wants Adam and Eve to have the free will to make their own choices. In