Are our entire lives predestined? Predestination (as a doctrine in Christian theology) the divine foreordaining of all that will happen, especially with regard to the salvation of some and not others. It has been particularly associated with the teachings of St. Augustine of Hippo and of Calvin.
there are arguments for pre destination and free will. Both arguments become moot when you realize that time is illusory and that God exists outside of time because he is outside our universe. So our lives look like they unfold in chronological orders to us. But and observer outside of universe may see everything all at once. So the observer would know who sought an received salvation while we think we have free will to make our choices.
Q Why Stoicism Is Having a Cultural Moment - The rise of the New Atheism movement https://elitetrader.com/et/threads/...the-new-atheism-movement.306530/#post-4401972 The Stoics’ acceptance of both our capacity to live rightly and our inability to understand all also underlies their theology, including their conception of God. As a philosophy that evolved over time, there is no fixed dogma or text that defines “Stoic belief” on this topic. (Of course, many Stoic beliefs, including that of a unitary god with multiple aspects, were absorbed into Christian doctrine. This makes them strangely familiar to us and may also, ironically, make them all the more appealing too.) However, for most ancient Stoics, God, or more appropriately, Zeus, certainly did exist. He was a singular entity, equivalent with Reason, which encompasses and directs all of Nature or the Universe for a purpose. UQ
We do have free will and make our own choices. Knowing all that will happen, as you suggest God can do, and pre ordaining it are two different things.
[QUOTEgwb-trading, post: 4401941, member: 9113"]Are our entire lives predestined? Predestination (as a doctrine in Christian theology) the divine foreordaining of all that will happen, especially with regard to the salvation of some and not others. It has been particularly associated with the teachings of St. Augustine of Hippo and of Calvin.[/QUOTE] No, I don't think so. Of course I could be wrong, but it seems a weak argument. We do have and are accountable for our own decisions and the actions that follow. To suggest otherwise lets us off the hook. Quite fortuitous for the chronic sinners, don't you think?
Pope dies to find himself walking toward the pearly gates when he came to a fork in the road. After continuing a short way, he came across a gate with an angel on guard duty who said "Why did you come this way". Pope said "Well I came across two signs and I chose the one that said Determinism - This Way. "You chose it?" said the Angel, then you cannot come through this gate. Pope turns round and goes back to the two signs and starts down the other road where the sign points to Free Will. He soon comes across another angel who says "Why did you come this way". The pope says , "I had no choice"
Caddyshack (1980) : offended by Bishop's comment http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080487/board/nest/202773783?ref_=tt_bd_3
I can't explain it much better that Stu's joke. The paths and outcome may have been chosen a"before" the choice was taken. The choice may have even determined the paths taken to arrive there. I might add outside of time may mean that cause does not have to be followed by effect. so predetermined might not have been before the choice was made. We just have no ability to really understand how things happen without time? (well maybe some physicists do in some models... but its still speculation.) So to us it may seem pre-ordained is not compatible with free will. But... I suggest that might only seem that way because time is an illusion.
cuz u iz predetermine not 2 I think "we" do. Without time, no thing would have any time to exist. Without time, why is it not reasonable to understand the only thing that's happening is nothing at all.