trevor j major

It is an old conundrum. If God knows my future, do I still have the freedom to choose? Let us say, for the sake of argument, that God knows that I will eat porridge tomorrow for breakfast. Is it possible for me to do otherwise? Could I make myself a bowl of grits instead? If the answer is “no,” then it seems I lack the freedom to choose: God’s foreknowledge trumps my free will. If the answer is “yes,” then God does not know everything after all: He is something less than the God of theism.

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[tab:Introduction]

Introduction

“The predestination of saints,” Augustine of Hippo wrote, refers to the “foreknowledge and the preparation of God’s kindnesses, whereby they are most certainly delivered, whoever they are that are delivered.”[1] The unpalatable corollary is that those who are not so chosen remain in their sin and are eternally lost. This “ferocious doctrine,” as Bertrand Russell called it, would form the basis for Calvin’s decrees of divine election and rejection.

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[tab:Doing Justly]

Doing Justly

Entrapment is a nasty business. As much as we might want to put bad people away, law enforcement officials are not allowed to force someone’s hands through subterfuge or enticement. As we read in sixth chapter of Daniel, this is what the officials of Darius’ court were trying to do. They conspired to craft a law Daniel could not keep. Daniel knew exactly what was going on. He saw the trap, and walked straight in. The king was tricked into signing a law aimed squarely at his favorite minister.

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