42 Quotes About Predestination

When we think of predestination, we often picture a biblical story of God ordering the angels to destroy the wicked and save the good. Made popular by the story of Jacob and Esau, predestination is a concept used to explain why certain people at a certain time will be saved and others will not. In the Bible, predestination is a theological concept that puts God in charge of salvation. He decides who will be saved and who will be lost, and he makes these decisions according to his own plan.

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This doctrine of total inability which declares that men are dead in sin does not mean that all men are equally bad, nor that any man is as bad as he could be, nor that anyone is entirely destitute of virtue, nor that human nature is equal in itself, nor that man’s spirit in inactive, and much less does it mean that the body is dead. What is does mean is that since the fall, man rests under the curse of sin, that he is actuated by wrong principles, and that he is wholly unable to love God, or to do anything meriting salvation. His corruption is extensive, but not necessarily intensive. It is in this sense that man, since the fall, is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, wholly inclined to all evil. He possesses a fixed bias of the will against God, and instinctively and willingly and turns to evil. He is an alien by birth, and a sinner by choice. The inability under which he labors is not an inability to exercise volition, but an inability to be willing to exercise holy volitions. And it is this phase of it which led Luther to declare that ‘free will’ is an empty term, whose reality is lost; and a lost liberty, according to my grammar, is no liberty at all. Loraine Boettner
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Until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book, and creed, and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free. Mankind will be enslaved until there is mental grandeur enough to allow each man to have his thought and say. This earth will be a paradise when men can, upon all these questions differ, and yet grasp each other's hands as friends. It is amazing to me that a difference of opinion upon subjects that we know nothing with certainty about, should make us hate, persecute, and despise each other. Why a difference of opinion upon predestination, or the trinity, should make people imprison and burn each other seems beyond the comprehension of man; and yet in all countries where Christians have existed, they have destroyed each other to the exact extent of their power. Why should a believer in God hate an atheist? Surely the atheist has not injured God, and surely he is human, capable of joy and pain, and entitled to all the rights of man. Would it not be far better to treat this atheist, at least, as well as he treats us? Christians tell me that they love their enemies, and yet all I ask is–not that they love their enemies, not that they love their friends even, but that they treat those who differ from them, with simple fairness. We do not wish to be forgiven, but we wish Christians to so act that we will not have to forgive them. If all will admit that all have an equal right to think, then the question is forever solved; but as long as organized and powerful churches, pretending to hold the keys of heaven and hell, denounce every person as an outcast and criminal who thinks for himself and denies their authority, the world will be filled with hatred and suffering. To hate man and worship God seems to be the sum of all the creeds. . Robert G. Ingersoll
War between free-will and predestination makes the idea of time...
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War between free-will and predestination makes the idea of time travel is still too difficult to digest. Toba Beta
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If a dream can tell the future it can also thwart that future. For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come. He is bound to no one that the world unfold just so upon its course and those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream? . Cormac McCarthy
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If anyone rises to power, it's not only because he could, but also because the stars were aligned in his favor. Many with apparent means to take it failed simply because they weren't destined for the honor Bangambiki Habyarimana
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There is history the way Tolstoy imagined it, as a great, slow-moving weather system in which even tsars and generals are just leaves before the storm. And there is history the way Hollywood imagines it, as a single story line in which the right move by the tsar or the wrong move by the general changes everything. Most of us, deep down, are probably Hollywood people. We like to invent “what if” scenarios--what if x had never happened, what if y had happened instead?--because we like to believe that individual decisions make a difference: that, if not for x, or if only there had been y, history might have plunged forever down a completely different path. Since we are agents, we have an interest in the efficacy of agency. Louis Menand
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Believing in unknown future, destiny, predestination without working hard to see it through is a mere fantasy ETC Wanyanwu
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A perfect example, in matters of life and death, of love and passion, of choice or destiny; options decrease to a singular course. Bruce Crown
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I believe in fatalism, the positive one. Bangambiki Habyarimana
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God loves each person, I believe; although, just like we do in our private homes, He reserves His kingdom only for those whom He enjoys. Criss Jami
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There's nothing more unattractive than a man who blames predestination for his own failures and a woman who blames men for her own vulnerability... Blame thyself Sanhita Baruah
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But if everything's already decided, then what's the point of living? - Tom, pg 437 Joseph Delaney
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God wanted us to do something, and we went the bad way. Then he said "No! , I am not going to lose what I want done! , So I'm gonna save this people and restore their dreams back to them"! Israelmore Ayivor
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The mystery of human destiny is that we are fated, but that we have the freedom to fulfill or not fulfill our fate: realization of our fated destiny depends on us. While inhuman beings like the cockroach realize the entire cycle without going astray because they make no choices. Clarice Lispector
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Whatever we do and are, we are given the means thereof Bangambiki Habyarimana
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It's laughable, looking back, to see the processes I went through, pretending to make a reasoned decision. No choice is ever made on the basis of logic; the logic is fabricated around the impulse, the initial desire which is innate and incontrovertible. All the time, I knew where I was going, the elements of my fulfillment or ruin were always present; I only had to work my way into that seam of desire and find the hidden vein of dross or gold. It's not a question of predestination, it's just that free will and destiny are illusions, false opposites, consolations. In the end, they are one and the same: a single process. You choose what you choose and it could not have been otherwise: the choice is destiny. It was there all along, but any alternative you might have considered is an absurd diversion, because it is in your nature to make one choice rather than another. That is identity. To speak of freedom or destiny is absurd because it suggests there is something outside yourself, directing your life, where really it is of the essence: identity, the craftwork of the soul. John Burnside
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I thinâ€â€¹kâ€â€¹ that both our lives and the potential directions our lives may go are predestined. By using our free will in making our life choices, we do nothing else but picking up one of many already predestined options. To us, it seems like we were making the decision, while in reality, we just selected one of many possibilities that were already a part of our destiny.”“ Don’t you think God is so powerful that he can make us believe that we made some choices, when in actuality, he had made a choice for us? . Stevan V. Nikolic
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A coward: a man or woman who is unsatisfied by his condition and believes he was destined to accept it that way Bangambiki Habyarimana
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What the fates have writ, men shall not erase . How many times he [Lut] had uttered those words. But what exactly did they mean? That one’s fate was inalterably fixed? A man’s entire life? Was there no chance for redemption? Though he had never revealed this to anyone, especially not the elders, he’d long entertained the notion that perhaps not all of a man’s life was preordained. For, if so, what was the point of living? Perhaps, just perhaps, he dared to imagine, impediments were placed in our paths by the gods, and a man was judged by how well he dealt with those obstacles . Instead of a man being wholly defined by his fate, perhaps a man’s very character was defined by his response to the fate that was spun for him. Couldn’t it at least be possible? . James Jennewein
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Intuition goes before you, showing you the way. Emotion follows behind, to let you know when you go astray. Listen to your inner voice. It is the calling of your spiritual GPS system seeking to keep you on track towards your true destiny. Anthon St. Maarten
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Destiny has got the rope round my neck — and I feel it. Wilkie Collins
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I may not be free, but I’m not about to surrender the illusion of choice. Johnny Rich
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It takes your knowing to decide on your going. If you know where you are going, you will keep going because you have already seen yourself gone Israelmore Ayivor
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Pandora's Box could not be unopened, no one could return to Eden. Selena Kitt
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You believe in Destiny, don't you?"" Yes, " said Leah quietly." Then you have to believe that things happen for a reason, and even if you change something. Destiny will find a way to fulfill her needs." - Jasmine Jacquelyn Frank
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Predestination therefore, as it regards the thing itself, is the Decree of the good pleasure of God in Christ, by which He resolved within Himself from all eternity, to justify, adopt, and endow with everlasting life, to the praise of His own glorious grace, believers on whom He had decreed to bestow faith. James Arminius
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God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation. John Calvin
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If the world go wrong, it was, in some off-hand manner, never meant to go right. Charles Dickens
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If free will means to do what you want, then it does not exist. Many of its staunchest proponents have met the wheel of fate without opposing it Bangambiki Habyarimana
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SOSTRATUS: Observe then your injustice! You punish us who are but the slaves of Clotho's bidding, and reward these, who do but minister to another's beneficence. For it will never be said that it was in our power to gainsay the irresistible ordinances of Fate?MINOS: Ah, Sostratus; look closely enough, and you will find plenty of inconsistencies besides these. However, I see you are no common pirate, but a philosopher in your way; so much you have gained by your questions. Let him go, Hermes; he shall not be punished after that. But mind, Sostratus, you must not put it into other people's heads to ask questions of this kind. Lucian Of Samosata
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The first verse that comes to mind that refutes all of Calvin’s points is “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Whoever means whoever. Not just some, not just the elect; that means that anyone who wants to come to God and repent may do so. There is not a certain group that is predestined for hell and they can't do anything about it. How then would God be just? Knowing God’s nature, and that he IS love, I simply cannot believe that and believe it to be a completely false teaching. . Lisa Bedrick
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Faith is not a meritorious cause of election, but it is constantly attested as the sole condition of salvation. Faith merely receives the merit of atoning grace, instead of asserting its own merit. God places the life-death option before each person, requiring each to choose. The ekletos are those who by grace freely believe. God does not compel or necessitate their choosing. Even after the initial choice of faith is made, they may grieve and quench the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19).Faith is the condition under which God primordially wills the reception of salvation by all. “He chooses us, not because we believe, but that we may believe; lest we should say that we first chose Him” (Augustine). Faith receives the electing love of God not as if it had already become efficacious without faith, but aware that God’s prescience foreknows faith like all else. In accord with ancient ecumenical consent, predestination was carefully defined in centrist Protestant orthodoxy as:' The eternal, divine decree, by which God, from His immense mercy, determined to give His Son as Mediator, and through universal preaching , to offer Him for reception to all men who from eternity He foresaw would fall into sin; also through the Word and Sacraments to confer faith upon all who would not resist; to justify all believers, and besides to renew those using the means of grace; to preserve faith in them until the end of life, and in a word, to save those believing to the end' (Melanchthon). Thomas C. Oden
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Divine determination and decree is this: that God has foreordained all people without exception unto eternal life, for his love is unconditional. Bangambiki Habyarimana
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If God is love (1 John 4:7) but intended Christ’s atoning death to be the propitiation for only certain people so only they have any chance of being saved, then 'love' has no intelligible meaning when referring to God. All Christians agree that God is love. But believers in limited atonement must interpret God’s love as somehow compatible with God unconditionally selecting some people to eternal torment in hell when He could save them (because election to salvation and thus salvation itself is unconditional). Roger E. Olson
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It is the Godfather, not God the Father, who makes you an offer you can’t refuse. Peter Kreeft
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This is one of the two great labyrinths into which human minds are drawn: the question of free will versus predestination. Neal Stephenson
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Free Will : "I made you think so." Predestination: "I knew you had to. Toba Beta
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The whole struggle was over, and yet there seemed to have been no moment of victory. You might say, if you liked, that the power of choice had been simply set aside and an inflexible destiny substituted for it. On the other hand, you might say he had delivered from the rhetoric of his passions and had emerged in unassailable freedom. Ransom could not for the life of him, see any difference between these two statements. Predestination and freedom were apparently identical. He could no longer see any meaning in the many arguments he had heart on the subject. C.s. Lewis
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Free-will followers should learn more about "somebody's bitch". Predestination followers should learn more about "sexual fantasy. Toba Beta
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No attempt should be made to "reconcile" Yahweh's hardening of Pharaoh's heart (plagues 6, 8, 9, 10) with statements in the other plagues that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. The tension cannot be resolved in a facile manner by suggesting, for example, that Pharaoh has already demonstrated his recalcitrance, so Yahweh merely helps the process along, or that he is doing what Pharaoh would have done on his own anyway. Rather, 9:12 is a striking reminder of what God has been trying to teach Moses and Israel since the beginning of the Exodus episode: He is in complete control. However Pharaoh might have reacted is given the chance is not brought into the discussion. He is not even given that chance. Yahweh hardens his heart. It is best to allow the tension of the text to remain. . Peter Enns
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Women have a predestination to suffering. Bela Lugosi