We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
If God Chose Us Before Creation, How Can We Be Free? (podcast)
What was predestined and what wasn’t? Greg sorts it all out in this haunting episode, millions and millions of years in the making.
Episode 505
Send Questions To:
Dan: @thatdankent
Email: askgregboyd@gmail.com
Twitter: @reKnewOrg
Greg’s new book: Inspired Imperfection
Dan’s new book: Confident Humility
Subscribe:
Category: ReKnew Podcast
Tags: Predestination
Verse: Ephesians 1, Ephesians 2
Related Reading
Did God Predestine Judas to Betray Jesus? (podcast)
Greg talks about the role Judas played in the crucifixion of Jesus and speculates about his potential for good. Episode 516 http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0516.mp3
If salvation depends on our free choice, how are we saved totally by grace?
Question: I’m an Arminian-turned-Calvinist, and the thing that turned me was the realization that if salvation hinges on whether individuals choose to be saved or not, as Arminians and Open Theists believe, then we can’t say salvation is 100% by grace. If we have to choose for or against God, then the credit for our…
Three Arguments Against Determinism
There was an interesting article in the NY Times yesterday by John Tierney entitled “Do You Have Free Will? Yes, It’s The Only Choice.” The article reviews research that suggests that everybody intuitively believes people are morally responsible only for actions they could have refrained from doing and that when people don’t believe they are free…
Rethinking Election: Romans 9, Part 1
Many people believe that Romans 9 demonstrates that God has the right and power to save whichever individuals he wants to save and damn whichever individuals he wants to damn. I’ll call this the “deterministic” reading of Romans 9, for it holds that God determines who will be saved and who will be lost. On…
If every effect has a cause, how can there be free choice?
The most common argument given in defense of determinism is that it’s implied in the nature of causation. Every event has a cause, and this cause accounts for the event being the way it is. This cause must itself have had a cause that accounts for it, and so on ad infinitum. Hence, everything must…
Revelation 13:8 refers to “everyone whose names have not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life.” How does that square with open theism?
Three possibilities exist in terms of reconciling Revelation 13:8 with open theism. 1) First, the “from the foundation of the world” clause can attach to either “everyone whose names have not been written” or to “the lamb that was slain.” For example, the TNIV translates this passage “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the…