I think that God is just and doesn’t punish any of us more than we deserve. It is only his mercy that saves me from the hell I deserve for rejecting him.

That’s why predestination is “beautiful” - it’s about God’s grace, not about what I deserve. We’re not neutral, picked for judgement or salvation. We all deserve judgement, not mercy, and only God’s grace can save us.

Marc,

Oh dear, and I was hoping you’d leave it at that ... *deep breath* ...

I assume that if God elects adults to salvation (undeserved) or judgement (deserved) the same is true for children. Romans 9:10-13, about Jacob and Esau, would suggest so. And I believe in predestination because the Bible teaches it so clearly (Romans 9-11, Ephesians 1).

Is this fair? I don’t think children are morally neutral: a superficial look at my own children tells me that! Like adults, they are naturally self-centred and rebellious. We are born outside the garden, born into sin.

How does this affect babies and infants before the age of knowing right from wrong (Isaiah 7:15)? I don’t know. I’m confident about the babies of Christian parents on the basis of 1 Corinthians 7:14, but I know there are many different views on this, and I haven’t studied the issue in detail, so I don’t want to be dogmatic about it.

Do I find any of this easy? No. I love the doctrine of predestination, because without it my salvation isn’t entirely of God’s mercy; but I find the doctrine of hell very difficult. If I’m able to believe it, it’s only because I trust that the God who sent his Son to die on the cross didn’t do it unnecessarily: the cross shows how evil sin is and how greatly it needs to be punished, and how great God’s mercy is that he would give up his Son.

Do I need to know the answer to all these questions? No. I look at the cross and I see that God is just and merciful. I don’t have all the answers, but I do trust God to be far more just and merciful than I could ever be.

In Christ,

Jean.

Thanks, Peter.

You’ve made some excellent points - thanks! I’ll have to bookmark your comment.

In Christ,

Jean.

Jean,

Thanks for your explanation. I’m trying to understand your predestination position so I can coherently explain it to my kids. So to summarise what you wrote:

- Some Muslim kids who die very young might be predestined to heaven
- Once Muslim kids are old enough to know right and wrong (Isaiah 7:15; older than ~1 year olds) then they are predestined to hell to be tortured forever if they don’t convert later in life.
- All Muslim adults are predestined to hell to be tortured forever if they don’t convert; unless their spouse is a Christian in which case they are predestined to heaven (1 Corinthians 7:14).
- Muslim kids who have one Christian parent are predestined to heaven along with their other non-Christian parent (1 Corinthians 7:14).

Did I summarise your position correctly?

Thank you, Jenny, well put.

Marc,

Let me put the questions this way:  Is a person who rejects God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ responsible for his or her sin and therefore someone who justly suffers eternal judgment?
Answer: yes.

If the expressions of sin (rejection) include the worship of false gods, are they any less responsible? 
Answer: No.  Our ignorance of the one true God is culpable ignorance, for we have rejected the creator to worship false gods. 

The Bible teaches us that no one is righteous before God, not even one.  All deserve everlasting wrath. God as his judgment then hands us over to a life of sin(Romans 1) but as those who deserve that terrible judgment.  So then, that God in his mercy has chosen to save some is just marvellous, and that is the point of this great post.  None of us is worthy of this. 

In discussing predestination and in posing questions about it, we need to avoid falling into the mistake of tthinking God predestines otherwise iinnocent people to hell.  That is not what the Bible teaches.

Hi Marc

I don’t think the Bible answers your questions; perhaps that is why some of the other commenters seem reluctant to as well.

That is, the Bible speaks about predestination reasonably often, and in the kind of terms that Jean has used. It’s a doctrine of comfort and joy.

But the Bible doesn’t speak of God predestining people to hell (whether they are old or young, Muslim or otherwise). Not that I can find anyway.

And while I am not in favour of giving our kids a thoughtless theological brush-off, one of the other lessons we need to teach them is that we simply don’t know the answers to some questions. “The secret things belong to the Lord, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever” (Deut 29:29)

TP

Marc,

My questions were fairly straight forward.

Yars, and no.  Your questions were asked in straight forward english.  But you either find it difficult to communicate with the written word or you were being somewhat hamfisted with communicating your intentions. 

So early on you claim to Jean:

I’m trying to understand your predestination position so I can coherently explain it to my kids.

Which suggests a kind of ‘faith seeking understanding’ kind of stance, and importantly that you were wanting an answer that you could give to children.

A bit later you state:

I agree with all you say, but you put it in so fuzzy terms that you can drive a dogma truck through it.  With examples I tried to clarify the issue where your general statements muddle the waters.

Which suggests a slightly less benign stance - of trying to push Jennie into putting things more in the ways you think are needed to avoid your dogmatic reticulating vehicle finding suitable sized gaps in the presentation.  Unless your children are driving theological heavy vehicles underage and without a license this kind of answer is hardly the kind you claimed you were seeking.

And then in your most recent comment we get the final salvo, with of course the obligatory smiley face to make sure that we all know that you’re really a nice guy. 

Catholic or atheist commentators could run over this blog without breaking a sweat so all of you play harder or go home.

To claim you wanted an answer for children, but to criticise the answers given because they wouldn’t be appropriate to a Catholic or atheist controversialist is most likely either the product of a confused mind, or of someone looking to score easy rhetorical points cheaply.

If you want an answer for children, then ask the kind of questions appropriate to that issue.

If you want a fight, either for your own sake, or because you want to champion the cause of atheists and Catholics, then make that clear.

And if you want to act like a theological traffic cop and demand presentations hold up to your standards then make that clear.

But claiming one, then another, and finishing with a third?  That comes across as just cheap point scoring.

In terms of the substance of your final complaint:
1.

Having only two options and people not randomly getting to heaven, logically and biblically, it is clear that some are predestined to Hell. Even if you don’t hold Calvinists (double) predestination and the Westminster Confession of Faith, an Anglican should at least make coherent defense and have courage to answer easy questions.

Tony’s point is that it is clear logically but not biblically.  It was also implicit in Philip Griffin’s point.  Obviously saying that God elects some to eternal life implies that those not so elected also have their destinies pre-determined by God’s non-election of them.  But Tony reflects a Reformed tradition that sticks fairly closely to the Bible’s explicit statements and doesn’t like chasing logic beyond what the Bible authorises.

The answer you were given was: We are all sinners and so deserve Hell.  Out of those sinners God in his love elects some to life.  Those so elected are saved by God’s positive choice.  Those damned are condemned by their own sin, and cannot complain about their fates being sealed by choices made by God. 

You might think that the only possible answer is double predestination and anything else can’t survive the impressive doctrinal truck driving skills of atheists and Catholics.  That’s fine.  But you were given a straight and clear answer. 

2.

The Bible is also quite clear of the final destination of Muslims or other people who deny Jesus as their savior.

Yes the Bible is clear about the final destination of people who lack faith in Christ.  And Jean, Jennie and Philip all explicitly endorsed that, in one way or another.  You have implicitly accused people of something their own words repudiates. 

No-one took up your concrete examples regarding muslims - and given how all over the place in this thread you’ve been, that’s probably not a surprise - but you’ve had multiple clear statements of the general principle - without faith in Christ a person goes to Hell.

Quoting Jean
So when I answer my son’s question, I tell him how it is. But I also give him the good news. I share the beautiful side of predestination—the wonderful, startling, incredible reality of God’s grace given to the undeserving: “Did you know that God decided to love you before he even made the world?

Just trying to bring this back, as much as one can to teaching children about pre-destination (I’ll confess I don’t believe the bible unreseverdly supports the Calvinist view-but we could fill many books with that topic)

Surely the follow-up question to your response Jean is;

“but why does God choose to love some people and not everyone?”

Is there a response other than “God’s ways are not our ways”?

Mark,

I like the fire in you! And I thought that is was obvious from my writing style that I was not trying to be a nice guy. The smiley face with a wink was there so that the last sentence would not be taken too seriously. Oh well… no more emoticons for me.

I don’t know if questions could get much simpler than easy yes/no answers. In my experience when people write long answers which don’t include yes/no, they don’t know or want to say the answer. One of my kids’ teachers in the church is a Calvinist, but for some reason my kids come to me with more questions than answers after going to the church. I think they get so long worded fluffy answers that they loose their concentration half way through and don’t know if it is yes/no/maybe/I don’t know.

Somehow people often imply that we need to follow closely to the Bible’s explicit statements and should not chase logic beyond what the Bible authorises. At the same time they tend to happily spend time explaining Trinity or doctrines like relationship between two natures of Jesus. I guess that chasing is authorised.

You said
“given how all over the place in this thread you’ve been…”
This is just nonsense. My every single comment clearly focused on only one topic, predestination to hell. Did you actually read what I wrote?

Actually Marc, I really did want to know what you thought. And I am testing you, in the same way that you have tested Jean and we all test each other.  Steel sharpens steel!

The mind of God is deep beyond measurement and often a simple yes/no answers does no justice to the subtleties of what God reveals to us. 

I think the main thing to emphasise to children is that God is good, he is never unfair, and he knows everything he needs to know to reach a right judgment.  Sometimes we think it’s the wrong judgment, but that’s because we might start from a wrong premise (eg a misunderstanding of the horror of sin) or with incomplete information.

Thanks for starting a great discussion.

p.s. I would be happy to discuss any of these issues with my children. I would explain things as simply and clearly as I could. And I’d admit when I was uncertain, and when I just didn’t know!

The other day our 6 year old said to his 3 year old brother, “In one sense that’s true, in another sense that’s not true”, so you can see they are used to subtlety!