yes
Will you tell us why you think they are wrong?
Will you tell us why you think they are wrong?
++++++++++++++++++++
Predestination in any form.
from there own writings.
What Presbyterians Believe
Predestination
[March 1997]
The Paradox of Predestination
Are we “elected” to have faith? Are some doomed to perdition? How can a loving God allow us not to choose faith?
By James Ayers
It is ironic that the father of Presbyterianism, John Calvin (1509-1564), is most famous for his doctrine of predestination, because it is only one detail of his thinking. The discussion of the topic takes place two-thirds of the way through the final edition of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, following a chapter on Christian liberty of conscience and another on prayer.
God gives to all of us the destiny
of transformation into the children of God
Still, all Christian thinkers must deal, sooner or later, with the relationship between God’s call and human response. Calvin’s conviction that God is in charge of all events led him to the doctrine that if some people are saved while others are damned, this must be because God chose them for these fates. Having come to that conclusion, Calvin was not shy in stating his view:
“By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestined to life or to death.
“We say, then, that Scripture clearly proves this much, that God by his eternal and immutable counsel determined once for all those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, it was his pleasure to doom to destruction. We maintain that this counsel, as regards the elect, is founded on his free mercy, without any respect to human worth, while those whom he dooms to destruction are excluded from access to life by a just and blameless, but at the same time incomprehensible judgment” (Institutes, III.21.5,7, Beveridge translation).
This is not mere fatalism, the belief that every human action has been irrevocably predetermined. Still, if a person’s eternal destiny is sealed, is it all that comforting to suppose everyday choices remain free?
[there is more to this artical, if you want to read it, go to: http://www.pcusa.org/today/archive/believe/wpb9703.htm }