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"Agreed, but I am shocked! Resisting God's will by our will?"

Free will is like Plato's cave. When one is bound in the darkness and all he sees are the shadows on the wall he comes to believe that they are reality. When he is loosed from the bondage and begins to see that they were mere shadows and that the reality is something else, ultimately the good or as we would say the ultimate good, God, we begin to realize that all is according to His plan and what we thought in the shadows was our free will was really God working out His plan for His own glory and good pleasure.

Does the world think that they are making decisions based on their free will? Does it think that it can make tomorrow's or even the next hour's plans or decisions come true? Does it make any difference to the world that God is the One who makes rain fall or the sun to shine or thwarts the ways and plans of men? Revelations shows that even in the face of this knowledge, the world will still do what it wants in spite of the evidenced consequences; so the question then is what difference does it make if you knew or didn't know that God is in control of the minutest details of life? Will anyone say to God, "You are unjust?" The scriptures say No; they would rather have the rocks fall on them than to bow down to or acknowledge the authority of God.

they would rather have the rocks fall on them than to bow down to or acknowledge the authority of God.

Great post, b-d.

It seems in theology there is no more reviled word than "Predestination." We don't like to be told we're not in control. We struggle to reconcile how it is that everything already has been willed into time and space by God from before the foundation of the world while at the same time everything feels so immediate, so surprising, so changeable.

God's sovereign Predestination of all things is an almost incomprehensible thought. Yet the more we think on it and study it in Scripture, the more beautiful and confident the word becomes.

If there is a God, and if He is the God of the Bible, and if He is creator of heaven and earth, and if He sent His Son to redeem His flock, and if we have been graced with faith in Him who shoulders our sins and pays for them Himself, then what is there to fear in God's perfect and all-encompassing predestining will?

"One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." -- Ephesians 4:5-6

they would rather have the rocks fall on them than to bow down to or acknowledge the authority of God.

Great post, b-d.

It seems in theology there is no more reviled word than "Predestination." We don't like to be told we're not in control. We struggle to reconcile how it is that everything already has been willed into time and space by God from before the foundation of the world while at the same time everything feels so immediate, so surprising, so changeable.

God's sovereign Predestination of all things is an almost incomprehensible thought. Yet the more we think on it and study it in Scripture, the more beautiful and confident the word becomes.

If there is a God, and if He is the God of the Bible, and if He is creator of heaven and earth, and if He sent His Son to redeem His flock, and if we have been graced with faith in Him who shoulders our sins and pays for them Himself, then what is there to fear in God's perfect and all-encompassing predestining will?

"One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." -- Ephesians 4:5-6

we begin to realize that all is according to His plan and what we thought in the shadows was our free will was really God working out His plan...

It makes a difference if God makes our decisions or if we make our decisions according to His plan. In the former, we are robots; in the latter He knew from all eternity what our decisions would be. The latter makes us free and yet God's plan is certain and sovereign. In the former, it's God pulling the strings and we are just dummies.

The former is void of responsibility and accountability; the latter makes us accountable to God; and responsible for what we do. Sin is our burden, born out of our decisions, not God's.

God created man capable of being a moral being; capable is the operant term here. We are capable of immortality (by following God). We are capable of goodness (with God's help). But it has to come from our heart to come to Him. He knock but He doesn't compel.

If we are not free to give back freely what He gave us freely, there is no love in it.

The former paradigm breaks down because love is lacking. The latter has a potential because we are free to love God, if we so choose. If He created us such that we reject him then our rejection of Him is not our doing and there is no sin and no penalty due in rejecting God. It was predestined and unavoidable.

While what you say about the Plato's cave sounds very true, it is equally true that God breathed a human soul in each and every one of us and made us in His image — rational and free.

What you say about the people rather having "the rocks fall on them than to bow down to or acknowledge the authority of God" is precisely the source of our sin, the arrogance and pride for which there is only one cure: sincere humility.

Only the proud and the arrogant will not bow before God. God offends them. God insults their pride and their arrogance. God is the obstacle to their love of the world, self-importance, and material goods. But that's their choice, not God's.

Then there are those who use God to boost their pride; to boast of righteousness; the spiritual pride of those who are "high on God." The only "high" is their self-illusion. That is certainly not from God, but from them.

There is evil because God does not compel. But He is also our Light that illuminates our Way to reach the Truth. Let's not forget that "strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."

One does not 'find' anything if he is predestined to get there, BD.