To: HarleyD; Mr Rogers
Our Father knows what we're going to ask. That isn't determinism, that's predestination. That still doesn't mean that we shouldn't ask. Whether He says "Yes" or "No", it is only through pray that we can understand the will of God for our lives.
This is Calvinism Lite. I'm surprised that you're overlooking so much of Calvin and of more latter day Calvinists that is thoroughgoing determinism that declares God as the one who directs each and every thing down to the motion of each atom and molecule in the entire universe. When they claim this type of determinism, it doesn't matter if they call it "predestination" and posit things contradictory to it in an effort to rescue their sensibilities from the true outcome of their logic.
Predestination is determinism. The only difference between materialistic determinism and theological determinism, called predestination, is that the latter claims that there is absolutely no possibility of anything happening any other way than it was planned and set into motion and directed irrevocably to a preordained end. With the latter there is not even the possibility of positing different outcomes based on a hypothetical alteration in an initial set of conditions.
327 posted on
08/30/2011 7:25:27 PM PDT by
aruanan
To: aruanan; Mr Rogers
Predestination is determinism. From New Advent (the Catholic dictionary):
Predestination (Latin præ, destinare), taken in its widest meaning, is every Divine decree by which God, owing to His infallible prescience of the future, has appointed and ordained from eternity all events occurring in time, especially those which directly proceed from, or at least are influenced by, man's free will. It includes all historical facts, as for instance the appearance of Napoleon or the foundation of the United States, and particularly the turning-points in the history of supernatural salvation, as the mission of Moses and the Prophets, or the election of Mary to the Divine Motherhood.New Advent on Predestination
Determinism is a name employed by writers, especially since J. Stuart Mill, to denote the philosophical theory which holds in opposition to the doctrine of free will that all man's volitions are invariably determined by pre-existing circumstances. It may take diverse forms, some cruder, some more refined. Biological and materialistic Determinism maintains that each of our voluntary acts finds its sufficient and complete cause in the physiological conditions of the organism. Psychological Determinism ascribes efficiency to the psychical antecedents. In this view each volition or act of choice is determined by the character of the agent plus the motives acting on him at the time.
New Advent on Determinism
Now I would like you to tell me that God does not control the events of man.
346 posted on
08/31/2011 4:15:15 PM PDT by
HarleyD
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