C - Implications of predestination on religious belief

What are the implications of predestination?

• God as omnipotent

• God as omnibenevolent

• Use of prayer

• The existence of miracles

• The link between God and evil 

What is the implication on ‘God as omnipotent’?

• Predestination can be seen to support the concept of God’s omnipotence.

• This is because only an omnipotent being has power to predestine the lives of the whole of humanity.

How do Augustine and Calvin support the implication for ‘God as omnipotent’

• Both A&C argue that election is not based upon any good works the individual has undertaken.

• God has chosen the elect by his omnipotent will.

• Therefore, the theory of predestination would enhance the concept of God’s omnipotence. 

How is Gods omnipotence further illustrated when considering holy texts? 

• This point seems to be further illustrated when considering holy texts. 

• For example, in the Quran it states ‘But you cannot will, unless Allah wills’

• Therefore, a person can do nothing without God, man is totally reliant upon God’s omnipotent will. 

What does Augustine believe about omnipotence only resulting in and why?

• Moreover Augustine believed that God’s omnipotence can only result in human predestination.

• This is because if humanity were not predestined this would reduce the omnipotent nature of God.

• This is because if humanity had free will, then humanity can freely choose to be morally good - thus enabling a mere human being to tell God to send him to heaven.

What is the implication on ‘God as omnibenevolent’ 

• Predestination can be seen to support the concept of God’s omnibenevolent nature. 

• This is because if God just allowed humanity to freely follow their own desires (which are tainted by the fall of Adam and Eve) all humanity would descend to hell. 

• Therefore God’s love ensures some of humanity ascends to heaven. 

How does Augustine support the implication for ‘God as omnibenevolent’?

• Through His grace God shows his all-loving nature by saving some people  - which Augustine called ‘the elect’.

• God enabled this by lovingly sending his son, Jesus, to die on the cross, so that ‘the elect’ can receive atonement for their sins and be saved. 

What is an alternative implication for ‘God as omnibenevolent’?

• However, it could be argued that the above is not an illustration of the actions of an omnibenevolent God.

• This is because God only appears to predestine some people to be an ‘elect’ and be forgiven of their sins.

• Therefore, God is only allowing some people to benefit from the atonement of Christ’s death on the cross. 

• The rest of humanity/reprobates, will not be saved by God. 

• For some this has serious implications for God’s omnibenevolent nature. 

• This is because God is punishing and rewarding certain people on the behaviour he predestined. 

• It is like a parent loving one of their children but completely ignoring the other one. 

How does Bertrand Russel sum up the prior point?

• Bertrand Russel summed up this point by calling God a ‘monster’

As Russel argued this is because:

• ‘A God that punishes or rewards on the basis of God’s own eternal decisions is unfair and immoral’

What was Augustine’s reply to the alternative implication?

• Augustine did accept it was problematic why some people are chosen by God as ‘elect’ and others as ‘reprobates’.

• Augustine’s response to this, is to say that as a result of the ‘fall’, human intellect was incapable of understanding the workings of divine salvation.

• i.e. God is still omnibenevolent it is just humanity does not have the intellect to understand why. 

What is the implication on the ‘Use of prayer’ 

• Some may say that predestination means prayer is of little use as God has already determined what has happened in the future and prayer can make no difference to this. 

• If God predestines humanity, the meaningfulness of  prayer can be doubted. 

• This is because if God has already determined humanity, then earnestly asking Him to change something, for the better, would appear as pointless.

• i.e. to change a person from being a reprobate to an elect. 

How is the implication on the ‘Use of prayer’ supported?

• The above point is supported by the Calvinist theory of ‘unconditional election’ - God alone chose the elect, based solely upon His own will, before they were even born.

• Therefore any attempt to pray to God to earnestly ask to become an elect is a complete waste of effort.

But who can prayer have a use for, and why?

• However, it could be argued that perhaps prayer does have a use but only for the predestined elect.

• This is supported by Calvin when he stated that the ‘elect’ could still be sinful but God predestines them to have faith in the saving atonement of Jesus.

• Therefore, when the predestined elect sin they cannot resist the calling on their lives to seek forgiveness, which would be through prayer - therefore prayer is vital for them.

• If a person accepts predestination, they see prayer as a vital part of salvation (thanking God for his gift) rather than as a request in which they ask God to change the future.

What is the implication on ‘The existence of miracles’?

• Predestination does potentially rule out miracles as a way of God intervening to change the world.

• If all outcomes have already been predestined, there is little point in praying to God for a miracle.

• This is because a miracle would break the ‘plan’ set by God from the beginning of time.

What is the counter implication on ‘The existence of miracles’?

However, it is quite conceivable that an omnipotent God could quite easily have either:

• Predestined all miracles from the beginning of time - such as when God gave Moses the power to part the Red sea.

• Or, God has the omnipotent nature to break the ‘plan’ by altering it with a miracle. 

• Some argue that God only does these ‘miracles’ to remind us of His omnipotent nature, and thus His predestining nature as the creator and controller of all laws of nature. 

• For Calvin, miracles could happen alongside a belief in predestination, but only in order to confirm the truth of Jesus’ message. 

What is the implication on ‘The link between God and evil’?

• The link between God and evil has partly already been addressed above.

• If God is predestining all human life, then He must take responsibility for the moral evil that humans carry out. 

How does Calvin’s predestination theory not support the implication on ‘The link between God and evil’?

• However, Calvin’s predestination theory does not necessarily support the above implication.

• This is because Calvin argues that God is not predestining people to be evil but just predestining whether a particular person will seek forgiveness for a  sin. 

• This is because Calvin stated that the ‘elect’ could still commit sins, but God predestines them to seek forgiveness in Jesus’ atoning power  - thus when the elect sin they cannot resist the calling to seek  forgiveness. 

• Therefore, Calvin’s theory could imply that moral evil is humanities fault and all God does is predestine what a person will do once they have committed that sin.