Being Chosen: The Incompatibility of Predestination and Free Will

The remainder of the book of Exodus (chapters 35 through 40) goes into meticulous detail about the construction of the tabernacle and the lampstand and the container for the stone tablets God rewrote for Moses -- everything that the Israelites considered necessary to create a sacred place where sacrifices could be offered and worship could take place.  Since we've already discussed the importance of consciously choosing what we are going to make "sacred" in our lives, these chapters do not offer much more spiritual meat.  Of course, they would be great resources if you happen to have some gemstones and precious metals lying around and you're looking for a project.  

There is one short paragraph at the end of Exodus 34 in which Moses is described as glowing after he has been in the presence of the divine.  It may be hard to imagine what that looked like, since no one these days seems to get close enough to God to come away from the experience with radiation poisoning, but there are people who visibly exude authority, power, even spiritual depth. Some of this may be good acting, but some people genuinely "shine" when they walk into a room.  They attract attention because of the intensity of their presence.  It's much easier to imagine Moses radiating an intimidating sense of authority and power, even spiritual understanding that surpassed the average Israelite.  After all, Moses was chosen by God.

This may be an opportunity to compare the integrity of radiating from the divine within us with the fleetingness of radiating because we got close to some external source of divine power.  However, I believe that by this point the premise is clear that what we call "divine" is a part of ourselves that we often keep hidden and of which we may even be unaware.  The divine is something we can discover and develop within ourselves rather than an external intelligence who acts to aid or hinder us.  The idea of Moses being "chosen" does provide an opportunity to address one of the logical fallacies about God many people hold to be true, namely the connected concepts of omniscience and predestination.  This topic has been addressed by many others, but that's no reason to avoid it here.

Not all people who claim the label "Christian" believe in predestination, and there are some people who believe in a form of predestination and don't consider themselves to be religious at all.  They call it something else, like Fate, but they mean more or less the same thing, that some force has already chosen a path for our lives.  There is a prevalent belief that if one lives according to this predetermined plan, then one will be happy and successful, and if one goes against this plan, it leads to misery.  In the sense of the Christian concept of God, this idea of predestination springs doctrinally from two sources.  The first is the belief that God is omniscient, or has complete knowledge of everything.  The second source is a handful of scriptures which specifically mention predestination.  We'll take a look at the actual biblical passages first.

Although there are many scriptures which suggest that trusting the guidance of the divine is better than ignoring it, there aren't many scriptures that specifically say that everyone's path has been determined in advance by a divine being.  One oft-quoted passage comes from the first chapter Jeremiah: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. Taken in context, it is clear that this is intended to credential Jeremiah specifically, not as a universal message to everybody.  As a part of his final words to his disciples, Jesus is quoted in the book of John as saying, "You did not choose me, but I have chosen you."  Again, in the context of that phrase, it's clear he's talking specifically to the men gathered around him at the time.  So, it's important to recognize the context of biblical passages, even if one chooses to believe that the Bible is completely infallible.  

The clearest support for the idea of predestination comes from the letters of Paul and Peter, who make mention of the concept that before time began, God already had chosen those who would believe in him and have salvation.  Paul puts it this way in his letter to the Romans (8:29-30):

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son . . . And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.  

In his letter to the Ephesians, he wrote:

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.

Other mentions of predestination by Paul and Peter are along the same lines.  God supposedly selected at least some people ahead of time to be called into religious service.

Again, I want to be very clear that this perspective is not one I espouse as an atheist.  It's one of those concepts that I found difficult to accept even when I considered myself to be a "believer," and there are many different interpretations for the concept even among Christians.  While there are some ways to interpret this that make some theological sense, let's start at the other extreme.  There are some who reason that if God knows all things, then God knows the future of every person.  This would mean that God already knew, before you were born, what job you would have, who you would marry, what your kids would be like, what kind of relationship you would have with your parents, who you would vote for in every election, and, of course, whether you would go to Heaven or Hell when you die.  By this reasoning, God already knew that I would be writing these words and that you would be reading them, before time began.  This perspective eliminates any illusion of personal choice or freedom.  Not only does it make the idea of "saving" or "redeeming" anyone ridiculous, it eradicates the entire concept of personal responsibility.

"Wait a minute," you say, "just because God knows what I'm going to choose doesn't mean I don't have a choice!"  You can't have it both ways.  If God is infallible and knows all things perfectly -- past, present, and future -- then no person has any choice about anything.  If God knows what will happen, every decision has already been determined in advance.  This can be comforting on a certain level.  Whether your job is crappy or sublime, it isn't because of anything you did -- it was foreordained by God.  No matter what kind of spouse or parent you are, there's nothing you could possibly do to change -- it was all determined in advance.  This also means that there's no point in getting bent out of shape about other people's behavior or decisions, since God's foreknowledge prevented them from doing anything differently.  When someone bombs an embassy, drives drunk, drowns a child, overdoses on drugs, or flies a plane into a skyscraper, God knew all along that they would do that, and therefore they had no real choice in the matter.  If they had a choice, then God would have been wrong, and a perfectly omniscient God cannot be wrong.

If this is true, then God also knows far in advance who will believe in him and who won't.  He knows who will go to church for a spiritual experience and who will use religious institutions as fiefdoms of personal power.  He knows who will become Buddhist, who will be Wiccan, and who won't be anything at all.  You can't change what God knows.  There is no point in trying to evangelize if God already knows who will go to Heaven and who will go to Hell.  If God is perfectly omniscient, there is no real hope for the hopeless, and there is nothing that the "chosen" can do wrong.  It's great if you consider yourself to be one of the chosen, I suppose.  There is simply no way that this definition of predestination can coexist with the concept of free will.

So maybe God's omniscience is not a past-present-future kind of thing.  Maybe God knows all things that can be known.  So, people still have freedom of choice in every moment, but as soon as the decision is made, God knows.  People always have the opportunity to change course, to reconsider their beliefs and their actions, and thus free will is restored while God's omniscience is preserved.  But what about the idea of predestination?  If God has "chosen" some people, predestined an elect group out of the whole of humanity, then there would still seem to be some limit to human choice in spiritual matters.  You can choose where you're going to work and whom you're going to marry, but God has already decided where you'll spend eternity?  Any level of predestination suggests a certain amount of futility on the part of those not "chosen" while justifying a certain amount of superiority among those who consider themselves to be "chosen."

If you are going to choose to believe in an eternal soul which can be rewarded or punished, and if you are going to choose to believe in a benevolent external intelligence who oversees spiritual matters, there are not many definitions of "predestination" that make sense in the context of a larger belief system.  Incidentally, some Christian theologians conclude that God has predestined everyone for salvation.  Some Christian ministers have been ostracized for preaching a "gospel of inclusion," teaching that all people are destined for Heaven.  It can be comforting to believe that God is working things out according to a plan, that when tragedy strikes, there is still someone in control of everything who loves you.  I would suggest that it's still important to examine how that belief plays out in terms of taking personal responsibility for your decisions and the way that you treat other people.  When concepts like predestination become tools for justifying one's bad behavior or dehumanizing other people, though, they become disconnected from anything divine.  I am confident that our eventual examination of the biblical character of Jesus will bear out that assertion.

Moses was considered to be the divinely-chosen leader for the Israelites.  The leaders of the early church also viewed their positions as divine appointments.  There are plenty of people today who believe that God has "called" them into positions of authority, and who can argue with that?  People in churches do not always view their pastors with the same level of respect, but there is literally no way to refute the claim that a divine power is behind the scenes working to place specific people in positions of authority.  There is also no way to definitively prove that such activity is taking place.  It comes down to a matter of belief without conclusive evidence. 

From my perspective, it makes more sense to conclude that every person embodies divinity, that every person is worthy of my respect, and that I am likewise worthy of respect.  I don't believe in fate or predestination, but I do believe that there is an inner drive that gravitates toward the things that will nurture and fulfill me.  Part of me wrestles with that pull, because the things that I am drawn toward do not always line up neatly with societal expectations or lessons I learned in childhood.  Sometimes I am afraid of where I will end up if I follow that inner drive.  But when I am willing to acknowledge that guidance from within and quiet the obstinate chatter of my fears and the perceived judgment of the world around me, it can look very much like a path is laid out before me.  It is a path of my own design, determined by my own passions and abilities. 

If someone wants to believe that those passions and abilities were bestowed upon me by some outside source, I gain nothing from arguing against that belief.  My own understanding of who I am simply doesn't require any external source.  I am confident that anyone -- regardless of faith tradition or spiritual beliefs -- who fearlessly seeks that guidance from deep within will eventually find it.  I would only qualify that with the assertion that the character of the divine within us embodies an awareness that all people have value and are worthy of respect, ourselves included.  It isn't predestination.  It is always a choice.  And it is, in the deepest sense, true. 

Abortion, Spirituality, and Why Debating the Right to Life Will Always End in Stalemate

Earlier this week marked the anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision that sparked a national debate about abortion that has now raged for decades.  On the one hand, there is almost no point in discussing abortion in an abstract sense, as people on both sides of the issue have firmly-rooted opinions based on mostly emotional arguments.  What actual data there is on the subject has been interpreted to suit the stance of whomever is quoting the statistics, so it's even hard to have a conversation about abortion from a strictly scientific standpoint.  Emotions drive people, and that drive is especially intense on such a loaded topic.  Still, if one is to consider spiritual matters, it seems that the whole right-to-life debate must be addressed at some point.  It will certainly be a hot topic in this year's election, and it is obviously at the forefront of many people's minds this week.

Abortion gets labeled in different ways, depending on who's doing the labeling.  It may be about a woman's right to choose, or about life beginning at conception, or about the murder of American citizens, or about legislating morality, or any number of other angles.  First and foremost, I want to be clear on my personal opinion, as a male without any children or any plans to procreate.  I believe in personal freedom.  I believe in second chances.  I believe that people know themselves, often better than they realize, and that most individuals have the ability to be personally responsible for their actions.  I am in favor of legalized abortion, and I'll go more into detail about where that intersects with my view of spirituality in a moment.

First, I want to address the religious perspective that has claimed the label of being "pro-life."  It is certainly a compelling and impassioned stance which claims to be based on biblical principles.  A strictly biblical view of the god of the Israelites won't lead to a modern-day anti-abortion activist's beliefs, though.  The Ten Commandments do instruct people not to kill, although there are some caveats made for accidentally beating a slave to death.  The true meaning, though, is clear as one continues through the Old Testament.  The actual commandment is closer to "Don't kill a fellow Israelite who is adhering to the cultural mores."

People were put to death by the Israelites all over the place, and not just soldiers on the field of battle.  If one accepts the Good Book as legitimate history, the Jews conquered cities and slaughtered all of the women and children.  More than once.  And not just because some general was bloodthirsty.  They slaughtered innocent people because God told them to.  Because they weren't Israelites.  Israelite operatives were even sneaky sometimes about killing the enemies of their people, using a weapon held in the left hand, or driving a tent stake through someone's temple while they were sleeping.  Sanctioned, cold-blooded murder.  How can one argue that this deity actually has respect for human life?

One can't even say that the life of an Israelite is sacred.  Despite what may have appeared in the Ten Commandment, even Israelites were subjected to the death penalty for almost anything deemed immoral by the authorities of the day.  Of course, this was considered to be ordered by God as well.  At the word of a couple of witnesses, an Israelite could be executed for worshiping a foreign god, bad-mouthing a judge, marrying someone who isn't an Israelite, committing adultery (just the women, though), homosexuality, prostitution, and a host of other things.  Granted, we still consider the death penalty to be appropriate for certain crimes, and there may be other crimes for which we'd like to see a person killed.  The point is, the god of the Israelites, as depicted in the Bible, was more concerned about preserving a culture of purity than he was about the value of human life.

In the New Testament, there is much less of this sort of sanctioned killing.  For one reason, the Jewish people were under Roman rule at the time, so their system of crime and punishment was subjugated to Roman law.  And they certainly weren't going to war with anyone.  Still, God manages to kill off a few people who disobey him.  One couple is struck dead for lying about selling property and trying to keep some of the proceeds from the early church.  This is a capital offense.  It's still hard to see the value for human life in things like that.  On the bright side, by the end of the New Testament, it's clear that the early church was committed to the idea that all people are of equal value.

There are other reasons for a person to argue against abortion, however.  Some may say that they are concerned for the psychological well-being of the mothers-to-be, but that could be addressed without making abortion illegal.  Instead, a great deal of money and rhetoric goes into convincing people that abortion is morally wrong.  Is the motivation really about the sanctity of human life?  Do the people who argue against abortion also argue against the death penalty?  Or do they also contribute money towards AIDS research?  Or even cancer research?  Do these proponents of life also protest wars in which innocent people are killed?  Or do they accept collateral damage when they consider it a "just" war?  The credibility of some of the loudest advocates for the "right to life" may be sullied if their complete philosophies about human life were scrutinized.

And what would happen if the nation's population were to suddenly swell with unwanted children?  What is the end result the opponents of abortion foresee?  While there have been studies that link the legalization of abortion with a decrease in crime rate, we cannot ultimately predict what the life of an unborn person would be like any more than we can predict with any certainty what the life of a stillborn infant would hold.  Even with abortion legal, the number of child abuse cases in this country is staggering.  If women who choose to give birth cannot even ensure a safe and loving environment for their children, what can we expect of women who do not actually want the children they are forced to carry to term?

The bottom line is that we cannot know.  We do not know how those women would behave as mothers, and we do not know how their children would turn out.  We do not know whether disinterested fathers would take responsibility.  We cannot know the actual impact on schools, the job market, the society.  Any claim would be speculation, and it seems dubious to force people to decide whether women should be allowed a choice regarding abortions based on speculation.  In fact, if someone claims to know the future, that Old Testament God would tell us to put them to death for being a witch.

President Obama once said that if one of his daughters made a mistake, he wouldn't want them punished with a child.  That statement has been bandied about by some people, the interpretation being that children are a punishment.  It's easy to twist words around.  The point is that if a girl gets pregnant and is forced to have the child, that child becomes like a punishment.  A child can disrupt the entire course of someone's life.  It can mean a change in what a person is able to earn, and it can mean a change in what a person is able to contribute to the world.  Ideally, a child is pretty high on the priority list for a mother.  Other things have to take a back seat.  While it has been said that no one is ever really ready for children, there are many people who look upon their children as a blessing.  Some people still see their children as a burden, but a burden they are willing to bear.  If someone is looking at having a child as a punishment, what kind of parent will that person be?  Again, some speculation would be involved in answering that question, but I'm grateful my mother didn't think of me as a punishment.  

As I have stated many times, each person holds within them a deep sense of truth, beauty, and creativity.  Each person can look within themselves and find the divine.  If we value human life, we must acknowledge a respect for those people already living.  We must trust at a certain level that people are capable and valuable.  Otherwise, why would we care about life or abortion or any related topic?  Until our society is through applauding violence against people of different religions, condoning the deaths of people who disagree with our international policies, and arguing about whether people of different lifestyle choices deserve equal treatment, the claim that any group is opposed to abortion out of respect for human life is going to seem a bit suspect.  Let's first eradicate child abuse—domestic violence of all kinds for that matter.  Let's make sure the children who come into this world will have the possibility of meaningful employment.  Let's do everything in our power to bequeath a world worth living in to those who come after us.  Until then, whether or not a woman chooses to bear a child or have an abortion seems rather insignificant. 

Plus, I've noticed that women are still having children.  Many of them love their children more than anything in the world.  That hasn't changed just because abortion became legal.  I believe that people know themselves, often better than they realize.  So I believe that women have the ability to know whether they truly want to have a child.  I believe that is it possible to live in a world in which people are trusted with the decisions of their own lives.  If people are to be given an opportunity to be personally responsible for their actions, they must be free to act in accordance with their own conscience.  No politician or preacher or law can change the truth inside of a person.  Whether a woman chooses to have children, or chooses to have an abortion, or chooses to never be in a circumstance that would necessitate such a decision, there are consequences and rewards.  If we are truly concerned about the value of human life, perhaps there is a way for us to be present with the women around us, with love for them as human beings and respect their decisions.