Up@dawn 2.0

Monday, March 11, 2019

Predestination and Free Will- Jake Weast, Michael Clem, and Sam Lawless

Predestination is one of the major concepts developed by John Calvin, who founded Calvinism in Christianity. It’s the belief that even before your birth, God has already determined your entire life and if you go to heaven or hell; your actions, with good intent or not, are futile and are predetermined, rejecting any notion of free will. Your life is simply a cog in God’s cosmic machine. 
Christianity may have popularized this idea of your choices and life being predetermined, however earlier Eastern philosophies and religions have also entertained this idea. In Taoism, a fundamental belief is Wu wei - which means “doing without doing” . Taoists believe that no action should be taken if it isn’t part of the Tao, or the way or path. Essentially, in your life, you shouldn’t deviate from this cosmic path whatsoever or else you bear negative consequences. This belief greatly discourages the thought of free will or choice, on a cosmic scale. Your actions and choices must align with the norm or status quo of the Tao.


Christianity and John Calvin-
 John Calvin said, “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”. He said this in reference to predestination. The Christian belief that God has decided before the person was ever born where they would go in the afterlife (heaven or hell). This is a very controversial question in the Christian faith. Calvin disagreed with Luther on how you become a Christian, thus Calvinism was born. This was Calvin’s own sect of Christianity. Luther said that it was through faith, but Calvin said it was through election which is the father of faith. What Calvin meant was that those who became Christian had faith, but their faith was decided for them before time began. A lot of Calvin’s beliefs came from Paul’s letters such as Romans. In Romans 9 it says, “Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.” What this verse is saying according to Calvin is that God created some people to go to hell and some to go to heaven and the reason that God did this was so that God’s glory and wrath can be shown. I think that a good analogy for this is that if you are always cold and have never been hot than are you really cold? You have nothing to compare the cold to so there for you aren’t “cold” you just feel normal. You won’t know that there is something other than cold until you have felt heat. Calvin would say that the reason God elects people to go to hell is because it shows his mercy to those who go to Heaven. A lot of Christians and philosophers have thought about this for a long time. The debate of free will vs. predestination, I believe, will never go away. Churches have split because of this and great debates and arguments have been held about this topic. 

Taoism-
            Lao Tzu or Laozi is the author of Tao Te Ching (The law of virtue and its way). Chuang Tzu is the idea of, “to regard the fundamental as the essence, to regard things as coarse, to regard accumulation as deficiency, and to dwell quietly alone with the spiritual and the intelligent… Here in lie the teachings of Tao and the ancients.”
            
            The idea Wu Wei (doing without doing) is to not force action that is not part of the Tao, part of the flow or the way, because that usually tends to struggling and suffering. 

Calvinism and Taoism are similar in that the aspect of going with the flow because your fate is predetermined. In Calvinism you go with the flow of your day to day life. Taoists go with the flow by doing nothing, and only when the time is right your spontaneous actions are needed. 

Quiz questions:
1.    What does predestination mean?
2.    Who is John Calvin?
3.    Who did he disagree with?
4.    What does Tao Te Ching mean?
5.    What does Wu Wei mean?
6.    What do they have in common. 

DQ:
1.    Do you think we have free will or not? 
2.    Does predestination contradict the Bible?
3.    Is it God’s fault that you sin since He predestined it?
4.    Why should one go and spread the Gospel if people are predestined to go to Heaven or Hell?
5.    Do you agree more with Taoism, Calvinism, or neither?


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