Calvinists believe that God has divided humanity into two groups. One group is "the elected" and includes all those God has chosen to know him. The rest will remain ignorant of God, and the Gospel. They are damned and will spend eternity in hell without any hope of mercy or cessation of the extreme tortures.
Personally, I think this is rather unfair position. Most of us evangelical Christians put our best efforts towards preaching the gospel to as many people as possible so that they have the opportunity to decide whether they want to accept or reject it. We believe that every one has free will and God does not impose on this.
This may not be biblical but as I understand it (blame it on 4 years Law school), certain conditions must exist before someone can exercise free will ergo: -
1) A person must make an informed decision – having understood the full implications of what they are rejecting or accepting.
2) The person must have a choice in the matter
In criminal law, if the defence can prove that at the time a criminal act was committed, the accused did not know or understand what they were doing, or had no choice in the matter (such as self defence in murder trial) then they are entitled to an acquittal based on diminished or no responsibility. (or they lacked the mens rea if you really want to be technical here)
But if, according to the Calvinists, a persons’ fate has already been decided by God, then clearly they had no choice to begin with? So where's the free will?
I was airing my frustration about this to my friend Jody the other day (don’t act all surprised… I do have deep conversation sometimes!!!). I enjoy hanging out with Jody. We spend a lot of time spinning out wacky story lines for my bestseller (patience my friend... release is imminent...ehem... just need to start writing). She believes in predestination but not in the way that the Calvanists do.
Jody came up with this profound insight. Maybe we do have free will? Maybe there are a myriad of choices that we could make, and God can see how each plays out to their conclusion?
Have you seen the film 'Sliding Doors'? It begins with a woman called Helen on her way home after being fired from her job. The film deals with two separate scenarios that evolve from Helen (a) catching or (b) missing a train. The viewer sees the two stories played out alongside each other. In one story she becomes happy and desperately unhappy in the other.
Perhaps we are all like Helen? But instead of 2 scenarios, there are SEVERAL scenarios, and God knows and sees All Of Them? Or maybe it's what my friend Rene said when I included him in the discussion a few days later
'...that every single alternate possibility that they (people) ever could have chosen has played out in trillions of parallel universes....'
Maybe God doesn't know EXACTLY which particular choice (out of the several) that we'll make at the 'decision points' of our lives. That would be a little more exciting for Him, I think...
But then again I'm just a human trying to understand a big God! So I'll stop here instead of speculating even further
But it makes you think, dunnit?
