Hypothetical I
You are at a swimming pool. You approach the pool and you notice two children who are starting to drown. You are a strong swimmer and you have the time and ability to save both. Instead, you opt to save one and to do nothing to save the other. Consequently, the child you declined to save drowns.
When questioned about this you become incredulous. You affirm that you could have saved both children but you nonetheless insist there was neither injustice nor dereliction in your choice to save only one rather than both. You insist that your act of rescue was an act of magnanimity to which neither child was entitled. You had no obligation to intervene at all so everyone should be grateful for the rescue that did in fact occur.
Hypothetical II
You are God. You create Adam and Eve and you foresee a future disobedience. This disobedience reprobates the entire species to Hell. To counter this you develop a plan. First you establish a people group called the Hebrews and you give them a more or less exclusive tribal religion. It's a sacrificial religion with complex rules and regulations both moral and cultic. This religion does not confer salvific merit; it does nothing to save its adherents from their reprobation. But it establishes a messianic hope with which you lay the groundwork for your real plan; a universal religion open to all established by your own incarnated self. This new religion does confer salvific merit.
Anyone, regardless of their race, sex or social status who accepts baptism into the new religion and dies without unrepentant mortal sin is assured a place in a realm of eternal happiness. Those who do not accept baptism into this religion or otherwise die in unrepentant mortal sin will be left to their painful fate of eternal misery to which humanity by Adam was doomed. You have given humanity an out from their otherwise inevitable damnation. At the same time you respect the free will of your creatures enough as to not force this out upon them.
But there's a catch
You lied about the free will thing. This new religion (Christianity) which you have established while open to all is efficacious only to a few whom you yourself have predestined. It is well within your power to make it universally efficacious but you choose not to. Those whom you have predestined are guaranteed to die in your grace and thereby merit Heaven and those whom you have not predestined are guaranteed to die either without baptism or otherwise in mortal sin and thereby deserve punishment in Hell. It is an ontological impossibility for a non predestined person to die in salvific grace. You have arranged history so as to guarantee that only the predestined (the elect) will die in salvific grace.
You inspire a scripture wherein you claim to desire to salvation of every human being. But you also reveal that you have chosen not to bring that desire about, instead opting to save only those few whom you selected at the beginning of time.
The problem
The doctrine of predestination makes a mockery of the claim that God holds a universal love for every human being. As in hypothetical I, my claims of magnanimity ring rather hollow if I arbitrarily leave a child I could have saved to drown. Likewise, Christian claims of a deity with a universal salvific will become incoherent if Christianity is efficacious only for a predestined few.
You are at a swimming pool. You approach the pool and you notice two children who are starting to drown. You are a strong swimmer and you have the time and ability to save both. Instead, you opt to save one and to do nothing to save the other. Consequently, the child you declined to save drowns.
When questioned about this you become incredulous. You affirm that you could have saved both children but you nonetheless insist there was neither injustice nor dereliction in your choice to save only one rather than both. You insist that your act of rescue was an act of magnanimity to which neither child was entitled. You had no obligation to intervene at all so everyone should be grateful for the rescue that did in fact occur.
Hypothetical II
You are God. You create Adam and Eve and you foresee a future disobedience. This disobedience reprobates the entire species to Hell. To counter this you develop a plan. First you establish a people group called the Hebrews and you give them a more or less exclusive tribal religion. It's a sacrificial religion with complex rules and regulations both moral and cultic. This religion does not confer salvific merit; it does nothing to save its adherents from their reprobation. But it establishes a messianic hope with which you lay the groundwork for your real plan; a universal religion open to all established by your own incarnated self. This new religion does confer salvific merit.
Anyone, regardless of their race, sex or social status who accepts baptism into the new religion and dies without unrepentant mortal sin is assured a place in a realm of eternal happiness. Those who do not accept baptism into this religion or otherwise die in unrepentant mortal sin will be left to their painful fate of eternal misery to which humanity by Adam was doomed. You have given humanity an out from their otherwise inevitable damnation. At the same time you respect the free will of your creatures enough as to not force this out upon them.
But there's a catch
You lied about the free will thing. This new religion (Christianity) which you have established while open to all is efficacious only to a few whom you yourself have predestined. It is well within your power to make it universally efficacious but you choose not to. Those whom you have predestined are guaranteed to die in your grace and thereby merit Heaven and those whom you have not predestined are guaranteed to die either without baptism or otherwise in mortal sin and thereby deserve punishment in Hell. It is an ontological impossibility for a non predestined person to die in salvific grace. You have arranged history so as to guarantee that only the predestined (the elect) will die in salvific grace.
You inspire a scripture wherein you claim to desire to salvation of every human being. But you also reveal that you have chosen not to bring that desire about, instead opting to save only those few whom you selected at the beginning of time.
The problem
The doctrine of predestination makes a mockery of the claim that God holds a universal love for every human being. As in hypothetical I, my claims of magnanimity ring rather hollow if I arbitrarily leave a child I could have saved to drown. Likewise, Christian claims of a deity with a universal salvific will become incoherent if Christianity is efficacious only for a predestined few.
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