Prophecy and Predestination vs. Free Will

Prophecy. The Bible is filled with prophecies. Moses taught that the test for whether someone was in direct contact with God or not was the ability to make prophecies which come true.

Prophecy presents us with a host of theological dilemmas. If the future is known, what is our role in the whole scheme of things? Are we puppets? Are we but sequences of three-dimensional pixels in a gigantic 3D movie that the Creator is running in his mind?

Then we have Paul’s predestination passages:

If some are destined to be saved and the rest are born to be damned, is the concept of sin even meaningful? If humans are following preordained trajectories of life, then God is responsible for all sin.

This is logic. If you find the last clause above to be blasphemous, then you need to find an alternative to strict predestination in order to avoid blasphemy.

I opt to believe in Free Will. I believe that Free Will is fundamental to the design of the Creation, that allowance for Free Will is the reason that the universe is such a slippery mess when you get down to the subatomic level. I believe that the challenges inherent in Free Will underlie the supernatural drama in which we play our parts.

I say believe. I cannot prove these assertions with great rigor. I can give indications from the Biblical record. I can also dismantle some of the theological arguments given against Free Will. I will do the latter first.

Omnipotence and Omniscience – the Inherent Contradictions

If God is omniscient, then God knowingly created every sin that has ever happened since the dawn of time. If all your nature is set upon your creation, then you have zero culpability for your sins.

On the other hand, if you have true Free Will, it means you are culpable. But it also puts a limit on God’s omniscience. This disturbs many theologians. Implying any limitations on God seems disrespectful.

But, ruling out Free Will also limits the Creator! It says there is something that the Creator cannot create! It places a limit on omnipotence.

Omnipotence and omniscience collide. Either way there are limitations on the Creator. Proof by definition doesn’t work. We must resort to the data – the Bible. We will turn there in a bit, but for some philosophy.

Is Free Will Even Philosophically Possible?

If we have a Nature, and the things and beings we encounter also have a Nature, then are our choices merely unfoldings of our Natures? Is Free Will even a meaningful concept in theory?

Such thinking makes my brain hurt. I will leave the heavy thinking to trained philosophers. To all the philosophers in the audience, I present a challenge: is there any hypothetical reality in which Free Will is possible? That is, if you were designing a universe which does allow Free Will, what would it look like?

I don’t know the answer, but I have seen some clues. If you try to pin down the complete Nature of anything, things get all weird in the laboratory. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle appears to be one of the most fundamental laws of the universe that we know. Throw in relativity and quantum entanglement and we see what appear to be loopholes in causality itself. Is the universe in a state of weird flux to make room for our choices?

Now, back to theology.

Prophecy vs. Free Will

My cat has a mind of his own. I do not control, nor can I always predict his whims.

Nevertheless, I can make some pretty good predictions regarding parts of his future – because I make them happen. I am considerably bigger than my cat, and possibly more intelligent. I choose when my lap is available. I choose when to open a can of cat food. (For my cat, these are future events of great significance.)

Jeremiah recorded a vision of his people’s relationship to God that is rather similar:

In this vision the potter does not have complete control over the clay. He guides it, but the clay does its own thing. But, if the potter doesn’t like the result, he reworks the clay and tries something else. There is a bit of playing the odds going on here.

Probability and Prophecy

Free Will does not rule out making some good predictions. There is such a thing as human nature, though it gets blurry when you try to get precise.

For example, using economics I could easily predict the shortages that happened in Venezuela when the socialist government resorted to price controls. These shortages were not guaranteed. It was conceivable that everyone could choose to be patriotic and put the public good over price signals. But it was extremely unlikely, for reasons that require only an extremely crude model of human nature.

The Creator knows rather more of our nature than yours truly. But he doesn’t need puppeteer like control of humans or FORTRAN levels of determinism to make near guaranteed predictions. (And He always has the option of intervening if the whims of human Free Will lead to an improbable result.)

Consider the Moses’ farewell address in Deuteronomy. He starts off with some conditional blessings.

These are followed by conditional curses:

In a nutshell, if you follow the Law then good things happen. If you stray, then bad things happen.

But then God told Moses:

Failure is guaranteed, that the Israelites are doomed to suffer in the future. So what’s the point of giving the admonitions in the first place?

One possible answer: the prediction is a matter of probability. Given enough time and temptations, the Israelites were bound to slip up. There is an oft-observed aspect of human nature that makes slip-ups likely: people become less religious after times of extended peace and prosperity. The conditional prophecies thus have a feedback effect that keeps things from remaining too pleasant. The devotion of one generation begets prosperity for the next, which leads to temptation. This produces oscillations. We see the effect in miniature with the life of Solomon. All it takes is an oscillation that leads to the people turning to other gods for help to lead to the dire prophecy above.

But the warning is still useful! Each generation that heeds the warning postpones the unpleasant fate.

By way of contrast, there is an entire book of the Bible describing a similar prophecy where those who hear the prophecy do act, and thus avoid unpleasantness: the Book of Jonah. Human choice matters – at least according this story. (One difference between Jonah’s prophecy and Moses’ prophecy is that Jonah was prophesying to just one generation – one roll of the Free Will dice.)

Uncertainty and the End Times

Even Jesus was uncertain as to when he would return. Some of the Apostles thought soon, and they were wrong. Later Christian sects have made similar goofs.

May I suggest – without adequate proof! – that the disasters foretold for the end times are at least partly a matter of free choice? We have Biblical precedent. God has been know to hold back wrath on behalf of the righteous.

For example, humanity survived the Flood because of Noah’s righteousness. The Israelites experienced a near brush with doom:

On the other hand, Sodom and Gomorrah did not have a sufficient number of righteous residents to stave off doom.

Could the End Times be subject to similar conditions? This, mixed with Free Will would produce uncertainty. But, like Moses’ prophecy to Israel, is a near deterministic prophecy in the long run due to the odds and human nature.

The Creator knew our inherent capability for technology. Technology can beget great prosperity, long life, universal education, worldly wisdom. Such things make religion less compelling to many.

But, technology also begets great danger. We are in the process of developing the ability to stage all the disasters in Revelation without any need for divine intervention. We’ve had fire and brimstone from the sky mastered since World War II (though one could argue that artillery could fit the bill centuries before). Recombinant DNA technology has recently gotten WAY cheaper; terrorist brewed plague germs are just a matter of time. Drone tech will soon reach the ability to simulate the metallic insects of Revelations 9. Should we take up asteroid mining, we will have the technology to make “mountains of burning fire” fall into the sea as in Revelations 8.

All these technologies could produce wealth instead of woe. DNA tech could produce cures faster than terrorists and militaries produce superbugs. Asteroid mining could lead to humans having more than one home. Doom in any generation is not inevitable. But given enough time, it strikes me as likely.

We have the technology.

So, What about Predestination?

Paul did speak of predestination, both for himself and his readers. Does this mean we are all puppets after all?

Not necessarily.

There can be a multi-thousand year Plan and Free Will at the same time. The Plan could run something like this:

• Speak to, test, and bless one of the faithful remnant [i.e., Abraham]
• Turn his descendants in to a nation.
• While said nation is faithful, make a positive example of them to the world.
• When they get worldly, make them a cautionary example.
• When they are humbled, incorporate them into a multi-national empire.
• Send Jesus.
• Find a really devout bull-headed Jew and give him a vision he won’t ignore. [Paul]
• Encourage him to find converts among the heathen, and launch Christianity.

Paul and the earliest Christians ended up being part of this Plan.

The Plan could well be much more detailed, of course. And maybe there was divine intervention to produce the character Paul and some of the other earliest Christians. I don’t know. All I’m saying is that predestination does not necessarily mean puppeteer-like control over human destiny.

Perhaps a converse example will make the distinction more clear. The people of Japan in 40 A.D. were obviously not predestined to be early Christians. They were physically too far away from the Holy Land and the Plan did not include waiting for airplanes and/or communications satellites.

I find it hard to believe that they were damned due to the distance. They were simply not Called – which is potentially a great blessing, but it is also a “pearl of great price” which I explore in a later chapter in this series.

Omnipotence and Omniscience – the Evidence

When humans get serious about creating, they build tools which help build tools, which build the final product. To build a skyscraper, we use bulldozers and backhoes to dig the foundation. We bring in cement trucks which roll on concrete or asphalt highways. The trucks and digging machines are built in part by robots. And so on.

Our tools often exceed our own capabilities. No human is as strong as a bulldozer. No human can compute as fast as a 486 computer. No human can fly, period.

And yes, our creations can be dangerous to us. Automobile accidents are one of the leading causes of early death these days. Our war machines are potentially even deadlier, and they grow ever more autonomous.

A creator is not necessarily in full control of his creation. And created things can in principle can get dangerously out of hand. Whether this is or is not the case for The Creator and The Creation, we cannot determine with theology alone. We have to resort to the data.

In a few places we do have an image of a Creator in direct control at the micro-managing level, but the Bible describes helpers to carry out the Creator’s will: angels. In one vision there are 100 million angels assembled:

Note the language used in the very beginning:

Note the plural forms. Is this referring to Jesus and the Father? Or is it referring to angels along with the Creator? Or all of the above? If angels, are they like robots, or are they willful?

Hmmm, it looks like at least some angels had enough Free Will to get uppity, downright disobedient, even. Note also that God experienced regret! This is an admission of fallibility, of trial-and-error creation just as humans experience! Theologically inconvenient that.

These sentient helpers gone rogue could be an outright nuisance:

The “prince” of Persia was able to thwart an angel for 21 days!

Just how powerful are these rogue angels? The Bible gives a mixed message. In the gospels Satan has the rule over the kingdoms of the world [Matthew 4:8-9] – which he offers to Jesus in return for changing sides. On the other hand, the demons possessing the insane cower before Jesus and fear the future they have in store.

Putting it Together

Suppose the Creator needs – or at least strongly desires – autonomous beings to help manage the Creation. Suppose that the top level beings need autonomy in the Free Will range, making such beings subject to disobedience or worse.

How would such a Creator create a new generation of autonomous beings that are less likely to disobey, or cause other mischief?

• How about creating mortal beings that have Free Will but no supernatural power?
• How about testing these mortal beings in an environment with many temptations?
• How about including some “non player characters” who are not under orders in order to make the temptations really challenging? (The Narrow Gate!)
• How about disappearing for long periods of time to observe how these apprentice beings behave without supervision?

Recall what Paul said about the endgame:

Do keep in mind that this chapter is extremely speculative. Whether Satan and his angels are a supernatural danger of Manichean power, mere nuisances for the Creator, or servants following a script for our testing is unknown to me. My main point here is that you cannot rule out any of these (or many other) options with a priori theology.

My other point is to show you a possible rationale for the Narrow Gate, and to introduce you to a picture of the rewards for entering said gate that differs greatly from many popular notions of Heavenly Reward. For the rest, turn to the next chapter.