Free Will and Predestination

Revisited in the Twenty-First Century

This book is about a word that has probably caused more disagreement and contention in the churches of Jesus Christ than has any other word in our long history. The word is predestination. This book is also about the free will of man and the question of how man can be free if God has previously determined his fate. For centuries, the usual arguments that Christian people have made about these two issues have been exclusively from one side or the other, with little consideration for the opposite point of view. Seldom have they ever been considered together with any design to see how they might both exist with any validity. Although there have been some attempts in recent times to initiate dialog that might bring the two sides together, more often than not the conclusions to these efforts have been to acknowledge that both views are in the Bible, but only one can be understood at a time. The other is simply left alone as a mystery and ignored, resulting in more disagreements and even divisions. So here in these pages we will consider them together. The objective reader may fi nd here some plausible arguments and some fresh insights into what the two words predestination and salvation truly mean. So we ask, is anything in this life absolutely certain? Is life, here and hereafter, a big gamble to see how it will all turn out? The Bible has the answer to both questions.