The doctrine of predestination of the Christian elect is a difficult one for those contemplating theology to work out. The reformation of the church by Martin Luther and others from one stressing works and even the sale of indulgences forgiving sin to one of justification by faith was developed further by John Calvin to an Augustinian paradigm of salvation by election of God with no elements of human works involved in it. Arminianists such as john Wesley took exception to that with the belief that such a doctrine would make the intervention of Christ and his atoning sacrifice meaningless. So how does one work that out?
One approach might be with analogies from quantum mechanics and quantum cosmology. The divine mechanics of God might be as challenging for ordinary humans to understand as is the math of M-Theory. The strong force binding quarks together actually gets stronger with separation to a certain distance. Some of the answers to divine mechanics may not be so simple. Even so let us take our shot at it in order to clarify the issue a little.
Jesus Christ is the solution to the problem of predestination. The Lord brought a blank check for the sins of humanity to the temporal world. Jesus Christ transcends temporality. The Lord inherently predestines any elements an individuals of the temporal for-himself and those that are saved are given, post hoc, the election of predestination. John Wheeler the late cosmologist-physicist developed the idea of retro-causality for the Universe's history. How much so the Lord has the capacity for retro-causality or ex-temporal causality reconciling the saved from among the lost unto himself existing before time or space existed.
The creation story in the book of Genesis is challenging to interpret in several respects. The work of the J writer perhaps from the court of Solomon or Rehoboam in redacting a prior paper dating to as early as the origin of the aleph beth possibly by Moses as an Egyptian prince adapting hieroglyphs to the Jewish language for their own writing may recount a common story also found in the tale of Gilgamesh about a flood and end of Eden perhaps under the whole prior world of a lower Persian Gulf plain. It may describe an exile of Adam and Eve from an Eden in Yemen or Saudi Arabia during the late Wisconsin Ice Age before they migrated to Mesopotamia. The actual pre-history of the world referred to in Genesis is difficult to be certain of. It is said thought that four cherubim guard the gates of Eden-perhaps those are the space-time dimensions that make it impossible to re-enter the past or even a non-temporal realm of being that Adam and Eve existed in-it's interesting to consider.
The problem of original sin as the entry of Adam and Eve from a non-temporal existence into a temporal Universe and world is consistent with the control of the disobedient nature of Adam and Eve in eating of the tree of knowledge. Temporality and mortality limited their ability to go wrong with their 'little godhood' level of learning. God said he reduced them to a mortal condition before they ate of the tree of eternal life. If Adam and Eve having eaten from the tree of knowledge had then ate from the tree of immortality that would have created a permanent and powerful schism between God and his creations.
Where does that leave us with the problem of infants that die in the human condition of original sin and had no chance to be saved? Some theologians of the past have battled strenuously with different sides of the issue. Anabaptists were even burnt alive about it. Zwingli was liberal and the topic and Calvin took a different turn. It is the problem of human linear reasoning that makes it such a difficult to answer question.
If God were to predestine all infants to salvation simply by dying too young for accountability that too would seem to negate the problem for original sin. If the unsaved are given eternal life what if they turn out to repeat the same errors of Adam and Eve without being at all remorseful? What if they become arrogant idiots for all of eternity? All of that sort of reasoning avoids considering that humans simply can't comprehend the eternal God at all well.
I would think that God has the capacity to just suspend judgment about infants that die without a chance of being saved and let them try again in some other realm of God. Anything is possible with God. One doesn't know well how the hell the willfully unsaved choose to go to for-themselves in effect by disregarding the call of the Holy Spirit during life will be. It is far better to be saved and respond to the call to all of the Lord.
One approach might be with analogies from quantum mechanics and quantum cosmology. The divine mechanics of God might be as challenging for ordinary humans to understand as is the math of M-Theory. The strong force binding quarks together actually gets stronger with separation to a certain distance. Some of the answers to divine mechanics may not be so simple. Even so let us take our shot at it in order to clarify the issue a little.
Jesus Christ is the solution to the problem of predestination. The Lord brought a blank check for the sins of humanity to the temporal world. Jesus Christ transcends temporality. The Lord inherently predestines any elements an individuals of the temporal for-himself and those that are saved are given, post hoc, the election of predestination. John Wheeler the late cosmologist-physicist developed the idea of retro-causality for the Universe's history. How much so the Lord has the capacity for retro-causality or ex-temporal causality reconciling the saved from among the lost unto himself existing before time or space existed.
The creation story in the book of Genesis is challenging to interpret in several respects. The work of the J writer perhaps from the court of Solomon or Rehoboam in redacting a prior paper dating to as early as the origin of the aleph beth possibly by Moses as an Egyptian prince adapting hieroglyphs to the Jewish language for their own writing may recount a common story also found in the tale of Gilgamesh about a flood and end of Eden perhaps under the whole prior world of a lower Persian Gulf plain. It may describe an exile of Adam and Eve from an Eden in Yemen or Saudi Arabia during the late Wisconsin Ice Age before they migrated to Mesopotamia. The actual pre-history of the world referred to in Genesis is difficult to be certain of. It is said thought that four cherubim guard the gates of Eden-perhaps those are the space-time dimensions that make it impossible to re-enter the past or even a non-temporal realm of being that Adam and Eve existed in-it's interesting to consider.
The problem of original sin as the entry of Adam and Eve from a non-temporal existence into a temporal Universe and world is consistent with the control of the disobedient nature of Adam and Eve in eating of the tree of knowledge. Temporality and mortality limited their ability to go wrong with their 'little godhood' level of learning. God said he reduced them to a mortal condition before they ate of the tree of eternal life. If Adam and Eve having eaten from the tree of knowledge had then ate from the tree of immortality that would have created a permanent and powerful schism between God and his creations.
Where does that leave us with the problem of infants that die in the human condition of original sin and had no chance to be saved? Some theologians of the past have battled strenuously with different sides of the issue. Anabaptists were even burnt alive about it. Zwingli was liberal and the topic and Calvin took a different turn. It is the problem of human linear reasoning that makes it such a difficult to answer question.
If God were to predestine all infants to salvation simply by dying too young for accountability that too would seem to negate the problem for original sin. If the unsaved are given eternal life what if they turn out to repeat the same errors of Adam and Eve without being at all remorseful? What if they become arrogant idiots for all of eternity? All of that sort of reasoning avoids considering that humans simply can't comprehend the eternal God at all well.
I would think that God has the capacity to just suspend judgment about infants that die without a chance of being saved and let them try again in some other realm of God. Anything is possible with God. One doesn't know well how the hell the willfully unsaved choose to go to for-themselves in effect by disregarding the call of the Holy Spirit during life will be. It is far better to be saved and respond to the call to all of the Lord.
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