I have never denied that God has a plan or is in control of the “big picture.” To me, it sort of works like this: God has a Point A to start from, a Point B to end up at, but the Middle and Acceptance are ours. Again, I’ll use Jonah (which is a wonderful example). Point A: Jonah getting God’s message in Israel. Point B: Jonah preaching in Ninevah. Middle: Jonah decides not to go, flees to the opposite end of the world, God has him swallowed by a fish, so Jonah DECIDES (not God) over death “okay, sure, I’ll go.” Although God was persuading Jonah, Jonah still made the choice. Acceptance: Jonah did not accept that God would forgive the people of Ninevah.

God uses everything to His glory. Again, I never denied this, but what I meant when I said, “that isn’t the point here,” is that wasn’t what I was talking about in my original entry. That’s like a guy talking about sailboats, and someone going, “Yeah, well Jesus died for our sins.” That’s true…but it really doesn’t pertain to the current subject. And again, this doesn’t have to be an extreme viewpoint. Just because God uses everything to His glory, doesn’t mean He controls every aspect of our lives. See paragraph 2.

Don’t be sad about my beliefs on these things because what we discuss here is as important as hand washing. There are two important things in life, and from those all others extend: Love God with all your heart, body, and soul, and Love your neighbor. Everything stems from that (from Do Not Murder to accepting Christ). I am a bit disturbed, however, that you DO believe in predestination. And if you believe in Free Will, you cannot believe in predestination. Predestination, by definition, means God picks and chooses who goes to heaven and who doesn’t. If that were true, then if I am prepicked to go to heaven, I don’t ever need to leave my house, or I could go commit several murders because I am going to heaven anyway, right? Again, there can be two extreme views to this: If God knows everything, then He must have preset everything OR if God doesn’t preset everything than He can’t know everything. But isn’t it possible that God knows everything without presetting it? It is sort of like the story where you put the cat in a box and fill the box with toxic gas. There are two outcomes: in one universe (with its own future) the cat is alive, and in another universe (with its own future) the cat is dead. Now, let’s say I’m psychic and I know that the cat is going to be alive when we open it. Did I make the cat live, or was it’s living independent of my knowledge? This is the same way with God. SOMETIMES. God still does preset some things (point A and point B as illustrated in paragraph 2). And He has a plan for all things, but maybe we still get to decide. I think God has a plan for what we’re supposed to do with our lives (like I believe God wants me to be a writer), but I think that is still something we get to pick (perhaps someone who was meant to become a writer becomes an alcoholic instead and works at a Citgo all his life). Here are things God has a plan for, knows the outcome, but still lets us decide: belief in Him, belief in His plan for us, following that plan, serving others…This all goes back to paragraph 2 and Acceptance. These things require Acceptance, something that we don’t have to do (because of Free Will). But I do not, cannot, believe that God is so heartless that He would say “You’re going to go to Heaven, but not you, or you, or you, but you are.” That seems insensitive and cruel. I do think that God KNOWS who is going to heaven, but there is a difference between knowing the outcome and deciding the outcome. That person who goes to heaven still had to make their own decision, and God did not force that decision on them (but He does try to persuade us all…maybe He doesn’t have a fish swallow us…but He does something).

I understand that the book of Job was basically about a bet between God and Satan, but you missed what I was responding to. In your entry, you said that “These things (bad and pain) happen because we disobey, God doesn't do them, he allows them. Obeying him brings happiness, peace and comfort.” And my response to that was that if that’s true, then the book of Job is wrong. Job didn’t have bad things happen to him because he disobeyed God, and obeying God didn’t bring him happiness, peace, and comfort when all his children died and all he had was taken away. My comment on Job was simply challenging what you said about disobedience. Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people. Yes, God allows things to happen, I don’t deny that, but that doesn’t mean bad things happen because we are disobedient.

Your last paragraph I won’t really respond to because I don’t disagree with it and have never made the claim that I do.

There are some extremes in life: Truth (capital t), God, Salvation through Christ, Satan, Sin (lying, stealing, killing, hurting others or hurting God), and the Soul. These are extremes because they go beyond us to something eternal. But there are some characteristics of God that don’t have to fit our human extremes on the right or the left. “Either God decides everything and is therefore all knowing, or He decides nothing and knows nothing.” Can’t God decide some, let us decide the rest, but still know all of it (Acceptance and the Middle, and knowing the fate of the cat in the box)? “Either God controls everything, or He controls nothing at all.” Can’t God have a plan for everything, control some aspects, but let us choose others (Point A and Point B). “Either God controls all of Nature all the time, or He never controls Nature.” Can’t God control Nature when it is part of the plan, and then let it do its own thing other times (The Worldwide Flood, End Times, Plagues of Egypt…). This all goes back to my manager entry a while back. Which manager would you rather have, Manager A who controls everything and is super anal and has a plan and by golly you are going to follow everything he’s set out and there is no argument or chance to grow, Manager B who sits in his office and won’t help you or guide you and ignores you and could care less, or Manager C who has a plan, will help you and guide you to follow this plan, but still lets you grow and make mistakes, but will always welcome you back in the end? God, to me, is Manager C. That is my opinion and it is an opinion that cannot be changed.

This is my final statement on all of this, because fundamentally I don’t think we view God the same way and there is no way I can change how you view God. There is no way anyone can change how someone views something, it is always up to them to believe whatever they want. That is Free Will.