Predestination: Are You Just a Pawn?

Is every detail of your life already mapped out in advance? Are you just a preprogrammed figure in a cosmic game of chess, being moved from square to square by irresistible destiny? The truth may surprise you.

by Tom Robinson

Many individuals and groups think that everything that happens in life is inevitable and unavoidable. They believe that fate—the supposed force, principle or power that predetermines events —rules throughout the universe. A number even hold that a Supreme Being, the Creator God, is the author and controller of such fate. On the other hand, there are others who maintain that even God Himself is subject to this all-powerful force. What is the truth?

Is there really such a thing as fate, a set destiny reaching even beyond the grave? Are some people foreordained to succeed and others fail? Are only a few destined to be saved and the rest lost, as some religious groups teach? Or is this idea a distortion of what the Bible really teaches about "predestination"?;

God and predestination

During World War II, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain told the U.S. Congress, "He must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below" (Dec. 26, 1941). Many others throughout the centuries have certainly recognized this fact.

But who or what is "working out" this "great purpose and design"?; Logic and reason would dictate that it must be an infinite Intelligence. And indeed, the Holy Bible names that Intelligence—God. Within its pages, the Eternal God is declared to be supreme in existence, for there is "no one greater" (Hebrews 6:13). Thus, if fate exists, God has dominion over it. For one who is supreme cannot, by definition, be subject to anything but himself!

The same great and infinite God tells us: "Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure'" (Isaiah 46:9-10, emphasis added throughout). This, then, should remove all doubt. God is supreme and nothing can prohibit Him from doing whatever He wants.

Read the full article at www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn46/predestination.htm

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Table of Contents that includes "Predestination: Are You Just a Pawn?"
Other Articles by Tom Robinson

Predestination:

Freedom of choice:

God's plan:

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