Predestination, Freedom, and God: Exploring Philosophical Arguments
Predestination and Human Freedom
The Problem of Predestination
The Protestant Calvinist doctrine of predestination holds that God has predetermined who will be saved and who will not. Different attempts have been made to reconcile God’s omniscience and human freedom.
- Some argue that God’s omniscience—knowing everything—doesn’t negate human freedom. The future, they say, is not predetermined.
- Others contend that God’s omniscience, viewed from an eternal present, is incompatible with human freedom. God sees past, present, and future simultaneously; thus, our actions are not less free because God knows them.
Many thinkers, including Kant and existentialists, have argued for human freedom.
Kant’s Perspective
Kant argued that while we cannot definitively know if we are free, the belief in freedom is necessary for morality. Our moral convictions would be meaningless without free will. This belief in freedom gives humans absolute value, making them worthy of respect as ends in themselves, not merely as means.
Existentialist Views
Existentialists (Sartre, Camus) asserted that humans are condemned to be free; we cannot choose not to be free. Even renouncing freedom is a free act.
Ontological Problems in Religion
Most religions posit a God or gods with positive qualities and an immortal spiritual principle in humans. Religion is a matter of faith, not knowledge. While religious practitioners may seek knowledge, the core beliefs are often accepted without proof. Philosophical investigations explore the truth of these beliefs.
The Existence of God
A) First Ontological Problem: The Existence of God. Several arguments have been proposed, including the argument from first cause, the cosmological argument, and the ontological argument.
Argument from First Cause
One formulation of the first cause argument is found in St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica.
Cosmological Argument
The cosmological argument suggests that the universe’s order and complexity imply a designer. The theory of evolution weakens this argument, although some argue that the probability of life arising by chance is so low as to imply an intelligent creator. However, low probability doesn’t equal impossibility. Furthermore, the cosmological argument can be turned on its head; the existence of evil and disorder could be seen as evidence against God’s existence. This raises the philosophical problem of the compatibility of God and evil.