Paper On Predestination

I came into this course from a Methodist church background. What little I knew about theology came from inside the church, and I never knew what was true and what was not. This course has taken my ideas of Jesus, Christianity, and the church and expanded my knowledge of all of them. One of the most interesting topics we discussed was predestination. Before this introduction to the methods and orthodox ways of the church I believed that predestination started with Martin Luther and it was this theory that everyone was predestined. Meaning every human’s eternal fate had already been determined regardless of their life, sin, or actions. My knowledge of it was limited to Martin Luther and his ninety-five theses. After our in-class discussions and
Though I do believe that God knows beforehand our actions, both good and bad, I always thought that the term in Christianity that refers to the doctrine meant both salvation and our physical life here on earth. I quickly learned that though that may be true, the doctrinal term “predestination” only refers to the eternal side of heaven or hell. That was my first realization that my knowledge of predestination was very limited.
The information I have gained from this class on predestination is substantial. John Calvin and his acronym TULIP (total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints). Limited atonement is the Calvinist’s predestination. It simply means that there are only so many “spots” in
The first is double predestination. This doctrine of election means that God died for some and he did not die for others. The “others” that he did not die for were rejected by him, which is why it is called double predestination. God simply decided who was elect and who was not. No one person earned their place in glory, or their place in hell but merely they just got the luck of the draw if they ended up in the kingdom of God. As we studied predestination we also studied alternatives to predestination which I never knew existed; the first being universalism. Universalism is the total opposite of predestination. All people are loved and accepted by God and therefore no one goes to hell or is not allowed into the kingdom of God. These two doctrines could not be more of an opposite of each other and learning about them was a shock. Not only do some people believe that there are “elect” that are chosen by God and will go to heaven to matter what, but people also believe that everyone can go to heaven if they want. There are intelligent biblical scholars that spend their entire lives devoted to studying, proving, and disproving these doctrines and before this introduction to Christianity I did not even know they existed. It prompted numerous questions in my mind about my faith. I never questioned Jesus or his existence, but I did question the validity of my biblical knowledge and my own personal