Unification of Freewill and Predestination

Temporal Omnipresence

The following is a theological idea that I have been kicking around for a long time…that Predestination and Free Will are not opposing theological viewpoints but are two different ways of looking at the same thing.

In order to understand this viewpoint I need to explain my understanding of the nature of time versus the nature of non-time, or eternity.

    
    1.   Time is a function of the material universe. When God created the material universe, He created time as an integral part of the material universe; the same as gravity or the speed of light. 

    2.   God is omnipresent in His physical universe, and is therefore omnipresent in time as well.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come. (Revelation 4:8 NKJV)

    3.   He inhabits the past, present and the future all at the same time.

    4.   God’s natural state is an eternal, or non-time, state.      

    5.   Time cannot contain Him because it is His creation.

    6.   Therefore we, as created, material beings are subject to time while He is not.

If we accept the ideas above then, I believe, it is possible to unify the ideas of Predestination and Free Will by seeing them, not as competing theological viewpoints, but as two ways of describing the same thing…God’s Omnipresence in time, or Temporal Omnipresence.

Linear Time

We live in a state of linear time. When we are born, one event follows another until we die. From the time we are born we make decisions until we die. Looking forward from birth we have countless decisions to make which form our character and for which we will be held accountable by God.

But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. (Matthew 12:36 NKJV)

But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say? (Luke 6:46 NKJV)

This is basically the doctrine of Free Will: God is with us at birth and that all of the possible futures we could have, based upon our decisions, are genuine and possible. There is no one fixed path or “destiny” and we will be held accountable for the decisions we make.

Eternal Viewpoint

Yet, we also know that “…we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10 NKJV)

How could it be otherwise? God is never surprised by what happens. He knows what tomorrow brings and even states that He has prepared our good works ahead of time. Paul also states that, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” (Ephesians 1:4)

This then would then seem to bespeak of two competing ideas: one is that we alone are responsible for our actions, and the other that God has “chosen us before the foundation of the world”…before we even had a chance to act at all.

The Alpha and the Omega

 The idea I have is that both Predestination and Free Will are two ways of looking at the same idea….Temporal Omnipresence.

The Alpha

When I am born God is with me at the beginning of my life. He is Alpha to me…the beginning. As I grow He and I interact in making choices. Some of these choices are His will, and some are choices I make that are disobedient to His will. At some point I become Born Again, my spirit becomes alive, and I can communicate with Him. I come to recognize that, although He has been speaking to me all of my life, I now know it as the voice of God.

After being Born Again, the decision making process does not change…I still make choices that are obedient and disobedient to His will…all of which have consequences in this world, in my relationship with Him, and in the final “Bema Seat” judgment for reward.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.(2 Cor. 5:10 NKJV)

This process does not end until I die and go to be with the Lord.

The Omega

At the end of my life God is Omega to me…the end. He “looks back” on my life and now all of my decisions are “fixed” in time and cannot be changed. I die and my choices become permanent for all eternity. In this sense, I was “predestined” to make these choices because He knew that I was going to make these exact choices before He created the universe.

Conclusion

God is with me at the beginning of my life, with me at the end of my life, and at all points in-between. Because he is Omnipresent in time as well as space, He is with me at every point of my life at the same time. Past, present and future cannot contain Him since time is His creation.

If true, then this means that Predestination and Free Will are two different ways of looking at my position in the time stream. From birth to the last moment before death I have free will to make decisions that have temporal and eternal consequences and for which I am held accountable. After death, my decisions are fixed in the time stream and always were before the creation of the universe.  The best name I can come up with for this idea is Temporal Omnipresence.