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Tigress
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 8/1/2003 11:31 AM (GMT -6) |   | This might not amount to much of anything, but I've often wondered about how predestination and free-will influences our lives in certain ways. Here's a personal example:
My mom was a Christian when she married my dad who is not a Christian. According to the Bible she should never have done this. Yet, if my mom and dad hadn't gotten married to each other and conceived me, I would never have existed.
Now I believe that all people are born - not simply by chance or because of circumstances - but because God Wills them to be born. Yet, this would mean that either God wanted my mom to go ahead and sin by marrying my unbelieving dad, OR that God never originally intended to create me in the first place but then just decided to make the most of my parents' mistake by allowing me to be conceived and born to them.
Obviously God would never make someone sin, so the second has to be true. Many would say, "God can make good things come from bad things," but I guess I always feel kind of bad about this, like I was never really meant to exist because my parents should have never come together like they did in the first place.
I suppose it's just Satan trying to hurt me emotionally, but it is still a serious issue to me. I mean, it's like I'm sort of glad that my parents sinned, because that's the only way I could be here today. Yet, that's a wrong attitude to have, too.
Actually, what encourages me and makes me smile is this story my mom told me. She said that after she and my dad gave birth to my older brother, she had a really difficult time trying to get pregnant again. They tried all those methods of taking temperatures and trying to conceive when she was ovulating, all to no avail. After about five years of this, my mom said to God, "Lord, I'm tired of trying to do this in my own power. If You truly want me to have another baby, I'll trust you to make it happen."
Well, it wasn't long after that, when she did get pregnant with me! (She always likes to add that I kicked her on the way out during the delivery, too!)
Tigress 
"Name a shrub after me. Preferably one that's prickly and difficult to eradicate."
-Captain Jack Aubrey
"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" | | Back to Top | | |
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ReasonableDoubt
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 8/1/2003 11:38 AM (GMT -6) | | Why is it a sin for a Christian to marry a non-Christian? It's less than desirable, sure - but the verse about being unequally yoked doesn't necessarily mean marriage -
But let's change it even more - say a child is conceived from an adulterous relationship. If the child is born, of course God loves and cares for the child, and God has a plan for the child's life. Let's face it, if Adam and Eve hadn't sinned, would any of us be here now? But yet I don't believe that we all were not planned by God. | | Back to Top | | |
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Tigress
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 8/1/2003 11:44 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt
Why is it a sin for a Christian to marry a non-Christian? It's less than desirable, sure - but the verse about being unequally yoked doesn't necessarily mean marriage -
But let's change it even more - say a child is conceived from an adulterous relationship. If the child is born, of course God loves and cares for the child, and God has a plan for the child's life. Let's face it, if Adam and Eve hadn't sinned, would any of us be here now? But yet I don't believe that we all were not planned by God.
Yes, but can you see the contradiction there? God doesn't want us to sin, and He doesn't cause anyone to sin, and so how can anyone born to parents who were sinning at the time of conception, or like my parents should never have married each other anyway, have been predestined to be born? It's like we were created out of God's order or something. To me that says He wasn't planning or counting on my existance from the beginning of time, like He was about people who were born according to God's order of things.
Tigress
"Name a shrub after me. Preferably one that's prickly and difficult to eradicate."
-Captain Jack Aubrey
"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" | | Back to Top | | |
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ReasonableDoubt
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 8/1/2003 11:48 AM (GMT -6) | | | Well, there's not really a contradiction if you're a Calvinist or of a similar belief -that everything results from God's perfect will, and that sin and evil - the allowance of them - are part of God's will. I won't go into all this here b/c I have said much about this on other threads - that's my two cents. | | Back to Top | | |
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Laplace
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 138
| Posted 8/1/2003 11:53 AM (GMT -6) | | ReasonableDoubt,
If that passage in the Bible ISN'T referring to marriage, I would then ask, what is it referring to?? There is no closer, more intimate bond between two people than in marriage. If that is not being yoked, I don't know what else could be. Willingly marrying an unbeliever is against God's will. It may not be explicitly be mentioned, but most would agree that is the convention. However to be fair, the issue has some leeway. For example, there are some who firmly believe that if a Christian has sex with a girl who is a non-Christian and gets her pregnant, he is under a moral obligation to marry her. In addition, there are a few who advocate divorce after marrying a non-Believer (In most cases I disagree with these arguments. 2 wrongs don't make a right).
Tigress,
It's true that something good may have come out of something wrong, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't wrong in the first place. Remember that out of Israel's stubborness not to have God rule them but needing a king David came about, and through an adulterous affair came the wisdom of Solomon. It was also clear that God did not want Adam and Eve to sin, but they did.
It's true that God always provides us a way out of every temptation, but Jesus also prayed that we may never have to make that choice in the first place.
No, you WERE meant to exist, or else you would not have been born. However, your existence may not have been under the circumstances that God originally intended, and perhaps you have seen in your upbringing the evidence of that.
You are not alone. There have been many people in my life I've seen (including my own) where what people meant for evil, God meant for good. Still, I understand somewhat the feelings of having to bear the sins of your father. I know God doesn't view you any less as one of His children and has great things planned for you. He just wants you to keep your paths straight so that you will be spared the consequences of sin.
"I say we blast the meatbag, Master" -HK-47, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic | | Back to Top | | |
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ReasonableDoubt
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 8/1/2003 12:03 PM (GMT -6) | | DLW - Whatever.
As far as the unequally yoked thing - "when we study the seventeenth verse it will become evident that the command of verse fourteen cannot apply to marriage alone. The Apostle Paul now enlarges the application of the whole area of separation in terms of five contrasts, or antithetical propositions." Read the verse in context - although applies to marriage, it can also be taken to apply to people in business relationships, social relationships, etc. | | Back to Top | | |
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ReasonableDoubt
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 8/1/2003 3:23 PM (GMT -6) | | | DLW- you'll get no argument from me here ! " Events, whatsoever they may be, are governed by the secret counsel of God." - John Calvin | | Back to Top | | |
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ReasonableDoubt
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 8/1/2003 5:01 PM (GMT -6) | | | I wonder,Laika, did God plan your existence, or did you just pop up? | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 8/2/2003 6:56 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt
DLW- you'll get no argument from me here ! " Events, whatsoever they may be, are governed by the secret counsel of God." - John Calvin
But don't you see the potential for that to permit the institutionalization of sinful practices. In Mark Noll's "America's God", he goes into how we theologized slavery into an acceptable institution and, if I may add, reformed theology played an important role in doing this.
As for Laika, I'm sure God has God's ways, though they may be hidden from our view. [:X]
dlw
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 8/2/2003 8:51 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Laika
quote:
Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt
I wonder,Laika, did God plan your existence, or did you just pop up?
[:0] Mommy and Daddy had a daughter. They decided to have another child. The egg split. When God saw the egg split, He thought "kuhl". When my brother and I were born, mommy and daddy loved us both, so did God. We have been adopted into Christ Jesus. Kuhl.
I but I sense disagreement, call me psychic.
You mean there are two of you? Aye-yay-yay-yay.
Were you ensouled before or after your identical twin and you split, cause if it was before he or you might have gotten stuck without a soul !
dlw
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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S.B.G.
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 143
| Posted 8/13/2003 11:04 AM (GMT -6) | | Tigress,
Paul says if an unbeliever and believer are willing to stay together then that is what they should do. Paul did not consider it such an abomination that they needed to divorce. I think the reason he says if the unbeliever wants to go, let him go is because of the strife and hinderence it may be causing in the believer's walk. But it doesn't HAVE to be that way. 1 Peter 3 says the believing wife can win the unbelieving husband over to Christ. Surely this was your mother's hope. Furthermore, 1 Corinthians 7:14 calls you, Tigress, Holy!
We look on the outside, but God looks on the heart. Jesus understood the hearts of your parents and the love that brought you into this world! I don't believe for a minute that a technicality would prevent God from wanting you or loving you!
I agree with Laika's point that some people (very, very few) were specifically designed, but most are a natural result of reproduction. (If it were not so, why would God create anyone who was less than perfect?) Nonetheless we have all been chosen! We have all been born with the potential to chose Christ and bask in His love and dwell in His glory! Jesus sees our formation in the womb, sees our demographics, our families, and every conceivable circumstance, and from that moment forward by the work of the Spirit, He sets out to introduce Himself to us in whatever manner He can use.
He sought you out Tigress. It didn't matter to Him who your parents were--whether saints or sinners. He saw you and said "Man, I want that girl to belong to me!" And if you look over your life you can see the people and events that God himself orchestrated to secure your love!
Okay, I know I'm sappy. It just saddens me that for one moment you wonder if you were meant to be. YOU ARE SO INCREDIBLY LOVED!!!
SBG
"We need every different bead on this same string." Nicole Nordeman | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 8/13/2003 11:29 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by DLW
You mean there are two of you? Aye-yay-yay-yay.
Were you ensouled before or after your identical twin and you split, cause if it was before he or you might have gotten stuck without a soul!
Just noticing, DLW, that it seems you are saying that you "HAVE" a soul, or that your soul "has a body." Biblical anthropoloty tells the truth that YOU are thy psychosomatic unity of body and soul. Pagan Greek ideas crept into your post. | | Back to Top | | |
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