Debunking Predestination

How can God be patient without time? Some Say this verse is proof that God is outside of time and predestined everything:

Revelation 13:8 ... the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.

It isn't a proof verse at all. Read it in its entirety "All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."

Some of you will remember sentence diagrams from high school:

What is the subject of the sentence?

The antichrist is.

And who is worshiping him?

The "those whose names have not been written in the Book of Life"

Since when?

"From the foundation of the world."

Whose book was it?

“The Lamb who was slain”

So Jesus was not slain at creation at all. Anytime you read a translation, you have to be careful not to get too fixed on a particular word. What is important is the meaning.

This small sentence is trying to make a point. These people who are worshiping antichrist are not, not were they ever, written in the Lambs book of life. Trying to point out how dramatic that is and how intolerable what they are doing really is.

It isn’t proof text for the Settled View either. It just says, up to that point in time, they weren’t in the book, and if God doesn’t know the future, that is logical. How can you invite someone to a party, or not invite them, until you know them?

Lets explore the logics of this idea, just tho show how impossible it is.

To say that Christ was slain from the foundation of the world, you would have to be talking about the physical Jesus, who could die, as he was flesh. And the Bible does not contradict itself, it clearly shows this event happened one time around 30 AD, and is not required to happen more than once.

Something else: People speak of time as if it were a creation. Time is not some object. It is just a sequence of events. So before creation, before there was matter or atoms, or any kind of mass or space, the event of God saying "let there be light," happened sequentially. Time! God does not require creation to perform an action. And like it or not, that's all time is, actions after actions. And God is full of actions; he is a god that never rests.

Settled Viewers/Calvinist believe time is like a script. Every event is laid out and it can be read by someone powerful enough. That's what time is to them! So, they must therefore think that God created a script, and we call it time. That's how he is outside of "time", he's sitting there reading this funny little script called "Your Life!"

So that must mean that God created "time" i.e. a script, and that's how he knows the future. So he authored the script / created the events / ordained the actions that lead to the rape of an innocent child. That's how he does it! That's how he knows the future.

What a bad, terrible thing to say about a loving God. To say "The God who cannot be tempted by evil is really behind it all, ‘cause he 'created time' so he could know the future". You value your perception of God over his reputation of being a just and loving god if you believe this. And I must rebuke that. IF your faith is shaken by the idea that God does not know the future, fear not. The alternitive is worst.

Any theology that places God in the situation of being the author of sin is one, anyone should know in their heart of hearts, needs rethinking! I love the God who loves us all, not one who doomed us.