How can free will be compatible with predestination, when they hold two different views of creaiton?
Free will, that God created almost everything, and predestination, that he created everything.
Free will and predestination are not compatible. The concepts are also independent of whether there is a God or not. They have more to do with chaos theory and the uncertainty principle.
Whatever or whoever created the universe appears to have provided a set of physical laws that either allow free will, i.e, the ability to make decisions regarding the future, or to make unpredictable random choices, or to let the randomness happen. This differs greatly from the "predestination" promoted by Newtonian physics and certain religions.
Barbara, a devout Calvinistic Christian who believed in predestination, once explained this question to me. We were discussing this definition of predestination --
"the decree of God by which certain souls are foreordained to salvation."
She said that God had already foreordained whether she would go to Heaven or Hell. That was God's business. Her job was to live her life on Earth as well as she could. She had the free will to choose to do the right things.
Like many other issues in theology, this question of free will versus predestination is open to many interpretations.
Exercising free will alters the result.
Predestination means the result is fixed.
They are mutally exclusive.
Any attempt to describe a situation where both exist is illogical. In Barbras example, her actions have no reaction, she can choose "right", wrong, or no things to "do" and the result is the same. She has no "will" to express freely, as the predestination imlpies foreknowlege of all events leading to the result. She has reduced herself to an automoton, with all choices she thinks she is making "freely" already scripted.
To further explain the incompatibility between free will and predestination, we can delve into the philosophical and theological aspects of these concepts.
Free will refers to the belief that individuals have the ability to make choices and decisions that are not determined solely by external factors or any predetermined fate. It suggests that individuals have autonomy and control over their actions, allowing them to determine their own path and shape their own future.
On the other hand, predestination is the belief that all events, including human actions and choices, have been predetermined by a higher power, such as God, before the beginning of time. It implies that everything has been preordained and will unfold according to this divine plan.
The conflict arises because if everything is predestined, then individuals do not truly have free will. If all choices and actions are predetermined, there is no room for genuine decision-making or personal responsibility. This raises questions about the meaningfulness of human actions and the moral implications of holding individuals accountable for their choices.
Now, within religious contexts, different interpretations and doctrines exist. Some theologians argue for a compatibilist perspective, attempting to reconcile free will with predestination. They propose that while God has predetermined the ultimate outcome, he has also granted humans the illusion of free will to make choices within certain bounds. This viewpoint suggests that individuals are responsible for their actions, even though the ultimate outcome is predetermined.
However, this compatibilist view still does not fully resolve the philosophical tension between free will and predestination. It seems contradictory to claim genuine free will while also asserting that all choices and events are already determined in advance.
In summary, free will and predestination present fundamentally different views of human agency and the nature of the universe. They can be seen as mutually exclusive, and any attempt to reconcile them may require revising or reinterpreting the traditional understanding of these concepts.