God states clearly through the prophet Isaiah concerning His predetermination of everything. It goes like this: He pre-determines everything. (You will learn of this verse in this edition of MZTV, at
no charge to you.) Billions of people, however, simply do not believe God's statement in Isaiah. Why? Because of the nearly universal Adamic infection of pride. (Believers in the sovereignty of God are relieved of this infection. They believe Isaiah.)
When it comes to the predetermination of God of everything that comes to pass, Pride wears blinders. Pride (due to its nature) MUST scratch out SOME independence from the Deity so as to give its worthy acts value. Because, again (according to Pride), what value is an act that has been pre-determined by God? Nothing knocks the wind from Pride's sails faster than the pre-determination of God. Since Pride MUST have wind in its sails, it therefore MUST look the other way—fast, very fast—at a
statement such as that in Isaiah that PROVES pre-determination to be true.
(It is helpful to be aware at this point that, if pre-determination is NOT true, then God Himself must wait—in real-time with the rest of us—to see what will happen next. Any foreknowing of God of any event REQUIRES that the event belonging to the foreknowing take place. If an event is REQUIRED to take place before it takes place, the the doctrine of human free will is provably false, because human free will [if it is truly free] requires the future to be OPEN, that is, UN-determined. Why?
Because the human must be the one (in the free-will scheme) who decides what will happen next. Freedom requires this. [Few possess the logic required to follow free will to its logical, ugly conclusion. The logical, ugly conclusion is that God Himself must wait to see what will happen.])
These billions of people want more than anything to have a role on the stage of life where they can perform good acts independently of God. The way Pride thinks of it is: what value is a good act if God ultimately inspired it? Pride REQUIRES independence, because it can thus give to God something that He did not previously think of ahead of time or pre-determine. (Nothing tickles Pride more.) Because if God DID think of something ahead of time or pre-determine it (same thing), then wind
gets knocked clear away from Pride's sails. Pride hates this. The sails of Pride, you see, MUST be independently blown. The value and thrill of the good act, to Pride, is the surprise that it springs upon the Deity. (If it is NOT a surprise to the Deity, then free will is provably false and Pride dies.)
Oops.
