Predestination is a God-centered and Christ exsulting teaching that gives God all the glory. It puts God where He is (as Sovereign) and man where he should be - low in humility where he can do nothing but trust in Jesus to be the propetiation of his sins. If any man come to me, Jesus said, I will in no way cast out. All that said, this could only be "nice talk" from a Calvinist.
Why do you feel it slanders God?
While I would agree that God is capable of being a masterful mathematician and logician, and while I would give God
credit for being able to do that stuff, I cannot give God
glory for that as a human being.
God being able to calculate future events implies some degree of
determinism. Determinism implies that the universe is a big, complex machine that if allowed to run independently and without intervention, will always generate the same result. As human beings, because we are composed of the same matter as the rest of the universe, we must be a part of that big machine. The idea behind predestination is that regardless of what we do, the result will be the same. The course of future events will not change. That's because our choices are a
part of that big machine and are
generated by that big machine.
This is the gist of predestination. The result is always the same and God knows that
final result.
Unfortunately, you
can't value human beings by treating them as machines, or a part of a big machine. Human beings want to be valued and appreciated as beings with free will, capable of making their own choices. Human beings that are treated as mere instruments of a bigger machine have
no sentimental value. Beings treated like that have no dignity, and a God that doesn't preserve or protect our
personal dignity has
no honour or glory.
That's why I can't give God glory for being a masterful mathematician or logician. He knows too much. He has absolute control over everything. A God like that doesn't really care about me. He's just out to manipulate and possess people. Predestination depicts God as a
Father Time figure, a Master of Time.
There is, however, a more favourable depiction of God -- The
Superman Father. This is a God that is capable of being Father Time, but doesn't care about the ultimate Fate of the universe. It's a God who
doesn't care about the
final result, but one who only cares about what's important -- the
relevant result. He's capable of absolute control, but because of the moral issues associated with that level of control, He doesn't try to control everything. He only tries to control what's important.
The Superman Father God has tremendous power, but only uses it to protect those whom He has
chosen as His people. He has a
right to use that power because He's using it to help those who love Him. He doesn't abuse that power by trying to achieve
absolute control of the universe. His actions have
sentimental value which is the reason why He's justified in using that power.
It's a relationship. Once again, it's like Superman. His power and ability are not as important as
how He uses that power. His power and ability make Him a hero, but what makes Him even more of a hero is His attitude and personality. That is what gives God glory -- not His power, but His attitude. I don't really care if God is omnipotent, omniscient, all-seeing, far-seeing, or whatever. I don't care about His knowledge and foresight. It's His attitude and scruples that matters. But, it does make me a lucky person if a God with His power and foresight were on my side.
We don't want a God that manipulates events. We want a God we can connect with intimately and personally. We want a relationship with God. We want someone we can love and feel. Something fuzzy like a teddy bear. We want an innocent, humble, down-to-earth God, not a know-all control freak God.
It's ok for God to be a Superman Father, but not ok to be Master of Time.
