WJEC/Eduqas RS for A2/Yr2: Religion and Ethics (DRAFT)

T4 Determinism and free will

rewarding certain people on behaviour which only he had control over. Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) stated that God must be ‘a monster’, because ‘A God that punishes or rewards on the basis of God’s own eternal decisions in unfair and immoral’. How could God be omnibenevolent when he predestined such evil events as the holocaust? This idea of God’s unfair and immoral decisions was taken up by the theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609). Arminius wrote his free will theory because he felt the need to defend God’s omnibenevolent nature against predestination so that ‘God might not be considered the author of all sin’. Some have taken the theory of predestination to an extreme limit and argued that people’s lives in every detail are determined by God. If this is the case, then God must create and control all moral decisions and actions. God’s omnibenevolent nature can also be questioned because if people’s lives are totally predestined and/ or hard determined, by God, then he must also create and control all moral evil. Furthermore, God’s omnibenevolent nature can be questioned if people’ lives are predestined by God, because people would have no free will. Therefore, people would be like automated robots just carrying out their God given pre-programmed life, with no will power to change anything. An analogy would be it is like a young person playing with their teddy bear: sometimes they would be caring, other times they might be careless with it, but the teddy bear cannot choose not to be played with. God would appear to be doing the same with humanity; and many would argue this is not the behaviour of an omnibenevolent being. There is a strong case that this kind of predestination theory could lead to the conclusion that God is not omnibenevolent. The use of prayer A further implication of predestination theory, for religious belief, is the value of the use of prayer. The Augustinian and Calvinist theory of election, (i.e. that it is God alone that chose the elect, based solely upon his own will) seems to question the value of prayer. Any attempt to pray to God for salvation would appear to be a complete waste of effort because your destiny has already been determined. For the elect, however, prayer is an integral part of the process by which God establishes a relationship with his people through repentance and the rapport with God that comes from communication between God and his elect. Calvin supports this when he stated that the ‘elect’ could still be sinful but God predestines them to have faith in the saving atonement of Jesus Christ. Therefore, when the predestinated elect sin, they cannot resist the calling on their lives to seek forgiveness, which could be through prayer. For those who hold the view that not only does God choose whether a person is saved or not, but chooses every detail of a person’s thoughts, words and deeds, the consequences are rather more far reaching. If a person’s life is predestined by God directly, then this brings into question the meaningfulness of prayer. The term prayer comes from the Latin term ‘precariis’ which means to ask earnestly or beg. However, if God does predestine every detail of human life, there seems little point in asking God for anything. This is because this kind of total predestination means that God has already predetermined all events. This suggests that earnestly asking God for anything through prayer is pointless. For example, a person may pray that they successfully get a place at a university they have applied for. However, if this particular extreme theory of predestination is right then it would be a waste of the person’s time to pray. This is because it has already been predetermined whether the person will get that place.

Are moral agents just like automated robots carrying out their God-given pre-programmed life, with no willpower to change anything?

4.14 Brie y explain two reasons why predestination may suggest God is not omnibenevolent.

DRAFT

Key quote A God that punishes or rewards on the basis of God’s own eternal decisions in unfair and immoral. (Russell)

4.15 Brie y explain why prayer maybe a pointless activity if God predestines all events. We’ve placed the image most recently supplied to us for this position, however we recognise that the manuscript mentioned about using an image of Muslims at prayer. Please let us know if this image should change – design

The idea of determinism raises problems for the concept of prayer.

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