Predestination Versus Choice

An age old enigma - Predestination or Choice.  Is God truly omnipotent?  Does He control everything?  If so why are we responsible for our actions and what about our right to choose?  These questions can be warped up in one:  does God of predestine everything or do we have the ability to choose? 

So, predestination versus choice, 

     what does the Bible say about the issue?

In the very front of the Bible just after it talks about the creation of man, we have these words: ‘God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”’ (Genesis 1:28 NIV) -  In this verse, God gives man authority over the earth and everything in it. Implicit with this is mankind’s authority to choose because you cannot have authority without the capability of making choice.     

And then there is one of my favorite verses from Joshua:

“. . . . . then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, . . . . . But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15 NIV) 

And in the New Testament:

 ^“ . . . . . Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:42 NIV) - clearly, Mary had the capability to choose and she chose well.

But on the other side of the coin we read of predestination:

For Exodus: ‘The Lord said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.’ (Exodus 4:21 NIV)

And in the New Testament:

“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will - to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.” (Ephesians 1:4-6 NIV)

And then there are the prophecies where God explains what will happen ahead of time.

So which is it, predestination or choice?

   And why do these verses seem so contradictory? 

Do you remember the days of high school mathematics when the teacher stood there and asked the question what is the square root of 4?  I certainly remember it.  Someone quick of the mark, wiped up there hand and answered 2. I remember how surprised I was when the teacher said “that is incorrect”.   The entire class erupting into total turmoil, and no one could hear what the teacher was saying for about five minutes.  When the class did eventually quieten down, the teacher went on to explain that there are actually two answers and then wrote on the board the following:

2 x 2 = 4
- 2 x - 2 = 4

The square root of 4 has two answers:  +2 and - 2

Both are correct at the same time.

This is the way I see it:

Firstly:

In the beginning when God created life the universe and everything, He also created time.  This would mean that God is not bound by time.

Secondly:

In the beginning when God created life the universe and everything, he gave man freedom of choice.  The choice to choose right from wrong, good from bad, generosity from greed, being helpful from hindrance, loving from lust, etc.  If we choose what is right there is a cost and benefit, if we choose what is wrong there may be a benefit, but there is always a consequence.  The consequence of our decision to do what is wrong not only affects us but also those around us. 

Man is bound by time; God is not.  As man journeys along the timeline he sees the decisions he makes as choices. This is the way it is for man because he chooses his direction, but God sees it differently. God who transcends time sees things from a different, much bigger point of view. He sees all the decisions we make past, present and future, like as if an open book. He sees things as predestined and He predestines all things.

Beyond Time 

It can be difficult to comprehend what it might be like beyond the timeline as the timeline is the only live we have ever known.   A wise young lady once shared with me something that may make it easier to understand:

Imagine a world with only two dimensions all the occupants of this world were only two dimensional, they had width and breadth but they did not have any height because in their world there was no height.  Imagine standing with your ankle in this world.  To the occupants of this world, there would be two completely separate almost circular objects - cross-sections of you ankles.  You could explain to them that you are only one person, that these two objects are only part of you and that you are much bigger that these two objects that they perceive.   But would they understand this?  I think we are a bit like this, we cannot truly comprehend what outside of time would be like.

  

To conclude

God is not bound by time and so He knows everything that we had done and everything that we will do, but even with all this, He still chooses to loves us.  God wants what is best for us but this is not necessarily what we think we need.  We like little children cry out, “but I want to do what I want to do!”  But what we need is to do that which is right.

God over sees and coordinates the big picture and the little picture, but we still have a choice and it is we who chose.  Predestination and choice are not mutually exclusive.

The Gospel of Barnabas Part 2

Some Muslims use the Gospel of Barnabas to preach the message of Islam on their websites and they make some pretty extraordinary claims about it. 

Within these extraordinary claims they will drop some names of some great Christian leaders from the early church and some names of important places from the early church’s history and say that: “This shows that the Gospel of Barnabas was in circulation in the first and second centuries”. But the one thing you will also see, is they will never provide you with any references as to where these details can be found (at least not until the references are from books written after the 16th century).

Let’s have a look at some of these claims:

1.) The Gospel of Barnabas was accepted in the Churches of Alexandria till 325 A.D.

2.)  Irenaeus of Lyons (130-202) opposed Paul for injecting pagan Roman religion and Platonic philosophy into Christianity. 

3.)  Irenaeus had quoted extensively from the Gospel of Barnabas showing that the Gospel of Barnabas was in circulation in the first and second centuries of Christianity.

My comment on these three points:

1.)  You will notice that in each of the websites that quote this point, the author of the website provides absolutely no evidence for the statement that they have made. Quite frankly, I believe that this claim is totally baseless and will continue to do so until some evidence is provided to the contrary.

2.)  Once again, no references are provided even though the works of Irenaeus are divided into book, chapter and verse and can be referenced very easily.  Irenaeus quotes extensively from the four canonised Gospels, the Book of Acts, Paul’s letters and the letters from the other apostles. I have not found anywhere where he opposes Paul or Paul’s writings; on the contrary, he quotes Paul’s letters to make his case within his series of five books called “Adversus Haereses” (Against Heresies) in which he defends the Christian faith against Gnosticism.

3.)  And again, the writers of the various web pages provide no references.  In the works of Irenaeus, I have found many direct quotes made from the four canonised Gospels but nothing from the so called “Gospel of Barnabas”.  But because the Gospel of Barnabas parallels some parts of the canonised Gospels one could make the assumption that Irenaeus was quoting from the Gospel of Barnabas. However there are some mark differences between the Gospel of Barnabas and what Irenaeus quotes.  For example Irenaeus quite often refers to Jesus as the “Word of God” which found in Gospel of John and not in the Gospel of Barnabas.  He also talks about the death and resurrection of Jesus found in the four canonised Gospels but not in the Gospel of Barnabas.

The works of Irenaeus’ can be found at this web site. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/irenaeus.html

There are a lot of websites out there that say all sorts of things and make all sorts of claims, but what I say is this:  

Please do not just accept or reject the words of this website or for that matter any other web site without first checking out for yourself the claims that have been made.  

It’s the truth that matters, not the ideas, opinions or agendas of those who would want to gain the power of influence over us.  It was God who gave us our minds; not so that we would blindly follow someone else, but so we could use our minds, determine what is the true and then to do what is right.

Seek out the truth; it is the truth that sets us free. 

The Gospel of Barnabas

There are a lot of people ranting and raving about the Gospel of Barnabas (mostly Muslims) and they say that it portrays the truth about Jesus.  But is document authentic?  Was the Gospel of Barnabas written by someone who walked and talked with the Jesus of Nazareth two thousand years ago?   

      In a word, NO

The so called Gospel of Barnabas is a forgery written sometime between the 14th and 16th centuries and there are some Muslim scholars who agree with this dating.  So how can we know the date and the age that the book was first written?

There are two main things used to determine the date of the composition of document and these are external evidence and internal evidence:

“External Evidence” - this is where other documents make reference to or quote from the document in question. 

As far as the Gospel of Barnabas is concerned, there is absolutely no external evidence to even suggest that this book ever existed prior to the 14th century.

“Internal Evidence” - evidence within the text itself. A proper examination of the document can reveal more that what you would think when it is aligned with what is already known about history, geography, language, manner of writing etc.

For example:

If a document was presented and was said to have been created in the early 1950s and yet this document used the word “Facebook” and the term “social networking” you would know that the document was actually written in 2004 or later.  

If another document was to be found referencing “TCP/IP” and “ARPANET” (as a going concern), you would have to assume that document was written after 1969 and before 1989 when the “ARPANET” was resigned to the history books.  

So what can the text within the Gospel of Barnabas tell us?

The Gospel of Barnabas claims to have been written by a disciple of Jesus called Barnabas, so if this writing was authentic, it would be reasonable to expect that the author would be very familiar with the basic facts of Jewish life in 1st century Israel. However the author of the so called “gospel” did not understand the language, history or geography of 1st century Israel. 

1.) Geography 
In the first half of chapter 20 we find “Jesus went to the Sea of Galilee, and having embarked in a ship sailed to his city of Nazareth” and after Jesus calmed the storm “arrived at the city of Nazareth the seamen spread through the city all that Jesus had wrought”.

By definition, to sail a ship you need water (and a lot of it). However the city of Nazareth is 25 km inland from the Sea of Galilee, more than 500m higher in altitude and situated on a mountainous ridge half way between Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean Sea.  It is impossible to sail a ship to city of Nazareth as you cannot sail a ship without water.  

2.) Christ / Messiah
The word “Christ” is the Greek translation for the Hebrew word “Messiah”. Both these words when translated into English mean the Anointed One or the Chosen One. This word is not an obscure or rarely used word, on the contrary it is one of the most famous words in the Jewish and Christian religions. There is no doubt that if the author had been a disciple of Jesus, he would have been very familiar with this word.

However in the very opening of the book we find Jesus announced as God’s “prophet Jesus Christ”. And later in chapter 24 “Jesus confessed, and said the truth: 'I am not the Messiah.'”  It is clear that the author did not understand the language spoken by Jesus and the 1st century Jews

3.) History 
In chapter 3 we are told that Herod and Pilate both ruled in Judea at the time of Jesus' birth: “here reigned at that time in Judaea Herod, by decree of Caesar Augustus, and Pilate was governor.”

This is historically wrong for Herod and Pilate never ruled Judea at the same time. Herod ruled Judea alone from 37 to 4 B.C., while Pilate ruled thirty years later from 26 to 36 A.D. The real Barnabas lived during the rule of Pilate, so if he really was the writer of this book, how could he make such a simple mistake?

4.) Anachronisms and other internal evidence

Anachronisms are things that show that this document was written at a much later time in history than claimed in this so called gospel, and there are many anachronisms that show the book was first written many, centuries later.

For example:

In the so called Gospel Barnabas, wooden barrels are mentioned as a method for storing wine. However, in the Near East, leather wineskins were used as wooden barrels were not available till after the third century.

And the other internal evidence of the book suggests it was written sometime in the 14th to 16th centuries. The Gospel of Barnabas contains quotations from Dante Alighieri, references to an edict from Pope Boniface, and descriptions of feudalism and lots of other discrepancies. Therefore, scholars place the date of authorship around the fifteenth century.

5.) Mistakes

There are a lot of mistakes that show that the author just did not know about first century Israel and was therefore not from the first century Israel as claimed, these include the following:

• According to the description in the Gospel of Barnabas, Nineveh lies near the Mediterranean coast. It, however, is to be found in the interior on the banks of the Tigris more than 600 kilometres from the Mediterranean.

• The Gospel of Barnabas reports 600,000 Roman soldiers in Palestine. There were, however, perhaps so many soldiers only in the entire Roman Empire, but certainly not in Palestine.

• The Gospel of Barnabas also reports 17,000 Pharisees at the time of the Old Testament. However the party of the Pharisees, originated only in the second century before Christ. The last book of the Old Testament was written by Malachi around 450 B.C.

• The Gospel of Barnabas describes a European summer: “everything bears fruit”. In Palestine, however, it rains in winter, and in the summer the land is dry.

• The Gospel of Barnabas cites Bible verses according to the Latin Vulgate translation, which was completed only at the end of the fourth century and became the official Catholic Bible.

• The Gospel of Barnabas reports that Jesus and his disciples had “kept the forty days”. The forty-day fast before Easter was introduced only in the fourth century and is supposed to be a reminder of the suffering and death of Jesus, which was impossible before his death.

• The Barnabas gospel mentions a gold coin: the dinar, comprised of 60 minuti. This coin was used for just a short time in medieval Spain, a point of argument which appears to support the thesis of a Spanish origin for the Gospel of Barnabas.

• The forbidden fruit in Paradise, which the Old Testament does not specify by name, is said in the Gospel of Barnabas to be an apple, also a development from later church history.

• There are conspicuous parallels between the Barnabas gospel and the works of the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321),

• According to the description in the Gospel of Barnabas, the “year of jubilee” is celebrated every one hundred years, while the Old Testament names a period of fifty years. In the year 1300, Pope Boniface VIII fixed the date for the celebration of the year of jubilee as once in every hundred years. But already in 1343, Clement VI shortened the period to fifty years and announced the next jubilee celebration for 1350. Thus, the interval between celebrations of the year of jubilee was fixed at one hundred years, as the Gospel of Barnabas describes it, only in the period between 1300 and 1343.

 And the list goes on

  

The so called “Gospel of Barnabas” is not an authentic Gospel of Jesus. The book is a rewrite of the Biblical Gospel most likely by a Muslim around the 14th, 15th or 16th century who wanted to portray Jesus as a Muslim who taught Islam and predicted the coming of Muhammad.

(Note:  It’s important that we not confuse the Gospel of Barnabas with the Epistle of Barnabas.  These are two separate documents with two very different authors - the Epistle of Barnabas was written A.D. 70–90).

Christian versus the world

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I am a Christian and this is what I believe:  

I believe in God Almighty the Maker of heaven and earth, Maker of everything that exist, who created life and who by His power sustains the universe. I believe God loves us and would have us call Him Father.

I believe that God came in the very person of Jesus taking upon Himself the likeness of a man.  This man Jesus who is Christ, loved like no other and he was righteous like no other.  In His love he took upon Himself all the sins of the world and died in our place.  It was he who picked up the tab, he who took upon Himself the inadequacies of us all and it is His love that sets us free.

I believe that on the third day he rose from the dead to life and that he appeared to his disciples many times. I believe that he showing them the nail holes in his hand and the hole in his side where he was pierced.

I believe that Jesus ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father.

I believe in the Holy Spirit.

I believe that there is only one church, a church that transcends denominations, a communion of sinners made saints by what Christ has done.

I believe in forgiveness.

I believe in the resurrection of the body, a new body, the perishable clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, life everlasting.

I believe that there shall come a time when all things will be called to account.  Where God shall judge the living and the dead.

I believe the Bible is the word of God.