“With the doctrine of predestination, Christians were dramatically freed from dependence on church and state. Predestination freed man from the custodial care of institutions. His determination and salvation came from God, not church or state. It is not an accident but an inescapable fact that the decline of the doctrine of predestination had led to statism and to power-hungry churches…. If the doctrine of predestination is weakened, then church and state are exalted and their powers enhanced.”
R. J. Rushdoony
The Great Christian Revolution
“Every consistent teaching of predestined grace inevitably implies a radical and ultimate devaluation of all magical, sacramental, and institutional distribution of grace, in view of God’s sovereign will.”
Max Weber
The Sociology Of Religion
A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, Central London Hatchery And Conditioning Centre, and in a shield, the World State’s motto, Community, Identity, Stability…. “We also predestine and condition. We decant our babies as socialized human beings, as Alphas or Epsilons, as future sewage workers or future …” He was going to say “future World Controllers” but correcting himself, said “future Directors of Hatcheries,” instead.
Aldous Huxley
Brave New World
Predestination, in Biblical understanding, is the doctrine by which we confess God’s exhaustive sovereignty that extends from eternity past in the decrees of God to eternity future as seen in the fulfillment of all that God ordained.
What we learn from these quotes is that Predestination is an inescapable category. The question is never whether or not predestination is true but rather the question is what or which predestination we will be predestined with and by. Either we will acknowledge and bow to a supernatural predestination or, denying that we will be governed and controlled by a naturalistic predestination — a governance and control that God predestined for the disobedient who seek to cast Him from their thinking.
Should we deny God’s predestination and function as if it is not true we will not suddenly discover the libertarian freedom that so many assure us will be the result of denying God’s predestination but rather we will find our wills bound, as God predestined, by the predestination of some false idol seeking to ascend to the seat of God.
The reality that naturalistic predestination is a reality in America can be seen in the increase of Statism as the Federal Government seeks to predestine the lives of the citizenry. Wherever we find an dramatic increase in centralized planning there we find a state that is seeking to take on the prerogative of predestination.
Wherever we find the State implementing school to work programs that have as their intent channeling individuals to precise places in the work force there we find an example of naturalistic predestination. The language of the “school to work” legislation reveals that the State is embracing the role of predestinators of the future careers of individual students. As B. K. Eakman notes, “The underlying assumption (of School to Work) appears to be that it is not cost effective to have mere individuals making choices about their own lives, that they must be regimented and controlled for their own good and for the good of society.”
Examples could be multiplied but we must understand the connection between abandoning the truth of supernaturalistic predestination and the rise of naturalistic predestination. Predestination is an inescapable reality that never goes away. One significant implication of this is that when people deny God’s supernatural predestination they do not escape the fact that their wills are conditioned by the will of some other naturalistic predestinating source. Another significant implication of this is that just as God predestines to the end of advancing His Kingdom so naturalistic predestinators predestine to the end of building up their respective Kingdoms. Ironically naturalistic predestination always serves God supernatural predestination.
What we see here then is that whenever man seeks to overthrow God’s predestination so that he may experience full libertarian freedom what happens is that his freedom is constrained by naturalistic predestinating agents.
All of this teaches us that if we are a people who desire political and economic freedom we must be a people who embrace the Biblical teaching of God’s predestination for when the Church loses the high notion of predestination the consequence is the reduction and constraint of individual freedoms in the societal realm.
Finally we should learn from this that proper Biblical notions of predestination do not make men careless, languid or lazy but rather makes them active, vigorous and striving since a proper understanding of predestination means that the Christian understands that if he isn’t, in obedience, actively about ordering the world according to God’s revealed law-word he will instead be himself ordered according to the naturalistic predestined will of the state or some other institution. Predestination then, properly taught, energizes and enlivens God’s people.