Tag: Theology Thursdays

Theology Thursdays: Brief Questions about Free Will and Predestination

I wonder what Methodists in the pews think about the following:

  1. God’s foreknowledge:  Does God know the future, and if so, to what specificity?  Does God know every detail or just the big picture?  Or does God know all possible futures based upon the activities of the past and the present?
  2. Wesley himself was no Calvinist – he was Arminian.  He was firmly on the “free will” side of the free will vs. predestination debate.  I wonder how many United Methodists in the pews know that, and how many agree with him?
  3. I wonder how many Methodists subscribe to what I’ll call (for the sake of brevity) “Rapture Theology.”  And do we realize that one would have to subscribe to a pretty strict theology of predestination in order to believe it?
  4. What is the relationship between predestination, foreknowledge, and foreordination?

Discuss.