Choose God

The doctrines of Predestination and Election of Calvin are vain. These  various man-made religions that sprouted from the minds of men like Calvin and Luther are not divinely inspired.  These ideas came from the mind of one man, Saint Augustine, who actually changed his own beliefs on these issues. Augustine first believed that these ideas were not true, then as a refutation of Palagius, a declared heretic, changed his mind and wrote of predestination and election. They are  based on the idea that God at creation pre -determined certain individuals to  receive His grace, and that only these men and women and no others will receive  God’s merit. As a result, the whole membership in this exclusive club of the  heaven- bound has been permanently fixed from the beginning of time to the end  of time, the second coming on judgment day and beyond for all eternity.  God’s arrangement is forever set in  stone and will never change. For if it were possible that a predestined individual should be cast in hell or that one not predestined ended up in heaven, then God would be wrong in his proposed plan for the future, thus He would no longer be omniscient. Calvin  came up with this ridiculous idea that God, by divine decree at genesis,  preemptively predestined a segment of mankind to hell and on a path of lifelong sin.  This theory further alleges that God ordained certain among us to be reprobates forever wallowing in sin. You have no say in the matter. This grand scheme pontificates that at the beginning of time God has chosen a certain elect group of his creatures to receive salvation and the other group divine judgment. Why would a loving God ever ordain a certain group of his creation to  hell?  That is not the compassionate God I know. What hogwash. God desires all to come to Him.  We must choose God.  The divine providence of God applies to events and world history, like the conversion of Constantine or the fall of the Roman Empire, not to the salvation of individual souls. There was a predestined race, the Jews. They are still predestined. They will be the remnant, those that finally choose Christly salvation at the end of time. They were chosen from the beginning of time to receive this salvation and will be the final piece of cloth sewed into place at the second coming.  But as for the rest of us, we gentiles, you Protestants, Catholics and Muslims, we must choose God.