CHAPTER 12: Responsibility and Predestination
Responsibility and predestination are interrelated topics. On the
one hand, the scriptures affirm that every individual is responsible
before God. We are given freedom in the context of the responsibility to
fulfill the purpose of life. Individual responsibility begins with a
decision to follow a righteous life--the topic of the first section. The
second section has passages on the unalienable responsibility which every
individual has for his own self, which cannot be passed off to another or
excused by circumstance or surrendered to the grace of a savior. Human
responsibility also cannot be coerced; it requires freedom of thought and
freedom of action, freedom to believe and freedom to disbelieve. The
third section has texts on the synergistic cooperation of responsibility
and grace. Our responsibility is seen as undergirded and prompted by
God's grace, and as we do our portion we find that God has been helping us
all along.
At the same time, a person's scope of action is ordinarily limited
by conditions which are beyond his or her control. Some people are
blessed with an easy life; others have a hard lot. For some faith comes
easily, and they advance on the path with seemingly effortless ease, while
for others the burdens of life are heavy, and despite strenuous efforts
they continually fall into temptation and despair. These variations in
ability, circumstance, and fortune are explained in various ways.
Doctrines of predestination, expressed by texts gathered in the fourth
section, attribute differences in endowment and all fate to the hand of
God, who is omnipotent and controls all. God's grace is the only
efficacious power, beside which human effort counts for very little.
In the fifth section, variations in individual endowment and fate are
explained as caused by the inherited results of prior actions. The
doctrine of karma explains personal existence as continuous with countless
prior lives. Deeds committed in past lives bear fruit in the present life,
causing variations in circumstance and endowment. This doctrine is
founded upon a belief in reincarnation. For religions which regard the
passage through life as a singular event, a person's life is conditioned
by the sins inherited through family and lineage. The sins of the fathers
are passed on to their descendants in the form of difficult burdens and
tragic circumstances, while the merits of the fathers appear as blessings.
Individuals are also subject to conditions by virtue of belonging to a
group or nation; its collective history has created debts or benefits
which are shared by its members.
To regard human beings as totally free and responsible for their
lives, and to regard life as totally predetermined by external factors,
are two extremes of a spectrum within which lies the actual human
situation. This leads to the topic of duty. Texts gathered in the
concluding section teach that we should accept our lot in life and then
strive to do our best with what we have been given. They teach us to be
confident of God's provision, whatever it may be, as an adequate starting
point for accomplishing our individual responsibility.
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