"......Now we see dimly as through a mirror........ " I COR 13:12

QUESTION: Since God knows what our future is to the most minute detail, isn't our eternal destiny -- Heaven or Hell -- already the same as an accomplished fact? If so, where does our gift of Free Will to choose or not to choose have any bearing upon where we will spend eternity?

PREDESTINATION is a "forgone conclusion based upon a sequence of events," and it is not synonymous with PREDETERMINATION which, in the Godly sense, means "unalterable conclusion regardless of the sequence of events," or may even indicate a prearrangement of the sequence of events to bring about a specific conclusion.

God is omnipresent, that is, He is everywhere at the same time without regard to time or space -- He is everywhere, at all (omni) times -- past, present and future. God is then also omniscient; He knows all things. Since He is everywhere, He also knows all things in our hearts, in our past, and in our future. Since God is not limited by time and space, He is already present in our future.

Try looking at it this way!

God created the world as sort of a stage on which humanity would play out, or live out their lives. According to God's own will, He has a Plan for each person's life. We could compare His Plan to a type of 'Script' for each person. He places each of us on life's stage to live out that script. Since He created us by His love, and He can do nothing but good, and He has willed that all be saved {spend eternity in Heaven}. His Script is perfect, minute by minute. The variable, though, is our Free Will. We are free to choose how closely we will adhere to the Script. When God designed His play or humanity, He provided room for each person to choose their own personal script or scenes within the overall script. But each personal script, regardless of how many different choices are made, is still within God's Master Script.

The Master Script has only one ending. This is defined as 'Eternity'. God has allowed us to ultimately choose where we will be in eternity by which sequence of scenes we choose.

God, because He created us finite beings with the free will to make sovereign choices, had to provide room for variables in His own will. 'Finite' means limited, not perfect. If we were created perfect, we would be God. A major variable which God provided for in His own perfect Script is "Prayer", a communication (initiated by the Holy Spirit) by us with Him. Essentially, God has built into His Script that, when He is called upon to redirect one of our own personal 'sub-scripts' in which we are currently living, (whether we have actually chosen it, or whether it is the result of someone else's choice), He, Who is The Master Scriptwriter, could place us within a new or changed script without altering His overall Plan.

In summary, although God 'sees' a whole lifetime as one instant, because He is present at the beginning and the end at the same time, we live day to day much the same as an actor plays a part, one scene at a time, even though the script has already been completed. If the actor changes the words or makes a mistake, the overall ending is not altered from the intention of the scriptwriter.

An actor, through prayer, could ask The Scriptwriter if He would change, or allow a change of scene. And, of course it is possible that the actor's 'asking' might take the form of just exercising his or her free will without regard to having The Scriptwriter's permission. In either case, because The Scriptwriter knows the best sequence of scenes, He would know how the changes would affect the ensuing scenes in interaction with scenes being player by other actors. Since God knows that it would not affect His overall play, (although it could affect our personal ending), He could choose to allow the change and let all of the other scenes go on in an acceptable sequence, OR, just ring down the actor's final curtain.

Have you ever watched a TV show that seemed to end on an unfinished note --it could have gone one way or the other? When the next program comes on, you realize that the first one has really reached its end even though it was obvious that there was more to the ending situation. If you had been able to talk with the scriptwriter, he would say that the play which he wrote ended where it did, and that he could not tell you anything beyond the ending because it hadn't taken place within the realm of his work or play. Since you had a choice as to which 'post-ending' you would choose, the scriptwriter would not know of it until you chose or imagined it.

In the case of the actor or the life-liver, The Master Scriptwriter, through His omniscient all knowing, would know by the ongoing way in which the scenes would be enacted, which of the two "Post-endings", Heaven or Hell, would have resulted.

• It should be obvious that The Scriptwriter would present to the actor ongoing reasoning why the original Script was the best one to follow. But, even if the actor had messed up the entire play by the personal scenes he chose and the way that he played them, The Scriptwriter allows, up to the very end, that the actor could acknowledge that had chosen and acted wrongly, and that, in fact, the original Script was the right choice. With this change of heart and mind, the actor is free to still choose the overall "Happy Post-Ending", which he would obviously do, although he might suffer certain losses as a result of not following the Script more exactly along the way.

Praise God for His Wisdom, His unchangeable Love, and for His Mercy!

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