Problems with Predestination: South African Perspectives

In the following lecture at Helderberg College in October of 2010, prof. Johan Japp, a retired Theologian from that school, pays tribute to a number of SDA scholars, South African (J. J. B. Combrinck, I. J. van Zyl) and others, Canale, Davidson, Heppenstall and others, on the topic of Predestined.

             A TRIBUTE TO DR. I J VAN ZYL

                                          by Johan A. Japp

 Professional and Literary Contributions

Firstly, I would like to thank the theology faculty of Helderberg College for the opportunity and privilege to be part of a programme during which we as ministers and lecturers can pay tribute to dr. I.J.van Zyl, fondly known among his colleagues and even some impudent students as “Oom Sakkie”.  For me it was indeed a privilege to be a close colleague of Dr.Van Zyl for 28 years in the theology department of Helderberg College, from 1975 – 2003, when he retired as director of the E. G. White Research Centre.

My first encounter with “leraar Van Zyl”, as he was then known, was when the late Fritz von Hörsten either whistled or shouted to “Izaaak” all the way from his house in the valley to the Van Zyl’s home at the married student quarters, to come for a swim in the surf at the Strand.  This could be clearly heard from Salisbury House on Campus. By that time he had already spent 3 years in the North Bantu Mission as an evangelist and 7 years at Cancile Mission in the old “Transkei”.  After completing his Theology diploma at the end of 1960, he worked at Solusi College for 10 years, in what is now Zimbabwe, in education and ministerial training.  During that time  he completed his BA and BA Honours through Unisa and took a one year sabbatical to obtain his MA at Andrews University in Michigan, USA (1967). In 1969 he was called to head the history department at Helderberg College, but was soon afterwards incorporated into the theology department, where he served as lecturer and later as head of department for 14 years.  He completed his doctoral studies at the University of Western Cape in 1983, being the very first doctoral candidate to graduate from that institution.

During his time at Helderberg as lecturer and later as the director of the E. G. White Research centre, from 1983 to 2003, he felt the need for Adventist textbooks in the training of ministers, as well as for students from other departments at Helderberg. Whenever he was not teaching, you could find him either at the typewriter or later at the keyboard of his computer, writing and writing some more.  Eventually he self-published, under the name Esdea Books, 25 volumes of which two were translations from other authors.  Apart from his magisterial work on Dort and Protestant Unity, which will be referred to a little later, I have in my personal library, three volumes on Church History  divided up in five sections called “Kanttekeninge by die Geskiedenis” (1990); “The Spirit of Prophecy Comments on Daniel”; (n.d.) “n Sistematiese Teologie” (1986), based on E. G. White statements; “Uitverkies in die Geliefde” (“Elect in the Beloved”, 1999); “E. G. White – die Mens” (1994); “E. G. White – The Message” (n.d.); “Revelation Almanak” (1995) and “Kerk en Kroniek”, Vol.2 (1990).  I hope Anisabel van Zyl, Dr. van Zyl’s daughter, can sell me those volumes I do not have, of course at a regular Adventist discount!  In addition, Dr. Van Zyl also wrote articles in Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, the journal for the Church Historical Society of South Africa, of which he was an active member.  He also belonged to the Adventist Theological Society (USA) and Sedata (The SDA Theological Society, RSA).  For some years he also published a theological journal called Ostraka.

Dr. Izak van Zyl did not, however, only write.  He pastored the Strand SDA Church on a voluntary basis for 8 years, and also started a company in Stellenbosch.  For many years he was the Harvest Ingathering leader at Helderberg College, collecting once a year for a few days, with the help of students, funds for Adventist Community Services.  In his own humble and quiet way, he also did pastoral counselling for many students and church members over the years.  He even built two homesteads himself in his spare time.

Dr. Van Zyl found his greatest joy and satisfaction in teaching and giving seminars on Ellen White, the Apocalypse and the book of Daniel.  He was able to lecture on just about any subject, from biblical languages, Old Testament Studies, New Testament Studies, Church History, right through to Missiology.  I am going to leave a whole pack of emails which we have received from former students and colleagues, like Dr. David Birkenstock, which testifies to the indelible impression he made on each one of them, many of them serving in high positions in the church and in many countries in Africa and overseas.  With his deep love for both Scripture and the writings of Ellen White, he was a true role model for his students and a skilled disseminator of religious and spiritual knowledge, quite often with characteristic dry humour.  As far as us, his colleagues, were concerned, we only had and will always have the greatest respect and admiration for his biblically based steadfastness, his integrity and his genuine love for people.  We laud you for that, “Oom Izak”.

Contribution to the Study of Predestination

In would interest the audience attending this tribute to dr. Van Zyl to know that in two weeks time, on the weekend of October 14-16, there will be a conference on Adventism and Arminianism at Andrews University, with guest speakers from Adventist, Baptist and Wesleyan backgrounds.  This highlights the fact that there is clearly a perceived need among scholars today to become informed about the issue of predestination, that even to this day separates large bodies of believers in Christianity.

In South Africa, with its strong Reformed tradition, the need has long been felt to develop  scholarly alternatives to Calvinistic predestinarianism.  In the early sixties pastor J.J.B. Combrinck wrote a 101 page treatise on predestination, which to my knowledge was unfortunately never published.

In 1967 dr I.J.van Zyl wrote a M.A.thesis for Andrews University with the title of “The Treatment of the Arminian Faction at the Synod of Dort”.  This was followed sixteen years later by his doctoral thesis with the title of “The Synod of Dordrecht (1618-1619) and Protestant Theology”, successfully defending it in 1983 at the University of the Western Cape under his promoter Professor C. Botha.  This was followed by an English translation of an earlier treatise in Afrikaans, “Uitverkies in die Geliefde” (n.d.)  The English version, called “Elect in the Beloved” was published in 1999 by Esdea Books.  This book was basically an adaptation of parts of his doctoral thesis as a church-historical dogmatic survey of the doctrine of divine election.  After a brief resume of his 309 page doctoral thesis, I will attempt to highlight important aspects of “Elect in the Beloved”, since this 112 page booklet can be of great help to church members seeking the truth around the nature and extent of salvation according to Scripture.

The doctoral thesis is a formidable treatise on the history of the doctrine of predestination from about 400 AD, when the traditional doctrine of predestination was introduced for the first time into Christianity by Augustine,  up to the Synod of Dort.  As can be expected from a treatise on church history, the thesis abounds in Latin phrases and Latin quotes, which can be a challenge to lesser mortals not acquainted with Latin.

Chapter 1 traces the beginning of this doctrine from the polemic between the British monk Pelagius and Augustine, and the subsequent controversies around this doctrine, up to the synod of Arausicanum (Orange) in 529, during which the church condemned the teachings of Pelagius.  In chapter 2, beginning with the development of Augustinianism as interpreted by pope Gregory I (the Great, c. 540-604), the teachings of the German monk Gottschalk of Orbais (805-868) is discussed, as well as the controversy unleashed by his extreme doctrine of predestination.  In chapter 3 the Scholastic traditions is discussed, tracing it from the great champion of Augustinianism and Aristotelianism,  namely the Dominican philosopher-theologian Thomas Acquinas (c. 225-1274), through the Middle Ages up to the condemnation of Jansenism, aggressively championing Augustinianism (Cornelius Jansen, 1598-1638).

In chapter 4, the Reformation period is discussed, which describes the positions of Luther, Erasmus, Melanchthon, Calvin, Zwingli and Knox.  The fact is emphasized that Luther’s view was essentially that of Gottschalk and Occam, and decidedly more advanced than that of  Augustine.  The increasing moderate view of Melanchthon is emphasized, especially in the Loci of 1532.  Calvin, however, especially in his Institutio, re-affirms Augustianianism with the harsh doctrine of double predestination.  The Role of Orthodoxy in chapter 5, describes in considerable detail the history of predestination up to the different confessions of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century.

In section C (chapters 6 to 10), the thesis discuss the life and teachings of James Arminius, the composition and working method of the synod of Dordrecht, the synod itself, the making of the canons of Dort under its five heads (the so-called TULIP of Dort).  In the concluding chapter the fact is emphasized that the Great Synod failed in its immediate objective of establishing national unity in the church in Holland, while it only temporarily rooted out the so-called heresy of Arminianism, with the help of the civil authorities.

Before looking at Dr. Van Zyl’s response to the Canons of Dort in his book “Elect in the Beloved”, I would like to suggest a number of lessons that can be learned from the1200 years of controversy that surrounded the development of this doctrine, especially from the way Christians related to the controversy throughout the ages:

1.          Religious controversies often originate in overreactions (e.g. Augustine

to Pelagius, the reformers to the Roman Catholic system of merit).

2.          The fatal consequences of the so-called multiple sources for Christian theology

            as basis for Christian doctrine (Scripture, pagan philosophy, human reason, etc.)

3.          Rationalizing plain Scripture away to fit preconceived ideas (eg.

I Timothy 2:4 as “explained”by predestinarians).

4.          Eisegetically reading meanings into a text penned by inspiration for an

entirely different purpose (eg. Reading predestination into Romans 9, instead of recognizing divine providence in operation in this passage).

5.          Identifying divine realities and actions as being synonyms, when Scripture

clearly differentiates them (eg. Turning foreknowledge into foreordination).

6.          Coersing, through the civil arm of the state, religious convictions (eg.

banishing the remonstrants out of Holland after Dort, in a campaign of religious intolerance).

7.          The tenacity of heresies once it has become ingrained in the very culture of

             a people.

In chapters 11 to 15 of the book “Elect in the Beloved”, dr. Van Zyl takes the TULIP configuration of Dort and briefly answers each of those rules of predestination with Scripture.  Because of time constraints, only very concise references can be made to each one:

1.          Instead of total depravity of the will, making it incapable of free choice, Scripture

 has many examples, after the Fall, of God asking people to exercise freedom of choice.  “To accept the proffered grace of God can most certainly not constitute a contribution to what God offered in the plan of salvation” (55)

2.          Instead of unconditional election, the book of Romans teaches that salvation

comes by faith, not through the unknown and ever unknowable, arbitrary decrees of God from eternity.  Saving faith comes through the Word of God (Rom. 10:17), and grows dynamically through experience (Rom. 4:12).

3.          Instead of limited atonement, the plain meaning of texts like I Tim 2:4,

I Pet 2:1; 2 Pet 3:9, I Jn. 2:4, Jn 3:16 and I Tim 4:9,10, is that Christ died for all people.  Apostasy from the grace of God comes about when the saved person freely turns away from God (Eze. 18:24 ff ; James 1:14, 15; Heb. 12:14, 15).

4.         Instead of the immutable compulsion of irresistable grace, emphasized by Calvinism’s overpowering and unstoppable divine sovereignty, Scripture teaches the sovereignty of God’s love (I Jn. 4:8).  This powerful love graciously and persuasively draws people to him (Hos. 11:4; Jer. 31:4; Jn 6:44, Jn. 12:32).

5.          Instead of inevitable perseverance, preventing one to lose salvation, Scripture

encourages people to trust in the abundant grace of God that is able to keep them from falling (Jude 1:24; cf. also Heb 3:14; Col. 1:23).

After this brief review of dr.Van Zyl’s contribution towards our understanding of the doctrine of predestination, both historically and doctrinally, I think no better tribute can be paid to his work in this field than to show how other Adventist scholars are continuing, and in a sense building on, the research of scholars like dr.Van Zyl in this difficult and divisive subject.  I have chosen to briefly highlight in particular the contribution of Dr. Fernando L. Canale, professor of theology and philosophy at Andrews University’s Theological Seminary.

A Recent Adventist Contribution on Predestination

In his doctrinal dissertation, “A Criticism of Theological Reason.  Time and Timelessness as Primordial Presuppositions (1983), Fernando Luis Canale, has argued, amongst others, for biblical temporality as primordial presupposition of reason and interpretation, as opposed to the classical timeless interpretation of reason adopted in the constitution of Christian theological system (394).

In his book “Back to Revelation-Inspiration”, (2001) in which he searches for the cognitive foundation of Christian theology in a postmodern world, Canale proposes the historical-cognitive model of revelation and inspiration as being most faithful to the sola Scriptura principle, as opposed to the classical and liberal models.  In the historical-cognitive model “the whole of Scripture in all its complexity becomes the cognitive foundation on which Christian theology can  build its understanding of God and His works of creation and redemption” (162).  This model alone has “the power to show that the old cognitive foundations of Christianity, long forgotten by theological traditions, are the only hope we have to overcome theological relativism and imperialism” (ibid.)

In his 2005 publication Basic Elements of Christian Theology.  Scripture Replacing Traditions, Canale argues for the infinite, analogous temporality of the Trinitarian God, as opposed to the timeless and spaceless concept of God in classical Christian tradition.  God’s time should not be understood as identical (i.e. univocal) to our experience of time, or completely different (i.e. equivocal), but rather similar (i.e. analogical).  This “analogical understanding of divine temporality allows God to experience time in its fullness and, at the same time, within the limitations proper to creatures” (71, 120).

At this point someone may wonder where we are going with references to the three publications of Canale mentioned above.  It is precisely because both Roman Catholic and Protestant theology, which includes Calvinistic ánd Arminian variations, believe in the timelessness of God, and consequently interprets God’s foreknowledge, predestination and providence in terms of a timeless order of simultaneity (113).

Any Adventist student who has studied from reformed texts on systematic theology, such as those by L. Berkhof, G. C. Berkouwer, M. Erickson and W. Grudem, to mention a few well known authors, must have wondered why they speak of the logical order of God’s so-called decrees, instead of a temporal order, and why their definition of God’s foreknowledge is tantamount to foreordination, the former literally being swallowed by the latter.  The answer to this query lies in their Platonic and Aristotelian understanding of the being of God and consequently the nature of God’s knowledge.  On this tendency of Protestant theology to identify foreknowledge and predestination, Kwabena Donker of the BRI (“Predestination, Foreknowledge and Human Freedom”, 10/07) states that “such theism forces God’s foreknowledge to take on the nature of an ‘eternal present’ – the past, present, and future are rolled together in an eternal present”(p 1, cf. also, Canale, Basic Elements, p. 109).  Therefore “what God knows is as good as done” (ibid.).  Consequently, “if what God knows is as good as done … then any notion of free will and human responsibility is negated” (ibid.)  In contrast to this, Adventists believe that while God knows the past, present and future of creation perfectly, He does not exist in the past, present and future of creation simultaneously.  Neither is this divine temporality a condescending self-limitation of God for the sake of His created universe, since, according to Scripture, the infinite, analogous temporality of God is the way God has always been from eternity – eternity being endless time, not timelessness.

Canale points out that for Calvin, following in the tradition of Thomas Aquinas and Augustine, “God knows the future because He decides (predestines) what will happen” (113, 138).  Therefore “since His decision is timeless and immutable, history duplicates, in the order of temporal succession, the contents of God’s eternal decrees that exist in the timeless order of simultaneity: (113, cf. also 112, 114, 129, 137, 142 and 149).  Arminius reverses Calvin’s order by saying that “God does not foreknow what He predestines but predestines what He foreknows” (115).  In speaking about predictive prophecy, Arminius explains that “a thing does not come to pass because it has been foreknown or foretold, but it is foreknown and foretold because it is yet to come to pass” (ibid.)  This implies that in God’s mind, foreknowledge is (logically) posterior in nature and order to the thing that is future (ibid.)

While Arminius clearly means that the will of God is not the cause of foreknowledge (as is the case for Calvin), since created reality causes God’s knowledge, Arminius runs into a serious philosophical problem that in a sense contradicts what could be regarded as a brave biblical solution to the problem of determinism.  Because of his timeless view of the being of God (following in the tradition of Aquinas, Augustine and Aristotle), he states that “God does not obtain His information about creation from objects external to Himself”, but rather “God knows all things only by knowing Himself”, in a “simple act that is not successive but eternal” (ibid.)  And since everything in creation came to existence “through his Will, and by means of His Power”, in the end it is God’s will that eternally chose what we experience as the history of our lives (116).  The Aristotelian view of God (held by Arminius) as a basic template from which to understand God’s way of knowing, becomes the Achilles heel in his understanding of causal predestination.  “Nothing temporal can condition a timeless immutable God”, Canale concludes concerning the type of foreknowledge espoused by Jakobus Arminuis.  Who knows, if it was not for the untimely death of this great champion of the freedom of the will, he would have possibly discovered this fatal inconsistency and have by the insight from the Holy Spirit corrected that aspect of his theology on predestination.

Adventists reject both the causal nature of Calvinistic foreknowledge and predestination and the post-modern concept of “christianized”, bipolar Process Theology, that limits God’s foreknowledge radically, when it comes to the free decisions of moral beings in God’s universe.  However, Adventists agree with the so-called Open-view school, in the sense that according to Scripture the human spirit possesses bona fide freedom and consequently affirms that history is also real because it is open to human freedom.

While Adventists affirm the sola Scriptura principle “that God perfectly and exhaustively knows future free decisions” (130), we will never know how He does it (124), since that belongs to the mystery of divine transcendence.  According to Canale (126, 128, 130, 143, 155) the foreknowledge God generates is:

             1.          Creative, because it brings about new thoughts in the mind of God;

             2.          Theoretical, because it exists in the mind of God;

             3.          Anticipatory, because it exists before the existence of its object;

             4.          Highly complex, because it anticipates the complexity of human

                          history;

             5.          Open, because God does not cause the free actions He perfectly

                          anticipates;

6.            Sequential, because the trio of historically divine Persons are infinitely

and analogously temporal (120; 126).

Concluding his discussion on divine foreknowledge, Canale suggests that “when God designed the macro and micro levels of our universe, He was so to speak, able to fast-forward  it to see what every creature will freely do in response to God’s providential engagement with them” (131; cf. also 130).  In contrast to this biblical view, is the chilling and harsh Calvinistic view that teaches that divine and human histories are  to the finest details predetermined and closed (114). In the end analysis, Canale states that according to Calvinism “our human freedom is a delusion, our lives and histories pure fiction prewritten in the mind of a puppeteer God” (114; cf. also 112, 113, 114, 129).

Coming to the chapter on predestination proper in Canale’s Basic Elements, the Adventist understanding of predestination is “God’s Theoretical blueprint for the salvation of the human race which He planned from the perspective of His design of creation and his foreknowledge of angelic and human free decisions before the creation of the universe” (136)  According to this definition, one “should not identify predestination with God’s foreknowledge, providence, or selection of individuals for salvation or damnation” (ibid.).  Predestination is God’s “plan-promise” and providence God’s “execution-fulfillment” in human history of God’s “plan-promise” (122), while foreknowledge is God’s ability to “know all beginnings and all ends before He creates, provides, acts, promises or answers prayer” (128).

In their effort to combat the Roman Catholic doctrine of merit, both Calvin and Luther fatefully linked their deterministic, causal view of predestination with the gospel, justification and Christian assurance, a view superimposed on biblical passages such as Romans 9 and 10 (137, 138).  Consequently, especially for Calvin, his double predestination became a basic element in his theological thinking (139).  Rejecting double predestination is consequently tantamount to rejecting justification by faith.  It is therefore no wonder that inspite of the so-called decretum horribile of predestination, admitted by Calvin himself (Calvin, Institutio III, 23:7), predestinarians find it difficult to accept the “glad tidings” of the universal availability of salvation clearly taught in Scripture.  Instead they decorate their religious space with the dark TULIP from the seventeenth century Dutch town of Dordrecht: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace and perseverance, meaning once saved, forever saved.

While Karl Barth unfortunately also assumes, like Aquinas and Boethius, that God’s reality, foreknowledge and will are timeless and immutable (141), he rejected Calvin’s double predestination (ibid.).  According to him “the content of eternal predestination is Jesus Christ as universal Saviour.  The eternal will of God is the election of Jesus Christ, not the election of some and the rejection of others” (141, 142; cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol 2, part 2, pp. 145-149, 161, 163).  Adventist theology can therefore build on both the view of Arminius that according to Scripture divine predestination is not a theory about divine causation but His plan of salvation, and on the recognition by Barth that predestination centres around God’s decision to operate salvation through Christ (142, 143).

Before briefly listing the basic characteristics of biblical predestination according to Canale, it is important to emphasize the sovereign, all-powerful and even, from a human point of view, arbitrary election of God in the choice of individuals or a nation or an institution in the historic execution of His plan of salvation.  But then we are dealing with divine providence, while being a part of the various contents of divine predestination, it is essentially a necessary process for the historical implementation of predestination (that is, God’s plan of salvation) that remains open to divine and human initiative and interaction, as to its actual contents (157).  This is clearly what the apostle Paul was talking about in Romans 9-11.  Consequently “these chapters do not deal with divine predestination because Paul does  not use them to express the characteristics or contents of divine decisions taken before the creation of the world” (147).

The basic characteristics or contours of biblical predestination, according to Canale is briefly as follows:

1.          The eternal origin of predestination, because it (as God’s will to save)

            happened prior to and independent from creation.  God’s plan to create free,

historical, spiritual beings in the image of God is the condition that moved God to predestine sinners to salvation through the plan of salvation (148).

(I Cor. 2:6,7; Is 46:9-11; I Cor 1:24, 30).

2.          The theoretical nature of predestination, because its contents, as the

theoretical blueprint for future divine, redemptive action in history, only

became a reality áfter created human time was underway (150).  Up to

 that point it remained God’s divine plan (próthesin) (Eph 1:11; NIV)

As far as the actual content of predestination is concerned, Canale mentions five points:

1.            The relational design of humans, since our lives would exist in relation

to Christ (151).  According to Ephesians 1:4 the Father chose us in

Christ to be holy and blameless in his sight in love.  Being created into God’s image would capacitate believers to relate to God personally and historically (ibid.)

2.            The Christological mediation of Christ’s wisdom, since God’s blueprint

 for salvation centred on Christ’s incarnation and death ( I Pet. 1:18-20).  As the wisdom of God (I Cor. 1:30), Christ became the author of salvation, even at the real risk of failure and defeat (154).

3.            The soteriological means of predestination included are outline in

Eph. 1:5-8, such as adoption of sinners into God’s family, divine grace, redemption through Christ’s blood (death), the forgiveness of sins and the administration of wisdom and understanding.

4.            The anthropological goal, since Romans 8:29 clearly indicates that the

unconditional aim of predestination is the restoration of the image of Christ in man, thus reinstating Christ’s mediation between God and man.  This presupposes the free and historical acceptance of Christ’s redemption (156).

5.            The historical goal of predestination is described by Eph. 1:9-10, in

 terms of which God through the integrative role of divine providence, as a historical process throughout the ages of human history, brings about the restoration of God’s original design of creation, namely “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ (v. 10, NIV; cf. p. 157, 161).

The choice or election of individuals in God’s providential implementation of the contents of predestination outlined above, is described by Eph. 1:11-12 and 2 Thes. 2:13 (158).  These two verses emphasize two cardinal points, namely:

             1.          God “chose” the elect through the historical process of providence (not

predestination) “in Christ”, who is the only one chosen to be the mediator of divine wisdom in creation and the blueprint of salvation.

2.            God chose believers to be saved through the sanctifying work of the

Spirit, as well as through faith in the truth (“as it is in Jesus”, Eph. 4:21), so that they could be to the praise of God’s glory.

Matthew 22:14 clearly indicates that the “chosen” entering the wedding banquet of the king, are those who freely respond to the call and gratefully accept the invitation to salvation (159, 161).  Instead of the irresistible decrees of Calvinism, God draws and “lures” sinners back to Him through his gentle kindness (Rom 2:5; Jer. 31:3).

The one thing that appears like a recurring refrain in Canales treatment of not only foreknowledge, predestination and providence but by implication also the Trinity and creation, is the fact that according to Proverbs 8:22-31, Christ, the wisdom of God, is appointed from  before the creation of the world as the constitutive mediatorial centre of God’s creative design (145).  Quoting the Old Testament scholar Richard Davidson from the Seminary at Andrews University, Canale concurs “that at the beginning of God’s ways (Prov. 8:22, KJV), before the creation of the universe, when God chose (predestined) the design of creation, the Father appointed God the Son as mediator between the Trinity’s infinite, analogous, temporal, historical, transcendent reality, and the immanent, finite, temporal, historical reality of creation” (145).

In the section on Creation in Scripture (chapter 10), Canale states that “in the garden of Eden Adam and Eve saw God only in the person of Jesus Christ because created creatures cannot see God as He sees himself.  God’s design of creation revolves around Christ’s mediation of God’s transcendent reality in space and time.  Creatures cannot know God as He is in himself” (222).  And in the section on the Reality of the Trinity (chapter 6), Canale makes a similar statement, when he says that “although we relate to God the Father through the Son and the Holy Spirit, this knowledge and experience will never allow us to have an image of the actual shape of God’s entity.  Only God can know God as He is in Himself.  Only the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit can know God as God is in Himself (99, 101; cf. also 155, 157).

Why are we looking at the primordial mediatorial role of Christ in our brief discussion on predestination?  Canale gives the answer to this question in the section on the Christological design of creation.  He once again states that “Christ’s mediatorial role stands on God’s decision (predestination) that Christ should be the centre of the universe by His continuous historical presence and impartation of divine wisdom among historical-spiritual realities” (146).  Then he comes to the profound conclusion, already proposed in a similar way more than three decades ago by Edward Heppenstall in a lecture that I attended, that “we should understand Christ’s salvific mediatorial work from God’s original decision about Christ as the historical centre of the universe” (ibid.).  Thus understood, Canale continues, “the goal of Christ’s salvific mediatorial work is to reinstate Christ’s original mediation of divine wisdom as centre of the universe” (ibid.)

The ultimate goal of predestination, according to the above statements, are therefore far more than the salvation of individual believers.  Its primordial focus is on Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God standing between God the Father and all of creation (Rev. 5:6-10).  “For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together (Col 1:16, 17, my emphasis).

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I would personally at this moment thank each one of you for patiently listening to this presentation and this stage would like to ask the chairman of this meeting to take any questions that you might have.  Of course, dr.Van Zyl and my esteemed colleagues teaching in our faculty will give the answers, since I have retired from serious academics and am now involved in pastoral ministry on the “Slow” Coast of Natal, where the most profound question most people ask is: When do you think it is going to rain again?

October 3, 2010

Helderberg College, SOMERSET WEST, RSA.