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More controversy

Here’s an interesting question, submitted by someone in response to my post about the Judas controversy.

“So if Judas was in on the plot, do we suppose the Anti-christ will know that he or she is only an actor, following the script that the playwright wrote?”

Hmmmm . . . Let’s follow the logic.

If Judas had to betray Jesus because that was his job–someone had to do it, and Jesus chose him–then doesn’t someone eventually have to play the role of anti-christ, whether they want to or not? If you believe Revelations, then maybe that’s the conclusion.

But these kinds of questions always bring us back to free will: just because someone has to do something, that doesn’t mean it has to be you.

I don’t know–these are the kinds of twisty arguments that make my brain overheat. I’m willing to pose the question to my panel of fourth-graders in Sunday school, but I’d also like to throw that out to you: how much of what we see in the Bible–and in life, for that matter–is pre-destined, and how much of it lies with our own individual choices?

A light matter. If you’re going to answer, also take the time to stop by the registration for the monthly chocolate drawing. We like to feed our philosophers here.

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Posted on Monday, April 17th, 2006 at 7:26 pm under Religion . Subscribe to responses: RSS 2.0 Comment Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “More controversy”

  1. Barry Says:
    April 17th, 2006 at 10:56 pm

    Hmm. Interesting question. One could make an argument that beings such as a theoretical anti-Christ are outside the purview of such things as free will, but then that sort of makes their evil less…evil, doesn’t it?

    This is sort of one of the disturbing contradictions in Christian theology: God is supposed to be in charge of everything, which means that He’s in charge of Satan and the anti-Christ, too. But in that case why even have these guys around? How evil are they if they’re just doing what they were created/commanded to do?

    And then, of course, you get into the whole “do not question the mind of God” and “if there was no evil, you wouldn’t know what good was,” neither of which were ever very compelling arguments to me.