Choosing, Or Not Choosing, Our Faith & Fate

THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, much like the Methodist church, is a product of the Scottish reformation. A quick glance at a list of the essential tenets of this sub faith revealed little to me, other than it embraces all the fundamental beliefs of all or most Protestant sects. Salvation by grace, not by good works. (The various denominations often differ on that.) Salvation by prior decision, known as "predestination". No matter what you do, no matter how noble, sublime, or heinous one's behavior is or had even been during one's temporal existance, enttrance into the kingdom of heaven is determined not by the good or bad actions of the individual, but by the will of God, in advance. This one in particular seems a bit murky, questionable. How could the decision whether to achieve eternal salvation in heaven with God the Father not at least be somewhat influenced by one's behavior during one's lifetime? In other Protestant denominations it indeed is. All the rest is standard Protestant Christian stuff. Martin Luther, a stern, sullen, taciturn priest, signed his name to the ninety five complaints he listed and posted on the door of his local Catholic parish, much to his credit, courage, and conviction. Then he went into hiding, expediently, allowing him to live to the ripe old age of fifty three. His primary aim appears to have been the decentralization of the flock, to loosen the ties the ubiquitous Bishop of Rome held tightly over all Christiandom. The hereditary nobility throughout the various Germanic kingdoms had grown weary of having their treasuries drained by the requirement that no less than one tenth of their wealth be offered as tithe to the Pope. As the centuries passed, the Bishop of Rome had lived progressively more opulently and corruptly, almost as lavishly as European princes and Turkish sultans. Unrepentant priests were indulging in the dubious practice of selling "indulgances", one way tickets into heaven, for profit. The forms of ecclesiastical corruption were so many and varied that the pure spirited Luther could tolerate no more. Resistance to established authority is inherent in human nature, especially when enduring perceived exploitation. The extant to which we as individuals actually choose our outcomes in this lifetime is a valid subject for analysis and discussion. The extent to which our behavior while here determines our ultimate disposition of our eternal souls is much less knowable. Since nobody has ever been able to identify anything in a human being which even remotely qualifies as a "soul", any attempt determine its ultimate destiny is dubious at best, impossible at worst. Lacking facts, we choose to live by faith. It has been pointed out that our modern science isatbottomnothing other than a form of faith,faith in our own ability to observe and understan the universe. Anancient scripture says "Man is a creature who lives by faith, and whatsoever is tha faith, also is the man." This concept is worth repeating in more than a single essay or religious tract. Of the more than fifteen hundred Protestant denominations, those which espouse the doctrine of "predestination" do the most harm to the human belief, our abiding belief in our ability to know the universe,and to live more harmoniously within the apparent limitations it prescribes for us. Since nature is itself supremely, surpassingly sublime and seemingly unknowable, why should our conception of its presumed "creator" be any different, any more or less knowable, or sublime? And why shouldn't we, creatures gifted as Einstein said with only weak and transitory understanding , refrain from inventing and reinventing our various wholly inadquate means of comprehending it? Like Goethe said: "When I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent mine."