Choice: Although being a simple six letter word, this word has the ability to stir up plenty of controversy. Many may argue that the choices that we make in life are our own. Others may argue that we, as humans, are incapable of making choices for ourselves and therefore have some divine hand or supernatural being guiding our decisions.
This week in class, we discussed how Oedipus's decisions affected his fulfilling of the prophecy. The way I saw it, was that Oedipus had no real choice. The prophecy was that he would kill his father and marry his mother and by 'choosing' to advert the prophecy, he was one step closer to fulfilling what he strove to avoid. From birth, Oedipus's world was being governed by the ancient gods above to establish justice.
From Paul Roche's Forward on "The Great Encounter" in relation to Sophocles's Oedipus, he expresses that "[t]hough we may be innocent, we are all potentially guilty, because of the germ of self-sufficiency and arrogance in our nature." Also, according to the Romans 3:10-12, "[n]one is righteous, no, not one; no one understand; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." From both these passages, we see that human nature is depraved and deprived. Roche concludes his paragraph saying that "both choice and destiny are ours." However, the Bible disagrees. As mentioned before, "no one does good..." meaning because of our sinful nature, we have the tendency to do wrong because it feels good. When one chooses to do the right thing, we may not notice why at first, but we "chose" the right thing because of consequence or benefit. We make our choices based on how we would benefit from these choices. Romans 8:28-30 continues to say, "And we know that for those who love God and all things work together for good; for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many borthers. and thos whom He predestined, He also called, and those whom He called He also Justified, and those whome He justified He also glorified."
To sum this all up, whatever we do, say, or think, its already been planned. Although what we do may be the most henious thing on earth, but believe it or not, God planned it out just the be the way it was. (Romans 9:18, "So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.") The henious act glorifies God and magnifies Him showing that we as humans are evil at our core and in order for us to be redeemed from this crime, which is punishable through death, God sent Jesus as a proptiation for our sins.
As for chosing whether one wants to be a Christian or not, I believe it is by God intervening in our lives and the grace that he gives us, allows us to follow Him. Being wretched and sinful as I am, there is no way in my human nature that I would have the ability to chose Him; He called me to Himself and through this he was glorified.
As for terms of justice, I would argue that God's way of establishing justice on earth is through people who want to live in denial; knowing the truth, but chosing to ignore it because the alternative sounds better. Allowing those who want to be deceived to have the selfish desires of their hearts. Being a Christian does not mean that one's life is going to be prosperous or easy. Becoming a Christian does not guarantee one a huge house, riches, a nice car, or his or her best life now.
Being a Christian means that one is willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of giving back to God and glorifying him in all that one does. Again, without God's grace and intervention, we would not have the ability to do this.
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