Predestination vs Fatalism

Predestination vs Fatalism

Welcome to Midnight Cry, a program that is committed to speaking the truth in love. I'm your host, Rahmul Ghusain, and today we have with us Dr. James White, who will be discussing with us the differences between predestination and fatalism.

First of all, welcome to the show, James.

Good to be with you. We have a tall order today.

Defining Fatalism as an Impersonal, Purpose-Less Determinism

Yeah, we certainly do. Perhaps if we can start off with fatalism. What is fatalism? How do we define it?

Well, in a simple theological and philosophical definition, fatalism is the idea that the future has been determined without any question of exactly how it's going to come out, and yet it is done impersonally.

That is, it's similar to the idea of the tossing of the dice being fatalistically determined. And so there's nothing you can do to change the future, but the form of that future is impersonally determined.

You could speak of the cruelty of fatalism in the sense of what will be, will be.

Que sera, sera.

What will be, will be.

It's your fate.

It's your fate, and it really has not been determined for a purpose or for any personal application. It's just simply, it's a cruel world out there, and that's the way things are. The contrast that needs to be made is to a personal concept that might be very strong in its affirmation that the future is not only perfectly known to God, but in fact does flow forth from His decree, and yet there is a personal aspect, that is, that God interacts with His creation, that He Himself is involved with His own decree, and that there is a purpose for everything that is, that overrides all else.

I think it would be good to add to the concept of fatalism that there is no purpose. There can be no ultimate end to these things. There is no purpose that's being accomplished, especially a personal purpose such as the glorification of God or the accomplishment of His purposes.

It's all impersonal. It's just the way that it is. Over against the concept of predestination or God's decree, where He's accomplishing His own purpose, and He's doing so for His intention and His glory.

Islamic Fatalism and the Hadith of the Womb

Is there any references to the Islamic concept of fatalism that we can look at?

How many hours do we have for the program today? One can find, I was just recently thumbing through page after page after page of Hadith citations that illustrate a very strong belief in, well, al-Qaeda, the concept of God's power, which becomes expressed in His predestining of everything, including not only the day of one's birth, but the life that one will live, the day of one's death, whether one will go to heaven or hell.

These are all laid out for us. In fact, Abdullah ibn Mas 'ud, who was one of the companions of the Prophet, narrated a particular Hadith, and this is how it reads. The Messenger of Allah narrated to us, and he is the truthful and entrusted one.

Indeed, the creation of one of you is gathered inside his mother in forty days. Then for a similar period, he is a clot. Then for a similar period, he is a piece of flesh. Let me just stop right there and just mention to my Islamic friends who like to say the Quran is filled with amazing scientific facts and evidences.

That's not the Quran, but that gives you a good idea of what Muhammad thought, and that's not really how it works. So if you're going to point to certain things in the Quran and say, ah, scientific evidence, this is inspired of God, if you look at the interpretation of the author, you might want to go, is that really what we've discovered scientifically?

Not quite. Going on, then Allah sends the angel to him to blow the soul into him. This is well into the development period, and he is ordered to write four things. The angel is ordered to write four things at this point during the development of the child, in the womb, to write his provision, his lifespan, his works, and whether he will be wretched or happy.

By the one besides whom there is none worthy of worship, one of you will do deeds of the people of the paradise until there is between him and it but a four-armed span. Then he is overcome by what is written for him, and he is sealed off the deeds of the people of the fire so that he enters it.

So that is the end of this sahih hadith, this sound hadith.

So what's happening to you? Can you please explain that?

Well, let's notice what's said. First of all, the person's life, his provision, his lifespan, his works, whether he will be wretched or happy, all written for him before his eyes. That sounds like absolute predestination, and in fact, in light of the fact that there is no intimate connection to the glorification of the law and the accomplishment of the law's purposes, this is why it would be considered a form of fatalism.

But not only that, what's the result of this? The result of this is you have two descriptions. One of you will do the deeds of the people of paradise. What does that mean? What are the deeds of the people of paradise?

Well, the only way I can understand that is you live a righteous life, live a life that is appropriate to those who will end up in paradise, until there is between him and it, that is paradise, but a forearm span.

He's just about to enter into paradise. Then he is overcome by what is written for him. That is, that angel came and wrote his provision, wrote his lifespan, his works, whether he be happy or wretched.

What is written for him in Allah's decree overcomes him, and it says he is sealed off with the deeds of the people of the fire so that he enters it. Now, I would imagine some people might interpret that to mean that he begins to do those deeds and therefore ends up in hell, and the same thing for the other person who lives an evil life, and then at some point there is a change, so he does the deeds of the people of paradise and ends up in heaven.

But the point is that you can be this close, and your character marked in such a way that you look like you are one of those people, and yet what is written for you will come upon you and will overcome you.

Even if that is not your desire, it does not matter. Even if you enjoy doing the works of the people of paradise, evidently even your desires will.

Be changed.

Inshallah, Allahualam, and the Surrender to Fate

This is one of the fundamental differences between that and what I, as a Christian, believe about God's sovereignty in the matter of salvation and in predestination and election.

So, is this a common phrase that Muslim people use for any and every day things that happen? It could be something good. It could be something bad. It could be something that is questionable. We simply do not know.

Inshallah. Inshallah.

What does that mean?

Well, you know, if God wills, God wills. Not only do they say, you know, Allahualam, God knows, when they are not really certain of something and they do not want to speculate, but Inshallah. And it really can become, I have had friends who have lived in Middle Eastern countries that have said it really becomes a surrender to the concept of fatalism.

However, James, but can God will something that is bad? The biblical concept is God's will is good, perfect, and acceptable. So, it is always good. It is acceptable in His sight. Whether we recognize that or not, one day we will, you know.

So, there is nothing that is bad, negative, or evil. Can God will something that is bad in Islam?

Well, let me try to put that into a context. I believe that God's will includes everything that happens in time. So, for example, when Joseph is sold into slavery in Egypt, what his brothers did was evil.

It was sinful. They deceived their father. As it was, God restrained them from killing him. But it was God's intention that that horrible thing happened to Joseph and he go to Egypt because that is how he saved many people alive.

And that is how he brought the people of Israel down into Egypt. And then, of course, the Passover and everything else becomes so important in God's plan after that. So, the important thing is, from God's perspective, whatever He decrees is acceptable to Him and is good.

He always has good intentions. In what happened with Joseph's brothers, God had good intentions in that. The problem, again, is when we get down to what the real difference between the Islamic perspective and, as I understand the Christian perspective to be, is the personal nature and goal of God's overarching control.

I don't think there is any question that God very firmly says, I am the beginning and the end, the first and the last. And, in fact, Ephesians chapter 1 lays out for us, How do we understand that? Well, we understand that God has acted in such a way that even He, in His decree, becomes personally involved with His people.

He is not just sitting back from a distance and just saying, well, this is the way things are going to look and then He can go on and do something else. Instead, everything is wrapped up in Jesus Christ and in the Incarnation and in the redemption of a particular people all to the glory of the triune God.

It is personal. It is intimate. He is not disconnected from all of this. And it makes for a completely different understanding of why God is doing what He is doing because it gives you a why. There is a why.

It is not just a, well, inshallah, it is the way it is. That is not the Christian concept of predestination and election.

Predestination, Election, and Adoption in Ephesians 1

So, what does predestination now mean? So, what we are looking at is contrast and similarities, but more so contrast between the two categories.

One of the biggest contrasts seen in that Hadith, in the sense that you have people who are doing the deeds of paradise and they are overcome by what is written for them, there is a disconnection between the moral character of the individual and the decree of God.

That is backwards. In the Christian concept, when God saves a person, He changes that person and begins to conform them to the image of Jesus Christ. And so, the reason we do what we do, even fulfilling God's decree in that matter, is because we are being conformed to the image of Christ and God is glorified when His people behave like Christ, love Christ, reflect His love to the world, reflect the love He has given them back to Himself and to one another in the community of faith.

The idea of God changing someone's essential character who enjoyed doing good to where they would enjoy doing evil just does not make any sense. In fact, from the Christian perspective, outside of God's grace, we would all enjoy doing evil all the time because we would be focused upon ourselves.

It's when God breaks those chains of slavery, gives us a new heart, that we love to do what is right. So, another contrast is the idea that there would be people who love doing right who are not people of paradise themselves.

The reason I love doing what is right is because my nature has been changed. Islam, again, comes at it from the completely opposite direction.

That's right. When we look at, you mentioned Ephesians 1 and even Romans 8, 28 and 29, for all things work together for the good to them that love God. So, those that do love God, those whom God has chosen, God's purpose for them is not necessarily where they're going, but it's, I think as you explained it, it's who they're going to be made to look like in terms of their characteristic.

Now, God is concerned about where they're going, but more so, what we're talking about here, is not changing their course of destiny so much as changing who they are. Is that right?

It's all tied up together. I mean, to unite a people to Christ means that they're going to be in His presence for eternity.

Ultimately, yes.

But, in that process, He is doing so to glorify Himself by changing them in this life. God does not save anyone and then just leave them in their sin. He wants to save them and change them and conform them in the image of Christ.

So, is predestination and changing and conforming someone to go in a different destiny?

Not a different destiny.

So, that's fatalism, is it?

Let's let Paul explain it, because it's one of the few places that the term appears. In Ephesians chapter 1, if we could look at that, God the Father is blessed because He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

Notice it's in Christ. Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. So, you notice that the object of the choosing is us. It is personal.

It doesn't say He just chose a nameless, faceless group. He chose us in Christ when, before the foundation of the world, this is a timeless choice. But it includes the result, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.

So, He is fulfilling a very important purpose to Him in the salvation of a people. In love, He predestined us to the adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself. So, there's predestination. And what does it involve?

There's almost nothing. There's almost no term that is used in the New Testament that is more personal and beautiful than this term of adoption. Predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself.

There's that personal, intimate union. So, God's predestined decree even includes that personal element of us being united with Christ and therefore having that intimate relationship with God. No fatalism.

No impersonal nature to these things. No tossing of the dice. Instead, there is the fulfillment of God's intention. And what's the basis of this? According to the kind intention of His will to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved One who is in Jesus Christ.

So, when people ask, well, why do things happen the way they do? Why is it that two people can have very similar backgrounds and yet one remains hardened in his sin and one bows the knee to Jesus Christ?

Well, as I've said before, it's a five-letter word called grace. And God is under no obligation to take any rebel sinner and show that rebel sinner mercy. He could be perfectly just to punish every person and He would be just to do so.

But He has chosen in His freedom to be merciful, to, as He said to Abraham, a numberless crowd as the sand is of the sea. And He has done so to the praise of His glorious grace. Whatever does not result in the praise of God's glorious grace is something that is opposed to the ultimate purposes in Christianity.

And we read that to the good pleasure of His will.

The good pleasure of His will.

Certainty, Assurance, and the Christian Hope Versus Fatalistic Uncertainty

And it's such a wonderful thing. It's quite interesting when you think about it. I mean, I could be a really good Muslim. I could really try hard and be righteous and, you know, do all the good things, go to Mecca, do the Hajj.

I can, you know, do my tithes. I can pray. I can do all the wonderful and the good things. But whatever has been written over me ultimately will dictate to where I go. And that's such a concern because really what we're talking about here is the character of God, first of all, and second of all, the assurity.

I don't have any certainty or any assurance of my destiny. So then, what am I left with? What am I left with?

Well, you're left with a quandary. At this point, what I might normally do in a situation would be to pull up a silent video I have of a Jeep Cherokee on fire at the Glasgow airport in 2007. Now, why would I do that?

Because it was a terrorist attack on the Glasgow airport and two men drove the car into the doorway and hit a button and it exploded. Now, thankfully, it did not work the way they expected it to. They expected to send a huge fireball into the airport that would have consumed many, many people.

Instead, the only people who eventually died from it were the two people in the vehicle. They died of their burns. When I play that, I do that because I've been to Glasgow many times, I've ministered there, and it really sticks in your mind when you see a door you have walked through yourself and an attack at that place, just as I had been in the Twin Towers in New York just a year before they were attacked.

But the main reason I play it is I go, Now, these two men, who do you think they were? Down-and-outers, people just looking to make a name for themselves, had nothing better to do? No. The two men in that vehicle were medical doctors.

Wow.

They were trained medical doctors, and yet they drove a jeep into that place and tried to kill as many people as they could along with them. Why?

It wasn't a foolish thing for them.

For them, it was because the only way you can really know you're going to enter into paradise is if you die in jihad. And their willingness to give themselves in that way, the fact that you can have a religious system that results in someone thinking that that is the way to demonstrate your dedication to God, rather than, as that hadith described it, someone who does the deeds of paradise and is a forearm's breadth away, and yet is overcome.

You see, you can't look at your desires, you can't look at your works, you can't look at the fact that I love God and I love to do what is right in His sight. So what? That doesn't really mean anything.

Now, for the Christian, I don't look to my works as the foundation of my salvation, but there is a consistency. I mean, I honestly don't believe that a person who has not been born again is going to have true desires to do what is godly in God's sight, to be self-sacrificing in one's love for others and to love those attributes of God that the ungodly man detests.

And so, we are told, for example, in 1 John 5, these things were written to you that you might know that you have eternal life. What are these things? These things, whereas everything else in the book, love of brethren, love of God, you can look at these things and go, I see evidence that the Holy Spirit is at work in my life conforming me to the image of Jesus Christ.

And I can grow in my faith and my assurance because of that. The Muslim cannot look at any of those things and say, well, this is evidence of Allah, that Allah is giving to me, that I am one of the people of paradise, because it might not mean anything.

You might get a forearm spread the way and all of a sudden you don't like any of that stuff anymore, I'm going to go a different direction.

Yes, and I mean, I was asking the question, even simply from an outsider, if you wanted to choose a religion, I mean, we know that stepping out into eternity should never be a gamble. I mean, you can't step out into eternity and then basically put it into reverse gear and say, sorry God, I made a mistake, give me a second shot, I will change.

You can't do that. You really need to step out into eternity knowing, having certainty, or else you will end up in that wrong place, a hellfire. And so as a mere observer, logically, if you could look at both religions, you would be able to see quite clearly that there is so much certainty with Christianity, so much certainty with predestination as opposed to fatalism.

So you would be able to reckon within yourself, understand or count as factual those things which are important to you as an individual. Why would you work so hard, or else why would you want to be a righteous person and try and do those things and not live a sinful life unless you knew?

Or else at the end of time, your time, it's all a waste. No one wants to be ripped off. No one wants to be gypped on anything in life. And so I really appreciate you explaining these things to us. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much for having me. It's a challenging subject to address.

It's tough, difficult. Please stay in tune for the very next episode. We'll be able to discuss with you, can God become a man? This is such an important question. I think it's something that really disturbs a lot of people.

Will God identify with his creation? Isn't it such a terrible thing that God would himself step into a sinful world? I think these are some of the things that Muslims do tend to ask. So we'll be able to answer some of these questions for you on the very next episode of Midnight Cry.

May God bless you. Thank you.