====== Predestination ======
The concept of "being saved by Yahweh" is comprehensively explained in Romans chapter 9. This relates directly to a particular Christian concept known as //election// or //predestination//. These are hotly debated among Christians, and there is much disagreement between those who believe in //election//, and those who do not.
//Election// is defined as Yahweh's deterministic selection of which humans will be offered salvation. Many Christians have a very difficult time with this concept, and prefer the doctrine of "free will," so to speak, in which humans have a controlling stake in the state of their salvation.
By rational, logical analysis, election becomes inevitable. Yahweh is eternal. He is omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipresent (all-present), and he's not bound by our seemingly linear spacetime continuum. By these character traits, Yahweh already knows the salvation state of //every single human that has existed, exists today, and will ever exist in the future//. When Yahweh already knows your entire life, your life is no longer your own - it has been written and determined by someone else, and you are merely acting out the script.
Alternatively, many Christians accept this clear paradox, of "free will" and Yahweh's eternal nature somehow peacefully coexisting. Like all paradoxes, this one doesn't hold up to scrutiny, and accepting requires a certain level of cognitive dissonance. As you hold onto self-evidently irrational beliefs and ideals, the path to nihilism becomes wider. When your beliefs are arbitrary and irrational, why should you ignore others' arbitrary and irrational beliefs? With enough time and investigation, you're likely to end up on radical [[philosophy:absolutism|relativism]], which renders everything meaningless, because the meaning of everything is entirely dependent on the individual.
So what does the bible say about all this? As the definitive source of Christian dogma, doctrine, and theology, it's our best source for establishing whether or not Yahweh is a deterministic deity, or a deity who sits back and watches free will play out, unaware of the precise outcome.
Emphasis is added to bits of this excerpt:
Not only that, but Rebekah's children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad - in order that **God's purpose in election** might stand: **not by works** but by him who calls - she was told, "The older will serve the younger." Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses,
"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,\\
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."
**It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God's mercy**...Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and **he hardens whom he wants to harden**.
[[https://biblehub.com/niv/romans/9.htm|Romans 9:10-18 (NIV)]]
A few verses after the above, the author further clarifies the fate of humans - that some will be selected to glorify Yahweh, and others will be selected to suffer his wrath:
What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience **the objects of his wrath** - prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to **the objects of his mercy**, whom he prepared in advance for glory?
[[https://biblehub.com/niv/romans/9.htm|Romans 9:22-23]]
The primary author of the Christian religion, Saul of Tarsus, is explicit in his language and meaning.
All is by the will of Yahweh. We are players in a grand cosmic performance, and the ultimate fate of our eternal souls is not in our hands - and has never been.
If we assume Yahweh's behavior is consistent, the idea of free will against these scriptures is paradoxical and illogical. Perhaps Christians have the //illusion// of free will, but they are ultimately wholly at the mercy of their creator.