While I will agree that Atheists hold true to the idea of everything happening by chance and that God did not plan for certain things to happen, not all Christians will agree that God planned for something such as the twin towers falling. I will also agree that these Christians are a bit lost in their view of God. However, can we discredit someones faith or their relationship with God because they are a little bit lost? I for one would say that before I understood more fully the extent of God and His power, I would argue Him allowing 9-11 or planning 9-11.. This man/pastor may be full heartedly Christian and has not walked far enough in faith to understand that God is timeless. I still have a hard time understanding that God existed in the past, He exists now in the current, AND He exists 5min, 5years, 50years, 500years into the future ALL AT THE SAME TIME.. It is because of this that I still have difficulty with predestination myself. However I can not find a better argument and therefore I hold it to be true.. I would argue FOR predestination before I would argue against it, however if I were to find a better explanation to the "elect" and "predestination" then I would hold it and defend it until something better comes along. I am not saying that I am "waiting" for something to come along or expecting something else.. Just saying that I am not closed off to that possibility.

I have learned much in my few weeks at school so far and look forward to learning even more.. And there are a few things that really affect the way that I approach certain issues like predestination or "the elect". These things include the fact that the Bible was written FOR me, NOT TO me. I was not a part of ANY of the original audiences and therefore cannot place myself in any group directly named in the Bible OTHER THAN a Christian who believes that Jesus Christ is who He said He was. Another thing is that to properly understand what the Bible says I have to know EXACTLY what the text is.. No inferences by myself, no immediate interpretation. I have to understand the politics, the circumstances of the audience, who the audience is, and many other things. Not only do I have to know the above noted, but also how the ORIGINAL AUDIENCE would have understood what is written. There are many things I have not listed here that also play a role in interpreting and understanding the Bible but I have only gotten as far as what I have listed.. And these topics of predestination and election are things I have not looked into for myself yet and that is why I am still open to the idea of election and predestination as being wrong. Who knows, maybe the authors who speak of election and predestination never meant for those things to be taken as they are today.. Again I will defend them before battling them, but I still need to search out for myself. (I tell you all of this in defense of the above mention pastor. Maybe he is fighting it so much because he has not taken the time to REALLY understand what is going on in the text and is actually unwilling to search it out for fear of being wrong.)