The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner

I have to confess to really enjoying this book. The main character believes that he has been predestined by God to go to heaven ("those he chose, he also pre-ordained, those he pre-ordained, he also justified", or words to that effect ...), and therefore he believes that he can do anything at all now, here on earth. Including murder. And still get into heaven ...

If anything could be written against the belief in predestination, then this is surely it! I found this a challenging book at university, since I think/thought that I believed in predestination ... the theory that God knows all that will happen, but moreover has chosen his "chosen people". Now that I'm older, and have thought more about this issue (and, indeed, have recently been teaching about this doctrine and that of hard and soft determinism and libertarianism), I would say that my beliefs have changed somewhat, at least in how I express them (to myself, as well as others). I think I am probably a soft determinist; I do believe that God knows all that will ever happen, in the same way that any being outside time looking in at time would know what happens, but I also believe that we have free will and are morally responsible for the choices we make. I do believe that I will go to heaven, for a variety of reasons (none of which are that I think I'm "good" enough to go to heaven), but I don't believe that anyone can make that judgement on anyone else. Only God has that judgement to make - although I do believe that the criteria for entry are fairly clear. However, God is God and there are many situations which are unclear, so we should leave them to God to make.

Emmm ... I think that may sound very wishy-washy! Never mind. I suppose what I'm demonstrating is that this is an intellectually fulfilling book, which raises more issues than it answers. (What a cliche!) I'm recommending it to my Ethics students. I'm recommending it to you!