On a semi-related topic, I've often wondered why people who believe in absolute free will pray for the salvation of others. If the decision is entirely in their hands, what is prayer going to do?
I appreciate the answer, it's something that's confused me for a long time. Is that a tenant of Calvinism, or your own personal motivation? Since you helped answer my question, I'll try to answer yours. Why do I, believing in free choice to accept of reject Christ, pray for the salvation of others?
Similarly, as a person who believes that we have free will to accept or reject Christ, I believe that God doesn't
need us to do His work, but for some reason, He commands us to be/gives us the privilege of being His hands and feet in this world. But I believe that whether or not we choose to obey that command has a real effect on the outcome. For example, I live in a fairly low socio-economic area, and my church does a lot of work trying to meet the needs of the community on a pretty raw level; providing food, shelter, legal and advocate services, that sort of thing. God cares about the suffering in the community, and He certainly doesn't
need us to address the needs here, but unless someone actually obeys his command to feed the poor, care for the widows and orphans, etc, it may not get done. He doesn't just want that work
to be done, He seems to want
us to
do it. In other words, in a specific scenario, is it God's will that x's family have food for tonight? Well, I guess I can't speak for God, but it seems to be His will that His people freely choose to do His work by bringing food to x's house tonight, and if His people disobey, x's family may not eat tonight.
Similarly, I believe that whether or not I evangelise, or pray, has a real effect on an outcome, in the same way that other ways my church serves God have a real effect on an outcome.
In the examples you referred to,
God certainly didn't
need Ezekiel's prayer , but
would God have raised the dry bones if Ezekiel had chosen to disobey God, and refused to pray? I submit that He would not have, although I concede that there is no way of actually knowing. It seems, though, that God's clear goal was to raise the dry bones, but was waiting for Ezekiel's prayer before He actually took action.
Similarly, God certainly didn't
need Abraham's prayer to save Lot, but
would He have saved Lot without Abraham's prayer? Perhaps not. Again, there's no way of knowing, but that "God remembered Abraham" seems significant.
So, I pray for people to be saved for the same reason Ezekiel prayed for the dry bones to be raised. Because, maybe, God is waiting to do something to reveal Himself to someone in a profound way, and provide them with another specific opportunity to choose Him, or reject Him, but maybe He's waiting for me to be obedient in prayer before He does that. Essentially, I pray for the unsaved because I have faith that God will answer my prayer.
Other people may have other reasons about why they pray for the unsaved. That's why I pray.
But I'm not really sure it actually matters all that much what I believe about predestination, or God's will. To explain:
1. People who don't believe in predestination obey God in service to Him because they believe all people can be saved
2. People who do believe in predestination obey God in service to Him because they don't know who can be saved, so they should carry out ministry
as though all people can be saved.
It seems that whatever your perspective is on the issue, our conclusions about how we are to live our lives as Christians and carry out God's work is identical, maybe even totally indistinguishable. Even if the, let's call it, "theoretical approach" is different, the practical conclusion seems identical. If that is the case, the issue seems, in practice, fairly trivial, unless I'm missing something, which I could be.
Not that I'm advocating justification in believing bad theology. But it does seem that whatever position you take on this particular issue, there are parts of the Bible that are unexplainable within that perspective, or at least cast significant doubt.
I think this may be, partly, because of this: The Bible is the Truth, but not the whole Truth. It's a few threads of a tapestry, a dim look through a glass. It's one small part of a complete explanation that we are fully incapable of understanding. We probably cannot really come to any fully accurate conclusion about what God's will is, His view toward us and the world, and the nature of choice and destiny. I suspect that all of us are, at least in part, trying to figure out what the entire tapestry looks like, when all we can really do is be satisfied with the threads we are given, and have faith about the rest until it's revealed to us.
I see you, Jack, as a fellow Truth-seeker, and fellow faithful minister of God's work. I appreciate the calmness and gentleness you bring to the forums, as I'm sure you're more than tired of facing the same resistances over and over. May God give us all wisdom and unity of purpose as we continue to search His word for Truth.
. God is not hiding valuable info from us (Psalms 51:17, Matt 16:24-26). We are not justified in placing our assumption right after those statements.
. Its like saying that since humans are not one colour but rather various shades of white - brown...Thus, on this green earth we have green humans 
.
