Jumpstarter 9 of 10

Direct Answer To think in Bercot’s categories, you would have to unlearn the automatic equation of “elect” with arbitrary predestination and accept “elect” as a plain word meaning “chosen,” without implying coercion or fate. You’d also need to reject the idea that God’s choice is arbitrary and instead see predestination as grounded in foreknowledge while humans still freely choose obedience or disobedience.

Support from Transcript:

• He calls the compromise “not a paradox… an absurdity… simply a contradiction.”
• He defines genuine paradox using examples (salt water; “lose your life to find it”) to show “seems contradictory, but may be true.”
• His “genuine paradox”: eternal destiny can be “already… predestined” and yet we have “absolute free will” because God has foreknowledge (videotape illustration).
• He urges clearing “theological terms” from our minds; apostles used “ordinary… Greek words.”
• On “elect”: English “elect” is from Greek “electos,” meaning “to pick out or to choose” (like choosing apples).
• He argues nothing in “electos” ties it to predestination, and Scripture doesn’t say God’s choosing is “arbitrary.”
• He cites 1 Peter: “Elect, according to the foreknowledge of God.”