Recently a pastor asked me this question:
Question: Does God predestine our spouses?
Response: This is a very difficult question but I will attempt. And to be precise you do not have to agree with me on everything, all I ask of you is to think through this response seriously in relation to your contrary propositions. The account in Genesis 2: 18-24 where the man Adam is lonely and God makes him, a suitable spouse out of one his ribs is the strong underlying subconscious perception that formulates the idea that God has predestined our spouses.
According to me, however, (I could be wrong) God has not predestined our spouses and the spousal world is not a fateful one. Here are my reasons:
STATISTICS OF EQUIVALENCE REASON:
If God predestined our spouses, then God would have created the number of men and women who are interested in marriage EVEN. However, since historical times these numbers haven’t been equal. Sometimes and in some places, the men and women searching for spouses have outnumbered the present candidates both within and outside their borders.
I insist therefore that God’s providence of partners would have matched the number of the candidates of marriage if He had designed it thus originally. But since the numbers are always not equivalent both in season and geography, then that means it is not a divine-design and neither a predestination.
EXIGENCY REASON:
In the marital world, some partners die and some divorced and remarry. I would think in a predestination setting that once a predestined partner dies then, the second marriage wouldn’t work but marriages have thrived better or equal after the death/divorce of one partner. Well, it is difficult in a predestination mindset to conclude which of the two (former & present) was predestined for you?
The problem with predestination is that we cannot bias it to only that which is good and works for us, it could be one’s destiny not to have fulfilment in marital business or it could be predetermined that you will always have joy in marriage. In essence, if we conclude that this is the partner that was predestined for me and that partner dies or divorces me and marries another person, should I wait forever or marry again? If I marry another person knowing I was not predestined for them, am I guilty of marrying someone’s partner just as the other individual out there is guilty of marrying mine? These are horrible dilemmas born out of the belief that our spouses are predetermined upon creation.
PREFERENTIAL BEINGS IN NATURE:
Another reason I don’t believe our spouses are predestined is because of who we are naturally. We are volitional beings created with an instinctual freedom of choice. If we say that even our conclusive choices are predestined, that will mean that some people were created not to be saved and that is why they could not choose the cross, while those who are saved were predestined for that salvation. Such a belief would implicate God in the crime of destruction as well as depict his vicarious death on the cross and resurrection as mere pretence and staged drama.
If we argue for selective predestination and say that as for spouses our choices are predestined while for salvation they are not, then what we are saying is that human beings are the waste time to choose against in the active process of seeking who to marry. For the parents or yourself to actively be involved in the choice of a spouse is an interruption of the predestination and therefore risking to end up with the wrong person. However, I think this is not true for emotional and volitional beings like us. The Bible says: “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). We are preferential beings in nature, we are beings of choice and regardless of the results, we have the power to even choose against our creator.
A spouse is not found or chosen by God, it is us to find and chose them. A Biblical proverb says: “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favour from the LORD.” (Proverbs 18:22). It was after Joseph had already chosen Mary that God came in and encouraged him not to leave her over pregnancy. (Mathew 1:20-21). God was not involved in the decision to take, he came in when the brother was deserting his choice painfully over something not true.
DIVINE OMNISCIENCE REASON:
This is going be difficult but I am sure God will you understand. Finally, many people confuse the past, present and future knowledge of God with his active involvement in matters concerning the conscience of man. Just because we cannot surprise God, it does not mean he DID in the past what we are DOING or about TO DO. Divine Omniscience is exclusive knowledge of everything to God that has no influence whatsoever to whether we do it or not. For instance; if we are about to do something, God already knew that we would do it, and if in the nick of time we changed our minds not to do it, still God knew that we would change our mind.
God knows your spouse, but he does not validate his knowledge by influencing the fulfilment by making sure you marry the one he knows, whoever (to you) you marry, God knew already. So Just because God knew who your spouse is from time eternity, does not mean he predestined that spouse for you but rather what was information to God, is now an experience to you. God’s foreknowledge is not foreordination. God knew, and he knows but he never ordained all that he knows. A doctor knows that you are going to die, but that knowledge is not participatory in the process that leads to your death. In Genesis 2:16-17 God knew about evil that man didn’t know, but evil wasn’t God’s invention.
So while God knows who you will end up with as your spouse, he has not ordained any for you and in fact, if you didn’t marry them, still you have not surprised God. HE KNEW. And his knowledge is all-encompassing.
God bless you I invoke TRUTH, REASON and FAITH (2Tim 2:7)
Pr. T.I.M WHITE
The Gospel Hawker
iTiS Well of Worship Ministries (John 4:24)
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 