Is prophecy and predestination the same?

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Some people reading the Bible would misguidedly link scriptures such as 2 Timothy 3:1-3 to a direct cause.

It speaks of a negative rise in self-love and an unhealthy love of money, and mentions an upsurge in boastfulness among many, along with a clear exhibition of haughtiness, in a growing environment of thanklessness and disloyalty. It outlines how men would be fierce and displays a lack of goodness, even while pretending godliness.

With such a grim forecast, some unreasonably infer that the dire times are directly predestined by virtue of their foreknowledge. They would believe that the killing journalist Barbara Gayle and others who have become victims of uncivil rusticity were set in stone by reason of a barbaric forecast in the Bible.

Neither did God, by giving Adam and Eve the choice to obey and live or to eat to their own ruin deprived them of their fee will to choose.

Thus, rather than censoring the scriptures as causing the fulfilment of their own prophesies, these head-wagging, and distressing times are merely consequences predicted from ignoring the Bible as a suitable manual for man, to live by.

HOMER SYLVESTER

Elmsford, New York