but I was taught that Protestants believed that people when people were born, it was already predetermined whether they went to heaven or hell.

I'm not aware that any modern Protestants still believe that. It is definitely Calvinist/Puritan thought but not mainstream.

Thanks. It seems like it plays out in a few different ways. But I can see how it all seems to fit together. I guess it all starts with the idea of needing to be saved by belief.

Okay, and on the What Am I Getting Myself Into? front, the weather tells me that it will rain on Friday, ie, while we are on the boat and sailing home from Catalina. Oh dear. Guess it's good I don't mind the rain? Will be lots of kids thinking they want to keep dry in the hold, until they realize how queasy it gets down there.

Fred is my brother in Missouri Synodness.

We were also taught that we could lose our faith and thus end up in Hell if we died in that state.

Of course that brought all sorts of questions to my mind--like what if you just constantly switch between having faith and not having faith? You could rapidly alternate between being saved and not being saved.

And what if you have faith all your life, but, say, just before your death you're in such agony and so messed up psychologically you lose your faith seconds before you die? The whole thing seemed problematic to me. Plus the whole binary nature of faith/no faith seemed weird, because in real life I'm never 100% certain about anything. So if I had 60% faith but suddenly my faith dropped to below 50%--was that the cutoff point for eternal damnation?

It's possible I thought too much about this stuff.

Martin Luther is definitely all about salvation by faith, and I think not by predestination. Wasn't his whole thing anti-indulgence?

I thought the pre-destination was anti-indulgence too. Because if you were pre-destined, then you didn't need to buy indulgences!

If you have faith, you're saved -- nothing was decided at birth. Also, faith will motivate you to be a good person.

In my head I was separating the belief that once saved you can't be unsaved from predestination, and seeing the former as more along this line coupled with Steph's point about humans being prone to sin and needing grace even after they have been saved. But I see now that there's a bunch of different POVs out there.

I think I might have been mixing up two lessons- predestination and grace (by faith alone) -

From here: [link]

Martin Luther, a central figure of the Protestant Reformation, taught that after baptism, original sin remained. Grace acts as a sort of cloak which covers the corruption of human nature and makes the person acceptable to God, though underneath he remains depraved. Luther is famously credited with having said that the justified soul is a “snow-covered pile of dung.”

I thought the pre-destination was anti-indulgence too. Because if you were pre-destined, then you didn't need to buy indulgences!

Oh, fair enough! FWIW, I don't get predestination. (I mean, I understand the words, but I don't understand the argument for making it a basis of your religion, really.)

Luther is famously credited with having said that the justified soul is a “snow-covered pile of dung.”

That sounds about right. And reminds me of my father calling spring the time when the dog poop melts. Remember before people had to clean up after their dogs?

But I see now that there's a bunch of different POVs out there.

How else can you have heresy trials and religious wars! The question of whether God has three aspects or just one was good for quite a few centuries of bloodbaths and denunciations.

I don't get predestination.

I don't think anyone (except Calvin, maybe) ever got it. Which is why no one believes it any more. I think it's initial popularity was, as Matt pointed out, it enabled its believers to feel superior to everyone else.