Sin Now Pay Later?...Thou Shall not Think?...
I find the notion of the predestination behind Psalm 139 very creepy. One of the best things about being human is free fucking will. Of course we are controlled by brain chemistry, upbringing, economic circumstances, milligrams in serotonin inhibitors/blockers, etc., but we mostly get to make choices on our own and –somehow adjust- to the consequences. If you move all the choices and give them back to God, you remove your choice of free will; making you a coward with a flare for cop-outs. Sure, it frees you from the misery behind hard choices and blunders—it's God's will—but it also removes the accountability, regret, and self-examination that make us creatures of judgment and eventually, learn from our mistakes.
There's also a self-contradictory value to Psalm 139: It says publicly that God has set our future and knows every word we will say before we say it. At the same time, it frequently asks God to "test" us—to explore us and make sure we are not depraved, immoral cabareteras and pimps. If God has written our futures and knows our feelings, why would He need to test us? (ADHD people like me don't do well with tests, by the way). Either way, the psalmist wants to have his cake and then eat it like a filthy, filthy pig! Whomever wrote the Book of Psalms wants to give God acknowledgment for total power, but he also wants to get credit for not being impious (that sounds like a good religion word, doesn't it: IMPIOUS?). This Psalm reads: "Test me, Lord. See, I'm not wicked." You don't get to have it both ways: If God has predetermined it all, then you ought to have absolutely no credit for your goodness. God made it take place.
