Foreknowledge of God

Helen, do you really see that much practical difference between foreknowledge and foreordination? I agree they are separate concepts and shouldn't be confused.

 

Well at least you spelled a non-ominiscient god properly.

 

FAL,

Your error is based on the (false) belief that God is somehow bound by time (i.e. your repeated comments that He cannot know what is going to happen). This ASSUMES a cause and effect that is only possibly WITHIN time. Since He is OUTSIDE of time (as scripture plainly indicates), He is not bound by cause and effect.

Once again, to say that God lacks in knowledge is to say He is not God. BY DEFINITION, God CANNOT lack any degree of ANY attribute that He has. (I.E. God is unchanging, as scripture says. But to lack in knowledge and then gain knowledge is to change with regard to that knowledge. However, to measure an absolute change means measuring against ANOTHER absolute. Therefore, you must postulate a GREATER absolute than your definition of God by which to measure that change. As a result, God is no longer God, because He is not the absolute.)

 

I thought we were talking about God the Father. When Jesus was the God-man on earth, apparently he chose to set aside this piece of information. He did not set aside his deity to do this. Also, since he was on earth as a man, I do not view it as imperfect for him to choose not to know this. Also, I think choosing not to know and not knowing are 2 different things.

However, to say God the Father does not know everything is a very serious statement. You are saying that He is lacking in knowledge of something and therefore cannot be omniscient or perfect. What kind of God would it be who did not know everything? I'll tell you -- it would be either the Process Theology God or the Open Theist God, and they are not the God of the Bible.

I agree with danrusdad and what he said. He made some good points.

 

Well, DD, if they are separate concepts and shouldn't be confused, then you have answered your own question. There is a great practical difference!

Foreordination means something is ordered to occur. That means it is in the will of the person ordering it to occur that it happen.

Foreknowledge is knowing something will happen whether or not you want it to happen.

Unless you want to claim that all sin, death, suffering, masochism, and other horrors were God's will for us, then you have to definitely separate foreordination and foreknowledge.

Unless, of course, you think God didn't know these would happen!

But we both know that is not true on the basis of Revelation 13:8 itself, if nothing else.

He knew what would happen. At the risk of angering you, it was because He created us with free will. He KNEW we would use it wrongly. On the other hand, if we did not have free will, we would not be able to love, either God or man, and love is the reason we were created. But love is not love if it is programmed in.

Did He WANT it to happen? All this sin and suffering and death? Jesus cried at Lazarus' tomb. He pleaded in the Garden for some other way.

God allowed what He did not want to happen to happen. But He knew it would happen.

There is an enormous difference between foreordination and foreknowledge.

To the person who said I could not know all of what my children would do, I never said I could or did! But there were instances in which, because I knew each quite well, that given a choice he or she was confronted with, I knew what that choice would be. Maybe it was as simple as "Do you want vanilla or chocolate ice cream?" Sometimes it was a bit more important. But I was just trying to demonstrate the concept, no claim total knowledge of my children. At ages 19-30 they still surprise me in many ways!

It is only God who is not surprised. He knew all along. He's God.

 

Helen, you will not anger me. I do not argue the free will part. I was simply saying from a practical point of view.

1. Foreknowledge - God knows all that will happen.
2. Foreordination - God wills what will happen.

Either way, What will happen cannot change. This is the practical aspect.

I get the theological difference.

 

This is one of the same passages that Open Theists use, btw. Their arguments have all been refuted. Earlier in this thread, I gave the names of 2 books and a link to a page with articles that take on the argument that God does not know all the future.

When the Bible says that God was sorry he had created man, this in no way implies God did not know man would sin! He is expressing sorrow and disapproval on what man did.

John Piper remarks on this passage about God feeling sorry he had made man:

There is a one page article on Divine Repentance by R C Sproul (and I am not even a Calvinist!)at
http://www.doctrine.net/divinerepentance.html

The Bible also says that Jesus was slain "from the foundation of the world" (Rev 13.9). How could that be if God did not know man would sin?

 

FAL, FAL, FAL...

Your argument boils down to an argument from silence, quote:

"the scriptures never teach that knowing all history before it happens is one of His attributes".

This alone makes your argument suspect. It is one of the weakest of argument forms. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Do you base all of your belief on whether the Bible explicitly states it to be true?

To be consistent in your theology you must also NOT believe that 2 + 2 = 4. After all the Bible nowhere says this! Do you see where your logic leads? However, something tells me that you only selectively apply this logic when it supports what you want to believe.

There are many areas of truth that are not explicitly laid out in scripture. Mathematics, as I just stated, is one. Laws of Nature and Laws of Logic as well.

In fact, the laws of logic are the most applicable to your argument, as I alluded to in my last post. Logic demands that, BY DEFINITION, God CANNOT lack in any attribute that He has. You failed to respond to this in my last post.

Again, for God not have knowledge about the future (and again, this ASSUMES God is bound by time, something we know FROM SCRIPTURE is not true), and then gain that knowledge, is to say that God has CHANGED with regard to His knowledge.

However, to say this forces a contradiction: God, by definition, cannot lack in knowledge, but according to you, He does.

There are only 2 options out of this mess: 1) God is not God, and there is a higher absolute above Him by which to measure change, or 2) your assertion is wrong and He does know all.

Further, your repeated assertion that no scripture supports this belief is flatly wrong. The scripture CLEARLY states that God DOES NOT change:

Jam 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is NO variableness, NEITHER shadow of turning.

Mal 3:6 For I am the LORD, I CHANGE NOT;

These 2 verses go hand-in-hand with the laws of logic. God cannot and does not change with regard to any attribute that He has.

Therefore, your belief is shown to be incorrect according to the laws of logic and the scripture.

 

Argument from silence, as danrusdad pointed out.

So what time period would it be "before the world began?"

God is either omniscient or He is not. If you believe that he is not, which is what you are arguing, please bear the implications of that in mind.

You will eventually have to embrace Open Theism (which it seems you have) or Process Theology where not only do you have a God who does not know the future, but a God who changes. If you have a God who changes, then there is no absolute standard anywhere for us fallen creatures because there can then be nothing unalterable and eternally the same to measure change by. God ceases to be the standard for all goodness and he is no longer the Rock. Everything is then relative.

Clark Pinnock took this road. Once an evangelical (and still calls himself that), he first denied eternal punishment for the lost. Then he advocate open theism. Now he is saying that God has a body.
In other words, taking away God's omniscience will eventually lead to making God more and more like man (actually, the Mormons already did this!).

Is that the kind of God we worship and know from God's word? It's not my God, that's for sure.

 

That's it?!?!

That's your (repeated) response?

Therefore, you also believe:
1) There is no scriptural evidence that 2+2=4
2) There is no scriptural evidence that gravity exists
3) There is no scriptural evidence that I am alive
4) etc, etc, etc...

Direct scriptural revelation is NOT the only method that God has chosen to reveal truth to us. Again, math, scientific law, logical laws, etc.

Once again, you ignore the plain arguments that soundly disprove your belief and simply hang on to the mantra "the Bible doesn't say it..."

Once again, taking what scripture (the 2 scriptures I quoted for you) has given us and what logic reveals to us about the nature of God, the only conclusion that is sound is that God is omniscient and knows ALL. No equivocation.

I guess you'll continue to ignore the evidence given you and hang on to what you want to believe. Why not disprove my arguments, if they're wrong, instead of repeating what you have already said?

Do you also believe that God:
1) does not love all, only those He ordained to love?
2) cannot do anything possible, only those things He foreordained to do?
3) (insert any atttribute of God, and then minimize it to your own belief)

This is a dangerous, slippery slope and will eventually lead to a total denial of who and what God is.