Two Views of Foreknowledge

God determined though to save Out his elect based upon Him just choosing to do that , period, based upon nothing in us, or what we would do etc!

 

Yes, I agree, God chose to do this, of his own free will, under no obligation. From eternity past, God chose to save ungodly believers and not save ungodly unbelievers. He did not have to save either. He did not have to account the faith of believers as righteousness. That's why salvation is solely of God, and even monergistic.

I think you'll find we differ regarding the meritoriousness of faith. I don't believe faith, in and of itself, merits anything. I don't believe it is a work, and therefore does not put any obligation on God to act one way or the other. Therefore, our faith is not a contributing factor to our salvation. God's choice to reckon faith is 100% the contributing factor.

 

So per you. we become the elect of God when we trust in Jesus, and not before? Election based upon God seeing us then accepting Jesus?

 

Van would disagree with you on that last point, but I support it the same way!

 

Classical Arminians, in general, disagree with Van on this. In fact, I think even most Pelagians would.

But Van does represent a lot of modern evangelical thinking. IMHO, it's unfortunate.

 

The order is the rebirth, then the person believes and then they are sealed by the Holy Spirit. So the salvation is not complete until the person confesses their belief in Christ. However all whom God makes His, will do so.

It is not according to scripture to say the spiritually dead believe in Christ. Christ told the man who wanted to bury his dad, Let the dead bury the dead, but as for you come and follow me.
That is what the dead do as they are dead, they do not follow Christ, and Christ does not tell the dead to follow Him, and HE knows they wont, because only His sheep follow Him and know Him.

 

John 10:16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.

These other sheep Christ HAS, HAS, as they have been given to Christ by the Father, dont even know Him yet, but when they hear His voice they will follow Him.

They are His foreknown to God sheep, and God will give to them the new birth so that they can recognize who Christ is, believe and follow Him, the Son of God.

 

The Holy spirit himself must quicken the lost sinner, enable him to actually respond to the Gospel, and that is regeneration....

 

Which is not what Paul believed. I realize this is what you believe, but I need Scriptural support which is explicit. If you want to argue for an efficacious grace prior to faith, I can see the argument, but not for regeneration before faith. You're in essence arguing one is regenerated but not yet saved until after faith. I don't see the Scriptural support for this position.

Again, there's the issue of the reckoning of faith. It's often ignored, but Paul mentions it often in Romans 4. God saves us by reckoning (crediting, accounting) our faith as righteousness. It's explicit, and therefore I can't ignore it.

Rom. 4:3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”

Rom. 4:5 But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,

Rom. 4:9 Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. 10 How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised.

Rom. 4:22 And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.”

Gal. 3:6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”

James 2:23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God.​

The order is belief, then accounted as righteous.

Furthermore, the washing of regeneration is the work of the Spirt. Thus you can't have regeneration happing before the Spirit is received. This washing happens after faith, after receiving the Spirit who washes and regenerates us.

Titus 3:5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,​

 

Why can't he be?
It's certainly isn't a self-contradictory statement in and of itself.

In my home....I am "Sovereign". If I told the wife that the chicken casserole she plans to make for dinner is not acceptable and told her to make spaghetti instead, she would do it. I next to never do such a thing. I have no more nor less authority by letting her make the choice of what we have for dinner although I could tell her essentially what to make every single night. I have decided to let her decide for herself, and us, what we'll have.

The fact that God is all-powerful and could exhaustively determine everything doesn't mean he DOES.
That is what is unproven, and IMO unscriptural. I see that God has given men the power of contrary libertarian freedom. As Sovereign....that's his prerogative.

 

How can fallen sin natured humans still have libertine free will?

 

And there's no reason why God couldn't know exhaustively in advance what determined free choices others would make and respond in eternity past with decrees.

 

They don't in an absolute sense. Even prelapsarian Adam wasn't omnipotent and omniscient. But God can grant some limited freedoms by his intervening grace when He chooses to. I don't see why this is a relinquishing of this sovereignty.

Yeshua1, do you believe Adam was determined to sin from the beginning by God? Do you subscribe to the supralapsarian view?

 

No, rather the Infra view, and that viewpoint seems to be the one the various Confessions subscribe to!

 

So, if you hold to the infra view, then how do you work out God's sovereignty? For in this view, Adam is granted freewill.

 

I would hold that Adam before the fall really had free will, but that once he sinned, became spiritually dead and sin natured, so no longer able to exercise that free will anymore.

 

Okay, so you don't have a problem with the concept of free will in general. You just believe the fall eliminates freewill completely.

I would argue that after the fall, men lost their freewill to seek God. However, I do believe fallen men have other freedoms in a limited sense, but total inability to seek after God, apart from God's intervention, enlightening, drawing etc., which only occurs at specific times in their lives. These are the "if you hear God's voice, don't harden your hearts" moments.

 

mankind is still free to choose, but are now limited in just what they will want to do!

 

I would nuance that a little, but essentially I'm in agreement. And we would both agree that a special act of grace enlightenment needs to take place before man can choose to have faith. Apart from this grace, man is totally depraved and totally unable to believe. I realize you believe this grace is efficacious and even regeneration, while I don't.

But neither of us have a general issue with God granting freedom to individuals without compromising his sovereignty.

 

The book, besides the Bible, that helped me in this area was the Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther.