Featured The Will of God in the Fall of Man II

The inerlinears I normally use and have been regularly told they were wrong uses Proegno for foreknowledge.

Then a search for Proegno I came to this,

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/10/proegno.html

Proegno

BEOWULF2K8 SAID:

There are two "fore-" verbs in Romans 8:29. There is proegno which is a conjugation of proginosko meaning "to foresee" and there is prowrisen which is a conjugation of proorizo "to predetermine." You are confusing the two. Now, because they mean different things, the passage says "whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate" (KJV) and "whom He foreknew, He also predestined" (NASB) and "whom he foreknew he also predestined" (NRSV) and "those God foreknew he also predestined" (NIV) and "whom he foreknew he also predestined" (ESV).

i) The meaning of proegno isn’t determined by Greek usage, but Hebrew usage. Paul is using a Greek word with a Hebrew connotation.

One doesn’t have to be a Calvinist to see this. All the major commentators appreciate this nuance regardless of their theological commitments, viz. Fitzmyer (Jesuit), Wright (NPP), Cranfield (Barthian), or Witherington (Arminian), to name a few.

As even Ben Witherington admits, “OT references to God knowing someone or his people, that is, to his inclination toward or love for them, sometimes refer to a concept of election (Amos 3:2; Deut 9:24; Exod 33:12,17; Gen 18:19; Deut 34:10), and such passages lie in the background here,” Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Eerdmans 2004), 246-47.

So Witherington, although a doctrinaire Arminian, doesn’t challenge the Calvinist reading on semantic grounds.

It’s a pity when theological opponents can’t even keep up with their own literature.

This is also corroborated by standard lexical reference works. When I say that proegno in Rom 8:29 means “to choose beforehand,” that’s exactly the definition which is supplied by BDAG for Rom 8:29. Cf. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (U of Chicago, 3rd ed., 2000), 866b.

ii) Even on a Calvinist reading, the two verbs are not synonymous. Both verbs carry a deterministic import, but proegno has a covenantal connotation while proorisen has a teleological connotation.

According to your MISINFORMATION, however, the passage ought to be translation "whom he predestined he also predestined" which is just plain asinine.

Not only are you ignorant of basic lexical semantics, you’re equally ignorant of basic syntax. How do these two clauses go together?

Paul uses proegno to establish the divine initiative in salvation. But that leaves open the question, for what did God elect those whom he called according to his purpose (8:28)?

Paul then uses proorisen as part of a purpose-clause to supply the goal of God’s initiative: to reproduce the image of Christ.

Therefore, the second clause advances the argument. This is the train of thought:

Before the foundation of the world, God chose those who are called according to his purpose.

And to what end were they so chosen?

They are predestined to reproduce the image of Christ.

And only those so chosen are predestined to reproduce the image of Christ.

Hence, God is responsible for both the origin and outcome of salvation.

Every translation cited above shows that there was both foreknowledge and predestination, and the predestination was based on the foreknowledge.

Popular translations are no substitute for Greek lexicons or learned commentaries.

 

Then there is this:

http://pastorshearer.net/Bible Studies/Calvinism studies/faultyexegesis,r.html

Calvin, as might be expected, makes the word “foreknow” (“proegno”) in Romans 8:29 mean “adopt” - implying “pre-election.” In short, for Calvin foreknowledge and predestination are essentially synonymous. A few lexicologists (e.g., Arndt and Gingrich) have agreed with his translation, but just a few. The overwhelming majority refute it. Meyer, for example, points out that the early church fathers (e.g., Origin, Chrysostom, Augustine, Jerome) translated it to mean “prescience,” not “pre-election.” He then goes on to say - with an obvious touch of irritation - that the meaning of “foreknow” in Romans 8:29 “is not to be decided by dogmatic presuppositions, but simply by usage of the language, in accordance with which “proegno” never in the New Testament [not even in Romans 11:2 or 1 Peter 1:20 (parenthesis his)] means anything else than to know beforehand... That in classical language it ever means anything else cannot be at all proved.”

Vincent is equally as emphatic: “‘proegno’ does not mean ‘foreordain.’ It signifies ‘prescience,’ not ‘pre-election.’” He goes on to add in a footnote that, like Myer’s comment, is tinged with exasperation: “This is the simple common-sense meaning. The attempt to attach to it the sense of ‘pre-election,’ to make it include the divine decree, has grown out of dogmatic considerations in the interest of a rigid predestinarianism. The scope of this work does not admit a discussion of the infinitesimal hair splitting which has been applied to this passage, and which is as profitless as it is unsatisfactory.”

 

The question was not whether they should stay in the garden or not but rather whether they should eat of the fruit.

 

Whatever it 'means' to God must mean something to you else there is no communication

 

You are not answering my question. Supposing you (not you personally) are Elect. When were you Elected?

 

And exactly what is the difference between προγινώσκω and προέγνω ?

 

I like these wild claims. God's election is corporate and conditional, just like joining a college; you must be of such and such age, had such and such grades and so forth....you meet these and you are Elect. Election is not creating a super caste system as you falsely imagine it to be. To be Elect, all one has to do is to believe in Jesus Christ. That's the condition

So believing comes from God? Ok!
How is it the unbelievers' fault that they can't believe while it is God who denied them believing? Why does God hate the death of a sinner yet He denied him believing which would convert Him?

 

Hi again brother,

I answered "yes" to your question that I believe it was God's will for them to eat the fruit for scripture tells us God "worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Ephesians 1:11) . Now that I have answered your question, please answer mine as you take the opposite position on this issue. This will be the third and final time I post these questions to you as you seem to never answer them. What intelligent man, going to build or create something, does not first consult his will as to what he wants it to do? And having determined just what he wants it to do, does he not then engage his wisdom to devise a plan for the making of it so that it will meet and perform the exact demands of his will? Is God less intelligent than man? If what God made (I.E. ADAM) was doing that which He did not will or purpose for it to do, and was leaving undone that which He did will or purpose for it to do, does not His perfection stand impeached by the workmanship of His hand just as truly as man's perfection does when judged by the same rule? If man wouldn't even create something knowing in advance that it wouldn't turn out as he intended, why do you think God would with ADAM?

 

God's desired or divine Will was for Adam and Eve not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. God told Adam not to eat of the fruit that was a direct command and what His directive divine will was. However, since God gave man volition He allowed man to eat that is His permissive will. Permissive will is what God allows outside His directive or Diane will. God allows sin in His permissive will, He hates sin but He allows it. Then God has an overruling will that is when God stops someone from doing something. As he stopped evil from spreading at the flood, or when he destroyed Sodom and Gommorrah, he overruled these civilizations. It was in His permissive will that Adam and Eve violated His directive divine will and God did not overrule in them eating of the fruit.

 

For God to know beforehand is in an intimate manner. Adam 'knew' Eve and she conceived and birthed children. God knows His ppl intimately.

 

Recycled arguments.

 

No of course not, do parents say to their children don't do that or their will be consequences? Of course as parents we don't force our will upon our children but if they step out of line we punish them don't we? So God as our Heavenly Father and btw Christ was Adams and Eves Father in that He created them said don't eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or you will die, so did God want one thing but allow them to perform another? Yes and did man die of course! The consequences came not on Adam and Eve alone but upon all mankind for the act of one

 

rigz,

like these statements you make..

Wrong again....it is individual and unconditional. You missed it completely which we knew you would as soon as you tried to solve the puzzle.

 

Nope. All of Adam's posterity was already condemned. Thank Adam for that, not God. Election, in the redemption of man, always is to salvation, never to condemnation.

 

And they were ALREADY condemned because God predestined it so Adam fell because God wanted him to fall

Semantics.
Not all men are created with a similar destiny but eternal life is foreordained for some, and eternal damnation for others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or the other of these ends, we say, he is predestinated either to life or death." (Institutes, Book 3.23.)

 

If God warns Adam against the very thing He wants and orchestrates him to do, one wonders whether we can trust His commandments. Could be when He warns us against idolatry, His will is that we engage in idolatry!Roflmao