Two Views of Foreknowledge

God foreknows His own in the sense that He has already chosen them out and determined that they shall be His people!
So he knows that truth, due to Him causing it to be true.

 

There are two separate issues here. 1. What foreknowledge is. Its definition. 2. How foreknowledge works in soteriology. What is foreknowledge? A textbook answer is provided by Donald McKim in his Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms:

"(Lat. praescientia) Knowing a thing or event before it has happened. It is applied to the God who knows all things—including their causes—prior to their occurrence in time (Ps. 139:4). As a dimension of God’s omniscience. God eternally knows all things that to humans appear to be “in the future.”"

The predestination of the Elect occurs within the realm of God's foreknowledge. God knows about it because God caused it. God is active in predestination, not passive as in the false foreknowledge of faith view.

What you presented in your opening post is foreknowledge operating within different contexts. You posted this thread in the Calvinism and Arminian debate forum, so that is a tacit acknowledgment that foreknowledge is typically used soteriologically. But God knows all things because He is omniscient. Ergo, it can be said that all things occur in accordance with his foreknowledge.

 

Did God know that I would beone of the elect due to Him determining that, or did I choose that for myself?

 

In that case, I will allow post #3 to be my detailed response.

 

Reformed did you notice that the article by John Samson although entitled "two views" only offers one view that is biblical. The first view is pure error..

 

I have not seen that. Do you have a link to the article?

 

Two Views on Foreknowledge | Monergism

 

Yes. OK. The Prescient View is what Donald M. McKim calls "foreknowledge of faith". It is the "God looks down the corridor of time view". The Prescient View fails because there is no biblical warrant for it.

 

Generally, I define it as a function of omniscience. It is to "know" before-hand, not "forelove".
However, I do not think of it as any form of "seeing before-hand" or "looking down the corridors of time" et. al.

God's foreknowledge is best defined as propositional, not perceptual.

God doesn't have a perfect crystal ball, perceiving what will happen in the future.
More adequately, Omniscience means: God knows all true propositions and believes no false ones.
Fore-knowledge that is based on essentially "foresight" is inadequate.

Any tensed proposition can be expressed a-temporally. For example:
1.) Trump is reelected president November 2020
2.) Trump will be reelected president in November 2020
3.) Trump was reelected as president on November 2020

All of these express exactly the same proposition with the same truth value. The difference is only from the temporal relation of the speaker to the events in question.
Omniscience based on what is essentially "fore-perception" is not really omniscience but simple a-temporality. I do not assume this, and similarly do not make statements like God is "outside of time" etc...to explain fore-knowledge (even if what is meant by that is true).

I believe God knows all true propositions, believes no false ones and furthermore, I happen to believe he possesses Middle-knowledge as well. Knowing, for instance, what would occur given different circumstances.

I do not think Calvinists are "wrong" to see that there is truly a relational aspect to "fore-knowledge" in a soteriological sense. They are quite right to see it, but I do not think it should be redefined as "fore-loving" or restricted to what is essentially "fore-love".

Proginōskō means knowledge beforehand....not previous relational intimacy. I think our Calvinist brethren are all too quick to supplant the primary and denotative meaning of the term for a connotative meaning for the term. This, I believe to be erroneous. The connotative meaning (which is fairly and rightly observed) does not supplant the literal (or denotative) meaning of the term, which must be accounted for.

 

That would probably be the prominent viewpoint today though among the saved! I agree that it is wrong...

 

Since God is Sovereign though, and in control over all things, can there be but one possible result, that which actually does happen?

 

The biblical usage informs us as to what it means.
What is being said about the whom in romans 8:20-30 cannot be said of the ungodly

 

I do not think certainty implies necessity, no.
If God decrees something, sure....that he foreknows something is different.

 

The Bible is not a Lexicon which habitually redefines words in common usage.
If the Scriptures use the word "foreknow" or proginosko in this instance, it means by it what anyone meant by it at the time. Proginosko did not mean "forelove". It meant "foreknow". It is bad hermeneutic to treat the Bible as though it regularly repurposes words. It is dangerous to treat it that way.

So long as you treat the Bible like a Lexicon, you will be in confusion.

 

But how can there be alternate endings even possible, or so called Middle Knowledge, since the Lord either determines and causes or permits all that actually ever really happens?