On the omniscience of God
- Thread starter JudgeRightly
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Derf
Well-known member
Sure. Why does that matter? He surely knows there will be some saints, so He predestinated them to something, as befitting saints, fellow heirs, His children...
Of course it can and does. All individuals who believe in Christ are included in the group that He predestinated to be conformed to the image of His son.
Idolater
"Matthew 16:18-19" Dispensationalist (Catholic) χρ
I'm just responding to YOUR post, you said, "Foreknowledge about whom ... ?" and I'm answering you. So we agree, it's the saints mentioned in Romans 8:27—that's great. So now we can focus on the second part of your question, " ... predestination to what?" We know and agree that it's foreknowledge about the saints mentioned in Romans 8:27, so now—great—we can work on the other part. You'll remind us of it below, or 'infra' as the kids say these days.
Of course it can and does. All individuals who believe in Christ are included in the group that He predestinated to be conformed to the image of His son.
AND WHAT EXACTLY does that mean?
Some thoughts. It's for us to be basically ontologically Jesus. Meaning to say we're going to heal the sick, raise the dead, command the weather, and teach infallibly, and everything else that He literally physically did—we're going to do all that. That's basically what it means to be accurately conformed to the image of Jesus, right? We're going to flip over money changing tables and turn water to wine. We're going to be indistinguishable from Him.
Barring that, taking one step back from that bold interpretation, being conformed to the image of Jesus is for us to do what Jesus wants us to do. You can definitely argue about what that means in particular, but I think we can agree at least that whatever it means to be conformed to Jesus's image, it must comport with what Jesus actually wants us to do, and who He actually wants us to be. I think that's a principle we can agree on.
Do we agree on that?
Derf
Well-known member
Ok.
Yes, but what do we mean by "foreknowledge about the saints"? I'm saying it isn't expressly and personally every saint that will ever be, but rather all those saints as a group.
Or what God the Father wants us to do, since that's what Jesus did.
Yes, and maybe a combination of the two.
That’s the fundamental, paradigm level, difference between those who hold to determinism and those who don’t. Determinists tend to interpret certain passages as referring to specific individuals and meticulously detailed outcomes, while non-determinists understand them as referring to groups and generalities.
The question is which paradigm is superior to the other, which one is correct and how would we be able to know?
Psalm 89:14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; Mercy and truth go before Your face.
Psalm 97:2 Clouds and darkness surround Him; Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.
These verses make it explicit: God’s authority flows from His character, not from sheer control or omnipotence. His power is trustworthy only because He is just. If we start with power or knowledge as the basis for God's greatness, we risk building a theology that justifies anything, even evil, as long as it comes from God.
If your view requires you to call something ‘just’ simply because God did it, even when it would be evil for anyone else to do, then are you really honoring God's righteousness, or just redefining it?
The determinist model often prioritizes God’s control and exhaustive foreknowledge, but if those concepts compromise the justice of God, as experienced and understood in Scripture, then what good are they?
In contrast, the Open Theist paradigm allows for God to relationally engage with free creatures, hold them truly accountable, and offer real choice, all while remaining perfectly just and loving.
So, the question isn’t just which paradigm can quote more verses. Both sides have seemingly no end to their list of proof texts. The real test is which one preserves the character of God. If righteousness and justice are the foundation of His authority, then any view that erodes those qualities is clearly inferior to one that upholds them.
Derf
Well-known member
Genesis 18:25 (YLT) Far be it from Thee to do according to this thing, to put to death the righteous with the wicked; that it hath been -- as the righteous so the wicked -- far be it from Thee; doth the Judge of all the earth not do justice?'
Calvinism, Catholicism as well as any other form of Augustinian doctrine cannot survive that single verse of scripture.
Derf
Well-known member
They can "survive" any scripture, because they don't want to admit what it says.
Yes, well, I meant survive rationally intact.
If someone doesn't care about being rational, as I just saw John MacArthur explaining (in so many words) in a video this morning) then, of course, they've insulated themselves from any possible falsifying evidence or argument.
The first two minutes is all anyone needs to watch. He admits openly that his doctrine cannot be made any sense of.
All are called to be saints.
There is a disturbing trend of people stating murder is only wrong because God said it is wrong. And they mean it.
Derf
Well-known member
I'm not saying, by the way, that I think the determination of what is just is something that comes from outside of God. But the question by Abraham recognized that God will always be just in His decisions, including wiping a city off the map along with its inhabitants.
I am. Murder isn't wrong because he declared it. He declared it because it is.
Derf
Well-known member
Please be careful to fully quote the sentence, as it was confusing what you were responding to.
Why do you think it is wrong to murder? What makes it a sin that exceeds God's authority as the creator? I'm not disagreeing, just curious where your thought processes are going.
Bladerunner
Active member
God cannot commit murder. That’s not even possible. All life belongs to Him. He created us, He sustains us, and He has every right to end our physical lives whenever He chooses and for whatever reason He sees fit. Ending a person’s bodily life isn’t the same as destroying them. We’re eternal beings, and in the grand scheme of things, our short time in these bodies is just a sliver of our full existence.
Having said that, God doesn’t act randomly, out of spite or arbitrarily. If He wipes out a city, there’s a reason for it, likely one far bigger and more righteous than we can fully grasp and He doesn’t owe us an explanation, (although more often than not, He gives one anyway). The truth is, God is dealing with enormous issues against powerfully evil enemies, and with the salvation of billions of souls at stake. Sometimes that means making hard calls. If God had ended Adam and Eve on the spot, none of the people in that destroyed city would’ve ever existed to begin with, but He didn’t. He allowed history to unfold and that decision has consequences and God doesn't shirk His responsibility as the Sovereign of Earth but steps in when doing so makes sense, sometimes to rescue, other times to destroy, whichever is appropriate. If wiping out a population leads to a greater good, like preserving the line of Christ, or preventing a corrupting influence that would destroy others, then it’s a price worth paying. Especially when you realize that physical death isn’t the end. Everyone who died in that city or in Noah's flood kept on existing and they were judged by their Creator. Not arbitrarily, but with perfect justice. Not everyone who died in Gomorrah or drowned in the flood, necessarily, went to Hell.
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I heard Bob Enyart say something similar to this years and years ago and it is the only explanation of why God does some of the things we read about Him doing in the bible that I've ever heard.
Every other explanation takes the form of redefining what it means to be just or, worse than that, it renders the concept of justice completely meaningless when applied to God.
It is, if you ask me, one of the strongest arguments, albeit a somewhat indirect one, for the veracity of Open Theism. None of what I said could ever be uttered by a Calvinist or Catholic or even most Arminians. Passages that don't seem, on the surface, to have anything to do with the issue of Open Theism, turn from being inscrutable to making perfect sense. Open Theism is a key that "opens" all kinds of theological doors and turns God into a real person with Whom we can all relate in a meaningful way. Open Theism doesn’t just solve intellectual problems, it breathes life back into faith. It brings clarity to events like the flood, Sodom, or even Ananias and Sapphira. It gives space to understand divine wrath not as blind rage, but as righteous, reasoned action within a complex story. It’s not arbitrary, it’s not cruel, it’s strategic, purposeful, and above all, just in a meaningful way.
Derf
Well-known member
I think that's all true, and I wonder if the open theism paradigm can help explain some of the inscrutable eschatology call passages Christians struggle to understand. I remember reading the Left Behind series up through the locusts with scorpion tails, and I felt there was an element missing, though Lehay and Jenkins stayed wooden literal with section.
If open theism is true, then there must be reasons why God is able to tell us the future to the detail He does. I think I'll start a new thread on it.