God’s Omniscience and Human Free Will

[intojoy]

well there are some beliefs in Calvinism that i can't agree with; i know them when i see/hear them. i haven't studied much on Arminian or Calvinist per se, although i have seen/heard some doctrinal teachings. i have a problem with any doctrine that claims some folks were just born to go to hell. i subscribe to Mid-Acts-Dispensation focusing on Romans-Philemon

No wonder

...get help

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

I am with you here.

Knowledge without facts is not knowledge at all. God knowing what He wants to know implies brute facts exists outside of God. God cannot not know something, for this would imply the odd notion that He did not know something, yet this something was before Him in His eternal mind for God to not know.

I am confident Scripture teaches that every fact in the universe exists and operates by virtue of the plan of God. There are no brute facts for God. Modern science, on the other hand, takes for granted the ultimacy of brute facts. By “brute facts” I mean the idea that facts are random bits of information that are not necessarily related in any fixed or given way and may therefore be known by the human interpreter apart from an interpretive context. They are not to be confused with objective facts. The idea of brute facts presupposes that facts are random occurrences in a universe operating according to chance rather than the determined plan and purpose of God. Thus modern science is principally committed to the presupposition that the God spoken of in Scripture does not exist.

Brute facts leads to many a slippery slope. For example, a “fact” does not become a fact, according to the modern scientist’s assumptions, until it has been made a fact by the ultimate definitory power of the mind of man. The modern scientist, pretending to be merely a describer of facts, is in reality a maker of facts. He makes facts as he describes.

According to any consistently Christian position, God, and God only, has ultimate definitory power. God’s description or plan of the fact makes the fact what it is. What the modern scientist ascribes to the mind of man Christianity ascribes to God.

True, the Christian claims that God did not even need a formless stuff for the creation of facts. But this point does not nullify the contention that what the Christian ascribes to God the modern scientist, even when engaged in mere description, virtually ascribes to man. Two Creators, one real, the Other would-be, stand in mortal combat against one another; the self-contained Triune God of Christianity and ... the autonomous man … cannot both be ultimate.

AMR

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

I have the foreknowledge that if i offer my child a plate of cookies or a plate of broccoli, which one she will choose, yet i do not force her hand.

Quite true.

Necessity of a hypothetical inference...
If God foreknew Peter would sin, then Peter cannot refrain from sinning. (Incorrect)
​

The interpretation above wrongly interprets God's foreknowledge as impinging upon Peter's moral free agency. The proper understanding is:

The necessity of the consequent of the hypothetical...
Necessarily, if God foreknew Peter would sin, then Peter does not refrain from sinning. (Correct)
​

In other words, the actions of moral free agents do not take place because they are foreseen, the actions are foreseen because the actions are certain to take place.

In other words, if God foresees something, what He foresaw must happen, else He would not have foreseen it in the first place. Of course "foreseen" is an accommodation to our timebound existence, as there is no "fore" in God's existence, but merely our way of speaking about what is ever present in the mind of God.

You are correct to not confuse knowledge with causation. Because God knows, for He has ordained, in no way makes the knowing causative. God’s decree is a blueprint, it is not an causal agent. Causative agents must be supernatural or human.

When God sets His plan (decree) in motion, supernatural or human agencies come into the picture. It is through these supernatural or human agents that God’s decree becomes actualized. Hence, ordaining by God can be effectuated by free or contingent modalities. Such are the way God uses means to achieve His ends. In fact, from Scripture we find that God can decree for this or that to occur in three ways, freely, contingently, or necessarily.

Isaiah 46:10-11 is exemplary of the Scriptural teachings of the divine foreknowledge of God:

“Declaring the end from the beginning,
Makes officially (not qualifiably) known everything

And from ancient times things that are not yet done,
God's knowledge of things to come not yet done—the future

Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’
God not subject to other's for His will

Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man who executes My counsel, from a far country.
God ordains Cyrus to deliver His people from the Chaldeans; Cyrus, living in a land far from Babylon knew nothing of God's people in Babylon, yet God will use Him to fulfill His secret will.

Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it. ”
Words spoken by God through the prophet would indeed certainly occur. God decreed it. God will make it happen. God had a reason for it. God does it. While God has much in His purposes that are not in His prophecies, God has nothing in His prophecies other than His purposes. God does not say, "I will see to it that it happens", God says, "I will do all my pleasure".

AMR

 

[RBBI]

Freewill is an illusion. You only have to read the names of the places, people and things in the Word to see that He is in control. HaShem sits as if on a high mountain, watching which direction you choose. If it's not to His liking for a lesson or otherwise, He simply throws up a "roadblock" ahead of you, making you change your direction. You THINK you chose which way to go, but in reality He changed your direction. Peace

 

[intojoy]

i'm sure somebody here has better answers than me. i chalk it it up to faith at the end of the day. i have had detailed thought about those questions and believe that God hoped we would obey his one simple commandment (garden), then the 10, but really FAITH is the only thing required -

613 not just 10!

 

[intojoy]

Nice AMR.
What was foreseen was permitted to follow thru. Why? Because God saw some value in man and decided to save some.

So quit questioning His omniscience and humble yourself MADS then He will reveal more truth to you, us.

If you can't even humble yourselves enough to place Meshak on ignore, you exhibit unworthy fruits. Those who reject sound doctrine are reprobate and we are COMMANDED to let them burn.

Peace