God's Knowing

[Prodigal Son]

i don't know if this has ever been asked on here before, if so, i was paying attention. anyway, i still don't know the answer, so:

did God choose every moment of our lives before he created us? (the purpose driven life seems to suggest this--that he chose every moment; every person we would meet) or does he just know all the infinite possibilities of what will occur?

[jerickson314]

did God choose every moment of our lives before he created us?

That's called Calvinism or predestination.

or does he just know all the infinite possibilities of what will occur?

That's called Armenianism or free will.

Armenianism makes more sense to me, but there is certainly no consensus.

[kateliz]

Only pre-destination is biblical. Free-will isn't biblical, and it would mean that God isn't sovereign. I've lived for years with the knowledge, (which God revealed to me through the Bible itself,) of predestination and have found that knowing God works like this is extremely beneficial, and oh-so-true. Too tired to write more now.

[Kurieuo]

Predestination and free will are both biblical. For without free will, there is nothing God can judge us for. And without predestination, God isn't really in control. I accept both and believe my position is logically consistent.

Kurieuo.

[Prodigal Son]

so the bible supports predestination? so God chose our every moment? that's a pretty scary thing to understand. he seems kind of sadistic then if you think about it.

[Kurieuo]

C.S. Lewis does write:

The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is… hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist... The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless.

I also love his dentist analogy:

What do people mean when they say, “I am not afraid of God because I know He is good”? Have they never even been to a dentist?

Kurieuo.

[kateliz]

I love those quotes Kurieou!

I also like to say that if you don't know what cold is, how can you know what warm is?

God has a purpose for every thread in this tapestry He's making for His ultimate glory and enjoyment. I wouldn't give up the pain I've gone through, (as a result of sin as all pain is,) because I've seen how they were what has brought me the closest to God.

I also like to say that things have to be the way they are because of who God is. Christians often say that because God is "nice" there has to be free-will because He'd never cause sin to occur. They forget that God is also the Righteous Judge, the Forgiving One, the Comforting One, and all sorts of other things. Because of this, wouldn't He have to excercize those traits if He's to be glorified by them? Maybe not, but it makes sense to me!

Also, the main reason, (other than the Bible saying so,) that I believe God ultimately causes sin to occur, (Job proves that He has to allow whatever bad happens to happen,) is because of the relationship sin causes you to have with God. No, I don't mean, "so that we aren't robots or zombies that don't know any different." What I mean is that sin causes us to truly cling to God and lean on Him and helps us learn just who He is and what He's like. The preciousness of sin, I believe, lies in our resulting relationship with God and deep knowledge of Him. You can't know warm until you know cold!

[Forge]

I've always been intrigued with the Omniscience vs. Free will debate. It's a tough one, for sure.

Anyway, I wouldn't call His omniscience predestination, since predestination implies knowing the future, future being a temporal term. As God is not temporal, he is eternal, not-temporal. He can't see the “future.” He just sees everything in one forever-present vision. I find that a reasonable explanation. We do our actions as they come along, and God just sees.


By the way, I simply love Kreeft, Lewis, Strobel, and Chesterton. They be my homeboys, dawg!

[kateliz]

Okay, first of all, Forge, God is omniscient no matter whether we have free-will or not. He still knows everything. The debate is between free-will and predestination, (predestination not confined to only salvation.)

Omniscience means knowing everything including the "future". Predestination means either that God chooses who's to be saved or not, or that God chooses everything that happens to happen.

I think you're getting hung up on terms and so mutilating, (with that knife there,) the real issues. Just because God is not limited to time doesn't mean that He has a "hands off" rule!

Here's what the issue comes down to: can God be Good and still send people to hell if He's the one who decided to put them there? And here's the answer:Romans 9:16-23

Turns out it's pretty simple after all!

[Kurieuo]

In response to the Romans passage, God never actually overrode Pharaoh's freedom (was discussed at http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... .php?t=767).

I believe Paul's words make a good fall back position though when one can't be bothered justifying God's ways before humanity. But it is not very good for those who desire a deeper and more satisfying response on how we are accountable if our actions were determined. Paul's words simply targeted towards those who would judge God, rather than towards explaining how we could still be held accountable for our actions if they were already predetermined.

Kurieuo.

[Forge]

Whoa there, Kate.

I never lessened God's omniscient powers or his nature or his contact with the world. He's not a hand's off person... A father can't be like that. We'd light our derrieres on fire if he was aloof.

I'm trying to find a middle ground between so-called predestination and free will. I think my explanation puts them into harmony without lessening either of them. Of course, that is debatable

[Kurieuo]

Let me provide what I think to be a key to this issue. Out of all the logically possible worlds, God chose this one wherein you would live in this time and location, and He knew all the decisions and actions you would make. It could have been otherwise. You could have been placed at a different time and location, or He could have created a world that is very different from the one within which we live. Within this possible alternative world, you could have carried out very different actions and decisions, including not finding Him.

Now the moment God chose to create this world based on His foreknowledge of everything that would happen, was not everything you would freely do in this particular world, time and place already set? Therefore God predestined you to be saved by choosing this world out of all the other possible worlds He could have created within which He foreknew you would freely choose Him.

Kurieuo.

[kateliz]

No offense, but that's just silly! In other situations the other people who would now refuse God would be the ones saved, and so you're saying that God still chose particular people for salvation, (by choosing this situation verses others.)

Why don't people like to think that everything was planned out and executed by God? For the same reasons people were judging God in that Romans excerpt- they think it'd be unfair. The verses indicate that God has a right as our Maker to choose that some be vessels of wrath and others vessels of His glory. Paul says that God would in fact do such a thing, which is in direct contrast to the main argument of free-will advocates who say that a Good God cannot, (or even if you want to say will not,) purposely send people to hell.

Regardless of what causes people to do what they do, (though the legal systems on earth often make allowances,) they are still responsible. We'd all be off the hook if that were the case! God declared that He can, would, and does do such a thing, and He's still justified in it and still is Good. Paul points out that it's ultimately for God's glory in saying, "What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory?"

Taking an unbiased look at these verses alone you get predestination, and free-will is thrown in the garbage. God actively controls all of His Story (history.)

[Felgar]

Regardless of what causes people to do what they do, (though the legal systems on earth often make allowances,) they are still responsible. We'd all be off the hook if that were the case! God declared that He can, would, and does do such a thing, and He's still justified in it and still is Good. Paul points out that it's ultimately for God's glory in saying, "What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory?"

I strongly disagree Kate. Pharoh is a perfect example of this. He made himself an object of God's wrath by choosing not to let Isreal go, so God then orchistrated Pharoh's destruction for the purpose of making Himself known to the objects of His mercy (Isreal). Pharoh made the first choice. Also God can destroy flesh without affected our chance to choose Him. In fact, as I stated in the other thread, I believe that God often destroys our flesh to help us choose Him.

You are right that it ultimately comes down to the fact that I just don't think it's fair and merciful. Why would God sacrifice His own son for the salvation of every person, and then deny some people the chance to be saved? The fact that God gives us Grace and the means by which He has given it to us, is proof to me that God desires above ALL else, that each of His children be saved. For that reason I cannot believe that He would create a child with no chance to be saved.

Also, explain to me why we must accept God's grace to be saved, if we aren't chosing to accept it. If our fate was predestined, we wouldn't have to accept anything, we would just have it. And if we just had it, EVERYONE would have it, because Jesus died for ALL mankind (and that's biblical! )

And the final consideration: Why did God call us to tell others about Jesus, if their own decisions did not affect their salvation? Why are you called to teach about God, if that knowledge cannot affect another's salvation?

[jerickson314]

Now the moment God chose to create this world based on His foreknowledge of everything that would happen, was not everything you would freely do in this particular world, time and place already set? Therefore God predestined you to be saved by choosing this world out of all the other possible worlds He could have created within which He foreknew you would freely choose Him.

This brings up the key question of why God wouldn't just create a world in which everyone would freely choose Him. I've seen this question raised many a time by atheists.

Felgar, some of your points can be shown to be flawed by assuming (albeit a false assumption, but my purpose is more theoretical than practical) that materialistic determinism is true. It's possible that you are materialistically determined to share the gospel with someone, and they are materialistically determined to accept as a result of your sharing the gospel. If you did not share the gospel the gospel with that person, they would not accept Christ. God's call to share the gospel could be the cause that brings about the effect of you sharing the gospel.

Also, this model would explain those who do not accept Christ. It would be true that they could accept Christ, but that the conditions would never occur to make this actually happen. Now remember that materialistic determinism is a form of predestination. Therefore, some of the logical problems you associate with predestination don't really exist.

As a side note, anyone in this system who "chose" to accept Christ would indeed be saved and would not have to worry about whether this was predestined.

However, the materialistic determinism model, like all models of predestination I have seen, is nearly impossible to reconcile with the existence of an all-good God. This is why I still think that free will makes more sense.