1) Does God know in advance who will be saved?

No.

2) How free are we to place our wills under the will of Christ?

As free as we are to place our wills under anything else.

2a) Can we freely choose to do that according to our desire?

No.

2b) Where does that desire originate? In our own minds?

All desire originates from awareness, experience and cultivation. (Not counting - thirst, hunger, tiredness, etc as desires.)

3) Adventists don't believe in predestination, but what does the Bible mean by predestination?

It means God’s plan and purpose for all creation. In other words; IF we will hear him, this is where he will take us and what he will make of us.

Does God know in advance who will be saved? Yes.

How free are we to place our wills under the will of Christ? The devil has no power over the weakest of saints that gets down on their knees and surrenders their lives to God.
"The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. The weakest saint, as well as the strongest, may wear the crown of immortal glory. All may win who, through the power of divine grace, bring their lives into conformity to the will of Christ."
Yes, we are free, through the power of Christ and His angels who give us that freedom -- to make the choice.

Can we freely choose to do that according to our desire?
I sense that you are moving into another field here.
Are you still speaking of freely choosing to place our wills under the will of Christ, or are you speaking of now moving on in doing works in our own strength? We MUST NOT CONFUSE THE TWO. The person who desires to do good in his own strength fails (as Romans 7 points out) BUT THE PERSON in whom the Holy Spirit resides who continually surrenders to the leading of the Holy Spirit, puts to death the carnal things of the flesh and lives by the Holy Spirit (as Romans 8 points out).
Yes, we can freely choose to walk with Christ, or walk on our own.

Where does that desire originate?
The desire is given by the Holy Spirit.
In the heart of every person is placed a desire for God. To the conscience of every person the appeals are made. Every person hears the tender call of the Redeemer.
But Christ does not force --
Every person makes a choice -- a choice to respond or a choice to reject. With each choice to respond a person is lead into closer fellowship with Christ. With each choice to reject the heart is hardened and the appeal is weakened.

Adventists don't believe in predestination, but what does the Bible mean by predestination?
Adventists do not believe in Calvinistic predestination. Calvinistic predestination claims that God selected who would be saved and who would not and sends His Holy Spirit on some and ignores the rest.

Biblical predestination -- Before the foundations of the earth were laid the covenant was made that all who should through the abundant grace provided accept the matchless grace of Christ, forsake their lives of sin and become holy in character and without blame before God by appropriating that grace, should be children of God.
That is what God predestined us for!
But He won't force anyone -- the choice is ours whether we will let Him mold our lives or if we will tell the master potter we don't want Him to mold our lives.

Does God know who will be saved?
How does this affect how He deals with people?

Let's go to the upper room for understanding.

There is Judas, already committed to betraying His Lord. Jesus knows Judas will betray Him. He knows He will lose Judas as His prayer in John 17 reveals.
BUT Jesus, with love tried to win Judas back. His heart was crying, How can I give thee up? The constraining power of that love was felt by Judas. When the Saviour's hands were bathing those soiled feet, and wiping them with the towel, the heart of Judas thrilled through and through with the impulse then and there to confess his sin. But he would not humble himself. He CHOSE to harden his heart against repentance; and with that choice, the old impulses, which for the moment had almost been swept aside, again controlled him. He chose to follow the will of Satan.

Interesting John that you think God does not know who is going to be saved. God knows all things. I don't have a text off hand to quote, but I'm sure there is more than one.

When Christ says, 'Without me you can do nothing' what does that say about our wills? Are they free? We have desires to do good, but our wills are not free to do a single good deed; not one thing according to Christ. So, it's a mistake to call them free. We have wills but they are anything but free. And yet, when we respond to the creative and regenerative power of the Holy Spirit, and become slaves of Christ, our wills are liberated. But notice, they are 'free' only as long as they are captive to the will of Christ and renewed by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. So we need to be more careful in our use of the term 'free will.' Wills, yes, free, no.

Dedication, I'd invite you to have another look at Ephesians one and explain some of the verses that would be hard to harmonize with some of your thoughts.

Interesting John that you think God does not know who is going to be saved. God knows all things. I don't have a text off hand to quote, but I'm sure there is more than one.

God knows everything that's knowable. To assert God knows something which cannot be known is non-sensical, similar to asserting that because God cannot make a rock so big that He cannot lift it, He is not all-powerful.

Regarding the question if God knows who will be saved, one could respond "Yes: everyone who believes in Christ will be saved."

When Christ says, 'Without me you can do nothing' what does that say about our wills? Are they free?

Christ said of Himself, "I can of myself do nothing" so we can conclude that if our wills are not free, then neither was His.

We have desires to do good, but our wills are not free to do a single good deed; not one thing according to Christ. So, it's a mistake to call them free. We have wills but they are anything but free.

If our wills are not free, how can we respond to the invitation of Christ?

And yet, when we respond to the creative and regenerative power of the Holy Spirit, and become slaves of Christ, our wills are liberated. But notice, they are 'free' only as long as they are captive to the will of Christ and renewed by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. So we need to be more careful in our use of the term 'free will.' Wills, yes, free, no.

Again, if our wills are not free, how can we resond to the Gospel invitation? Christ said, "Whosoever will may come." What does this mean?

You have suggested that Dedication should consider Ephesians because this doesn't agree with some of her thoughts. That's awfully vague. Which thoughts?

I thought her explanation of Biblical predestination was on point. "Predestination" means simply to destine ahead of time. God has destined that all those who choose Christ shall be saved. Christ is the way of salvation. Whosoever will may come.

I thought I'd mention something that I think many confuse, which is what predesitination means to classical Arminianism and Calvinism. Classical Arminianism says that God looks into the future, sees who will be saved, and then elects those whom He sees to be saved.

In Calvinism, God's election of the saved is not dependent upon His foreknowledge; He simply chooses who will be saved on the basis of His sovereignty, because He is God, and can do whatever He wants. If you think this is unfair, who are you, oh pot, to complain of the Potter?

I was hoping you or John would expand on the idea that God does not know who will be saved. Please tell me more. You think this is one of those unknowable areas? Why? Are you basing it on the idea that God did not know if Christ would succeed or fail until he was tested perhaps?

Tom, you wrote:

Quote:

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Christ said of Himself, "I can of myself do nothing" so we can conclude that if our wills are not free, then neither was His.

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That's a good point. Christ was our example in submitting His will to God. Just as we can do nothing without Christ, so he could do nothing except as He was submitted to God. At one point He stated that even every word He spoke, aside from His acts, was only what He heard from God. This is the ideal that we are aiming for.

Here is the nub of the matter; can we submit our wills ourselves to God? No. The invitation, 'Whomsoever will' is also the Word of creative power that enables us to respond. Without that power outside of ourselves we are abject slaves. The power is there in the invitation.

It's true that man's will would have been in bondage had God not intervened, but God did intervene. God supernatually put enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. The grace of God encirles the earth with an atmosphere as real as the air we breath.

The light shining from the cross reveals the love of God and draws every person to the foot of the cross in repentance. Every person actually has to resist this drawing in order to be lost. God's goodness is leading everyone to repentance. Everyone who does not resist will be saved, and not a one will be lost unless they steadfastly refuse to repent. There's not a soul who will be lost except that they have adamantly chosen this to be the case. God's love makes it difficult for the wicked to destroy themselves.

Most Adventists would say we can choose who we serve. In that sense, they would agree with you that our wills are not in bondage. But even most Adventists would say our wills only allow us to make the choice between the two competing masters of the earth, Christ and Satan.

But actually, we're in much worse shape than that. We are born carnally minded and it is *only* through the regenerative word that we can choose our master. So the enmity God promised to place between us and Satan is not something that is natural to our fallen condition; it is something each one of us has to be infused with by the Holy Spirit before we can be born again and choose what is good.