Redundant posting.

John, sorry about not addressing your May 19 post more directly. You also raise some good points. It's just that I'm not sure how God can determine the future choices of third and fourth generation children based on what He knows about grand and great grandfathers and mothers. Unless of course God's ability to foretell the future is based on more than mere intutition. The only thing that makes intelligent sense to me concerning God's ability to prophesy the future choices and consequences of free moral agents is if God knows the end from the beginning - as though the future were history.

Mike, I am sorry you feel it is redundant posting. I do not know whether you realize that you have never given us any intelligent understanding of how God knows the end from the beginning - as though the future were history, or a rerun on TV? This thought only comes up against a wall and the best one can do is write it off to mystery. This is what I see you doing. But you feel it must be so because of "how otherwise could it be". That's a resignation to the unknown.

I have never spoken of intuition, nor have I spoken about inherited traits. These are none-issue. I have spoken about "understanding". Where there is Understanding, intuition is not needed. Intuition is part of process of learning understanding. Knowledge based on true understanding is the only knowledge there is that is true.

God knows and understands fully the scope of his created beings, and the powers he has given them. He knows the scope of sin, and the scope of righteousness. He knows the way of life and the way of death, and he knows how to save from death to life. When you know the full scope of something and the workings thereof there are no surprises, and you can plan and have purpose without surprise. You can plan with variables or without depending on your purpose. In the scripture we find both well exemplified.

You will find as you reflect that all the variable plans of God have to do with our free will in 'salvation'; that is, sin or not; faith or unbelief. On the other hand all of God's fixed plans do not involve sin. They involve the course of this world without trammeling on the person's choice in salvation. Having said that, I wish to say that God has exerted strong influence on each person to salvation.

Shalom

[ June 07, 2003, 02:17 PM: Message edited by: John Boskovic ]

John, I accidentally posted my last post twice and I deleted the first one which is what I meant by redundant posting. I am so sorry it sounded like I was referring to the thoughts you shared. God forbid that I should be so rude. Please forgive me for the misunderstanding. I truly do value the things you share.

It is true, as you wrote, that I cannot explain how God can be omniscient or omnipresent or even omnipotent. I accept these things by faith - because I simply want to and not because I can prove it or explain it. I think I grasp your thoughts on God's ability to know the future based on His divine understanding of created beings endowed with freedom of choice.

It's just that I'm not sure why you're unwilling to agree with the idea that God knows the end from the beginning like watching a rerun on TV or knowing the future as though it were history. The Bible makes it clear to me that God knows everything thre is to know about us before we are conceived in the womb and our choices and their consequences before we are born. But His knowing this ahead of time does not rob us of our freedom to choose a different course.

Perhaps another question we need to address is - Can we trust an omniscient God not to hinder, impede, obstruct, frustrate or tamper with our ability and freedom to choose? Does His ability to foretell our future choices (and His ability to manage the consequences of our choices) rob us of our ability to choose a different course? especially when He forewarns us ahead of time (as with Judas and many others)?

Mike,

You asked, "please explain how God was able to predict the future choices of the people I listed above." You listed the Flood, Sodom, Joseph, Balaam, David, Judas, Jesus, Paul and the entire Revelation as examples of God's apparent knowledge of a future choice. Of these examples, only Jesus' prediction of what Judas would do qualifies as possible knowledge of a future choice. However, Judas had already made the choice. Jesus simply let Judas know that He was aware of the plot and urged him (Judas) to reconsider. The flood and Sodom were God's revelation of what He planned to do. The only relevant choices Joseph made were to serve God and leave Potipher's wife alone. All the rest seems to be circumstances arranged by God. That takes a decision and action by God, not foreknowledge of choices made by Joseph or the Pharoah in the case of the butler and the baker.

If I remember correctly, Balaam was coerced to change his mind about about the blessings/curses he would pronounce on the Israelites. In that case Balaam didn't even get to make a choice, much less have that choice foreknown. David was picked to be king after Saul, but as I said last time, Saul was picked by God also, but that didn't work out and by their actions, David's progeny blocked God's promise of an eternal throne from continuing.

As for "prophecies" about Jesus, nearly all of them occurred after the fact. In other words, there is no evidence that the OT prophecies which were applied to Him were meant as prophecies of the messiah. Only after Jesus came was it noted that they could be applied to Jesus. As for Paul, I don't recall any prophecies at all about Paul. Perhaps you meant Peter and the rooster incident. This and Isaiah's prophecy about Cyrus are the only examples I am aware of that definitely indicate the possibility that God really can have knowledge of future events not controlled by Him.

When these two incidents are stacked up against the dozens of prophecies which did not come to pass and the many times God changed His mind and God's statements that there are things He would forget, I have to believe that these two incidents are also in the catagory of "conditional prophecies" like the rest of God's promises and threats.

As for the book of Revelation, it is an outline of what God plans to do. Off the top, I can't think of a single reference in Revelation where God reveals the choice an individual will make. Did I miss something?

On a related topic, you also asked a question about trusting an omniscient God to behave Himself. But I would ask, "where in scripture do you find any indication that God is omniscient?"

Bob Lee

To Lobo,

You ask, "Bob, are you telling us that God arranging circumstances doesn’t violate man’s freewill, but God knowing what choices man will make or having foreknowledge does?"

Of course.

Maybe "violate" is not the right word. What I believe is that if God knows or even if it can be known what I am going to do or decide in the future, that knowledge completely negates the possibility that I can have "free will." God's arrangement of external circumstances such as Saul's encounter on the road to Damascus is completely independant of my free will (or Saul's).

Bob Lee

So would you then agree that God, knowing the choice these individuals had made, would then use them to His own purpose causing them to do things?

Read these texts:

Romans 11:7 that “GOD GAVE THEM a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear, to this very day”?

God made the Pharaoh in Egypt not let Israel go by hardening his heart just so He could witness to all Egyptians through signs: Ex 10:1

God then hardened the hearts of the Egyptian army so they would pursue Israel into the desert. Again, just so he could witness to them in a bigger way: Ex 17:7

God caused a large army of gentile forces to wage war against Israel just so they could “destroy them totally”: Josh 11:20

“9The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, 10and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” 2 Thess 2


All these texts indicated that God caused people to do things or think things to support His purpose. The last text confirms my understanding that God only does this once they have already made their choice (vs 10 above “those who are perishing”).

So do you agree with this idea?

Lobo,

I notice a clear discrepency in scripture between things God has been observed doing or what God says about Himself versus what others say about Him. Often they are contradictory. All the examples you used above are what other people say about God. It's not clear that anyone saw God do any of them nor are any what God says He did or will do. I have come to dismiss those things that are credited to God which are contrary to what God says about Himself or what God has been observed doing. (For instance, people say God is omnipresent. Yet contrary to that characteristic, He has been observed walking in a garden, seated on a chair, flying in an airplane, wrestling with a human, and eating human food [flesh food at that]. I prefer to believe what people have actually observed or what God says than to assume God has characteristics people imagine He might have).

Your examples seem more like the idiomatic expressions such as "acts of God" or "God willing" that we use in our language today than a record of what God actually did.

Bob Lee

Bob, it looks as though you and I have clearly explained our views and that they are clearly in contradiction. I believe God is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. You believe something quite different. It it clear to me that God has the abilitity to predict the future choices and consequences of mankind, and it is clear to you that He does not. But I praise God that we both agree God is in control and that when the great controversy is over sin will not arise again to torment us. Thank you Jesus.