The foreknowledge of God: a question for Arminians

Post by **_STEVE7150** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 10:00 am

How did Jesus know Peter would deny Him 3 times before the rooster would crow? Isn't that a free-will moral choice? It seems that it can be demonstrated that God does know the future choices of free will agents, since scripture records this.

We did have a thread on the "Open View of God" in misc theological topics pg 2 and there are dozens of verses that do say God regreted or was sorry or would react based on how people behaved. The question is whether these verses s/b taken at face value. Re Peter it says in Isa 46 & 48 that when God wants something to happen He intervenes to make it happen. So with Peter , God could have caused Peter to be challenged 3 times and knowing what the level of faith was in Peter's heart the outcome may not have been in doubt.
Re Revelation , God also knows the level of faith in man and predicting men's reactions may not be very difficult. Jesus implied that when He returns there would not be much faith in the world.
This is the Open Theism viewpoint i believe but perhaps the truth is somewhere in between Arminism and Open Theism.

Post by **_TK** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 1:25 pm

i was wondering if anyone here thinks this makes a difference to us individually from a practical standpoint. sure, its interesting to debate and all, but debate on this topic tends to go round and round. someone brought this up in my bible study last night- we were discussing the verse in Acts 13 where it states that those who "were appointed for eternal life believed." i realize that the greek word for appointed has different meanings ("inclined" for example) but we got into a quick discussion about free choice vs God knowing everything; i guess to me it doesnt really matter from a practical standpoint. Like Schoel said elsewhere, sometimes it is best just to be a "simpleton for jesus."

TK

Post by **_Homer** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 4:04 pm

TK,

Well said! Been thinking the very same thing. How is this going to make any difference in how we live?

Post by **_STEVE7150** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 7:21 pm

Well said! Been thinking the very same thing. How is this going to make any difference in how we live?

So we should only read or discuss only the parts of the bible that pertain to the way we live.

Post by **_Homer** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 10:04 pm

Steve7150,

I believe God knows the future and we have free will. I believe He condescends to speak to us in terms we can understand. I believe all that is necessary to know has been revealed in such a manner as to enable even simple people to understand. I believe Christianity is a simple religion.

That said, it can be interesting to discuss some of the more difficult things but I believe we must be humble enough to acknowledge we can not understand everything about "the Unsearchable God". Sometimes we seem to not want to do that.

As Francis Schaeffer commented, debating biblical things can be made into a great sport, a contest we feel we must "win". Even unbelievers can play the game with the best of them.

Some things are important to discuss because of practical reasons. I, for one, believe Calvinism, though well intentioned, has done great harm.

Post by **_STEVE7150** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 8:12 am

I believe God knows the future and we have free will. I believe He condescends to speak to us in terms we can understand. I believe all that is necessary to know has been revealed in such a manner as to enable even simple people to understand. I believe Christianity is a simple religion.

Homer, If salvation and our walk with the Lord is all that is necessary then it is simple. But God did put a lot of other stuff in the bible and He did give us the ability to think critically. Therefore if this other information is there and He gave us a critical thinking ability my guess is that He wants us to try to understand. We may not understand or agree on some things like God's nature but i enjoy the process of trying. To me it's enriching and not a sport but each to his own.

Post by **_TK** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 8:43 am

Hi Steve7150--

believe me, i like debating theology, or else i wouldnt spend so much time here.

when i wrote my post yesterday, i didnt mean to suggest we shouldnt debate or discuss arcane theological topics. i love this stuff!!

i was really simply asking what practical spiritual benefit we can gain, other than entertainment. does it make me more spiritually mature (assuming that more knowledge does not equal more maturity)?

i am just looking for others' opinions on what debate on topics like this (once again-- i like the debate) does for us.

TK

Post by **_Paidion** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 12:21 pm

Sean:

Have you tried to read it in another translation?

"And I said, after she had done all these things, ‘Return to Me.’ But she did not return."(NKJV) "And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. (KJV)"

Yes, I have. The following translations on my online bible have translate it similar to the way you have:

Douay, AV, and its modern equivalents KJ21, NKJV, JB200, and RWebster

The following translations use the word "think" instead of "said":
ESV, NASB, NIV, NIVUS, RSV, and NRSV.

The following translations use "said," but read "she will return to me" instead of the imperative "Return to me."
ASV, Darby, JPS (Jewish Publication Society)

IMO, you are reading a translators preference into the text. God is saying after they backslide, He called them to repentance, but they did not
return.

I have not studied Hebrew, but in looking up the word "omar" in the online bible lexicon, I find the main meaning given is "to say" and a secondary meaning is "to say in one's heart" which is tantamount to "to think." I looked up every instance of the word in the Online Bible, and found that the word usually means simply "to say" as when one person is talking to another. So for that reason, I concede that translating the word as "to think" in this context is a translator's preference. The Septuagint translation into Greek (before the time of Christ) also uses the Greek word for "said".

However, it seems that the words "Return to me" is more than merely a translator's preference. It is a mistranslation. It should be the future tense "She will return to me." It is rendered as a future in the Septuagint.

Let's look at the Jewish Publication Society's translation:

And I said: After she hath done all these things, she will return unto me; but she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. JPS

We can see that using "said" instead of "thought" does not eliminate the problem for those who believe that the future actions of free-will agents are knowable.

For if God said, "She will return to me," but she returned not, then God, who cannot lie, must not have known that she would not return.

Post by **_samcllr** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 8:01 pm

If God has limited knowledge then how was Jesus able to predict Peter’s denial? Many try to regurgitate Boyd’s view on this, but if God alters the situation so that he is proven right then why didn’t he do that in the case in Jeremiah 3: 6-7? I know Open Theism claims that if God believes something then that has to be true, and no matter what we want to do, if God believes the opposite, then what he believes takes precedence over our free will, which is against the Christian belief. I’ve already seen Boyd’s regurgitation of the value of truth in a futuristic statement in this thread. If I say, “It’s going to rain tomorrow.” or, “It’s not going to rain to morrow”, I do not need to have all knowledge or even to watch the weather to know that one of those statements is a lie and one is the truth. So clearly knowing the future can have truth value. And knowing the truth before it takes place does not mean that it has to take place. That is backwards from the truth. "It's going to happen and God knows it", that is the proper way of saying it, not, "God knows it's going to happen therefore it must happen". If God knew I was going to write this and I did, then that is the truth. God would not have known I was going to write this if I wasn't. God knows it's going to happen because it's going to happen.

Now, altering Peter’s free will so that Jesus was proven right is against Peter's free will. Now The Open Theist Has an even heavier load tied up and put on his shoulder. His belief conflicts with itself.

The problem with Open Theism is that it is the same as any other theistic view that tries to limit God, and his power, by creating logical stand-point that argues that it must be correct because it conforms better to the word of God. Open theists claim inerrancy and move forward on one maybe two verses that conform to their cause and then they begin to reinterpret the Bible with their new “Urim and Thummim seer stone” approach. But God is from everlasting to everlasting, and how can anyone conform that to a mortal image of deity. No. My God actually set the altar on fire while the others cried out to their’s all day. I’ll cry out to the one who is everything he claims to be.

John says that "For God is greater than our hearts and he knows everything." (1 Jn 3:20)
The writer of Hebrews says that "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid before the eyes of him to whom we must give account." (Heb 4:13 c.f. 2 Ch 16:9)

God said to Isaiah "for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done" (Is 46:9-10 c.f. Is 42:8-9)

Psalm 139 - all of it, but in particular: "How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand." (vv. 17-18) "All the days ordainded for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." (v. 16)

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. (Rom 8:28-30)

Post by **_Sean** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 4:37 am

STEVE7150 wrote:How did Jesus know Peter would deny Him 3 times before the rooster would crow? Isn't that a free-will moral choice? It seems that it can be demonstrated that God does know the future choices of free will agents, since scripture records this.

We did have a thread on the "Open View of God" in misc theological topics pg 2 and there are dozens of verses that do say God regreted or was sorry or would react based on how people behaved. The question is whether these verses s/b taken at face value. Re Peter it says in Isa 46 & 48 that when God wants something to happen He intervenes to make it happen. So with Peter , God could have caused Peter to be challenged 3 times and knowing what the level of faith was in Peter's heart the outcome may not have been in doubt.
Re Revelation , God also knows the level of faith in man and predicting men's reactions may not be very difficult. Jesus implied that when He returns there would not be much faith in the world.
This is the Open Theism viewpoint i believe but perhaps the truth is somewhere in between Arminism and Open Theism.

If you are correct then Jesus didn't really "predict" anything. If God can know what Peter will do under certain conditions because God knows his "faith level" then you are saying God can see past the point of human free will choices. Something Paidion says God can't do.

I don't know if you are furthering Paidions point are making a different one but I admit it's hard to keep up in a discussion about this.

Like I said in another post, if God "predicts" the future by making it happen, then human free will is violated, leading toward the slippery slope of calvinism. However, if God can see past our free will choices (as you just said) then why can God not see past all of them and know all things that will happen?