THE DAUGHTERS OF MEN

Hi Barney, There is a big difference between foreknowing and foreordaining which God most certainly did not do. You can't take away Adam and Eve's free will. It was their choice, and God being God lives in the past, present and future all at the same time.

Trekson said:

Hi Barney, There is a big difference between foreknowing and foreordaining which God most certainly did not do. You can't take away Adam and Eve's free will. It was their choice, and God being God lives in the past, present and future all at the same time.

Click to expand...

Hi Trekson, I know that a lot of people like you believe God lives in the past, presence and future. I don't however. I believe God sits on his Throne in heaven. I believe God to be all knowing and he foreordains but you and I may not see it exactly the same way.

Trekson said:

Hi Barney, There is a big difference between foreknowing and foreordaining which God most certainly did not do. You can't take away Adam and Eve's free will. It was their choice, and God being God lives in the past, present and future all at the same time.

Click to expand...

To understand the matter of foreknowledge and foreordination as relating to God, certain factors necessarily must be recognized.

First, God’s ability to foreknow and foreordain is clearly stated in the Bible. Jehovah himself sets forth as proof of his Godship this ability to foreknow and foreordain events of salvation and deliverance, as well as acts of judgment and punishment, and then to bring such events to fulfillment. His chosen people are witnesses of these facts. (Isa 44:6-9; 48:3-8) Such divine foreknowledge and foreordination form the basis for all true prophecy. (Isa 42:9; Jer 50:45; Am 3:7, 8) God challenges the nations opposing his people to furnish proof of the godship they claim for their mighty ones and their idol-gods, calling on them to do so by foretelling similar acts of salvation or judgment and then bringing them to pass. Their impotence in this respect demonstrates their idols to be ‘mere wind and unreality.’ —Isa 41:1-10, 21-29; 43:9-15; 45:20, 21.

A second factor to be considered is the free moral agency of God’s intelligent creatures. The Scriptures show that God extends to such creatures the privilege and responsibility of free choice, of exercising free moral agency (De 30:19, 20; Jos 24:15), thereby making them accountable for their acts. (Ge 2:16, 17; 3:11-19; Ro 14:10-12; Heb 4:13) They are thus not mere automatons, or robots. Man could not truly have been created in “God’s image” if he were not a free moral agent. (Ge 1:26, 27; see FREEDOM.) Logically, there should be no conflict between God’s foreknowledge (as well as his foreordaining) and the free moral agency of his intelligent creatures.

A third factor that must be considered, one sometimes overlooked, is that of God’s moral standards and qualities, including his justice, honesty, impartiality, love, mercy, and kindness. Any understanding of God’s use of the powers of foreknowledge and foreordination must therefore harmonize with not only some of these factors but with all of them. Clearly, whatever God foreknows must inevitably come to pass, so that God is able to call “things that are not as though they were.” —Ro 4:17.

Does God know in advance everything that people will do?

The question then arises: Is his exercise of foreknowledge infinite, without limit? Does he foresee and foreknow all future actions of all his creatures, spirit and human? And does he foreordain such actions or even predestinate what shall be the final destiny of all his creatures, even doing so before they have come into existence?

Or, is God’s exercise of foreknowledge selective and discretionary, so that whatever he chooses to foresee and foreknow, he does, but what he does not choose to foresee or foreknow, he does not? And, instead of preceding their existence, does God’s determination of his creatures’ eternal destiny await his judgment of their course of life and of their proved attitude under test? The answers to these questions must necessarily come from the Scriptures themselves and the information they provide concerning God’s actions and dealings with his creatures, including what has been revealed through his Son, Christ Jesus. —1Co 2:16.

Trekson said:

Hi Barney, There is a big difference between foreknowing and foreordaining which God most certainly did not do. You can't take away Adam and Eve's free will. It was their choice, and God being God lives in the past, present and future all at the same time.

Click to expand...

Predestinarian view. The view that God’s exercise of his foreknowledge is infinite and that he does foreordain the course and destiny of all individuals is known as predestinarianism. Its advocates reason that God’s divinity and perfection require that he be omniscient (all-knowing), not only respecting the past and present but also regarding the future. According to this concept, for him not to foreknow all matters in their minutest detail would evidence imperfection. Examples such as the case of Isaac’s twin sons, Esau and Jacob, are presented as evidence of God’s foreordaining creatures before their birth (Ro 9:10-13); and texts such as Ephesians 1:4, 5 are cited as evidence that God foreknew and foreordained the future of all his creatures even before the start of creation.

To be correct, this view would, of course, have to harmonize with all the factors previously mentioned, including the Scriptural presentation of God’s qualities, standards, and purposes, as well as his righteous ways in dealing with his creatures. (Re 15:3, 4) We may properly consider, then, the implications of such a predestinarian view.

This concept would mean that, prior to creating angels or earthling man, God exercised his powers of foreknowledge and foresaw and foreknew all that would result from such creation, including the rebellion of one of his spirit sons, the subsequent rebellion of the first human pair in Eden (Ge 3:1-6; Joh 8:44), and all the bad consequences of such rebellion down to and beyond this present day. This would necessarily mean that all the wickedness that history has recorded (the crime and immorality, oppression and resultant suffering, lying and hypocrisy, false worship and idolatry) once existed, before creation’s beginning, only in the mind of God, in the form of his foreknowledge of the future in all of its minutest details.

If the Creator of mankind had indeed exercised his power to foreknow all that history has seen since man’s creation, then the full weight of all the wickedness thereafter resulting was deliberately set in motion by God when he spoke the words: “Let us make man.” (Ge 1:26) These facts bring into question the reasonableness and consistency of the predestinarian concept; particularly so, since the disciple James shows that disorder and other vile things do not originate from God’s heavenly presence but are “earthly, animal, demonic” in source. —Jas 3:14-18.

Infinite exercise of foreknowledge? The argument that God’s not foreknowing all future events and circumstances in full detail would evidence imperfection on his part is, in reality, an arbitrary view of perfection. Perfection, correctly defined, does not demand such an absolute, all-embracing extension, inasmuch as the perfection of anything actually depends upon its measuring up completely to the standards of excellence set by one qualified to judge its merits. (See PERFECTION.) Ultimately, God’s own will and good pleasure, not human opinions or concepts, are the deciding factors as to whether anything is perfect. —De 32:4; 2Sa 22:31; Isa 46:10.

To illustrate this, God’s almightiness is undeniably perfect and is infinite in capacity. (1Ch 29:11, 12; Job 36:22; 37:23) Yet his perfection in strength does not require him to use his power to the full extent of his omnipotence in any or in all cases. Clearly he has not done so; if he had, not merely certain ancient cities and some nations would have been destroyed, but the earth and all in it would have been obliterated long ago by God’s executions of judgment, accompanied by mighty expressions of disapproval and wrath, as at the Flood and on other occasions. (Ge 6:5-8; 19:23-25, 29; compare Ex 9:13-16; Jer 30:23, 24.) God’s exercise of his might is therefore not simply an unleashing of limitless power but is constantly governed by his purpose and, where merited, tempered by his mercy. —Ne 9:31; Ps 78:38, 39; Jer 30:11; La 3:22; Eze 20:17.

Similarly, if, in certain respects, God chooses to exercise his infinite ability of foreknowledge in a selective way and to the degree that pleases him, then assuredly no human or angel can rightly say: “What are you doing?” (Job 9:12; Isa 45:9; Da 4:35) It is therefore not a question of ability, what God can foresee, foreknow, and foreordain, for “with God all things are possible.” (Mt 19:26) The question is what God sees fit to foresee, foreknow, and foreordain, for “everything that he delighted to do he has done.” —Ps 115:3.

Trekson said:

Hi Barney, There is a big difference between foreknowing and foreordaining which God most certainly did not do. You can't take away Adam and Eve's free will. It was their choice, and God being God lives in the past, present and future all at the same time.

Click to expand...

Selective exercise of foreknowledge. The alternative to predestinarianism, the selective or discretionary exercise of God’s powers of foreknowledge, would have to harmonize with God’s own righteous standards and be consistent with what he reveals of himself in his Word. In contrast with the theory of predestinarianism, a number of texts point to an examination by God of a situation then current and a decision made on the basis of such examination.

Thus, at Genesis 11:5-8 God is described as directing his attention earthward, surveying the situation at Babel, and, at that time, determining the action to be taken to break up the unrighteous project there. After wickedness developed at Sodom and Gomorrah, Jehovah advised Abraham of his decision to investigate (by means of his angels) to “see whether they act altogether according to the outcry over it that has come to me, and, if not, I can get to know it.” (Ge 18:20-22; 19:1) God spoke of ‘becoming acquainted with Abraham,’ and after Abraham went to the point of attempting to sacrifice Isaac, Jehovah said, “For now I do know that you are God-fearing in that you have not withheld your son, your only one, from me.” —Ge 18:19; 22:11, 12; compare Ne 9:7, 8; Ga 4:9.

Selective foreknowledge means that God could choose not to foreknow indiscriminately all the future acts of his creatures. This would mean that, rather than all history from creation onward being a mere rerun of what had already been foreseen and foreordained, God could with all sincerity set before the first human pair the prospect of everlasting life in an earth free from wickedness. His instructions to his first human son and daughter to act as his perfect and sinless agents in filling the earth with their offspring and making it a paradise, as well as exercising control over the animal creation, could thus be expressed as the grant of a truly loving privilege and as his genuine desire toward them —not merely as the giving of a commission that, on their part, was foredoomed to failure. God’s arranging for a test by means of “the tree of the knowledge of good and bad” and his creation of “the tree of life” in the garden of Eden also would not be meaningless or cynical acts, made so by his foreknowing that the human pair would sin and never be able to eat of “the tree of life.” —Ge 1:28; 2:7-9, 15-17; 3:22-24.

To offer something very desirable to another person on conditions known beforehand to be unreachable is recognized as both hypocritical and cruel. The prospect of everlasting life is presented in God’s Word as a goal for all persons, one possible to attain.

Hi Barney, Boy, you like to make things kinda complicated, don't you? The fact there are some things that are predestined is unquestionable according to scripture but that doesn't equate to "everything" being predestined. In this case predestination and something being "foreordained" are two sides of the same coin. Foreknowledge and foreordained, more often than not, do not go hand in hand. In your Isaac example, God wasn't expressing ignorance as He was, issuing a test. The same type of test that the church will experience in the latter days according to 1 Pet. 4:17. God said what he said to Abraham as an affirmation for Abraham's sake complimenting his choice of righteousness and faith over the lack thereof. The ram was already there, remember.

Trekson said:

Hi Barney, Boy, you like to make things kinda complicated, don't you? The fact there are some things that are predestined is unquestionable according to scripture but that doesn't equate to "everything" being predestined. In this case predestination and something being "foreordained" are two sides of the same coin. Foreknowledge and foreordained, more often than not, do not go hand in hand. In your Isaac example, God wasn't expressing ignorance as He was, issuing a test. The same type of test that the church will experience in the latter days according to 1 Pet. 4:17. God said what he said to Abraham as an affirmation for Abraham's sake complimenting his choice of righteousness and faith over the lack thereof. The ram was already there, remember.

Click to expand...

The point with Abraham and Isaac I'm trying to make is that I don't believe God looked into the future to see if Abraham would or wouldn't attempt to sacrifice his son instead God believed that Abraham would pass the test. Why? Because God loved Abraham and love and trust go hand in hand. So yes the ram was already there because God believed Abraham would pass the test because of the love God had for him. If you remember also Abraham believe his son would be coming back with him since he told his servants to wait with the donkeys while he and his son went to the mountain to worship and then he and his son return(Genesis 22:5). What did Abraham mean? Was he lying about coming back with Isaac, knowing that he would sacrifice him? No. The Bible says that Abraham knew that Jehovah was able to resurrect Isaac from the dead. (Hebrews 11:19.) Abraham knew that Jehovah had given him the power to have a son even though he and Sarah were very old. (Hebrews 11:11, 12, 18) So he realized that nothing was impossible for Jehovah. Abraham did not know what would happen that day. But he had faith that if needed, Jehovah would resurrect his son so that all of God’s promises would come true. That is why Abraham is called “the father of all those having faith.”

The test of the church or what I call the anointed congregation yes they would pass the test but that doesn't mean God looked into the future to see exactly which individuals would be in that church or anointed congregation. I believe free will of humans who answer the call of the True God and endure to the end(death) will decide who will be in that anointed congregation.