Future choices of man? He's never caught off guard or surprised, but works in and through man's choices to bring about his expected end result as stated in scripture.
Is Anything Not Predestinated by God?
- Thread starter Solitude
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Future choices of man? He's never caught off guard or surprised, but works in and through man's choices to bring about his expected end result as stated in scripture.
I've heard it explained this way:
God: "If you choose to do this, I know what the outcome will be. But if you choose to go in a different direction, I know what the outcome will be. Choose."
Like playing chess and God knows every move to make where in the end, he wins. But he allows us to make our own choices, and he moves based upon our choices.
Have you read the end of His book?God doesn't win in the end. God is outside of time.
Your opening here is simply a reassertion of your platonist presuppositions, which are not not validated by the scriptures you next cite when they are read in their biblical context.
You are not really arguing for "God communicating His actions in terms humans can understand." You are actually saying that we cannot possibly understand God because God is so other than humanity, and beyond human comprehension (despite the fact that scripture says we made in His image, so we are like him in many ways. You are actually arguing for God communicating His actions in terms humans can stomach. If God is as you conceive of Him, and described Himself forthrightly, no human would want to love or worship Him except to serve Him out of fear that He would torture those who refuse to do so. If God is as you conceive of Him, and described Himself forthrightly, He would say, "My primary concern is My own glory - that I should get the maximum possible honour and respect as the apex power wielding maximum power. I don't really feel pity or compassion or loving kindness. I don't really care about justice or truth. Those terms that humans experience and understand are so beneath me, but I describe myself to humans using those terms, so that they will find me attractive and say nice things about me and do things to please me. But that is just Me using anthropopathic and anthropomorphic language that humans can stomach. I am nothing like those human-centric descriptors."
None of those texts, taken in their context, explicitly or implicitly state that God knows all things, including all things future, exhaustively. I will work through your inadequate proof texts one by one to demonstrate that they do not assert the exhaustive knowledge of the future you claim they do. (to be continued...)
I will start with 1 Sam. 15:29, because that is where the Holy Spirit began with me this morning.
1Sa 15:29
And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.
"Will not lie" is Piel imperfective 3 m s; (intensive) and "nor repent" is Niphal imperfective 3 m s (passive or reflexive voice) . Hebrew verb forms are not past, present or future, but are complete/perfective, or incomplete/imperfective. So, being both imperfective, this could be translated as either - was not lying nor was He repenting; is not lying nor was He repenting; or, will not be lying nor will He be repenting.
"That He should repent" is the particle L- followed by the Niphal (reflexive) infinitive construct. So, "for to repent".
So, "And also the Strength of Israel is not lying, nor repenting,: for He is not a man for to repent."
Now context.
1Sa 15:10 Then came the word of the LORD unto Samuel, saying,
1Sa 15:11 It repenteth me (Niphal perfective 1 c s, i.e. I have repented/ I repent) that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night.
1Sa 15:17 And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel?...
1Sa 15:23
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king...
1Sa 15:26 And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee: for thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD hath rejected thee from being king over Israel.
1Sa 15:28 And Samuel said unto him, The LORD hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine, that is better than thou.
1Sa 15:29 And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.
1Sa 15:35
And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death: nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul: and the LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.
So we have five times in the same chapter that we are told either that God repented from making Saul King, or that God was taking the kingdom He had given to Saul away from Saul, i.e. acting on His repentance.
Once in the chapter Samuel says that God is not a man for to repent. Clearly God does repent, but He will not be moved by Saul's grovelling to repent from taking away Saul's kingdom, in the same way that Saul repented from obeying the Lord because of the hurt feelings of his men (1Sa 15:24 And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.)
And in the same way even Samuel would repent from his decision to not go with Saul (1Sa 15:26 And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee: for thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD hath rejected thee from being king over Israel... 1Sa 15:31 So Samuel turned again after Saul; and Saul worshipped the LORD.)
You are rejecting the actual Words of God in 1 Sam. 15, in favour of the traditions of men.
The context of 1 Samuel 15 completely contradicts the interpretation you are imposing on verse 29 because of your traditions inherited from mere men: Irenaeus, Origen and Augustine.
B
Blue155
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Since God is all knowing and all powerful, I suspect the problem for a lot of atheists is they believe that God knows if they were going to become a Christian or not when/before they were born, so they question as to why He allowed them to be born knowing they would die lost.
Or they’d ask why would He allow someone like Hitler to be born, knowing he’d kill millions.
Or they’d ask why would He allow someone like Hitler to be born, knowing he’d kill millions.
Psa 147:5
Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite ('eYL MiSPaR - without number).
This simply means that it is not possible for men to count the number of things God knows. It does not mean infinite.
Gen 41:49
And Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left numbering; for it was without number. ("eYL MiSPaR)
Jdg 6:5
For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number ("eYL MiSPaR): and they entered into the land to destroy it.
Jdg 7:12
And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude; and their camels were without number ("eYL MiSPaR), as the sand by the sea side for multitude.
2Ch 12:3
With twelve hundred chariots, and threescore thousand horsemen: and the people were without number ("eYL MiSPaR) that came with him out of Egypt; the Lubims, the Sukkiims, and the Ethiopians.
Job 5:9
Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number: ("eYL MiSPaR)
See also in Job 9:10, 34:24; Ps.105:34; SoS. 6:8; Jer. 2:32, and Joel 1:6
That God knows more things than a man can count, does not prove that God knows the future.
Isa 46:9
Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,
Isa 46:10
Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
Verse 46:9 simply says that God knows the past. On this we agree. He likely knows all the past and all the present, since those events are settled. They are done, or are being done, and they cannot be undone.
Verse 46:10 says that God has declared in the distant past some things that are not yet done, but which will be done because they are things He has determined He will cause to happen. "I am doing all my pleasure" does not necessarily imply that "all that happens is my pleasure." There is much that happens that God may not Himself be doing. Sin, for instance. So these verses do not assert exhaustive foreknowledge of the future either.
Heb 4:13
Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
There is nothing in this verse that inherently implies that the future is included in the all things that are manifest to God's eyes. The preceding verse, the context, is about God observing our hearts in the present and seeing our present thoughts and intentions, which the Word of God exposes to us in the present. Verse 12 does not give any indication that knowledge of the future is under consideration in verse 13.
Heb 4:12
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
So, this verse does not assert that God has exhaustive knowledge of the future.
God doesn't win in the end. God is outside of time.
If God is omnipresent, He is everywhere, and so would have to exist inside time. and space. Any "where"must be spatial. Any "when" must be temporal. It does not seem reasonable to suggest that God can also exist nowhere and never, which is what outside all time and outside all space would have to be.
- Psalm 139:7-10
- Jeremiah 23:23-24
- Proverbs 15:3
- 1 Kings 8:27
all supplied here like it was in previous threads.
no it wasnt. and your clever words in how you choose to ditch doesn't impress me, neither does your disagreeing for disagreement sake.
The truth is if any well learned Christian doesn't believe God knows the future, and doesn't believe that means, he knows everything, then there waking around with there head inbetween there legs in cloud cuckoo land.
I disagree because you are wrong and this is important enough for me to say so.
Presenting a false dichotomy in fancier language doesn’t change it. It’s still a logical fallacy and therefore unsound reasoning.
Looks like your not accountable by your own accusations to me, you say I don't provide scripture to backup what I'm saying, which ive done several times already here, and in other threads, then when I do provide them, you ignore them and dont provide any scripture of your own. Which really is highly hypocritical to say I don't provide any Scripture, when you do not provide any in return, and what you do mostly provide is a reason to argue.
Your not a person I can talk to..
You must be correct. God can’t possibly be as powerful as some of the words in Scripture have traditionally (over 2,000 years) described God’s attributes. Church leaders and average everyday believers have been wrong about all those descriptive terms like Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Eternal, Immutable, or Sovereign.
You must be correct that these words need to be redefined or nuanced to reflect modern sensibilities and help make a supernatural entity more relatable to our finite sensibilities.
What do you call this new religion where your God is not as powerful as everyone assumed He was?
Never assume God's attributes, but allow scripture to define them. Also, if God has chosen not to know certain outcomes in the future, why does that make him less powerful? Nobody is saying he cannot know all future outcomes, but that he has chosen not to know all future outcomes.