Is Anything Not Predestinated by God?
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Luke 17:7-10 (NLT, Tyndale House)
"When a servant comes in from plowing or taking care of sheep, does his master say, 'Come in and eat with me"? No, he says, 'Prepare my meal, put on your apron, and serve me while I eat. Then you can eat later.' And does the master thank the servant for doing what he was told to do? Of course not. In the same way, when you obey me you should say, we are unworthy servants who have simply done our duty.'"
Matthew 18:7-9 (NLT, Tyndale House)
"What sorrow awaits the world, because it tempts people to sin. Temptations are inevitable, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting? So if your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It's better to enter eternal life with only one hand or one foot than to be thrown into eternal fire with both of your hands and feet. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It's better to enter eternal life with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell."
These parallel verses about the way in which morality and immorality is described according to the way God prohibits his followers from practicing sin are instructive. The Lord implies that work in his service has a certain character of a days work well done, but he also promises that the urge to commit oneself to vile attitudes will cause great suffering. God does not predestine followers to sin, he commands us with stark words not to and gives us an illustration of what life he does predetermine.
"When a servant comes in from plowing or taking care of sheep, does his master say, 'Come in and eat with me"? No, he says, 'Prepare my meal, put on your apron, and serve me while I eat. Then you can eat later.' And does the master thank the servant for doing what he was told to do? Of course not. In the same way, when you obey me you should say, we are unworthy servants who have simply done our duty.'"
Matthew 18:7-9 (NLT, Tyndale House)
"What sorrow awaits the world, because it tempts people to sin. Temptations are inevitable, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting? So if your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It's better to enter eternal life with only one hand or one foot than to be thrown into eternal fire with both of your hands and feet. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It's better to enter eternal life with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell."
These parallel verses about the way in which morality and immorality is described according to the way God prohibits his followers from practicing sin are instructive. The Lord implies that work in his service has a certain character of a days work well done, but he also promises that the urge to commit oneself to vile attitudes will cause great suffering. God does not predestine followers to sin, he commands us with stark words not to and gives us an illustration of what life he does predetermine.
What I'm getting at by saying God is with us is that He, Jesus Christ is the master and doesn't let his followers stumble into sorrowful fates, because we do not call upon him in vain, and moreover that because Christian houses do not have idols placed in them to draw one away from the Lord, whom we serve and who is due.
PaulThomson said:
I agree that God did not create evil, but did let it happen. So, God knowing all history in advance before creation is not logically reasonable.
Sorry, My second sentence was not a conclusion based on my first sentence. It was a recapitulation of the conclusion from my previous post #359, reaffirming its truth. i.e.
"God knowing all the probabilities is not enough for Him to predict every event accurately. God would need to either know all outcomes objectively through have already seen them happen. But they have not all already happened, so that would be logically nonsensical suggestion. Or He would need to know them all subjectively, by having already planned and decided to make them happen. using His omnipotence. But that would make God the author, planner and intender of all the universe's evil."
If God knew for certain exactly all the evil that was certainly going to happen when He began creating this world, then He would have created exactly all the evil that He knew was going to happen, and by creating it knowingly He would have have intended all that evil to happen.
However, if God knew from His experience with creating other worlds that it was possible for creatures to abandon love, but He was not cognisant of what particular evils this particular creation might do, He created the original creation very good, but He did not intend any of the collateral damage that his creatures would devise, which He did not foreknow..
I agree that God did not create evil, but did let it happen. So, God knowing all history in advance before creation is not logically reasonable.
Sorry, My second sentence was not a conclusion based on my first sentence. It was a recapitulation of the conclusion from my previous post #359, reaffirming its truth. i.e.
"God knowing all the probabilities is not enough for Him to predict every event accurately. God would need to either know all outcomes objectively through have already seen them happen. But they have not all already happened, so that would be logically nonsensical suggestion. Or He would need to know them all subjectively, by having already planned and decided to make them happen. using His omnipotence. But that would make God the author, planner and intender of all the universe's evil."
If God knew for certain exactly all the evil that was certainly going to happen when He began creating this world, then He would have created exactly all the evil that He knew was going to happen, and by creating it knowingly He would have have intended all that evil to happen.
However, if God knew from His experience with creating other worlds that it was possible for creatures to abandon love, but He was not cognisant of what particular evils this particular creation might do, He created the original creation very good, but He did not intend any of the collateral damage that his creatures would devise, which He did not foreknow..
B
Blue155
Guest
@PaulThomson Does God already know which individual would be saved and lost? And if he knows, can the individual who he knows is going to be lost be saved?
I don't think He would need to "predict" (guess), and I don't think He needs to "do" to "know". Therefore, I don't see the logical hindrance that you see.
I agree with you here.
While your wording implies that God is the author of sin, in a different way what you suggest is plausible. Consider that God created this "universe" exactly as He did, knowing all the evil that would take place, because in His perfect foreknowledge, He knew that this evil was necessary to enable the maximum number of persons responding in faith to His love. In this scenario God is fully omniscient and fully innocent. I see this as the best explanation.
I reject this scenario because nothing in Scripture suggests that God had a practice run. Actually, the idea impinges on God's character by diminishing both His goodness and His omnipotence. Would you consider a being worthy of worship who must "practice" creating worlds filled with evil?
Well that's out in the weeds. Jesus Christ is the authority which we know and behold. Those who follow him hear his voice, as spoken in the prophets and the lay ministry. And nobody steals little ones from his Hand, the guardian angels look over us until we know better as adults to serve him as unworthy but still living in his Lovingkindness. He does not author any sorrow for those.
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Blue155
Guest
Thank you for this very astute observation. I would also note that when the Bible has God identifying Himself as the "I am that I am" the Greek word used in the LXX is "ὁ ὤν which is the present tense participle which conveys the sense of continual ongoing present tense existence.
Exodus 3:14 (LXX-NETS)
And God said to Moyses, “I am The One Who Is,” And he said, “Thus shall you say to the sons of Israel, ‘The One Who Is has sent me to you.’”14 καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεὸς πρὸς Μωυσῆν ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν καὶ εἶπεν οὕτως ἐρεῗς τοῗς υἱοῗς Ισραηλ ὁ ὢν*ἀπέσταλκέν με πρὸς ὑ
Contrary to the claims of Platonists God is not remote from us residing outside the universe of time change and succession. Rather He is always in the present in His full glory although this is not ordinarily not visible to us.
On the other hand, if God is "outside time" then He is frozen and incapable of doing anything like the idols who the Bible says:
16....have mouths, but cannot speak; they have eyes, but cannot see; 17they have ears, but cannot hear; nor is there breath in their mouths.…
(Psalm 135:16)
The word in Hebrew for I AM in "I AM has sent me" is 'eHVeH. I am being, or I am becoming, It is a Qal imperfective, which means that it indicates God has not finished being, and refers to a being that is in the process of becoming and is therefore changing. By that name God is IMO saying that he is a living God who is constantly changing in His interactions and responses to what is happening, unlike the gods of wood and stone and metal that cannot respond or interact to anything in different ways.
Had God used the Qal perfective, I think one could reasonably suggest YaHWeH was expressing an immutable timeless (completed) being, as classical theology imagines God to be. But since He uses the imperfective,/incompleted form of to be, that classical (i.e. based on Greek and Roman philosophy) concept of an unchanging God is not what one would reasonably exegete from the Hebrew text. IMO
actually, Hebrew has no past, present of future tenses. So, 'eHVEH could also be an incomplete action or state in the past or the future. I was being/becoming, I am being/becoming, or I will be being/becoming. Context must determine which one/ones are what God meant. Perhaps even all of them.
This sounds very much like another way God desctibes Himself in the NT.
Rev 4:8
And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. (ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενο: using past, present and future pariciples, i.e. the one who was being, the one who is being, and the one who is coming.) Again, God sounding very much "in time".
Only the elect are ever saved.
Do you think you're part of the elect? It's not just about believing but obeying God through the Holy Spirit. Right now you're not bearing His fruit being so unloving towards others, so you're really in no position to gloat over them.
Matthew 3:8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. (NIV)
Matthew 3:8 Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. (NLT)
I think the sense of YHWH you have described is perfectly consistent with the ONGOING nature of a God who though being causeless is always in touch with His creation. That being said, before the time space continuum was created God still existed though succession not of events but of the interchange between members of the Trinity. I see some of this in John 17 and John 1:1. Take that for what it is worth
To be fair, interchange involves a succession of events too. The Father speaks, then the Son responds, then the Father responds.
Exactly, God is a living Being so the interaction with the fellow members of the Trinity while not a time/space event indicates a succession of "events"
But that's all time is. The order in which events happen and the period differences between those events. It is not reasonable to assume that all time began with the creation of this universe's time-space continuum. The order and intervals between events in this universe began with its beginning. But there was order and intervals between events before the creation of this universe.
The Bible says Christ loved and died for the whole world so that anyone who believes could be saved. By contrast, you claim that His sacrifice only applies to the relatively few who God has preselected and predetermined to be saved but that Christs blood is not available to anyone else. The word denies this saying that:
2 He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for OUR SINS, and NOT ONLY FOR OURS but also for the sins of the WHOLE WORLD.
(1 John 2:22)
When John says Christ was the atoning sacrifice for OUR sins he was referring to believers. The rest of the sentence lets us know that he died also so that those who are still in bondage to sin (i.e., the world) could also be saved. If Christ had not died for them their salvation would have been impossible and the universal call of the gospel to humanity, would have been a lie.