Interaction with perfect foreknowledge Pt. 2

(you may want to read part 1 before you read part 2 - consider that a prophetic statement) :)

God's TWO FOLD purpose for dispensing foreknowledge.

Why does God dispense His foreknowledge to us? I assert there is a two fold reason, with a single overlying reason. The single overlying reason I explained in Interaction with perfect foreknowledge Pt. 1, is that God wants to effect our will in an attempt to influence our will to more closely conform to His will.

But now lets dig a little deeper.
I assert that there is a two fold purpose in making foreknowledge known to others.

EXAMPLE:

When we say to our son who just got a new BB gun for Christmas....

"You are going to shoot your eye out with that thing!"

Our foreknowledge (educated guess) tells us that our child is too inexperienced to understand the safest way to handle the BB gun so he is most likely going to shoot a BB and have it ricochet hitting him in the eye.

But why do we dispense our foreknowledge to him? Why do we tell him what we think is going to happen?

I assert we do this for TWO REASONS:

1. We want to effect a possible future event. We want our son to think about safety. We DO NOT want him to shoot his eye out!!!

But it doesn't stop there. There is yet another reason we dispensed our foreknowledge to our son.

2. We realize he may not heed our warning and he might STILL carelessly shoot his eye out! And when that unfortunate event happens we want him to realize we were right in our foreknowledge and therefore give our advice credibility and possibly restore our sons faith in our enlightened foreknowledge (this will help us the next time we give him advice).

I assert that this TWO FOLD tactic is the very reason why God INTERACTS with us and dispenses His foreknowledge to us!

CASE IN POINT:
God wanted Peter to be a powerful witness for the gospel, a leader of the church. But God knew Peter's heart. God knew Peter's faith was weak. Therefore God interacted with Peter using this TWO FOLD use of foreknowledge.

God told Peter that Peter would deny Christ three times before the rooster crowed.

What was the point of this foreknowledge being given to Peter? Why didn't God just keep it to Himself? Why did He bother to tell Peter?

PURPOSE NUMBER ONE:
God wanted Peter to NOT deny Him! He wanted Peter to NOT shoot his eye out with the BB gun (so to speak). Yet God knew that Peter was likely going to deny Him regardless and then reason for prophecy number two kicked in . . .

PURPOSE NUMBER TWO:
God wanted Peter to have renewed faith in God's foreknowledge and therefore renewed faith in God because God was able to accurately predict Peter's future actions. Peter could then say to himself "WOW God must be the real God because He knew I was gonna shoot me eye with the BB gun." (so to speak).

And therefore the overall purpose of the foreknowledge is manifested.... EFFECTING Peter's will in a manner which persuaded Peter's will to more more closely conform to God's will for Peter. God created a "win win" prophecy tailored specifically for Peter to effect Peters will no matter what Peter chose to do.

The dispensing of foreknowledge has NO purpose unless the future is unsettled. Dispensing foreknowledge is a lever to effect future actions.


More to come in pt. 3.

Interaction with perfect foreknowledge Pt. 1

The popular argument lately regarding God's foreknowledge seems to be....

God can have perfect exhaustive foreknowledge without settling the future and removing man's freewill. Personally I think this argument refutes itself.

Yet I think there is another objection to this notion of freewill and exhaustive foreknowledge being compatible that hasn't really been explored yet.

I don't like long-winded opening arguments so I am going to make this as brief as possible and develop the argument over time.

Here goes . . .

God is a personal God, a relational God. God has been extremely involved in mankind's history. God's word is filled, page after page of stories describing God interacting with His creation. God isn't sitting idly by on the other other side of the universe simply observing His creation. God is with us! He interacts with us, He moves us, shakes us, He influences us, He picks people for tasks and ministries, etc. He smites some, kills some and destroys others etc. But why? Why does God interact with us?
True freewill and perfect exhaustive foreknowledge are not compatible, they are mutually exclusive.

• When He left us His word in the form of the Bible it was an interaction with us on a grand scale and for good reason.
• When He wiped out the world with a flood it was interaction on a global scale and for good reason.
• When He picked Abram, Moses, David etc. He was interacting with His creation for a reason.

God wants to affect our freewill! He wants to move us in the direction that more closely conforms to His will.

If God were an uninvolved God watching creation from a distance one might be able to make a more persuasive argument that God can know our future without effecting our freewill (the argument still fails logically but it would be far more understandable). Yet that isn't the God of the Bible! Please don't misunderstand, I am not claiming that those arguing for freewill and exhaustive foreknowledge being compatible are claiming God is not involved, far from it!

God is in the business of affecting our will without completely controlling our will, sort of like gathering sheep.

I am simply saying that their argument would be more believable if God weren't a personal God.- God wants us to choose Him!

- He desires that we choose Him! (1 Timothy 2:3)

- God wants us to love our wives.

- God wants us to raise up our children in His ways

- God wants us to convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.

- God wants to persuade and affect our will to be more like His will regarding these things and many other things.

We know these things because God has interacted with us by leaving us His word and telling us what He wants us to do.

So one must ask . . .

A millennia ago did God's perfect exhaustive foreknowledge contain His interaction with us? And of course the answer must be a resounding YES otherwise the foreknowledge isn't perfect, yet lacking (lacking the interaction).

Did God perfectly foreknow His interactions with man infinitely into the past? And if so, doesn't that defeat the purpose of the interaction?

God interacts with man for a reason, I assert that divine interacting for the purpose of altering the course of history is only rational and logical if the course of history is truly alterable and not perfectly foreknown.

Said another way . . .
If there are two possible choices a man can make and God would prefer that we pick one of those choices above the other choice, He would only interact with us if He knew He could possibly influence that choice.

To be continued in pt. 2.