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.
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.
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.
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.
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