Interaction with perfect foreknowledge Pt. 3

(you may want to read part 1 and part 2 before you read part 3)

Foreknowledge and divine interaction . . . . a mechanism to influence freewill.

OK, so lets again focus in on how foreknowledge and divine interaction is used to affect our will. I would like to illustrate how foreknowledge and divine interaction are meaningless unless the future is unsettled and we have the real ability to make choices that are not predetermined.

Imagine we are driving down a hot desert highway and there is nothing but miles and miles of emptiness. No towns, no gas stations, no rest stops . . . nothing!

Then we see a billboard.


The billboard says . . .

"Joe's Diner 1 mile ahead

Last chance to stop for 200 miles!"

This billboard interacts with us in a form of foreknowledge. Prior to seeing the billboard we really had no idea what the future held for us, but now we do have an idea what the future holds for us, there will be a Diner in a mile or so and there won't be another place to stop for 200 miles! So why did the creators of the billboard construct the billboard and place it on the side of the road?

The creators of the billboard did this to influence our freewill and future decisions. They desire that we stop and eat at their restaurant. And they also inform us that if we don't stop there we will not have another chance to stop for food for 200 more miles, that's about another 4 hours of driving time!

Because of this billboard we are now presented with a choice. Should we stop at Joe's diner or drive on for another four hours? Our freewill is now being influenced by the billboard. The creators of the billboard don't know what we will choose - but they certainly want to influence our choice which is the ONLY reason they took the time to interact with us via the billboard.

God's billboard to Adam.

God created Adam and Eve in the garden. Adam and Eve had it good! No rules, awesome surroundings, great company, communion with God, etc. Now God, wanting to have UN-coerced love with His creation didn't want to lock Adam and Eve in a box forcing them to love Him with no other option. So God introduced a rule. A single rule for Adam to follow (or not follow). Don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Yet by introducing this rule it introduced the ability for Adam and Eve to do other than God's will for them. It introduced the ability for Adam and Eve to use their own will contrary to God's will for them. You might say that this instruction or rule was the birth of man's freewill.

This instruction was like a billboard on the side of the road.



The instruction was an interaction between God and Adam in which God gave Adam some foreknowledge... "for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

This foreknowledge that God dispensed to Adam had the TWO FOLD purpose that I outlined in parts 1 and 2 of this blog.

Purpose One: Attempt to influence Adam's will so that he doesn't eat from the tree and die spiritually.

Purpose two: If Adam DOES eat from the tree and dies spiritually Adam will know that God is who He says He is.

If . . . (on the other hand) all of Adam's choices are already known by God (a millennia beforehand) and all of this history has already been seen by God, what appears to be an interaction between Adam and God becomes merely an interaction in appearance and nothing else. The entire point of God interacting with Adam is an attempt by God to influence Adam's will. If Adam's will can be influenced, there must be different courses of history that are actually possible - i.e., the future cannot be settled - even if only settled in the mind of God.

Interaction between man and God is a lever or mechanism to effect and conform the will of man to the will of God.

God Himself stated this rather nicely when He told His disciples...

"Now I tell you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe that I am He". - John 13:19

“And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe" - John 14:29

In other words... I am telling you this in advance so that when it happens you will gain trust in me. I am telling you this in advance to alter the future.

The very fact that God gives prophecy is proof that the future is not settled in advance because God is attempting to alter upcoming events to more closely conform to His will.

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.

Did God create Satan evil?

Many folks I bump into think that God created Satan evil.

On my website TOL one member (Kimberlyann) states:

"I don't believe Satan was a perfect angel that willfully gave up his place in heaven. I believe he was created to be God's adversary in the beginning."

This seems to be a common misunderstanding, I don't think many people realize that God did address this issue in a variety of ways in the Bible.

God didn't create Satan evil.

In a often overlooked passage God uses the King of Tyre as an example to describe how Satan was actually created as a protector in the Garden. It was Satan who took opportunity (via pride) to disobey God and therefore fell (we learn in Revelation that about one third of the angels fell with him).

Ezekiel 28:11 Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 12 “Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “You were the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The sardius, topaz, and diamond, Beryl, onyx, and jasper, Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes Was prepared for you on the day you were created. 14 “You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. 15 You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you. 16 “By the abundance of your trading You became filled with violence within, And you sinned; Therefore I cast you as a profane thing Out of the mountain of God; And I destroyed you, O covering cherub, From the midst of the fiery stones. 17 “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings, That they might gaze at you. 18 “You defiled your sanctuaries By the multitude of your iniquities, By the iniquity of your trading; Therefore I brought fire from your midst; It devoured you, And I turned you to ashes upon the earth In the sight of all who saw you.

Therefore we know that Satan was created as a "anointed cherub who covers" and it was Satan who fell (God didn't create him evil) "You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor".

The case is now closed! There could never be a more clear description of how Satan was actually created as a protector who fell and turned evil.

MORE EVIDENCE:
To drive home the point even further, we also know that after creation God said everything was "good" (at this point Satan was still good).

Genesis 1:31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.

At creation everything in heaven and on earth were good! (even Satan).

Yet Satan fell by tempting Eve to sin.... notice what God tells Lucifer regarding what Lucifer did in the garden...

Genesis 3:14 So the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life.

“Because you have done this, You are cursed"
“Because you have done this"

God cursed Satan because what he did in the garden, God did not create Satan as a evil being.

In the end....
Would a perfect father put a poisonous snake in the crib with his new born baby? Of course not! God put Satan in the garden as a protector! Yet Satan fell. Satan used his own freewill to disobey God and thus the history of mankind begins with a bang!

God sums it up like this....

Matthew 7:9 “Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 “Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!