Yes, of course. What is foreknown is certain, but not because it is foreknown. It becomes certain when the choice is made. You must understand that foreknowledge is not causative ever. Foreknowledge does not cause anything.
Are we Predestined?
- Thread starter TibiasDad
- Start date
Does a Calvinist God foreknow His own choice?
brightfame52
Active Member
Yes it does.
I contend that by letting us choose to accept HIS claims of deity and HIS gospel or to reject HIM as a liar and a false god by our free will HE did NOT determine our FATES but let us determine our own fate but when some of HIS sheep, those who chose to put their faith in HIM as GOD and Saviour, went into rebellion against HIM, HE determined LIVES for us to live with the reprobate, Matt 13:27-30, as the perfect method to bring us to redemption and holiness, heaven ready.
HE cannot determine a free will choice because then it is not free at all and HE foreknows only what HE has predetermined... HE can determine all choices a sinner makes because then HE is not impinging on their free will but on their enslaved wiil which is not free already and, for the sinful elect, is also in accord with their permission for HIM to do so when they put their faith in HIM as their Saviour.
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TibiasDad
Active Member
Choice is a decision between two or more options made by a person. God knows what we will choose, he does not, as your argument claims, choose for us. The question is not one of certainty, it is who makes it certain.
Doug
TibiasDad
Active Member
But they could; they don’t by their own volition, and that is their choice. God allows them to accept or reject his solution to the problem. The issue is not foreknowledge, it is who makes the choice.
Doug
TibiasDad
Active Member
No it doesn’t. The question is who makes the choice of believing or not believing.
Doug
brightfame52
Active Member
Yes it does. I'm showing why.
brightfame52
Active Member
No they could not, and even though they don't by their own volition, that was God's purpose as well. Just like these Jews could not believe because God predetermined it Jn 12:39-40
39 Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again,
40 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.
FreeInChrist
Active Member
@Presby02,
See if this helps you to understand.
God’s foreknowledge is His perfect, eternal “now” vision of everything that will ever happen — not because He is trapped in the future watching a movie He can’t change, but because He stands outside time and sees the entire story at once, from beginning to end.
Let's try this analogy for understanding.
Imagine you watch a recorded football game that your team won 35–14.When you watch it:
You already know the final score.
The players on the field still make real plays and real choices.
Nothing you know or shout at the TV changes what they freely did.
God is like the viewer who has already seen the whole game — except He wrote the play-book, chose the team, and guaranteed the victory before the first snap.
You can see this in scripture if you study what you read...
Psalm 139:16“All my days were written in your book before one of them came to be.” ..... God saw every choice before you made it.
Isaiah 46:10“I declare the end from the beginning… My purpose will stand.”..... God’s knowledge and His plan go together perfectly.
Acts 2:23 (about the cross)“Jesus was handed over by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge." .... Foreknowledge + plan = everything happens exactly as God both knew and wanted.
God’s foreknowledge is simply His perfect, timeless sight of every free choice we will ever make — and because He is God, He planned how all those choices fit into His unstoppable, loving purpose from the very beginning.
FreeInChrist
Active Member
Can you not understand that this perfect verse shows that God is saying that under free will they can believe.... UNLESS HE stops them.
With Free will you can seek God and build faith based on your believing with your eyes and understanding with your heart. The only way to stop a free will from coming to Jesus is for God to blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart;
This is your scripture... You provided your own truth.
brightfame52
Active Member
Yes it is, it is grounded in God's determine counsel and foreknown Acts 2:23
23 Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
Determinate counsel and foreknowledge are preceded by the definite article and connected with the conjunction kai/and
So you are wrong!
TibiasDad
Active Member
God hardened the hearts that had already chosen not to believe. He did not choose to harden them initially. He chose them to be his people after all, but they rejected him.
Doug
civic
Active Member
ditto
civic
Active Member
spot on just the same as we read 3 times God doing to just that to them in Romans 1. 3 times it says God gave them over to their already depraved minds and hardened hearts. Locking in their fate as those of a reprobate heart and mind much like pharoah's.
FreeInChrist
Active Member
You have zero understanding of the meaning of foreknowledge.
Just because God foreknows something does not mean His foreknowledge is the thing that forces or causes it to happen.
See if this clarifies it for you some...
Imagine you invent a perfect time-machine and travel forward 50 years to watch the 2075 Super Bowl. Your favourite team wins 38–31. You record the entire game, memorize every play, every choice the players make.
Then you travel back to today (2025) with the full recording.
Now:
You already know every single play that will happen in 2075.
You know exactly who will score, who will fumble, who will choose to run left instead of right.
But your knowledge did NOT cause any of those choices.
The players in 2075 are still making real, free decisions on the field.
You simply saw what they freely did because you were standing outside of time watching the game that, for them, is still in the future.
That is exactly how God’s foreknowledge works:
He stands outside time (He created time).
He sees the entire “game” of history — every free choice we will ever make — from beginning to end, all at once.
His seeing and knowing does not force the choices; it simply knows them perfectly because they really happen.
“God’s foreknowledge is like watching the full recording of a game that hasn’t been played yet for us — He knows every free play perfectly, but the players still choose every move themselves.”
My apologies for using football for my analogies today... It has been a football frenzy, but also just kind of fits well here.
TibiasDad
Active Member
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