Saved based on God's foreknowledge or God's random choice?

joshua 1 9

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I wholeheartedly agree with the Scriptures; so I trust you on the "according to the foreknowledge of God" rather than the "random choice" side.
Nothing is random, there is no such thing. That would be like calling a miracle: "spontaneous remission". Or saying life is a result of Spontaneous generation. We know that duality is born out of a singularity at a point when the singularity is able to be expressed. According to Gerald Schroeder at the "beginning of time, when time grabs hold". "When matter condenses, congeals, coalesces, out of this substance so thin it has no material substance, that's when the biblical clock starts."

Schroeder tells us there are 200,000 Science books in the Harvard library that go into detail to explain to us the first 31 verses in the Bible. There are a total of 31,000 verses in the Bible.

Gerald Schroeder - Articles - Age of the Universe
 
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fat wee robin

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"Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you." (Matthew 21:31)

He declares the end from the beginning "Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:" Isaiah 46:10 "Truly I have spoken, truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, I will surely do it"
This quote is not a Prediction ,but simply a statement , that those of more modest and humble position ,would be better placed to have open minds and hearts, than those with closed minds and hearts , not willing to learn . (like the pharisees who had it all sewn up ahead of time ).
 
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Dave L

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joshua 1 9

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God holds Us responsible and will judge Us for Our "Choices", "Actions" and "Lack Of Actions".
Yes that is the book of common prayer that so many churches pray ever Sunday: what we have done and what we have left undone. Or what we did not do that we should have done.

Minister and People

Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.
 
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joshua 1 9

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This quote is not a Prediction ,but simply a statement , that those of more modest and humble position ,would be better placed to have open minds and hearts, than those with closed minds and hearts , not willing to learn . (like the pharisees who had it all sewn up ahead of time ).
Pharisees want to see evidence. Good luck with that because we can only see bits and pieces here and there. For the most part we have to have faith. We believe as a child and the tax collectors and prostitutes had no problem with that.

God is eternal or infinite and we are finite. So we can not grasp God anymore then we can grasp the wind. "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know from where it comes and where it goes. Thus is everyone having been born of the Spirit." (John 3:8)
 
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fat wee robin

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Nothing is random, there is no such thing. That would be like calling a miracle: "spontaneous remission". Or saying life is a result of Spontaneous generation. We know that duality is born out of a singularity at a point when the singularity is able to be expressed. According to Gerald Schroeder at the "beginning of time, when time grabs hold". "When matter condenses, congeals, coalesces, out of this substance so thin it has no material substance, that's when the biblical clock starts."

Schroeder tells us there are 200,000 Science books in the Harvard library that go into detail to explain to us the first 31 verses in the Bible. There are a total of 31,000 verses in the Bible.

Gerald Schroeder - Articles - Age of the Universe
Nothing is random, there is no such thing. That would be like calling a miracle: "spontaneous remission". Or saying life is a result of Spontaneous generation. We know that duality is born out of a singularity at a point when the singularity is able to be expressed. According to Gerald Schroeder at the "beginning of time, when time grabs hold". "When matter condenses, congeals, coalesces, out of this substance so thin it has no material substance, that's when the biblical clock starts."

Schroeder tells us there are 200,000 Science books in the Harvard library that go into detail to explain to us the first 31 verses in the Bible. There are a total of 31,000 verses in the Bible.

Gerald Schroeder - Articles - Age of the Universe
we are in close agreement here, so will look at where we part in understanding.



This is where we part in our understanding, specially the part I highlighted.

According to scripture in the END, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. The reason being is because this is what God has predestined from eternity past, it is all Gods doing, and will surely come to pass.

However like I pointed out with Abe God does NOT know what choice man will make until man has been tried or God searches out the inner part of our heart.

If God knows what choices all men will make from eternity passed why does He test us and why does He have to search our hearts? Surely if God already knew from eternity passed what choice we would make then God would not have to do these things.
I think it is possible that God does not know ALL the choices we will make ,but He knows that we are in closed system from which we cannot escape .A system He created to 'evolve' us ,after He created us .If we are to be fully creatures of God we must develop through many expériences to become Sons and Daughters in full .
 
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Johnny4ChristJesus

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Neither one. God's foreknowledge of what? Did He look ahead and learn that I would one day be saved? If so He learned something and if there was something He didn't already know He was not Omniscient and if not Omniscient He was not God.

And who says God's election was random? God does not roll dice.

"For those He foreknew" and "
You will have to forgive me but I'm in pain so I'm going to discuss this topic in conversation format.. make it easier for me as I'm sure you know the scriptures involved.

There is a clear difference between foreknowledge and being foreordained. Those are two different words with two clearly different meanings.

God has foreknowledge of all of us, He knows all the choices we will make before He created us, He knows us.

God has foreordained some of His creation to various ends; some to kingship, others to faith etc.

But what comes first, the chicken or the egg, is the type of question you seem to be positing here, and that answer is pointless.

In the end, this type of question is pointless really, as the Bible says in Isaiah 45:9-12 (I think?) Who are we to question why God does what with what He created? We are but the clay in the hand of the potter.

What we know is that we are 100% depraved. Our nature on its own will never choose Christ and that God, in His Grace has chosen to save some us, not by anything we did, but because of who He is.

And that? That is good enough for me.

First, I am sorry to hear you are in pain. May God touch and heal what is causing you pain, In Jesus' mighty Name.

Second, the "chicken or egg" question is answered by God. And, so is this question. Yet, so many live in an idea that God produced a multitude of creatures (spirits and human) merely for the purpose of torturing them. I don't believe that.

It would make no sense for God to say that He desires "all men to be saved" (1 Tim 2:4) through Paul or that He is longsuffering because He is "not willing that any should perish, but that all would come to repentance" (2 Pet 3:9) through Peter if He had chosen/predetermined before the beginning of time that a multitude of people would be unable to repent and be saved or that a third of the angels would be unable to avoid making the choice to follow satan and thus be forever tortured.

I do think that is a big problem for those who think the destiny of everyone was already predetermined, before they ever had a chance to make a choice. I think it was pre-known that they would choose against Him; but not because He foreordained them to do so.

Some will cite Romans 9. But, Paul also wrote Romans 11 and Romans 8.

If we are 100% depraved, how does Noah find grace in God's sight and not be destroyed like the rest? When God throws Job in satan's face, it was before Job really knew God (according to Job's response later to God) "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:5-6); but God was holding Job up as a "perfect and upright man, one who fears God, and eschews evil" when He said to satan: "Have you considered my servant job...."
 
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fat wee robin

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Pharisees want to see evidence. Good luck with that because we can only see bits and pieces here and there. For the most part we have to have faith. We believe as a child and the tax collectors and prostitutes had no problem with that.

God is eternal or infinite and we are finite. So we can not grasp God anymore then we can grasp the wind. "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know from where it comes and where it goes. Thus is everyone having been born of the Spirit." (John 3:8)
Some have always been given gifts ,can see more than others ,as God has chosen to to enlighten them .WE are not all the same .
 
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Hazelelponi

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"For those He foreknew" and "


First, I am sorry to hear you are in pain. May God touch and heal what is causing you pain, In Jesus' mighty Name.

Second, the "chicken or egg" question is answered by God. And, so is this question. Yet, so many live in an idea that God produced a multitude of creatures (spirits and human) merely for the purpose of torturing them. I don't believe that.

It would make no sense for God to say that He desires "all men to be saved" (1 Tim 2:4) through Paul or that He is longsuffering because He is "not willing that any should perish, but that all would come to repentance" (2 Pet 3:9) through Peter if He had chosen/predetermined before the beginning of time that a multitude of people would be unable to repent and be saved or that a third of the angels would be unable to avoid making the choice to follow satan and thus be forever tortured.

I do think that is a big problem for those who think the destiny of everyone was already predetermined, before they ever had a chance to make a choice. I think it was pre-known that they would choose against Him; but not because He foreordained them to do so.

Some will cite Romans 9. But, Paul also wrote Romans 11 and Romans 8.

If we are 100% depraved, how does Noah find grace in God's sight and not be destroyed like the rest? When God throws Job in satan's face, it was before Job really knew God (according to Job's response later to God) "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:5-6); but God was holding Job up as a "perfect and upright man, one who fears God, and eschews evil" when He said to satan: "Have you considered my servant job...."

Your only see one side, you need to see both and then realize there is no contradiction.

He desires "all men to be saved" yet in John 6:39 we see Jesus say

"And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day."

And while God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance He still says:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God."

You have to come to the realization these are not contradictions in scripture, but rather a lack of understanding that causes men to not accept both as true, and this realization does not come by taking away anything from His nature (in our minds)..

Sitting on the internet picking fights won't help you understand. Prayer will.
 
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Johnny4ChristJesus

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Nothing is random, there is no such thing. That would be like calling a miracle: "spontaneous remission". Or saying life is a result of Spontaneous generation. We know that duality is born out of a singularity at a point when the singularity is able to be expressed. According to Gerald Schroeder at the "beginning of time, when time grabs hold". "When matter condenses, congeals, coalesces, out of this substance so thin it has no material substance, that's when the biblical clock starts."

Schroeder tells us there are 200,000 Science books in the Harvard library that go into detail to explain to us the first 31 verses in the Bible. There are a total of 31,000 verses in the Bible.

Gerald Schroeder - Articles - Age of the Universe

I don't believe in random, either. I don't need to be convinced. It is simply my limited way of articulating the question of whether or not the Sovereign God has ordained for people to have free will in a way that matters or if God has pre-picked people irrespective of his foreknowledge of their choices. The only way I knew to describe the latter option was to call it random. Maybe arbitrary would have been better. But, doesn't it connote the same idea--either man has a legitimate ability to choose God or He doesn't. I think the whole of Scripture suggests that the Sovereign God has chosen to give man that choice and the ability to live with the resultant consequences.
 
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joshua 1 9

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I think it is possible that God does not know ALL the choices we will make ,but He knows that we are in closed system from which we cannot escape .A system He created to 'evolve' us ,after He created us .If we are to be fully creatures of God we must develop through many expériences to become Sons and Daughters in full .
When I get the chance I would like to talk to Jeremiah to have him explain to me the scripture: "which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind (heart)" (Jer 19:5) Some people would take this to mean: "none but Satan himself could ever have devised such a way of worship."

There are people that believe this is the battle we have on the supreme court. Where people are allowed to sacrifice their children on the alter to Baal. Those children are in Heaven today and hopefully their parents repented so that they could qualify to go to be reconciled with their children.

 
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joshua 1 9

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I don't believe in random, either. I don't need to be convinced. It is simply my limited way of articulating the question of whether or not the Sovereign God has ordained for people to have free will in a way that matters or if God has pre-picked people irrespective of his foreknowledge of their choices. The only way I knew to describe the latter option was to call it random. Maybe arbitrary would have been better. But, doesn't it connote the same idea--either man has a legitimate ability to choose God or He doesn't. I think the whole of Scripture suggests that the Sovereign God has chosen to give man that choice and the ability to live with the resultant consequences.
Isaiah (45:7) says: "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." This goes back to the Serpent and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Something I am still trying to understand.
 
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Johnny4ChristJesus

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Your only see one side, you need to see both and then realize there is no contradiction.

He desires "all men to be saved" yet in John 6:39 we see Jesus say

"And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day."

And while God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance He still says:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God."

You have to come to the realization these are not contradictions in scripture, but rather a lack of understanding that causes men to not accept both as true, and its not by taking away from God anything of His nature..

I don't believe that there are contradictions in Scripture. I do believe that they all work together. And, I believe that lack of understanding causes issues. No disagreement there.

Lack of understanding is often caused by coming with an expectation of what Scripture has to say before we jump in. In order to make that work, we find the verses that support what we already want to believe. That is what I am breaking down right now.

So, in your last verse, SAVED is certainly a gift that only God can give, like said in John 1:12-13: "But as many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Only God can regenerate a man. Only God can save a man. But all have the ability to have faith--even people who don't walk with God have faith in something: their car, themselves, the traffic lights down the street.
 
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Mark Quayle

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But that isn't what the words God chose means. Either the word used for foreknew or the word used for predestined should bring us to see that God forecauses. But, neither does. Those words are listed at the bottom.

Where in Scripture did it say that God forecaused satan to fall or forecaused adam to sin? Did God forecause Jesus Christ to die on the cross or did He allow Jesus Christ to die. Even Jesus said that He could have called legions of angels to rescue Him, but Jesus chose "God's will be done" and allowed Himself to be tortured and murdered for a greater purpose. Did God forecause man to "repent the LORD that he had even made man" and plan to destroy man off the face of the earth, only to also forecause Noah to find grace in His sight?

What is clear that God foreknew all these things were going to occur, because if He didn't, there would have been no reason for Jesus Christ to be the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.

4267 proginosko
Meaning: to know beforehand
Origin: from 4253 and 1097
Usage: foreknew(2), foreknown(1), knowing beforehand(1), known previously(1).

4309 (proorizo)
Meaning: to predetermine, foreordain
Origin: from 4253 and 3724
Usage: predestined(6).

In the greek, the first word means the same as Strongs shares. However, in the greek, the second word actually means: "to decide upon beforehand, predestine"


I think they do mean that, as a matter of fact, intrinsic to their meaning when it is God doing it. But do a study on the Scriptural use of the word Know, as applied to God. It may be a much more intimately personal thing than we realize, as though "God was there".

We want foreordain to mean to predict, perhaps, or even to fortell and therefore by edict, though the action of agents, to "indirectly" cause. This whole idea to me reeks of the idea that God subjects himself to principles he himself set in place. While I don't disagree that God, as Christ, was indeed subject to the principles to which humans are universally subject, and so it is proved that God can operate within time, for example, to say he is therefore in subjection to time is a bit of an outrage, and a logical fail. (No, I am not saying you said that).

More than once, when I say such things as I am about to say, people rebuke me with "Words mean things", and I agree, yes they do, But God is not bound by human words. He uses them to communicate with us in Scripture, and does so without lying, but we must understand there is more to what he says than we can know.

And no, I don't pretend that I understand and somebody else doesn't. I too want to learn, (though I am necessarily bound to correct false teaching, as I see it incumbent on me to do so). And I refuse to be bound by the conclusions drawn by human understanding. They are useful, even beautiful at times, but incomplete at best. For example it is true that eternal implies forever, infinite, without end, but without God it is only a dry dead word, no matter how excited we might get about it. None of us understand it without the knowledge that he "invented" it. Nor do we consider that knowing him to have "invented" it gives us a little more depth in our knowledge of him.
 
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joshua 1 9

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This is off topic but i must say:

10 minutes of your life Johnny, 10 minutes is what I ask.

Listen to this video. Young Man's Invitation To A Life Of Sacrifice
Jesus lived His live as an example for us to follow. He went about preaching, teaching and healing the sick. That is what we are to do. Only we reach a point like in the video where we get to the end of preaching/teaching and we begin to prepare the next generation to get out and serve God and preach the gospel to all nations and all people. We can confirm that what they hear is God speaking to them and they are doing what He is calling them to do. I have been to the ends of the world. I found an ATM machine there and I put my card in and it gave me money. So I know that God does provide for us and what we need.
 
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Mark Quayle

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I don't believe that there are contradictions in Scripture. I do believe that they all work together. And, I believe that lack of understanding causes issues. No disagreement there.

Lack of understanding is often caused by coming with an expectation of what Scripture has to say before we jump in. In order to make that work, we find the verses that support what we already want to believe. That is what I am breaking down right now.

So, in your last verse, SAVED is certainly a gift that only God can give, like said in John 1:12-13: "But as many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Only God can regenerate a man. Only God can save a man. But all have the ability to have faith--even people who don't walk with God have faith in something: their car, themselves, the traffic lights down the street.
Saving faith is the gift of God; I believe it is God within us, not something fickle we decide on, to come and go with human integrity. We get it when He does it in us. THAT is regeneration.
 
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joshua 1 9

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And what is that supposed to answer? The question was, what does He foreknow? And what does "foreknow" (προεγνω) mean in this context?
David maybe the person to talk to about this. Four times David talks about the book that God writes about us and our life before we are even born. I had a dream about Heaven once and I was talking to an angel. He was reading the book that God had written for my daughter that was there in Heaven.
 
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