My thoughts around Romans 9

[bling]

That explains nothing. How does 'free will' of the creature (as he describes it), result in some choosing well and others badly? Is it random / mere chance? Or are some better than others? Or what?

There is a very important free will choice the nonbelieving sinner makes which determines if he/she will be showered with unbelievable undeserved wonderful gifts or not. I emphasis “undeserved” since he/she cannot do anything deserving of anything, in others words, nothing worthy, honorable, glorious, holy or righteous.

It has to be a choice between two sinful (selfish) actions which a sinner can do, so one sinner choosing one way over the other is no better then the sinner choosing the opposite.

God has provided every mature adult with very limited free will to make this choice and designed (foreordained) everything to allow the mature adult to have this choice as many times as needed to be a true his/her choice.

The person chooses to either wimp out, give up and surrender to his/her hated enemy and just be willing to humbly accept pure undeserving charity from his/her hated enemy while still hating the enemy. The person can choose to be macho, hang in there, be willing to take the punishment they fully deserve, maybe even maintain some thought of pride and not surrender. Both are done for selfish reasons.

The choice is not random but fully the God given responsibility of the person making this choice with this amazing unique God given power to make the choice.

 

[zoidar]

That explains nothing. How does 'free will' of the creature (as he describes it), result in some choosing well and others badly? Is it random / mere chance? Or are some better than others? Or what?

This is a deep philosophical question.

Look at your hand. You can use your will to decide which finger to move. No one else has decided that for you. You are in control of your will, that is to me free will.

 

[FutureAndAHope]

So, then, you stand with the position that some people are just better than others...

I think the term that is important in what I said was "form a nature". Temptation is before every person, we can either indulge in evil ways or move toward the good. We have all fallen into some form of evil, but like the prodigal son, the leanness of the soul draws us home to the Father. Those who delight in evil even when God corrects them, eventually "die without knowledge".

Job 36:10-14 He also opens their ear to instruction, And commands that they turn from iniquity. If they obey and serve Him, They shall spend their days in prosperity, And their years in pleasures. But if they do not obey, They shall perish by the sword, And they shall die without knowledge. "But the hypocrites in heart store up wrath; They do not cry for help when He binds them. They die in youth, And their life ends among the perverted persons.​

We form one of two natures, by "persistence" in either good or evil.

Rom 2:6-11 who "WILL RENDER TO EACH ONE ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS": eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.​

 

[FutureAndAHope]

That's not a paraphrase, it is a mistranslation.

Notice the word, "whom". You do not grammatically say, "...those whom he knew would do (thus and such)." Romans is not saying here that he knew beforehand what these people would do, but that he knew these people beforehand.

God foreknew, that there would be an election, a selected group that would respond to Him in faith. There for he could say "whom he foreknew". These ones were pre-selected to receive life.

Note how the term is used by the Early Church Fathers. Justin Martyr speaks of foreknowledge, not in terms of an unchangeable plan, but a knowing before what man would turn out to be, yet even to these ones repentance would be offered.

Justin Martyr - Dialoque with Trypho Ch 122-End

Chap. CXLI. — Free-Will in Men and Angels.

But if the word of God foretells that some angels and men shall be certainly punished, it did so because it foreknew that they would be unchangeably [wicked], but not because God had created them so. So that if they repent, all who wish for it can obtain mercy from God: and the Scripture foretells that they shall be blessed, saying, ‘Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not sin;’ (Psa 32:2)​

As the phrase has been used in Romans 11:2, it refers to the whole of the Jewish nation, not just those who were saved. In this verse, it is saying the group He had chosen to use, or whom He knew beforehand. I say this only to say "whom He foreknew" does not by definition mean a pre-saved group.

Rom 11:2 God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying,
​

 

[Mark Quayle]

There is a very important free will choice the nonbelieving sinner makes which determines if he/she will be showered with unbelievable undeserved wonderful gifts or not. I emphasis “undeserved” since he/she cannot do anything deserving of anything, in others words, nothing worthy, honorable, glorious, holy or righteous.

It has to be a choice between two sinful (selfish) actions which a sinner can do, so one sinner choosing one way over the other is no better then the sinner choosing the opposite.

God has provided every mature adult with very limited free will to make this choice and designed (foreordained) everything to allow the mature adult to have this choice as many times as needed to be a true his/her choice.

The person chooses to either wimp out, give up and surrender to his/her hated enemy and just be willing to humbly accept pure undeserving charity from his/her hated enemy while still hating the enemy. The person can choose to be macho, hang in there, be willing to take the punishment they fully deserve, maybe even maintain some thought of pride and not surrender. Both are done for selfish reasons.

The choice is not random but fully the God given responsibility of the person making this choice with this amazing unique God given power to make the choice.

Just so you know I acknowledge your post, I answer: Your construction is unbiblically derived. The yielding of the will to the master is not only not selfish, but impossible for the unregenerated "mind of the flesh".

 

[Mark Quayle]

This is a deep philosophical question.

Look at your hand. You can use your will to decide which finger to move. No one else has decided that for you. You are in control of your will, that is to me free will.

Yet, your heart is in the hand of the Lord as a watercourse, to be directed wherever He wills.

There are doubtless more than trillions of bits of influence that result in you considering even whether to move a finger, nevermind which finger and how you decide to move it. Is it a hard thing for God to predestine every last one of those bits of influence?

God knew all this, and logically, seeing as how he caused it all to happen at least by creating what would result in this, he predestined it to all happen. Chance, after all, has no causative ability. That would be self-contradictory.

I like your description of free will, except that, "No one else has decided that for you." is perhaps poorly representative of the way of things. After all, God certainly has decided all things, though I would not say he "decided that for anyone", since that arrangement can be taken to imply that they do not decide —they obviously DO decide."

 

[Mark Quayle]

I think the term that is important in what I said was "form a nature". Temptation is before every person, we can either indulge in evil ways or move toward the good. We have all fallen into some form of evil, but like the prodigal son, the leanness of the soul draws us home to the Father. Those who delight in evil even when God corrects them, eventually "die without knowledge".

Job 36:10-14 He also opens their ear to instruction, And commands that they turn from iniquity. If they obey and serve Him, They shall spend their days in prosperity, And their years in pleasures. But if they do not obey, They shall perish by the sword, And they shall die without knowledge. "But the hypocrites in heart store up wrath; They do not cry for help when He binds them. They die in youth, And their life ends among the perverted persons.​

We form one of two natures, by "persistence" in either good or evil.

Rom 2:6-11 who "WILL RENDER TO EACH ONE ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS": eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.​

You persist with the same narrative that does not deal with the question at all.

My argument is not that one does not become better than he once was, once enabled by the Spirit of God through regeneration. And I'm not asking whether one becomes more, let's say, "adept", than others, once certain principles are enacted upon him, but, rather, precisely what is it, in the lost who choose Christ, as compared to the lost who do not choose Christ, that results in the right choice? If nobody is ontologically better than anyone else, how do not all choose the same?

 

[Mark Quayle]

God foreknew, that there would be an election, a selected group that would respond to Him in faith. There for he could say "whom he foreknew". These ones were pre-selected to receive life.

Note how the term is used by the Early Church Fathers. Justin Martyr speaks of foreknowledge, not in terms of an unchangeable plan, but a knowing before what man would turn out to be, yet even to these ones repentance would be offered.

Justin Martyr - Dialoque with Trypho Ch 122-End

Chap. CXLI. — Free-Will in Men and Angels.

But if the word of God foretells that some angels and men shall be certainly punished, it did so because it foreknew that they would be unchangeably [wicked], but not because God had created them so. So that if they repent, all who wish for it can obtain mercy from God: and the Scripture foretells that they shall be blessed, saying, ‘Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not sin;’ (Psa 32:2)​

As the phrase has been used in Romans 11:2, it refers to the whole of the Jewish nation, not just those who were saved. In this verse, it is saying the group He had chosen to use, or whom He knew beforehand. I say this only to say "whom He foreknew" does not by definition mean a pre-saved group.

Rom 11:2 God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying,
​

There's a reason Justin Martyr's writings are not considered Scripture. I could find multitudes of writers who would disagree with him. He is just a man, and makes no more sense than they do. It really makes no difference whether he was early church or not.

 

[Clare73]

God foreknew, that there would be an election, a selected group that would respond to Him in faith. There for he could say "whom he foreknew". These ones were pre-selected to receive life.
Note how the term is used by the Early Church Fathers.

Rather, note how the term is used in Scripture.

The above is neither the Biblical meaning nor the Biblical use of divine "foreknowledge,"
which is not God knowing in advance what men are going to do, but is God knowing in advance
what he is going to do because from the foundation of the world he has decreed that he shall do it.

Isaiah 48:3 - "I foretold (forekowledge) the former things of long ago,
my mouth announced (decreed) them, and I made them known;
then suddenly I acted, (foreknowledge executed), and they came to pass.

God executed in their present the purpose and choice he made before the foundations of the world; i.e.,
God executed/accomplished (acted according to)
his foreknowledge (his previous purpose and choice). . .as in Jacob (Romans 9:11-12).

Justin Martyr speaks of foreknowledge, not in terms of an unchangeable plan, but a knowing before what man would turn out to be, yet even to these ones repentance would be offered.

Justin Martyr - Dialoque with Trypho Ch 122-End

Chap. CXLI. — Free-Will in Men and Angels.

But if the word of God foretells that some angels and men shall be certainly punished, it did so because it foreknew that they would be unchangeably [wicked], but not because God had created them so. So that if they repent, all who wish for it can obtain mercy from God: and the Scripture foretells that they shall be blessed, saying, ‘Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not sin;’ (Psa 32:2)​

As the phrase has been used in Romans 11:2, it refers to the whole of the Jewish nation, not just those who were saved. In this verse, it is saying the group He had chosen to use, or whom He knew beforehand. I say this only to say "whom He foreknew" does not by definition mean a pre-saved group.

Rom 11:2 God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying,
​

 

[bling]

Just so you know I acknowledge your post, I answer: Your construction is unbiblically derived. The yielding of the will to the master is not only not selfish, but impossible for the unregenerated "mind of the flesh".

What I am saying is what you can see happening with the prodigal son: the prodigal son returns home for personal selfish reasons (he just wants some kind of undeserved life) and he does nothing to deserve how the Father treated him.
I am not saying the unbelieving sinner, "yields his/her will" to God, the unbelieving sinner's desire is not to have anything to do with his/her hated enemy (this is like a surrendering soldier in a battle). The "regeneration" is part of the gift showered on the soldier who surrenders.

 

[FutureAndAHope]

There's a reason Justin Martyr's writings are not considered Scripture. I could find multitudes of writers who would disagree with him. He is just a man, and makes no more sense than they do. It really makes no difference whether he was early church or not.

These are people from the Early Church making commentary on scripture. It makes sense to look at their writings because they are at most 1 - 2 generations separate from the apostles. One was a Bishops in the church of God (Ireaneous), given to the same miraculous power as the Apostles (having seen the dead raised among them); and Justin Martyr suffered the same insults from rebellious men as those before him, Martyred for his faith. They were not some heretics; they were saturated not only in God's presence but expounding the understanding of the Early Church's view of scripture.

 

[FutureAndAHope]

Rather, note how the term is used in Scripture.

The above is neither the Biblical meaning nor the Biblical use of divine "foreknowledge,"
which is not God knowing in advance what men are going to do, but is God knowing in advance
what he is going to do because from the foundation of the world he has decreed that he shall do it.

Isaiah 48:3 - "I foretold (forekowledge) the former things of long ago,
my mouth announced (decreed) them, and I made them known;
then suddenly I acted, (foreknowledge executed), and they came to pass.

God executed in their present the purpose and choice he made before the foundations of the world; i.e.,
God executed/accomplished (acted according to)
his foreknowledge (his previous purpose and choice). . .as in Jacob (Romans 9:11-12).

There are plenty of things God planned out (hence Isaiah 48:3), but it need not mean every choice of man is preplanned, it need not mean man's salvation was preplanned. In God's foreknowledge, he knows some will sin, and some will not, and He can Predestine those He considers righteous to life, the unrighteous to death. All of this is Predestined, but not in the sense of planning who would be saved.

Really, unless either of us introduces something new I think we will continue to go around in circles.

 

[FutureAndAHope]

You persist with the same narrative that does not deal with the question at all.

My argument is not that one does not become better than he once was, once enabled by the Spirit of God through regeneration. And I'm not asking whether one becomes more, let's say, "adept", than others, once certain principles are enacted upon him, but, rather, precisely what is it, in the lost who choose Christ, as compared to the lost who do not choose Christ, that results in the right choice? If nobody is ontologically better than anyone else, how do not all choose the same?

How are you certain all men will choose the same? That too is an assumption. We don't know how God has made man in his essence.

Let's just meditate upon the words of the Son of God.

Mat 23:37 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!

Two questions for you:

a) Did God want the Jews to come to Him? Or did he make them blind, so they could not come?
b) A bit odd don't you think, He made them blind? Did He not rather say "you were not willing?"

 

[zoidar]

There are doubtless more than trillions of bits of influence that result in you considering even whether to move a finger, nevermind which finger and how you decide to move it. Is it a hard thing for God to predestine every last one of those bits of influence?

"trillions of bits of influence" sounds materialistic to me. Free will has no causality. It's of the soul.

No, not hard for God. The question if God does it this way. To me it's amazing even God gave man free will, every plan God has will be fulfilled. Is that a hard thing for God to do?

God knew all this, and logically, seeing as how he caused it all to happen at least by creating what would result in this, he predestined it to all happen. Chance, after all, has no causative ability. That would be self-contradictory.

Sure God knew all, but I don't believe God caused or predestined everything. I don't know why you bring in chance. Like I said even there is free will, God will fulfill His plans. There is nothing contrary with that.

Sounds to me you want to have a clear and systematic understanding of how God controls things. To me that is of a mystery, nothing I can know, only get glimses of.

I like your description of free will, except that, "No one else has decided that for you." is perhaps poorly representative of the way of things. After all, God certainly has decided all things, though I would not say he "decided that for anyone", since that arrangement can be taken to imply that they do not decide —they obviously DO decide."

Of course I know you believe we decide. Sorry, it's hard to get the words right.

 

[Mark Quayle]

These are people from the Early Church making commentary on scripture. It makes sense to look at their writings because they are at most 1 - 2 generations separate from the apostles. One was a Bishops in the church of God (Ireaneous), given to the same miraculous power as the Apostles (having seen the dead raised among them); and Justin Martyr suffered the same insults from rebellious men as those before him, Martyred for his faith. They were not some heretics; they were saturated not only in God's presence but expounding the understanding of the Early Church's view of scripture.

Even during the lives of the apostles, there were people who wrote, spoke and behaved in error. I'm not saying it means nothing that he was recent to the early church, but that quoting him does not prove your point.

Likewise, martyr though he was, and no doubt a dedicated and studied pursuer of Christ, there have been several —maybe I should say many— such since, whose theology was bunk. But for what it is worth, there are two kinds of theology: One is the kind concerning which we debate, but the other is the love of God by which one trusts, obeys and lives, and the second is better. A good comprehension of neither is necessary for a good apprehension to the second one. Justin Martyr has my admiration, as does John Wesley and several others whose theology of the first kind was off, but who appear to have wholeheartedly pursued Christ. God knows: a poor theology does not stop him from accomplishing whatever he had planned for anyone to do.

 

[Mark Quayle]

How are you certain all men will choose the same? That too is an assumption. We don't know how God has made man in his essence.

Why do you go there? I didn't say all men will choose the same. My question, in fact, assumes just the opposite —that some choose differently from others— in asking how it is possible that some choose differently. You still sidestep the question. I'm thinking you have no answer. I should think you would at least acknowledge randomness, but maybe you too are seeing the futility in finding logic in the notion that chance can cause anything. You continue to sidestep the question: HOW, or WHY, or WHAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE between the two, one who chooses one thing, and the other who chooses differently from the one? You want to claim actually uncaused spontaneity as an ability of mere creatures. But you cannot logically defend the notion.

Let's just meditate upon the words of the Son of God.

Mat 23:37 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!

Two questions for you:

a) Did God want the Jews to come to Him? Or did he make them blind, so they could not come?
b) A bit odd don't you think, He made them blind? Did He not rather say "you were not willing?"

Do you then deny the Scriptures that say he blinded them? Of course you don't deny that! Both his blinding them, and they blinding themselves happened. But God is the one who planned it all, and that, much to his own pain, because of his great mercy and love.

Of course, their unwillingness, happened! That is the T of TULIP; Total Depravity is basic to the definition of Grace!

 

[Mark Quayle]

"trillions of bits of influence" sounds materialistic to me. Free will has no casuallity. It's of the soul.

Frankly, I don't see you arguing that our decisions are not at least influenced; and if they are influenced, then to some degree, they are caused.

But, if the soul is not in some way materialistic, then it is unrelated to freewill, because the whole matter of freewill deals of material results: those things caused by our decisions.

And, if Free will has no causality, it does not exist, except in God alone.

No, not hard for God. The question if God does it this way. To me it's amazing even God gave man free will, every plan God has will be fulfilled. Is that a hard thing for God to do?

My contention is not only that all things which God plans will be fulfilled, but that "all things, whatsoever shall come to pass" do so by God's plan. Therefore, whatever else 'freewill' may imply, it is necessarily bound by and defined by God's plan concerning it. Freewill logically cannot operate independently of God's plan. It is for this reason that many Calvinists claim there is no such thing as freewill.

Sure God knew all, but I don't believe God caused or predestined everything. I don't know why you bring in chance. Like I said even there is free will, God's plans will be fulfilled. There is nothing contrary with that.

To repeat: logically, if God is the only first cause, (which is definitive —i.e. "first cause" by definition logically demands singularity), then all other things result from his creating. If he created what he knew would result in a thing happening, he thus caused that thing to happen. Thus, if he knew all things, he, being the only Creator, caused all things.

I bring up 'chance', because, except for First Cause, nothing is uncaused. Since you claim freewill, and claim it by definition is causeless, the only alternative I can see is that you believe freewill's decisions happen by chance, since I can't imagine you would claim some truly altogether-spontaneous co-existence of mere creatures with God.

---------------------------------------
But allow me to go on a bit, here —I will try to describe some of the arguments (or should I call them simply, assertions?) I hear:

One is that by definition freewill is causeless, and that, by God's design, or that God has caused it to be causeless. They say that it is a gift of God to all mankind. Yet, they cannot see how that is self-contradictory.

Another takes the form of this quote, "It is the most sovereign thing God can do, to give up some of his sovereignty." And the one who said that, and many who heard it or think it, see no logical self-contradiction there. The delight in whatever seems counter-intuitive, particularly if it sounds poetic, apparently overrides rationality, for some people.

Maybe the best way I can describe this third, is the notion that God's sovereignty only rides herd on events within time. According to some, God's plans are only the end result, and not how to get there. This God, then, apparently must fly by the seat of his pants, and because he is all-wise and all-capable, he can figure out how to arrange things to the best end. Perhaps by this, they mean he recalibrates our reactions to life's circumstances? I don't know. The actual way this works is short of examples, though they claim all events demonstrate it. Some even claim that his original plans are sometimes defeated and he must settle for a contingent possibility.

Meanwhile, that third, and all others, continue to ignore the obvious, that if God knew what was going to result from his creation, but created anyway, then he purposely destined it to happen. And no, this does not mean he created sin, as it has been shown previously; God did not create my rebellion, but he did cause that I be rebellious, by use of means: Satan, Adam and sin. And this he did for his own purpose: The Gospel.

They also ignore that all such assertions depend on the determinative ability of mere chance, which notion, again, is logically self-contradictory. There is no accident.

 

[Clare73]

Frankly, I don't see you arguing that our decisions are not at least influenced; and if they are influenced, then to some degree, they are caused.
But, if the soul is not in some way materialistic, then it is unrelated to freewill, because the whole matter of freewill deals of material results: those things caused by our decisions.
And, if Free will has no causality, it does not exist, except in God alone.
My contention is not only that all things which God plans will be fulfilled, but that "all things, whatsoever shall come to pass" do so by God's plan. Therefore, whatever else 'freewill' may imply, it is necessarily bound by and defined by God's plan concerning it. Freewill logically cannot operate independently of God's plan. It is for this reason that many Calvinists claim there is no such thing as freewill.
To repeat: logically, if God is the only first cause, (which is definitive —i.e. "first cause" by definition logically demands singularity), then all other things result from his creating. If he created what he knew would result in a thing happening, he thus caused that thing to happen. Thus, if he knew all things, he, being the only Creator, caused all things.

I bring up 'chance', because, except for First Cause, nothing is uncaused. Since you claim freewill, and claim it by definition is causeless, the only alternative I can see is that you believe freewill's decisions happen by chance, since I can't imagine you would claim some truly altogether-spontaneous co-existence of mere creatures with God.

---------------------------------------
But allow me to go on a bit, here —I will try to describe some of the arguments (or should I call them simply, assertions?) I hear:

One is that by definition freewill is causeless, and that, by God's design, or that God has caused it to be causeless. They say that it is a gift of God to all mankind. Yet, they cannot see how that is self-contradictory.

Another takes the form of this quote, "It is the most sovereign thing God can do, to give up some of his sovereignty." And the one who said that, and many who heard it or think it, see no logical self-contradiction there. The delight in whatever seems counter-intuitive, particularly if it sounds poetic, apparently overrides rationality, for some people.

Maybe the best way I can describe this third, is the notion that God's sovereignty only rides herd on events within time. According to some, God's plans are only the end result, and not how to get there. This God, then, apparently must fly by the seat of his pants, and because he is all-wise and all-capable, he can figure out how to arrange things to the best end. Perhaps by this, they mean he recalibrates our reactions to life's circumstances? I don't know. The actual way this works is short of examples, though they claim all events demonstrate it. Some even claim that his original plans are sometimes defeated and he must settle for a contingent possibility.

Meanwhile, that third, and all others, continue to ignore the obvious, that if God knew what was going to result from his creation, but created anyway, then he purposely destined it to happen. And no, this does not mean he created sin, as it has been shown previously;

God did not create my rebellion, but he did cause that I be rebellious, by use of means: Satan, Adam and sin. And this he did for his own purpose: The Gospel.
They also ignore that all such assertions depend on the determinative ability of mere chance, which notion, again, is logically self-contradictory. There is no accident.

I see it as failure to appreciate that the human will does not operate in a vacuum, it is governed by the disposition; i.e., it chooses what it prefers, likes.

 

[Mark Quayle]

I see it as failure to appreciate that the human will does not operate in a vacuum, it is governed by the disposition; i.e., it chooses what it prefers, likes.

Well put. I had been trying to figure out a good way to put that, and distracted myself onto other game, and forgot to do so. Thanks.

 

[Clare73]

There are plenty of things God planned out (hence Isaiah 48:3), but it need not mean every choice of man is preplanned, it need not mean man's salvation was preplanned.
In God's foreknowledge, he knows some will sin, and some will not,

However, as previously explained:

1) that is not the meaning of God's foreknowledge, which is of his actions, not of man's actions,
2) nor does Scripture present or refer to God "knowing in advance" what man is going to do,
3) that is a construct of man to support his personal reasoning, which construct is not presented in the NT
4) and, therefore, is not a demonstration of God's foreknowledge about anything, and
5) does not demonstrate anything about anything.

and He can Predestine those He considers righteous to life, the unrighteous to death. All of this is Predestined, but not in the sense of planning who would be saved.

He can also predestine the demons to life, but Scripture does not present his predestining "the righteous" nor the demons to life.