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Predeterminism (Webster’s 1913 Dictionary)
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Predeterminism (Webster’s 1913 Dictionary)

Compare with Webster's 1828:
Predetermine
PREDETERM'INE, verb transitive [pre and determine.]

1. To determine beforehand; to settle in purpose or counsel.

If God foresees events, he must have predetermined them.

2. To doom by previous decree.
 
@Derf

Foreknowledge and Predetermination are not the same thing.
I may know something may happen in the future (like me going to work tomorrow), but that does not mean I predetermined the day to happen whereby I would go to work. Seeing an event happen and causing that event to happen are two different things. For do you believe God predetermines sin and evil? Well, the first thing a person should know about God if they encountered Him is that God is good.
 
@Bible Highlighter
I agree with you, at least in part. That was all from the 1828 Webster.

Predetermination is one means of foreknowledge. Science and math might be another. For instance, we have foreknowledge of where a planet will be in 2 years (our foreknowledge won’t be as precise as God’s, but good enough to launch a rocket that will go by it in 2 years).

I think you are proposing a third means: something kind of like a crystal ball that God can look into and see future events.

There’s a pretty serious problem with that idea. If God can consult something outside of Himself for knowledge of the future
1. That means the future is so fixed that God can’t change it, nor can we (this no free will) and
2. That means there’s something out there more powerful than God.
 
@Derf

God always has the capacity to change the future to His liking but it would be in line with His goodness. God does not ordain sin or evil or decree it or force sin to happen. God has a permissive will and He may allow evil to take place but that evil is done by free will beings that are not in agreement with God’s will. For sin is never in God’s will. So God cannot predetermine sin or evil. God can manipulate the evil already in existence within the universe for a greater good that we do not know about always but God is not the direct cause of everything like the sinful choices of men. So I am not against the Sovereignty of God. It is that God can only do good. For God to foreordained all choices in life including the choices made by sinful men is to paint a picture of God that is wrong. God is good, and He does not predetermine sin to happen.
 
@Bible Highlighter
I agree with you that God does not foreordain evil, but to plan ahead for evil that hasn't yet happened, God either has to
1. see the evil that is going to happen and use it to His glory
2. cause the evil to happen in exactly the way he wants it to happen--every detail.

You seem to have chosen #1, which leads to the conundrum I gave earlier, that there's some kind of entity or thing out there that knows the future before either man or God. Let's say it's a thing instead of an entity, so we don't have anything more powerful than God.

That thing that God consults (like a book or video of the future) to find out what the future is going to be must have information that God doesn't have, so now we have to say that God is NOT omniscient. But we don't believe that to be true, either.

That thing also has to be fallible, or God can't change it. But if that thing is really knowing what the real future is, but it's fallible, then it doesn't really know what the future is. Now we have the problem that God is consulting with something to find out what the future is, but that thing is fallible, so God doesn't really know the real future, only a fallible version of it--one that can be changed. Thus, God must not really know the future, EXCEPT that He causes it to be, because the fallible thing that God consults is subject to God's changes, whence He can make it infallible. Remember that all of this is happening before you or I exist, yet God is making a real future based on everything we are going to do in the future. So we don't really have a say in what we do, since it is all determined before we exist--including the sins we are going to commit.

You might have noticed that we've come full circle into admitting that "to foresee events is to predetermine them". And if God foresees all sinful acts that we will do, before we even exist, it must be because He predetermined them. That makes God the author of sin, but you and I both reject that idea. The only thing left to adjust in our thinking is that God must not know all future events, but only the ones He has decided to accomplish. Thus, "foreseeing" really does mean "predetermining", but God doesn't foresee everything.
 
@Bible Highlighter
I’m sorry if I was confusing. I believe God predetermines what He wants to predetermine, and His character is such that He doesn’t cause anyone to sin.

I believe that since God doesn’t predetermine sin, then he can only foresee sin according to the nature of the individual. If He foresees our sin, it is only because of our nature, not because He can somehow see into the future.

God won’t predetermine our behavior, and therefore can’t know our future choices. As in the garden before Eve was made: Genesis 2:19 (KJV) And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought [them] unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that [was] the name thereof.

God didn’t foresee what Adam would call the animals, but He wanted to see how creative His new creation was.
 
@Derf

Ah, so you are an Open Theist.
That’s the wrong extreme of the other side of the spectrum (Calvinism), friend. God declares the end from the beginning. God is all powerful.
 
God declares the end from the beginning and brings it to pass. Isaiah 46:10 (KJV) 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:

You said you didn’t believe God would cause sin, and here you are saying He does, and that He takes pleasure in sin. Else why would you use that verse to prove His knowledge?

He backs it up in the next verse: Isaiah 46:11 (KJV) Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken [it], I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed [it], I will also do it.

He knows because He has decided to do something to bring it to pass, according to you. Now you have to decide how consistent you will be. Does that include sin?
 

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