I work on Sundays. I do want to go to church but can't due to work. I can request days off. The only issues there isn't many of us. I don't want leave them one short. I due try to wake up for early worship
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As Radagast mentioned most churches stream worship services and sermons. I was down for the count sick this past Sunday and followed along on Facebook.I work on Sundays. I do want to go to church but can't due to work. I can request days off. The only issues there isn't many of us. I don't want leave them one short. I due try to wake up for early worship
My position is that God does not know the exact details of how the future will work out. But, He knows everything that is knowable, including total prediction of every existing possibility resulting from the decisions of every single human being. Also, He is well able through His omnipotence to achieve His plans through all the decisions that are made. To the casual observer it really does appear that God knows the future and people can be excused to believe that He actually does.Inconsistent liable to change.
As opposed to immutable. As in God is immutable consistent with His Nature.
It applies to God’s eternal covenant promises. If His covenant promises are eternal, and His prophecies have and will come to pass, then by His omniscience He truly knows the future even though it has not happened yet.
Depends on whether God can get through to you in time.Since God knows all does this mean we can't change our fates? That those who are saved are all saved and those who are damned can't change their fates?
God is the Creator of all that is seen and unseen.My position is that God does not know the exact details of how the future will work out. But, He knows everything that is knowable, including total prediction of every existing possibility resulting from the decisions of every single human being. Also, He is well able through His omnipotence to achieve His plans through all the decisions that are made. To the casual observer it really does appear that God knows the future and people can be excused to believe that He actually does
Having a future that exists is the stuff of science fantasy. The future is created out of people's decisions.God is the Creator of all that is seen and unseen.
In Genesis 1:1 it says “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
That is Creator of time (in the beginning), space (heavens) and matter (earth).
The Creator and Master of time would be limited to only portions of the future?
Then God does not know the future...?Having a future that exists is the stuff of science fantasy. The future is created out of people's decisions.
When you extend the courtesy of responding to my post I’ll be here. But you did not.
For His own good reasons.
I can tell you most certainly that it wasn’t based on any merits that He foresaw in them. As the free will theist want to believe. But according to His purposes and reasons left to Him alone, He chose to show mercy on some.
That would take an entire lesson on the doctrine of predestination. Volumes have been written
But - so called "Calvinism" teaches exactly what the scriptures teach. It teaches that the will of God is good and perfect and that "All" things work together for good.
God predestines everything for a purpose. According to scripture, that includes the lives of the elect and even the lives of evil men and angels.
But - it is not up to me or any Calvinist to show that God is not arbitrary or capricious. If the charge is made that He is - the burden of proof or scriptural substantiation is on the one making the charge not on those not making the charge.
Calvinists make no such charge. Rather they say as do the scriptures that the Lord has reasons for everything He does - even if they are not readily apparent to us at this time.
Speaking of His Word - God says that in Him we have our being and that all things were created by Him, for Him, and in Him all things consist.
"So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it." Isaiah 55:11
God does not send His Word forth capriciously. He accomplishes exactly what God intended Him to accomplish.
His accomplishments (whether they are shown forth in His grace or His righteous judgment) are not arbitrary or capricious. Rather, according to scripture they are quite narrow and line up perfectly with God's good and perfect will.
Ok a response in kind then is in order.
Predestination and Foreknowledge is in the Bible thus proclaiming God is sovereign outside of and inside of His own creation. St Paul teaches this and St Augustine and Reformed theology teach these Biblical truths.
Now prove this wrong.
Here is the dictionary definition of arbitrary.Ok, as I understand you God elects according to His own purpose, and that it's out of grace. That it's from God's personal choice, not depending on any rules, not depending on us individuals or the world. But isn't that what arbitrary mean?
I would consider that theological fiction.The future is created out of people's decisions.
You have my full attention here. It’s an interesting philosophical pursuit. However, not all chosen had a good track record. Paul comes to mind. He was on a persecution bender and God directly intervened. I don’t think we can chalk that up to an exception to the rule. We both probably have insights into friends and loved ones who may not have been living like Caligula but close to it. An aka like Paul they were steaming at full warp speed to an early death. My very own older brother.
So speaking philosophical here and observing folks in the Bible it’s a mixed bag of Shepherd boy David youngest humble and meek but a pursuing the heart of God. Then shifty Jacob deceiving his own father becomes the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. Not to mention his own sons were a shady lot one being Judah who visits a prostitute ending up having a son through her and she’s his daughter in law. There are more of course from this shifty class and of course Saul of Tarsus who admitted his complicity in murder and torture.
Then of course Cornelius, Blessed Mary, Joseph, Zacharias and Elizabeth that list supports your theory.
But I commend you on your insight on this. One thing we need to consider which puts the overt sinners on equal footing with the overt righteous. We are all condemned before a Holy God and are all sinners needing Christ as savior and Lord. Which loops back to Cornelius...Even though the he was a “good dude” doing good deeds, God moved mountains to get the Gospel to Him. Even though Paul deserved to be abandoned by God as Paul willfully in the name of the Law actually broke the commandment to not murder, Christ Himself appeared to him stopping him in his tracks and basically gave him no choice in the matter. Jesus said Paul would be his instrument for the Gospel and this was before Paul made it to Damascus.
Looking at Acts we do find the results no matter the background are the same. Both Paul and Cornelius believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and received the Holy Spirit. It does not take any philosophical approach to realize God accomplishes this amazing Grace for His Praise and Glory.
We have a saying in Texas..."It ain't good poking your head in a bag full of rattlesnakes."Sorry got headache reading it, it was too much info and too long.
The Divine will and purpose of God and the human bonded will are not mutually exclusive. You are creating some cosmic dichotomy that does not exist as far as the Scriptures reveal. Notice I said the Scriptures reveal because we know of God through what He has revealed to us and we find this in Holy Scriptures. Based on that when it comes to election this is what hundreds of Bible scholars came up with to explain the doctrine of election:Ok, as I understand you God elects according to His own purpose, and that it's out of grace. That it's from God's personal choice, not depending on any rules, not depending on us individuals or the world. But isn't that what arbitrary mean?
Ok, as I understand you God elects according to His own purpose, and that it's out of grace. That it's from God's personal choice, not depending on any rules, not depending on us individuals or the world. But isn't that what arbitrary mean?
He perverted the Law.Saul of Tarsus persecuted Christians because he fervently wanted to do God's will as he understood it, it seems. In order to have kept the old law as well as Paul said he did when Saul, it seems we can definitely know he wanted to do what is right.
They were similar in one aspect. Both were condemned sinners in need of God's Grace.That makes Paul very similar to Cornelius in that way.
This was after Paul was converted.And this reminds us of how Paul had already written many times to boast only in/about Christ, and never ourselves, so that seems to suggest Paul would not be prideful, and possibly even that Saul was not likely to have been. Thus on the whole we can expect Saul of Tarsus to have been fairly likely to be 'wanting to do what is right/fearing God/being humble'
They all had one thing in common....condemned before a Holy God by the one sin of Adam and their own sins.Jacob though, I can't say much about, but don't have any prominent sins of his that come to mind. It's not perfection of sinlessness that God seems to want before we are redeemed, but rather instead it's a desire to do right (regardless of it being inconstant and very imperfect!).