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Roman 8 states in full context:
28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
If I may, how does God have a way of working each situation to our benefit and at the same time not micromanage our life? This passage has been used to prove predestination a Calvanist view. Thanks for engaging.
The way I look at it is the term “foreordained” is partly in reference to God, preplanning the cross, and the subsequent salvation of man, but also his plan for our lives, when we believe. I do believe that God puts limits on people, their habitation, the people they will meet, which I will explain latter. But it is not to the degree that they have no free will.
1Pe_1:20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you
We see in Romans 9:22-23 that people who are marked as vessels of wrath, God had “endured with much longsuffering”, or in other words He had attempted to save many times.
Rom 9:22-23 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
Judas, the betrayer of Jesus, was marked in this way, Jesus calling him a “devil”, before he betrayed Him. So the plan of God for Judas was to betray Jesus. As Adam and Eve had a tree in the garden, it was a point of choice for them, which would determine their destiny afterwards. In the same way I imagine that God sets points of decision before us, “endured with much longsuffering”, sets up encounters, within his plan, that become the “tree” choice for us.
I have done computer science, and there is a form of Artificial Intelligence that relies upon binary choices, a computer can essentially, “know”, all possible out comes of decisions, if it puts limits on what those decisions are. Yet it is still a binary system, based on “yes”, “no” choices. This type of system could be applied to free will. If God preplanned the steps that we are to take, but within a binary system, he could still allow for free will.
This would be a reason why God could say:
Gen_6:7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
God with in a binary, system, could work out, best and worst scenarios. It could show why, God could say “repenteth me that I have made them”. Why, with in the set of rules God laid down for man, predestined, it came to the lowest denominator, the worst possible outcome. So God was sorry, he had made man. Yet his long term plan was the cross, He could not give up on his plan of redemption.
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