Subject: Predestination vs free will--a thought.. |
Bible Note: I don't have any problem with your explanation of the "Biblical" meaning of the word knowledge, but it doesn't change the idea that foreknowledge came BEFORE predestination; it seems merely to divert and avoid the question. There is no one whom God does not have intimate and complete knowledge about, yet there is something (for lack of a better word) that drew God to specific people that AFFECTED God's decision to predestine us. We know from other places in Scripture that there is nothing that makes us "worthy" of his choosing (or even somehow less "unworthy" than others). Yet there is something. The question is, "What is it that God foreknew?" My understanding is that Arminius thought it to be some kind of openness to faith. It seems to me that it is more a final openness (when pressed to the wall) to the Spirit's persistent conviction of sinfulness and a resulting inner hunger and desperation for salvation. I'm not sure that this is fully accurate; nevertheless, there appears to be something that God foreknew (rather than fore-ordained) in us that came prior to his predestining us. I appreciate your study on one of the meanings used for "knowledge" in the Bible. However, your additional comments make it sound like you're trying to treat "foreknowledge" and "predestination" as virtually synonymous; I can only assume this is being done in order to avoid the idea of anything coming prior to predestination. This seems to me the equivalent of saying that Paul really meant to say, "For those whom he predestined he also predestined...; and those whom he predestined he also...." I understand that Christ himself and Paul both sometimes repeated phrases for stress. It seems bizarre, however, that he would give a deliberate sequence like, "God A'ed, then A'ed, then B'ed, then C'ed, then...." ;-) I'm confident that this is not really what you meant to suggest, but could you elaborate? |