Well we can only answer according to our understanding however limiting or emcompassing it is.
What is the explanation for God's foreknowledge and omniscience?
- Thread starter Marano
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Well we can only answer according to our understanding however limiting or emcompassing it is.
F
FreeNChrist
Guest
No God caused me to understand this thing.. Really i went to bed one night in tears having read the predestined scriptures that calvanist always quote.. Because i knew the implication of true calvinism even before i ever heard that there was such a set of teachings.. Really i mean it i know calvinism before i ever heard of calvinism.. But anyway then next morning when i woke up i understood it .. That it is by Gods foreknowledge that he predestines people.. Sadly most calvinists i have dealt with have been very puffed up about it and will cast accusations of bad intent on people who will not accept the TULIP doctrines of calvinism..
You are conforming to this stereotype unfortunately.. Being very dismissive of anyone who does not believe as you do.. Tell me where did you learn calvinism? who gave you instruction..
If I didn't believe God revealed Himself to those he wanted to reveal Himself I wouldn't be here and we wouldn't be talking, I don't have to claim God revealed Himself directly to me, but to those people who have taught me well my whole life yes.
If all human race had a limited understanding of God, God would never be understood by anyone and all revelation and everything that's seen in the bible and taught would be a limited picture of God and His character.
I learned about the scriptures reading them and being taught by those around me, also studying online I have nothing against that and I'll do it without issues, my primary source for everything is the bible.
Yonah, this is exactly Romans 9:19 -
Paul poses the objection that will obviously be raised by the teaching of the complete sovereignty of God that he has been laying out:
"if this is so, then how can God judge us, since no one can resist His will?"
This is exactly your objection. See how Paul answers?
"Who are you, o man, to talk back to God?"
And this is no new teaching. The entire book of Job -- God does not answer Job; He tells him, who are you to ask Me what I am doing or why i do what I do?
And in Isaiah also:
O LORD,
why do you make us wander from your ways and harden our heart,
so that we fear you not?
Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage.
(Isaiah 63:17)
why do you make us wander from your ways and harden our heart,
so that we fear you not?
Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage.
(Isaiah 63:17)
Even though Israel made the "choice" to forsake the true Lord and follow idols, it is clear that the sovereign God is the one who hardens their hearts, for the purpose of His divine election. Is it blasphemy then? It is written in the scripture, and it is our own understanding that is flawed, not God's justice.
The character of God is complete sovereignty. What you call 'calvanism' is largely directly supported by scripture - though quite contrary to human vanity.
If He revealed Himself to the people who then taught you, then it is He Himself who used those people to reveal Himself to you.
But more than this -- unless He had opened your inward eyes, and prepared your heart to receive Him, and given you understanding, you would have completely rejected all the things you were taught and remained in darkness. How many others heard exactly the same things you heard, but did not believe? Is that because you were 'greater' or 'wiser' or 'more intelligent' than them, or because God chose you to be His own?
It is His blood that bought us! Not ours, which buys Him! And by mercy, the free gift of grace, so no one can boast. He has chosen His own, and brought the dead to life.
No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
(Matthew 11:27)
(Matthew 11:27)
All glory and honor belongs to Him, forever!
Amen to everything you said, God's a sovereign God and it's a simple concept, human vanity can't comprehend it, but that's also according to His good purpose and there will come a time and it's coming soon when all creation will bow down to our God and all will sing: to the One sitting on the throne and to the Lamb be all praise, honor and glory.
Again amen to everything you said, I wouldn't dare boast about salvation or anything in this life, for I know all of it is given by God, if it wasn't God and His mercy, I wouldn't be able to do anything in this life, we are here as instruments of God and His purpose, and I thank God for your life and how he's used you as His intrusment to spread the Gospel.
Yes even the people who received it from God going back to where the first inspiration came from it's God Himself revealing Himself to us using His creation as the means for that, in the same way I hope I have been used by God to edify even if for a tiny bit you and anyone else who reads my posts here.
Let's take Jonah for example. God told Jonah to go and preach to Nineveh that in forty days He would destroy them.
Jonah 3:4, And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
This was the message that God told Jonah to preach. Did God overthrow Nineveh in forty days? No, why not? All Nineveh repented of their evil ways.
Did God lie? No
Did God have every intention of destroying Nineveh? Yes
Did God know ahead of time that Nineveh would choose to repent and He in turn would repent?
Please don't define who God is and then put God into your definition. Let Scripture define God and go with that.
God knew ahead of time Nineveh would repent absolutely that's why he sent Jonah, and that was also according to His purpose, God sent Jonah knowing that sending him Nineveh would repent.
I'm not defining who God is on my own, scripture is, you yourself is trying to bend scripture and reading into it something that's not there, I pray that God reveal his character to you so that you come to know Him for Who He is. God is a sovereign God.
I would say it because He has been there and done that.
Never heard about the process of knowledge acquisition? Me neither until I was told about it , that why all people begin knowledge acquisition from the cognitive state in which they can say the didn't even know they didn't know. That is the step called the most important because faith comes by hearing and most people don't like to admit to themselves that they don't know that the don't even know.
When I first heard it made sense to me but then again what did I know. Yet I later learned from John 15:22 that this precept was actually consistent with what Jesus taught . He told them that unless he had came and told them they had sin, they had not had sin. And years back, I would have aggressively questioned God's foreknowledge and omniscience since how could God know what you would do, until you did it since you had free will until the point you exercised your will and then it was not longer free will but rather at that point would be considered a done deal. And in free will, we are accountable for the consequences of our own actions, in that they are our own actions.
"And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every book of the garden thou mayest freely read:"
(things the bible never mention).
Matthew 4:4
Well, if all things are possible with God then it might be possible that it is impossible, who would have thunk a tree could be turned into a book.
It isn't possible that it's impossible, it's possible though that God is a sovereign God and creates all things according to the counsel of his will so that nothing comes to pass without being first predetermined by God to happen in such a way. Not only the spcifics but every single situation that happens under the sun.
Also every word in scripture serves as testimony for believers and condemmnation for those who end up going against God's word, so also God's commandment to Adam would serve only as condemmnation for his actions since God had already predestined Adam to do what he did before the beginning of time, in the same sense that Ephesians 1 is right.
Last edited:
Deut 30:19 is written in the same sense as the rest of scripture, as testimony for the believers in Christ (the promise before incarnation, death in the calvary and ressurection) and as condemnation for those who wouldn't believe, mankind was unable to fulfil the law and effectively obey it before Jesus Christ died at the cross as a perfect atonement and sacrifice for all sins.
My praise is for God's glory and I accept that all creation exists for His glory even those whose eternal death served their purpose so that the elect would live for His glory in the new Jerusalem eternally.
What was the message? Yet forty days Nineveh will be overthrown. Did God lie? Were they overthrown? No. There was no ifs in the message. God sent Jonah there to warn them of their upcoming destruction. God had every intention of destroying Nineveh, but they repented so God in turn repented. Simple.
No way what you said is true, there was no ifs in the message, God always knew Nineveh would be spared in 40 days not overtrown, God has omniscience and foreknowledge of all things that includes knowing that Nineveh would repent had a prophet gone there and said the things he told the prohet to say, Jonah was his instrument to carry out a long established purpose, that was Nineveh's repentance. Simple.
Now you're adding to the word of God to fit your theology. Please show in Scripture where Jonah was to preach repentance to Nineveh.