The Nature of God's Foreknowledge: Prescience or Prerogative?
Since I'm on a roll proving just how pathetically impotent FWers are in that they have zero ability to answer tough questions, I'm going to demolish one of the most mighty of their "strong towers" to FWT: their ridiculously absurd understanding of the doctrine of Foreknowledge, which totally contradicts other doctrines they have created, although they are totally oblivious to those contradictions which the silly notion of "prescience" presents. Self-Awareness is not a FWer strong suit. But before we get to the crux of the matter with Foreknowledge, we should refresh our memories about some of those other doctrines they invented so that we'll be able to see clearly those contradictions.
First, we have God's "omnilove" (so-called) invented by GWH. God just loves everyone to death, even those He never knew in eternity!
Secondly, FWer's reduce God to a passive spectator in the universe in terms of man's salvation; for it's not God's grace that is effectual bur rather man's "freewill" choice is the ultimate, primary and final determinant of man's eternal destiny.
Thirdly, this reduces God to a mere opportunity maker, since His grace is ineffectual! God gives all mankind, without exception, equal opportunity to exercise their "freewill" to save themselves. This is how FWers portray God's role in salvation through his weak, lame, ineffective attempt to save all. He presents "all" with opportunities.
Fourthly, God is likened to an EOE (equal opportunity employer) because He's not willing or desirous that anyone should perish according to how FWer's interpret passages like 2Pet 3:9, 1Tim 2:4, etc.
So, with these FWT constructs serving as a backdrop or framework with which to scrutinize FWT's understanding of the biblical doctrine of Foreknowledge, let's begin our little journey.
We already know that virtually all FWers believe that the Gr. term "proginosko" (Strong's 4267) rendered "foreknew" in Rom 8:29; 11:2, etc. means man's actions instead of just persons. They shamelessy and unabashedly and unapologetically read into Rom 8:29 "For those whom God foreknew would believe, He also predestined...". (Nice piece of eisegesis which scripture strictly forbids!) Obvously, FWers believe that an all-knowing, omniscient God must first learn things about his moral creatures so that He can act accordingly. They tell us that God knows all things about all people, and he did this in eternity. So, all this knowlege that God acquired in eternity is FIXED! It's etched in stone! And God would never, ever tamper with man's "freewill" choices, so this means that all of mankind's spiritual choices are fixed certainty! After all, man's eternal destiny is soley in his hands and not in God's! This is very important to remember.
Of course, those of the Reformed faith are lambasted and criticized for understanding "foreknowledge" as essentially the embodiment of Divine Prerogative. We have all heard their stupid, ill-conceived arguments such as: God forces his will upon people; God picks winners and losers; God would be treating people with partiality, etc., etc. -- and they rail against the Doctrines of Grace totally oblivous to the fatal flaws to their own prescience view of foreknowledge, which I will now reveal in this post.
1. Jesus said of Judas that it would have been better for him to not have been born rather than for him to exist and commit the worse crime in human history. Well, how is it any different, in principle, between Judas and the rest of humanity? Since God knows with certainty how each and every human being, who hears the gospel is going to respond to it, wouldn't it have been infintiely more loving, compassionate and merciful of God to not have decreed the existence of all his enemies? Why didn't God just decree the existence of those he knew would respond positively? If God is so loving, merciful, gracious and kind why did He decree the existence of all unbelievers who He clearly knew would choose eternal damnation for themselves? Instead, God is certainly willing to let all unbelievers self-destruct and perish in the Lake of Fire for all eternity, in spite of FWers rhetoric to the contrary.
2. Given the absolute, fixed certainty of men's choices, this means that sinners in hell were not able to change their own destiny by doing a choice do-over. In other words, the sons of men are imprisoned within their own choices. They are in fact HELPLESS, for they wound up in hell because they were unable to extricate themselves from the fixed certainty of their own decisions. Man-induced Determinism is alive and well in FWT! So is Fatalism, since man's choices are irreversible just as a fatal physical disease would be. But wouldn't a truly loving, merciful and compassionate God do as the Good Samaritan did and actually come to the the rescue of such helpless people?
3. Perhaps the most absurd implication to the presicence view of foreknowledge with respect to spiritual choices is that God, possessing all this knowledge about how each and every person will respond to the Gospel, is still nevertheless desperately trying in space and time to save everyone by offering them opportunities for salvation that he foreknew in eternity with certainty they would never accept in time and space! In other words, FWT implicitly has God perpetually chasing his tail like a moonbat, crazed lunatic -- even though he foreknew with certainty in eternity what the final outcome of his empty, vain, futile attempts would be with unbelievers who have elected themselves to become eternal sons or daughters of their spiritual father Satan.
4. The prescience view of foreknowledge reduces God down to the status of his created order; for like all his moral creatures the Potter, too, must acquire knowledge from the pots of his very own making. His created order becomes his counsellor. The creation teaches its Creator, which of course cannot be true if God is truly omniscient.
Since I'm on a roll proving just how pathetically impotent FWers are in that they have zero ability to answer tough questions, I'm going to demolish one of the most mighty of their "strong towers" to FWT: their ridiculously absurd understanding of the doctrine of Foreknowledge, which totally contradicts other doctrines they have created, although they are totally oblivious to those contradictions which the silly notion of "prescience" presents. Self-Awareness is not a FWer strong suit. But before we get to the crux of the matter with Foreknowledge, we should refresh our memories about some of those other doctrines they invented so that we'll be able to see clearly those contradictions.
First, we have God's "omnilove" (so-called) invented by GWH. God just loves everyone to death, even those He never knew in eternity!
Secondly, FWer's reduce God to a passive spectator in the universe in terms of man's salvation; for it's not God's grace that is effectual bur rather man's "freewill" choice is the ultimate, primary and final determinant of man's eternal destiny.
Thirdly, this reduces God to a mere opportunity maker, since His grace is ineffectual! God gives all mankind, without exception, equal opportunity to exercise their "freewill" to save themselves. This is how FWers portray God's role in salvation through his weak, lame, ineffective attempt to save all. He presents "all" with opportunities.
Fourthly, God is likened to an EOE (equal opportunity employer) because He's not willing or desirous that anyone should perish according to how FWer's interpret passages like 2Pet 3:9, 1Tim 2:4, etc.
So, with these FWT constructs serving as a backdrop or framework with which to scrutinize FWT's understanding of the biblical doctrine of Foreknowledge, let's begin our little journey.
We already know that virtually all FWers believe that the Gr. term "proginosko" (Strong's 4267) rendered "foreknew" in Rom 8:29; 11:2, etc. means man's actions instead of just persons. They shamelessy and unabashedly and unapologetically read into Rom 8:29 "For those whom God foreknew would believe, He also predestined...". (Nice piece of eisegesis which scripture strictly forbids!) Obvously, FWers believe that an all-knowing, omniscient God must first learn things about his moral creatures so that He can act accordingly. They tell us that God knows all things about all people, and he did this in eternity. So, all this knowlege that God acquired in eternity is FIXED! It's etched in stone! And God would never, ever tamper with man's "freewill" choices, so this means that all of mankind's spiritual choices are fixed certainty! After all, man's eternal destiny is soley in his hands and not in God's! This is very important to remember.
Of course, those of the Reformed faith are lambasted and criticized for understanding "foreknowledge" as essentially the embodiment of Divine Prerogative. We have all heard their stupid, ill-conceived arguments such as: God forces his will upon people; God picks winners and losers; God would be treating people with partiality, etc., etc. -- and they rail against the Doctrines of Grace totally oblivous to the fatal flaws to their own prescience view of foreknowledge, which I will now reveal in this post.
1. Jesus said of Judas that it would have been better for him to not have been born rather than for him to exist and commit the worse crime in human history. Well, how is it any different, in principle, between Judas and the rest of humanity? Since God knows with certainty how each and every human being, who hears the gospel is going to respond to it, wouldn't it have been infintiely more loving, compassionate and merciful of God to not have decreed the existence of all his enemies? Why didn't God just decree the existence of those he knew would respond positively? If God is so loving, merciful, gracious and kind why did He decree the existence of all unbelievers who He clearly knew would choose eternal damnation for themselves? Instead, God is certainly willing to let all unbelievers self-destruct and perish in the Lake of Fire for all eternity, in spite of FWers rhetoric to the contrary.
2. Given the absolute, fixed certainty of men's choices, this means that sinners in hell were not able to change their own destiny by doing a choice do-over. In other words, the sons of men are imprisoned within their own choices. They are in fact HELPLESS, for they wound up in hell because they were unable to extricate themselves from the fixed certainty of their own decisions. Man-induced Determinism is alive and well in FWT! So is Fatalism, since man's choices are irreversible just as a fatal physical disease would be. But wouldn't a truly loving, merciful and compassionate God do as the Good Samaritan did and actually come to the the rescue of such helpless people?
3. Perhaps the most absurd implication to the presicence view of foreknowledge with respect to spiritual choices is that God, possessing all this knowledge about how each and every person will respond to the Gospel, is still nevertheless desperately trying in space and time to save everyone by offering them opportunities for salvation that he foreknew in eternity with certainty they would never accept in time and space! In other words, FWT implicitly has God perpetually chasing his tail like a moonbat, crazed lunatic -- even though he foreknew with certainty in eternity what the final outcome of his empty, vain, futile attempts would be with unbelievers who have elected themselves to become eternal sons or daughters of their spiritual father Satan.
4. The prescience view of foreknowledge reduces God down to the status of his created order; for like all his moral creatures the Potter, too, must acquire knowledge from the pots of his very own making. His created order becomes his counsellor. The creation teaches its Creator, which of course cannot be true if God is truly omniscient.
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