The Genesis of Exhaustive Foreknowledge

What is the nature of God? The Genesis of exhaustive foreknowledge.
Biblically speaking we see how god allows for people to decide their own futures and so does not interfere with free will. This means any and all things that pertain to allowing creatures to have a say in what they do and choose to do remains outside of his knowing. This allows for free choice. He is not in the business of deciding the fate of people and therefore need not determine or script out the lives of free will creatures.

What is the nature of God in contradistinction to his attributes?
One attribute is to say that god has exhaustive foreknowledge of all future events. This idea of God’s will being sovereign is that he in fact determines the fate of his creatures as such. Without foreknowledge it is impossible for god to know ahead of time what we will do and so by scripting out our very lives down to every detail it allow him to foresee what will transpire but deprives us of any real choices.

What is the nature of free will?
Free will is an option that provides both us and god a chance to prove to one another that we can have a free and open relationship. A relationship that is based on love and respect. A relationship in which we freely choose our own futures. It provides god with an open future, a future in which we are able to make free choices without his knowing and therefore controlling these choices ahead of time.

What is the nature of free will in contradistinction to exhaustive foreknowledge?
Free will is nothing new biblically speaking but since the advent of Greek theology and its explanation of exhaustive foreknowledge it has been necessary to reevaluate the meaning of foreknowledge in light of what the bible is saying and not in light of what extra biblical sources have to say.

These questions and others need to be asked to understand more fully what it means to live in a world where free will and God’s will are in competition.

When considering the nature of True libertarian freedom one must agree that it means that one must be able to choose doing one thing or not doing one thing.

When people choose to believe that God is Sovereign in all things they are attempting to enforce an ideal that does injustice to the biblical message of God's nature. When we try to attach attributes to his nature we err by assuming that attributes are part of his nature. They are rather in subordination to his nature. In a monarchy, the king as sovereign has total and unconditional power. Is this the kind of God that is displayed in the biblical texts? Where did this concept come from?

Over the centuries from the writings of the early church fathers to Augustine and then onto the writings of Thomas Aquinas thru the Reformation including ideas of Luther and Calvin to Luis Molina’s middle knowledge and finally into our own day Christian theologians have been struggling with two ideas that seem to be in conflict. One is the sovereignty of God and the other is the free will of man. How is it that God can be sovereign and at the same time allow the free will of his creatures? As far back as the Greek theologians there existed an ideal that God must be such that he is perfect in his being. Metaphysicians like Plato and Aristotle formulated ideas of God’s perfection. To understand better the nature of their ideas we must first understand the mentality of the Greeks when it comes to perfection. The mindset of the Greeks was that of permanence. Permanence is tied up with their understanding of perfection. You can see it in their everyday lives. They were not like us in that we are more concerned with the temporal. For us in our day and age we are more prone to throw something away without too much worry and replace it with something new. We are in fact the throw away society. For the Greeks they tried to exemplify the Gods by trying to transcend the temporal and live out their daily lives in timeless permanence. You can see it in their art and in their architecture. Some of their architecture remains to this day. The Pantheon is one example of this. It was build nearly 1800 years ago and still stands as an example of how the idea of permanence directed their paths. The Pantheon is an interesting example of how the temporal world reflects the timeless world. If you observe the pantheon from the inside it appears as the cosmos inside out. At the top of the dome is an opening like an eye that serves two purposes. One is it allows light to come into the building and reflect its light during the day by the sun and during the night by the moon. In effect is a celestial star and moon during different periods of the day and night. It is quite fascinating! During the day it allows light to illuminate different parts of the interior where once there were sculptured gods set in naves. So as time passed each and every god was at some point during the day and night given some time in the limelight as it were. Secondly the idea of the pantheon was to show the nature of timeless entities whose perfections were understood in the timeless absolutes of perfection. It is in the assumptions that followed from these absolutes that they formulated the nature of God. In contradistinction to these ideas was the temporal world, which carried with it the idea of decay and imperfection seen in the finite. Theirs was quest to find meaning in something greater than themselves. It was their attempt to live out their lives emulating this idea of permanence. Whether they believed in God or not the culture as a whole was immersed and indoctrinated by this concept.
It is here during the time of permanence that many Christian theologians arose to engage in a battle between the truths of Christendom and the heresies of the Gnostics. The early church fathers and others like the great theologian Augustine fought tooth and nail to protect the apostolic message of the incarnation and in doing so had decided to use the systematic theology of Plato and other Greek philosophers. To be fair it is important to understand that the Christian response was to use the best methods available to them in providing an apologetic in defending the early Christian message by formulating Christian doctrines.
But what are the assumptions that follow these doctrines and how do they affect us today? One of the main things that continues into our own day is the Greek idea that God is a timeless being. The assumptions that follow vary but there is one that continues to hold us in its grasp. That is that God is Sovereign and that his will is Omnipotent. In spite of many attempts to show the Biblical God in this light it is truly a misrepresentation of the texts. From the beginning of creation this is shown not to be the case. As with Adam and Eve it is clearly seen that they freely choose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If God’s will were truly sovereign then they would have not eaten of the fruit. There are many examples in the Bible that shows man’s will over against God’s will. So there needs to be a better understanding of God's nature then simply assuming that he is some attribute over against his nature.

Adam was told to tend and keep the garden in which he was placed. A perfect place to live in which he would never die. God desired a relationship with something/someone without restraints. Everything was under His power and did what it was created to do. We do know that some of the angels were athoritive and had the ability to make certain choice as pertaining to duties. Adam was created to be a free agent of servanthood. It was his choice to do the right thing or not. John 1:14 shows that God is grace and truth as evidenced by John1:1 The Word was God and came to dwell among us. All the other attributes we read in Corinthians come from this. Even though God knows all things past and future, cause He is the Alpha and Omega, in order to be a fair and just God, He has to allow the creature we call man an ability to love and serve by self choice. His unconditional love allows the drunks, druggies, and whatnots the same opportunities that others that never had to deal with hard choices have. The hard choice is a level field for all. Serve God or mamon. Yes he knows what will happen, but will not interfere with the love that we have within us to distribute as we choose. Jesus said that our treasure is where our heart is. We have to figure out what true treasure is. Temporary or eternity. He has made the provision of it all already. What are we gonna do with it is the question. He won't make the choice for us, cause He knows the outcome already provided.

Hi, I believe your answer if not uncommon among many who are wondering why anyone would question the omniscience of God. However, I think is a misunderstanding of what is entailed in knowing beforehand things that are unknowable. Let me give you one example. In genesis 6:6 the text states, "And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart". God is exampled as being regretful. How is it that we are to interpret those texts that plainly state something that shows god to be surprised by the actions of free agents? In this case regretful? In the example of regretting having made mankind it is implied in the text that the actions of men were unknown to god, otherwise why would the text state that God regretted unless he had not known this future contingency?
My concern with this text and others that are similar is that when those who want to uphold exhaustive foreknowledge are confronted with these texts there is an immediate response by them who cannot deal with such an idea as limited omniscience to provide texts that show just the opposite. To be fair you must see that this is one sided! If there are texts that show limited omniscience one cannot justify ignoring these texts without sacrificing what the text is saying. So if one reinterprets the text to fit ones theology of exhaustive omniscience then one has committed an interpretive error. I understand that when it comes to principals of interpretation it is important to retrieve from the text what it is actually saying and one should not interpret these texts in light of other texts to support the their concerns about limiting God's omniscience. Do you take the word of God literally in theses instances where it supports exhaustive foreknowledge and at the same time reinterpret or disallow those texts that show limited omniscience? This is a bias of the biblical narrative and assumes ones own assumptions about such texts. It amounts to coming to the text with an aforehand set of beliefs whereby one interprets in light of their own understanding. Historically speaking such assumptions are rooted in traditional forms of interpretations created by reformed Augustinian theology. It is here that I am concentrating my research. If I believe that I should take the textual message for what it is saying then I have be clear on how I am going to approach the text. Am I going to do it with those traditional forms of interpretation that grounds exhaustive as the only true way to view the text or am I going to be fair and see that other texts shows god to be allowing limited omniscience within a framework that allows free will agents a certain openness to their actions whereby God does not determine beforehand what I will or will not do. True libertarian freedom cannot allow for simple foreknowledge without superceding ones free will. Think about it for a moment. If god knows beforehand what you will do and he knows this before the creation of the worlds then what he sees cannot be changed! Once he sees it from that vantage point then he can no longer change it without manipulating what he saw beforehand. Ultimately this means he would not be able to use his providence to change things in our lives without changing what he already saw happening before the creation of the world. Not without scripting it beforehand! You see how that foreknowledge then sets in stone all future free will actions of both god and us. Let me know what you think about this.

A gifted use of the word, friend. My question is, are you really searching for some answers or do you just like to mess with people's heads and their thought patterns? Was God grieved for creating Adam in Gen-6.6 or just for the path that he chose to take? A lot of people try to over analyze the Word of God that it starts to make no sense or contradictory occasions seem to pop up in confusing places, usually at times of decision making on their own part. We are told this, that His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. He is so much more than we can fathom. At one time Adam was almost there because he was visited in the cool of the evening by God Himself, and was given the responsibility to name and classify all living creatures. But that ability to work at that level was lost at the fall of mankind in the garden. Daniel, given the privilege of writing down the prophesies that Revelation bears out told the angel that he didn't understand. It is ok not to understand. Over questioning only results in trying to kick a dirt clod sometimes only to find out it's a rock. The quest is good and necessary, if the desire is to draw closer to the Lord, getting ourselves ready for His return, but if our efforts thwart the searching of others then we have done a great disservice to christianity. Blessings!!!

Very well put Brother Carl, you said exactly what i felt in very simple words most effectively. But got somewhat stuck in expressing...thank you. Feels just like a weight has been lifted off of me. Knew the response would come that i felt in my heart...spoken in Love and Truth.

There is "heart" and passion in this.

"Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said"

"“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?"

"Now gird up your loins like a man, And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!"

"“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding."

JOB 38-1-4 & 5-10

5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels[a] shouted for joy?

8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
9 when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
10 when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place



Blessings to both of you.

I am not messing with people's heads! I am coming to the word of God and seeing it as it is. When God told Moses' that he was going to destroy everyone of the Isrealites in the desert was he LYING to moses! If he was not lying to Moses then tell me was he going back on his promise and LYING to abraham about his seed continuing forever. Tell me how you you interprert these texts? Why would god decided to deliever the isrealites out of Egypt if he knew beforehand ( Foreknowledge) he would destroy them?
Exodus 32:10 Now leave me alone that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you(Moses) into a great nation. You see how god was about to change his mind about somethings based on what was transpiring with the isrealites. He was reacting to the way people were behaving and was about to change history so much so that what he had promised to Abraham would have to be changed. History was not set in stone ( as somehow seen beforehand ,even before the creation of the world as you seem to think) and as God he could do whatever he wanted to do to insure his plans would be carried out. These texts portray god in temporal sequences with people not in beforehand fated senerios where all things are already known and therefore unchangeable.

Abraham's seed did continue, did it not? All the people from the age of 20 and up that left Egypt were the only ones that were not allowed to enter the promised land. PLUS Joshua and Caleb, because they had the will, desire , and stamina to believe God. People will reap the consequences of their actions. That was all laid out before them when Moses delivered the law to them. God doesn't change His mind, He just acts on the response for those that are called His, according to what He has already mandated in His word. It sounds to me, as I read your words, that you are a highly intellegent, desiring to understand individual. You obviously like to study, but we also have to understand the context of time in which the word was written and also what the translators had to work with in the process. Being a word person, i find it highly effective to take a word and search it back to original meaning. It tells us in Kings that "The heavens trembled and the earth shook, because the Lord was wroth". We understand that word. wroth. to mean angry, yet it also means grieved. God was so grieved that He had to let David suffer the consequences of choices and actions that he made, that creation itself paid attention to the creator, because what He is capable of could have affected everything, EVERYTHING! God loves you and me that much. Ain't that grand. It gives me something to work for. Blessings

Carl, I guess you are just not reading the texts for what they are implying. You say God cannot change yet there is ample evidence from the narratives that he does so continually.
Why do you not see this? Is it because you are centering in on texts that say the opposite?
I do in fact see that those texts do exist. I am aware of them. What I think you are missing is the way I am interpreting these texts in light of other texts that imply god does change, is surprised, grieves about outcomes, ponders whether people will follow his will and reacts to these temporal outcomes in a way in which allows us to determine our own destinies.
Now maybe you think I am making this up. So to be fair I believe you should take a little time to investigate my thinking, which is based in a tradition called "Open Theism". Goggle it and you will see what I believe. It is a genuine based theology that is calling for people to see what the bible is saying at face value. This is up and against traditional forms of theism that use metaphors based on assumptions that are not necessarily biblically supported in the scriptural narrative. This has led to the adoption of theological concepts that have marginalized those biblical texts that deal with certain contingencies about future free will actions of people. These assumptions were originally gleaned from metaphysical assumptions found in Platonic theology which demand exhaustive foreknowledge in its understanding of a perfect being theology. However much one wants to put a premium on exhaustive foreknowledge if one is not careful then what ends up happening is the texts that speak of self limited foreknowledge suffer and they are reinterpreted and ignored being tossed aside as not meaning what the texts are actually implying. I am aware of how traditional forms of theism have incorporated this form of interpretation into its systematics and brought about metapysical imperatives that supercede ideas such as self imposed limited foreknowledge to be in error. The metaphysics of the early church fathers, Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Luther, Calvin and others have afforded us some of the most important understandings of God’s word and I draw heavily from them in my understanding of God’s word. However, I cannot avoid seeing how heavily these theologians drew from the perfect being theology of the Greeks.

silverglass, I believe I understand where you are coming from now. Thank you for sharing your style, for lack of a better word, of study. Everyone must find that avenue of study, prayer, reading, etc, that affords them a more complete/deeper understanding of God and who He is. I pray that you accept my apologies if indeed I have written anything that would even remotely cause you you to sway in your quest to search out Him, and a personal relationship with the Almighty God. It is just my desire that all who start this journey calledl Christianity, understand that this is the bottom line. God is the creator, I am the created, He loves me so that He made the way for my eternal existance with Him. And until that time comes, my duty is to share this with all that I can, hopefully helping someone to see their need of the great savior that Christ Jesus is. Intense study of the Word of God can lead many to rabbit trails, that though interesting, cannot change who HE is. Please take no offence to the term rabbit trails, that is just we say things here in Arkansas sometimes. Study of the Word/religion/theology/and history are all good as long as we understand our relationship with Him. Blessings

Thanks for your sincere words. However, there remains in your words the continuation of your perception of me as being somewhat off base on the real matter of faith. I have been a Christian for nearly 46 years now so rest assured I take seriously the matter of my walk with God. I also have a theological degree that I have earned from an accredited conservative evangelical school. I came to understand that my training was grounded in the areas of Reformed Augustinian theological thinking as it pertains to the principals that are found in most evangelical universities. Everything that I was taught was blended with theological principals found in Greek theism. You may think this unusual but it is quite evident once you understand that right from the beginning such principals were believed to be useful in understanding and interpreting texts that you and I are debating about. You may not know or believe it but what you and I believe is based in these doctrines. Reformed theology has these core principals and this is not fully understood by most people.
At this point I wonder if there remains anything more to be said on this topic, as you seem immovable in your thinking. But allow me a space of time to perhaps wet your appetite for further inquiry.
I usually find that open discussion on new ideas can generate fear. For the most part when people are confronted with new ideas that challenge their principal beliefs they tend to alienate themselves for fear of loosing their grip with ideas that have had incorporated into their belief system. They begin to worry that they could be wrong about truths that they may have held onto for some time. No one wants to be wrong about they core beliefs whether they are biblical or otherwise.
In my quest to understand the beginnings of Christian theism I have decided to put aside or suspend my core beliefs in order to confront the traditional stance. I decided to put myself to the test of proving these theological doctrines in order to see how closely they match the early church’s understanding. Are they in fact in line with the biblical view and do they support the bible for what it is saying. I am not afraid of being wrong about what I may have believed for so long but rather I am interested in knowing what the story is concerning the development of tradition. Simply being said, when the bible says god gets angry or changes his mind or wonders about what people will do when faced with trials and tribulations can I take it to mean just that? I do not want to reinterpret the text to mean something other than what it is saying?
Three things must be met or put in place when taking a stance for what one believes concerning biblical truth.
1_Is what I am interpreting or understanding, biblical?
2-Is it logical or does it make logical sense when I read it and formulate it into a truth?
3- Does my understanding of the interpretation agree with or have a experiential understanding that is to say, does it match with what I experience in my own spiritual walk? From here I can begin to explore the difference between error and truth and keep myself from going down the wrong road(s) in this quest.
One of the first things that the early church encountered in its infancy and throughout the first several centuries was the onset of heresy. The Gnostics were on the move to reinterpret the New Testament to fit in with the idea that God could not change. This led people to find an error in the writings of the New Testament writers whose gospels and letters were seen to be in direct conflict with Greek theism. From the vantage point of Greek idealism it was believed that this was impossibility, because God is a perfect being and as such a perfect being cannot change. This is understood to mean that if God were to change then he would be changing for something less than perfect. A perfect being is unable to change without moving from being in a perfect state of being to a less than perfect state. You see how they understood it to be impossible for God to change from his perfect state of being by taking on another form without becoming something less than he is? Therefore the incarnation was viewed as impossibility since it is impossible for a perfect being to change. It is therefore impossible for god to change and incarnate himself, in any way without doing injustice to Greek theism. These early cultures were immersed in the traditions of Greek theism. It is here that we see the first divergence from the Hebrew traditions of viewing God’s nature and a change in thinking on how to properly understanding God’s nature as the way Greek philosophers did. Things got out of hand and many were being led astray with this new way of viewing God and his attributes. A foothold was taken and Gnosticism became rampant. Books not related to the original documents were coming on the scene and the church was in turmoil. The early church fathers were seeing many leaving the churches and needed to confront this head on. They began to formulate their doctrinal defenses and in the manner of the time used the best metaphysical apologetics at their disposal. This meant that they were going to fight fire with fire and using Greek logic (modal logic) defended the incarnation using the formulations of Greek thought. So early on the doctrines of early Christian thought became mixed with Greek thought on the nature and attributes of God.
This lead the Gnostics to formulate their own gospels and letters which were in direct conflict with the writers of the new testament who upheld the truth that God did in fact change and became a human being. But biblically speaking the word answers this with, And, beyond controversy, great is the mystery of our religion-- that Christ appeared in human form…. 1 Timothy 3:16
What I was led to believe and what I believe and was taught is not unusual. I believe what I believe not because someone was trying to pull the wool over my eyes but rather because it is taken for granted that western thinking was making the correct use of the pedantic metaphysical realities that the Greeks. The early Christian thinkers developed and formulated the truths of the bible into doctrines. Those doctrines incorporated ideas that changed the way the early church viewed god. These new hybrid doctrines brought about an understanding of god’s nature and attributes that were new and different than the way which early Hebrews viewed god. These new doctrines began portraying God in absolutes that were no longer grounded in traditional Hebraic thought and reinterpreting the ancient texts into a more pagan motif. What I understand now is that traditional theism has adopted these ideas. Western institutions are actually continuing to teach these ideas, which are base in pagan thought. Even now I know you are unsure of how this could be.
In any case I have given you a snapshot of what actually took place in the early history of the church and how this has colored the writings of other theologians through time. The time now is changing and as is always the case we are being challenged to rethink these older ideas and better understand how we might find our way back to what the early church believed about their God who works through the church not in stark contrasts of static and immovable attributes, but is in touch with people in a relational way more in line with what we find in the original documents of the old and new testaments.
Is what you believe about God found in the biblical narrative to be a God who is immutable and so unable to change? Is he impassable so as to be unable to feel? I choose to view him as more biblical in his nature as it is simply revealed in the word and not in some philosophical pagan metaphysic, which many today believe.
Anyway, I have prolonged this too far and do not want to stress you out any more than I already have. I only want to say that whenever we encounter an idea that is foreign to the way the bible portrays god then it needs to be put aside and the biblical way needs to be adopted. Such things that portray God as impassable or untouchable is how the Greeks viewed god but this cannot be the way I see it as it is written down for us to clearly understand.
Hebrews 4:15 we serve a God who cares. As the Hebrew writers states it, "For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities…
Godbless

Well penned, thought out and explained. And I do thank you for the instruction. First again, let me apologize if I seemed to throw doubt at you for your stance or belief of understanding what, how or who the God that we serve is. I do not contest your confession of faith, nor do I challenge how you got to that point. I believe it enough to know God loves us enough that we have a savior because we lack the ability to save ourselves from ourselves. I am interested in your study and search of the scriptures and sincerely respect your devotion to seeking the purest form of understanding God possible. While it is true that my thinking and understanding is jaded with secular and Gnostic culture and writings, I like you, pray that we can agree on this, know that we have a loving God that cares enough for us to search Him out the best we know how with what we have to work with at the time, till we learn a more, better, and effective way of doing it. My compliments on havng a degree in theology, as I desire to hopefully continue my studies in that direction sometime. The more, we as believers, can truly learn about Our Father, His nature, His attributes, the better the opportunities we have to share with others and hopefully lead someone into a pesonal relationship for themselves. And that is where the true victory is, when a soul is saved from eternal damnation and separation from God because of sin. Knowing that the shed blood on Calvary was the redemptive plan that was necessary and the only way for our relationship to be restored. A question for your consideration and I will close for now. You do challenge me and I thank you for that. Why did Jesus Have to rise on the Third day?
I believe you will find an interesting concept there. Blessings

Carl, You know I don't know for sure but it may be tied up with Jonah. I would like to know what your thoughts are on this if you have the time.
Thanks

Sorry I don't get on line as often that I would like, and I thank you for your interest. The book of Jonah does fortell and is symbolic of the death, burial and rising of our Savior.John 2;19. Jesus fortells His own ressurection here. We must understand John 1: 1-14 (KJV) vs 3 says that everything was made by Him (THE WORD) and that in Him was life. Genesis 1 lets us know that when "God said" He began to let the creative word do it's work. Vs. 11 and 12 says that the Word called for the earth to bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit, after it's kind, the seed being in itself. Vs 13 says the evening and the morning was the third day. Literal day as we recognize? I don't know. Just workin with the word here. But the parallel of Genesis word and John is that Jesus (the Word) was the connecting factor here and God having to be true to Himself and the principles laaid down in the beginning had to still be in effect on that third day in the tomb and life which came up in the beginning by the word, had to again come up because of the Word. I hope that this made some kind of sense to you. I was excited when this came to me and I try to share it when I can. Blessings