Foreknowledge, Freewill & Election
Omniscience: to know everything.
I believe that The LORD GOD knows all there is to know about all things past, present and future; that is, all material things, all non material things, such as thoughts, plans, motives, all phenomenon, all mysteries, when it's going to rain next and how many drops of rain there shall be.
As concerning the individual and God's omniscience, I believe that God knows every thought, every deed, every hair on my head, every cell in my body, every piece of DNA and every other chemical element in my body, every atom which makes them all up and every part of the atom, every instance of electrical activity in my person and every and any other activity in my person, heavenly or earthly, spiritual or material, from birth to glory. I believe he knows this of every creature under the sun and every creature in the heavens and I believe he knew all this from before any of it was created, in fact from eternity.
As I sit here with a drink on the table, I believe God knows when and if I shall next have a drink, he doesn't need to calculate it or even think about it; he already knows. If this is so, can it be understood? and do I have free will? How much has been revealed to us in Scripture? and How much will he allow us to understand?
Just because God knew I was going to have a drink, it doesn't mean that he made me drink it. I believe it was my choice. He could have hindered me, but he never. But how could God possibly know what I was going to choose to do next? I have two scenarios, here is the first:
He knew because, he is present in the future just as surely as he is present in this moment. He is the Great I AM and therefore he is in every moment in creation and therefore knows all things future as easily as he knows the present. He therefore knows exactly what you are going to do next, because he is in your future already, just as surely as he knows what you are thinking now. And because he is God he can know all things effortlessly. This scenario is dependent on the nature of time itself, i.e. if there actually is a future time, he is there. Although the more I ponder the nature of time, the more I tend to think that this isn't a very accurate way of looking at it, because it implies that my future actions have already been fulfilled and this would seem to render me with no choice in future or in any given moment. I think a more accurate scenario is as follows:
The only actual time is NOW, this moment and no other. The past is in memory only and the future is in vision only, particularly God's vision. And God's vision is based on his knowledge; seers or prophets [ISa 9:9] could only see because somehow or other they were given or allowed to get partial access to Gods vision.
The LORD knows what I shall do next, simply, because he knows his creatures. I say 'simply' because I mean in a similar manner to which one of us might predict, for example, the future actions of a child, particularly if presented with a choice in the form of a question, the accuracy of our prediction will be determined by how well we know that child.
God can predict my behaviour with 100% accuracy every time because he knows everything there is to know about me; this is hard to imagine (at first), that over a seventy year period, our every whim, plan, trip and slip could be predicted, especially if you take into account every single creature throughout all creation, bearing in mind that our actions are affected by others around us and their actions are affected by us, not to mention natural events, such as the weather or earth quakes etc. We struggle to imagine that all this could be calculable, and indeed to man it is safe to say it is incalculable, but if God is infinite in knowledge surely he could work out all the future responses we shall make; it would surely take him less than half a nanosecond to 'workout' the future actions of all his creatures and the outcome of his creation, and to say 'workout', is to understate his divinity, he would know already. The more I ponder this the easier it is to believe.
This is not to say that man is just like a complex machine, but more like a machine (complex living organism) with a living operator, i.e. our spirit. It might help us to understand just how fearfully and wonderfully we are made if we take into account that the most accurate clock that man has made to date is one based on how many times and how consistently an atom pulsates. The main point here is to say that even if we had 100% free will, like Adam, we are still 100% predictable, every time, before God's eyes.
Intervention
I have no doubt about God's ability to see and know all things past, present, and future, with 100% clarity and accuracy. Not to forget, he also has a fearsome passion for his creation. I think it is safe to say that if God only observes and never intervenes, then man would surely be lost for ever.
I believe God intervenes often, in fact we are told, ‘all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose’ Ro 8:28. The Scripture is full of instances of Gods intervention, we are told that The LORD has a ‘rod’ and a ‘staff’ ... Ps 23:4, since any intervention by God would have been deemed necessary and so 'planned' before the foundation of the earth, then the outworking of his intervention would be more like an ever present influence of God in all nature, and the hand of God throughout all his creation; so in essence, the whole creation, while being created and sustained by God, has all its events and history shaped not just by God, nor just by man, (as some might suppose) but by a continuous wrestling of the will of man and the will of God, on our part, from the darkness of time, but on God's part from the light of eternity, on our part from the weakness of our humanity, on Gods part from the strength of his omnipotence. The outcome of this wrestling is that God has caused and is causing all things to work together ‘for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
The future to God's vision is more certain than a diamond is solid. So events in history are fixed, in as much as God has set our boundaries and limits, (Psalm 139:3-5) and God can see it all exactly as it shall happen, nothing will happen which he doesn't allow to happen and at the end of the day, his purpose shall be accomplished, in fact, he can see the future so clearly and it is so certain in God's vision, that he can say of the future 'it is done'.
God can see the future so clearly even though we haven’t yet made many of those future shaping choices nor fought those victory winning battles, nor had any of those failures which sometimes stem from a lack of faith and a ‘fainting’ at heart, and many future events haven’t yet been decided, because they are yet to be decided within our heart as our life progresses.
This scenario is contradictory to a determinist world view, because this scenario means; to put it crudely; I can change the future, or to put it another way, what I do really does matter, because the future is not set.
So it is a case of God on the one hand, seeing from eternity all our history making choices and on the other hand intervening from eternity in order 'that the purpose of God according to election might stand' so we are free to choose within our decreed boundaries and yet God is totally in control of everything he needs to be in control of and the future is totally certain in Gods mind.
The boundaries which The LORD has set are almost in the broadest sense a form of divine intervention, although more accurately they might be called divine laws or decrees, like a fence round a sheep pen, like gravity which holds us down, like an ocean or a great mountain which hem us in, mentally morally and spiritually, if the Living Word of God decrees ‘go thus far and go no farther’, then we are indeed hemmed in, we have free will but little strength.
This view (Semi-Determinism) is vastly different from the determinist view which I used to hold to, though at times the two positions can seem to blur into one or at least can seem to have little difference.
In Semi-Determinism Your future is determined by your physiology and character by all the things which make you you, (not forgetting ‘..the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit…’) 1Pe 1:2 is the soil good and cultivated, is there room for improvement? this means that what you do tomorrow shall be determined by you; within the permissive parameters of the sovereign will of God; so if you can build up some of those characteristics of a healthy Christian using all diligence* then you can shape a better tomorrow in Christ.
*2Pet 1:5
Sometimes it can be difficult to visualize such non physical realities, so I will Finnish this section with some Illustrations both Scriptural and non Scriptural, and also some scriptures which show a non-determinist God at work.
Ex 32:7-14 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever. And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
This is a good example of how our Old Testament and our History might have been very different, of course The Lord would have still kept his covenant with Abraham through the seed of Moses. Here is an informative passage from Jeremiah Jer 18:8-10 ‘If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.’ This is not as if the Lord is like a man and changes his mind at the drop of a hat, but rather he is responsive to our deeds and our prayers, and at times if we change he will change, at other times his will is determined, Jer 4:28 ‘For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black: because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it.’ There are many other scriptures which could be used to promote a Semi-Determinist view of God, but I think I have said enough here, I shall finish with a illustration which might be helpful for some, for the sake of this illustration lets say that the number 216 represents my potential opportunities at the start of my life, and the number 9 represents something which God has ordained for me. I am free to add in any order but commanded to add one digit at a time: A/ 216 2+1+6=9 or B/ 216 21+6=27 & 2+7=9 or C/ 216 12+6=18 & 1+8=9 or D/ 216 61+2=63 & 3+6=9 So option 'A' could represent Moses interceding for Israel and the Lord sparing them and so more blessing was brought through Moses, 'B' might represent an alternative scenario in which Moses could have thought ‘Mmm a nation from me, that might be nice, and easier’, and the old testament History could have been longer etc. I think this view paints a much more awesome God, it answers easier to more of the Scriptures, and essentially what is needed is a different concept of the nature of time, and a belief that God is capable of predicting our every thought and action from before birth till we enter eternity, to believe this we would also need to believe that we were so fearfully and wonderfully made that we are such precision engineering that we could be countless times more predictable than a Swiss watch. When you consider that the most accurate clock which Man has made to date is built around how many times an atom pulsates, and that our body is full of Atoms, then this might not be so hard to believe, a genetic flaw would actually be a precise curse which has been implemented. What gory to God such a creation would be. Amen