Featured Did He Really Know You?

That is a legitimate question to ask in this debate forum. Something people should not find objectionable to answer. Obviously there is no random chance.

If you have been given to Christ as His children, Hebrews 2:13, you exist to be a part of the family of God, that is one of your purposes.

Romans 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.

You would be one of those many brethren, adopted into the family of God according to His purposes.

 

For you to exist, each union of each sperm and ovum in your family tree must have fallen out precisely according to God's plan. Every free choice in marriage partners, including the events leading up to the moment of conception. Or every evil act as with David and Bathsheba that eventually produced Jesus. Or accidents, wars, diseases and violent deaths, that placed someone different in your family tree, must be under God's direct control. Or you would not exist. From untold trillions of sperm egg unions, each producing a different person, all falling-out according to his eternal decree for you to be reading this now. Think what this means if God wrote your name in the book of life before the foundation of the world.

 

Of course not chance at all. Since we see Ephesians 1 says we were chosen in Him from before the earth's foundation, means we could not be random chance creations of God. God creates everything with with purpose, especially so people who is said of them are made in the image of God.

 

God is omniscient, He cannot not know.

 

You can call it what you want. In God's omniscience He cannot not know. Does not mean God chose it for you, though He could of. Determined is too ambiguous in meaning.

 

I like your reasoning, but for all to be decreed from the beginning makes God the author of sin. Things must be more complicated.

 

Nope!!
But whether I do or not does not limit whether God does!?!?

 

I saw Sue Dodge once here in Indianapolis and spoke with her briefly.

That song was a response to Scorsese's film about the last temptation of Christ when He was allegedly thinking about having sex with Mary Magdalene again.

The song is saying that Jesus was thinking about my salvation by being washed in His blood.

God knew before He created the universe what everything would be like. Lester Roloff used to say did it ever occur to you that nothing ever occurred to God? And, no, I am not a Calvinist or a neo-Calvinist but a so-called traditionalist Southern Baptist, sometimes called a mild Calvinist.

 

What is God's will in the matter of being known by God to be one of His? Matthew 7:21-23, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."

 

We are here because we were in Adam when he was created. God knew that and allowed it. God created it so there was no chance involved since a person's presence is a result of what God did. However, God did not want Adam to sin.

 

I'll never understand the zeal and effort Calvinists put into convincing non-Calvinists to change their "heretical" beliefs, given their view of predestination. Relax brethren, the Sovereign God will change us or not depending on his predetermined will for us. Repent of trying to play God, stop trying to correct us, you're practically denying Calvinism in doing so. Some of us were predestinated to be non-Calvinists.

 

Hey Aaron, have you stopped beating your wife yet?
Yes or no?
Which is it?
Don't avoid the question!

 

They're technically denying high calvinism in doing so. Calvinism itself holds men as participants in what's predestined, used as instruments. So in a sense, they're predestined to continue correcting incorrect beliefs

To be fair though, even armianism actually believes everything is foreordained by God - the difference lies only in whether God foreordains without considering man's self-determinism or in factoring that too. Since God alone is omniscient, exhortation even when you believe otherwise is totally permissible as in Heb 6:9.

 

"everything" is definitely not foreordained of God; some things are, but not everything.
I never read a Bible verse that said that God has foreordained every last thing.
(note, I need a Bible answer, not a philosophical answer, to believe otherwise).

 

I think you're reading beyond what I meant - because I thought i was agreeing with you and trying to find middle ground with the calvinists. Like I said, even classical Arminianism had no issues affirming that God foreordains all things in the sense of Him counselling to permit human freewill which He foreknows/foresees to come to pass according to His purpose and pleasure. The alternative would have resorted to open theism, sliding down a slippery slope. The Scriptural basis for this itself would be Isa 46:10-11 echoed again in the "all things" of Eph 1:11.

 

It sounds to me like foreknowledge and foreordination are being confounded, no?
Maybe I'm missing what you're saying. Are you saying foreknowledge = foreordination ?