Question about Calvinism

[AFJ]

As someone who is not a Calvinist currently, but open to becoming one, I have been presented with a straightfoward question that I have not been able to refute with confidence.

Most Christians will agree that God is all-knowing of future events. Therefore, if God knows every action that I will ever do, can I do anything but what God knows? If I say no, then am I falsifying God's infallible knowledge of the future?

Let me provide a practical example:
Let's say that I hold to a free will position and I confess that God knows what I will have for dinner on Christmas this year. How does God know that? How many free will actions of myself and countless others have to happen to lead to me having dinner on Christmas exactly as God has predicted? Every day between now and Christmas I have to commute 20 miles to my job. If someone exercises their free will, gets drunk, crashes into me and send me Home early before Christmas, has that person's free will now invalidated God's infallible knowledge of the future?

In the past I have said God's knowledge of the future is based on foreknowledge and that He did not necessary determine the future. In other words, when God created time itself, He must have looked down the tunnels of time and, at least temporarily, He was not all-knowing. If God did not determine all events in history, who did? Are they all uncaused? If they are uncaused, how can God have knowledge of them if they are theroetical?

I'll ask my original question again this way. If God knows between now and to the end of time every single person who will ever be saved and who will be lost, can it happen any differently than what God knows or can we exercise our free wills to change the outcome?

 

[DaveXR650]

If someone exercises their free will, gets drunk, crashes into me and send me Home early before Christmas, has that person's free will now invalidated God's infallible knowledge of the future?

Calvinists like Jonathan Edwards would say that yes it has. Complete, autonomous freedom of action would mean that there is simply no way to know the future, even for God, unless he is determining it.

Others answer by saying God knows all the possible choices and has a contingent plan for every free choice which will still result in any desired overall result God desires, and yet allows true and autonomous freedom for individuals to whom God has chosen to give such freedom.

Both of the above answers would be more complete than just simply saying that God has a way of somehow truly looking ahead and seeing what will happen for sure because it really is what will happen. But that's not to say that this view is untrue. I think C.S. Lewis had a view somewhat like this. For God, time is different and the future would be more like a sheet laid out before you with all future events on it as they will happen. God can see that from his high view whereas we are at ground level, only able to see the present. Or something like that.

 

[Silverhair]

As someone who is not a Calvinist currently, but open to becoming one, I have been presented with a straightfoward question that I have not been able to refute with confidence.

Most Christians will agree that God is all-knowing of future events. Therefore, if God knows every action that I will ever do, can I do anything but what God knows? If I say no, then am I falsifying God's infallible knowledge of the future?

Let me provide a practical example:
Let's say that I hold to a free will position and I confess that God knows what I will have for dinner on Christmas this year. How does God know that? How many free will actions of myself and countless others have to happen to lead to me having dinner on Christmas exactly as God has predicted? Every day between now and Christmas I have to commute 20 miles to my job. If someone exercises their free will, gets drunk, crashes into me and send me Home early before Christmas, has that person's free will now invalidated God's infallible knowledge of the future?

In the past I have said God's knowledge of the future is based on foreknowledge and that He did not necessary determine the future. In other words, when God created time itself, He must have looked down the tunnels of time and, at least temporarily, He was not all-knowing. If God did not determine all events in history, who did? Are they all uncaused? If they are uncaused, how can God have knowledge of them if they are theroetical?

I'll ask my original question again this way. If God knows between now and to the end of time every single person who will ever be saved and who will be lost, can it happen any differently than what God knows or can we exercise our free wills to change the outcome?

God, being omniscient, knows all that will happen. But knowing what will happen does not mean He has to cause it to happen. If Gods' knowledge depends upon Him being the cause of what happens then He logically has to be the cause of all the evil and sin we see.

“God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, ‘What are you doing?’ Man’s will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.” The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God A. W. Tozer

The alternative to man having a free will is God determining all that happens, God being responsible for all that happens.

“To say that God hates sin while secretly willing it, to say that God warns us not to fall away even though it is impossible, to say that God loves the world while excluding most people from an opportunity for salvation, to say that God warmly invites sinners to come knowing all the while that they cannot possibly do so—such things do not deserve to be called mysteries when that is just a euphemism for nonsense.” C.S Lewis

 

[AFJ]

For God, time is different and the future would be more like a sheet laid out before you with all future events on it as they will happen.

It seems to me like this suggests that God only has knowledge of major events in history and we are exercising our free choices to fill in the gaps. If we look at crucifixion, probably the most important event in history, all of the right people had to be there at right place at that exact moment to fulfill what was promised.

Acts 4:27-28 (ESV)
for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

If it were up to the free choices of individuals leading up to that moment, couldn’t have someone have made a right turn when they should have turned left and ultimately the crucifixion may not have happened?

 

[AFJ]

If Gods' knowledge depends upon Him being the cause of what happens then He logically has to be the cause of all the evil and sin we see.

If God knew that Adam was going to sin and He let it happen anyway, doesn’t that in some sense mean that He ordained it? I can see how this still doesn’t let God off the hook because if God knew that Adam was going to sin and He did nothing to stop it, God can still be blamed for it.

 

[DaveXR650]

It seems to me like this suggests that God only has knowledge of major events in history and we are exercising our free choices to fill in the gaps. If we look at crucifixion, probably the most important event in history, all of the right people had to be there at right place at that exact moment to fulfill what was promised.

Exactly. That is why if you are serious about this then study Edwards. He was probably right. Just understand when you do this that some Calvinists flat out openly say that God causes everything. Others have men with a free will who may do evil but that evil, though against God's will as to his law and commands for morality, is suffered to happen, sometimes for the purpose of the fulfillment of some plan of God. Like you mentioned, Christ's going to the cross.

 

[AFJ]

Like you mentioned, Christ's going to the cross.

Could Pontus Pilate’s parents have decided that they didn’t want any children? Therefore, if Pilate did not come into existence then would God have to go with plan B? Wouldn’t that mean that God knows what is going to happen, but He hasn’t figured out exactly how it is going to happen? I would think that this means there are gaps in history that He has no perfect knowledge of and has to wait and see what free creatures are going to do first and moves the pieces around accordingly.

 

[DaveXR650]

What you are doing there is developing on your own the Calvinistic idea of meticulous predestination. As you noticed, even if you want to include random events you still must have a sovereign God. People fall off horses, get sick or injured or become victims of random violence all the time. The idea that God wants a specific thing to happen in a certain way starts an ever expanding control of details that leads logically to - Calvinistic determinism. Those who insist that God is simply looking ahead with foreknowledge tend to forget that the foreknowledge, though real, has a purpose. And that purpose is to ensure that what God has planned will indeed happen in the way he wants it to happen - because he not only is looking into the future but making it so.

 

[kyredneck]

If God knew that Adam was going to sin

IMO, Satan 'fell' in the garden also. Satan was there first and first in charge. THEN God inserted Adam into the arrangement, no doubt foreknowing that it would provoke Satan to jealousy......and, history proceeds from there.

(Jealousy from the first/elder towards the second/younger is a consistent/recurring theme throughout the scriptures)

 

[kyredneck]

Could Pontus Pilate’s parents have decided that they didn’t want any children? Therefore, if Pilate did not come into existence then would God have to go with plan B?

There were many 'sons of disobedience' that crucified Christ, but only one spirit that was working within those 'sons of disobedience'.
John 8:37-47; Ephesians 6:12

 

[JonC]

I'll ask my original question again this way. If God knows between now and to the end of time every single person who will ever be saved and who will be lost, can it happen any differently than what God knows or can we exercise our free wills to change the outcome?

This is Jonathan Edward's argument as well.

If God is omniscient (not looking through the corridors of time but "all knowing") then everything is predestined.

Calvinism, however, holds that God decrees all things. They occur because God is the ultimate cause of the occurance.

Now, we could water this down a bit. Gid is omniscient so everything is predestined, and this Omniscient God is the Creator. Therefore by the act of creation He predestined everything.

That isn't quite Calvinism, but it's closer than many moderate Calvinists.

I'd discourage you from being open to becoming a Calvinist, btw. You probably see a lot of philosophy in the position right now (as evidenced by your post), but most after adopting Calvinism don't.

 

[kyredneck]

If we look at crucifixion, probably the most important event in history, all of the right people had to be there at right place at that exact moment to fulfill what was promised.

Acts 4:27-28 (ESV)
for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

Much of 'Calvinism' holds to the 'predestination of all things', even down to the mosquito that bit you at your outside BBQ last night. The fact is that the word translated 'predestination' is used only four times in scripture and is always in reference to God choosing a people for His own possession. In lieu of 'predestination of all things', 'overuling providence' fits better to the scriptural account, as in:

28 And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose. Ro 8

 

[JonC]

Much of 'Calvinism' holds to the 'predestination of all things', even down to the mosquito that bit you at your outside BBQ last night. The fact is that the word translated 'predestination' is used only four times in scripture and is always in reference to God choosing a people for His own possession. In lieu of 'predestination of all things', 'overuling providence' fits better to the scriptural account, as in:

28 And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose. Ro 8

I think I was predestined to be ate up with no-seeums (something I never heard of until I was ate up with them).

 

[kyredneck]

Most Christians will agree that God is all-knowing of future events. Therefore, if God knows every action that I will ever do, can I do anything but what God knows? If I say no, then am I falsifying God's infallible knowledge of the future?

Foreknowing...:

19 Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach thou it the children of Israel: put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel.
20 For when I shall have brought them into the land which I sware unto their fathers, flowing with milk and honey, and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxed fat; then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and despise me, and break my covenant.
21 And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are come upon them, that this song shall testify before them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed: for I know their imagination which they frame this day, before I have brought them into the land which I sware. Dt 31

...is not foreordaining:

31 And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded not, neither came it into my mind. Jer 7

5 and have built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons in the fire for burnt-offerings unto Baal; which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind: Jer 19

35 And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin. Jer 32

 

[Silverhair]

If God knew that Adam was going to sin and He let it happen anyway, doesn’t that in some sense mean that He ordained it? I can see how this still doesn’t let God off the hook because if God knew that Adam was going to sin and He did nothing to stop it, God can still be blamed for it.

The fact that God knew that Adam would sin and also that Lucifer/Satan and 1/3 of the angels would sin doers not mean that He cause/ordained it. As soon as you say God has to ordain X or Y then you are putting God in the position of being the author of sin which as we know can not be true.

God desires that all will come to Him and He could "ordain" that it happen but then you can not say that they did it out of love for Him or that they worship Him in love.

"If a thing is free to be good it's also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having." C. S. Lewis

Free will* is arguably the most well taught doctrine in the entire Bible

* people have a choice in what they do and that their actions have not been decided in advance by God or by any other power. Believed (John 1:11-12; Romans 10:9-10; Isaiah 55:6-7; John 7:38; Proverbs 3:5-7) did not believe (Mark 14:10; John 5:46-47) here we see both in one verse (John 3:18)

In all of these you either see mans' free will or you have God determining their response.

 

[Silverhair]

Exactly. That is why if you are serious about this then study Edwards. He was probably right. Just understand when you do this that some Calvinists flat out openly say that God causes everything. Others have men with a free will who may do evil but that evil, though against God's will as to his law and commands for morality, is suffered to happen, sometimes for the purpose of the fulfillment of some plan of God. Like you mentioned, Christ's going to the cross.

@AFJ here I have to strongly disagree with @DaveXR650. If you are serious about knowing the truth you should study the bible not what some man tells you about the bible. I could recommend Tozer or Clarke or Wiersbe etc but they are still just men who come to the bible with a particular view. The bible is it's own best commentary trust the Holy Spirit to guide you.

Approach the bible without any preconceived views and study verses in the context in which they are found. The bible is not a book of one liners where you can like this one and discard this other one. As you study the bible you will see Gods' unfolding plan to bring about mans' salvation through trusting in Him.

 

[Silverhair]

What you are doing there is developing on your own the Calvinistic idea of meticulous predestination. As you noticed, even if you want to include random events you still must have a sovereign God. People fall off horses, get sick or injured or become victims of random violence all the time. The idea that God wants a specific thing to happen in a certain way starts an ever expanding control of details that leads logically to - Calvinistic determinism. Those who insist that God is simply looking ahead with foreknowledge tend to forget that the foreknowledge, though real, has a purpose. And that purpose is to ensure that what God has planned will indeed happen in the way he wants it to happen - because he not only is looking into the future but making it so.

By your last comment "because he not only is looking into the future but making it so" you are stating Calvinistic determinism and thus making God responsible for all the good or evil that occurs.

 

[AFJ]

And that purpose is to ensure that what God has planned will indeed happen in the way he wants it to happen - because he not only is looking into the future but making it so.

I agree, God will accomplish His purpose one way or another. I’m not sure if my question has been answered and that is, could it have been anybody other than Pilate that ordered the crucifixion or did he happened to be the right candidate for the job? Could Pilate have repented along the way and some other ruler could have taken his place?

 

[JonC]

The problem is we cannot divide up God.

We can't say "God is omniscient because He decreed...." because that negates true omniscience.

We can't say "God planned because He knew" because that negates divine planning.

This is one readon why I believe these discussions are merely philosophical. We can't know the mind of God.

 

[DaveXR650]

I agree, God will accomplish His purpose one way or another. I’m not sure if my question has been answered and that is, could it have been anybody other than Pilate that ordered the crucifixion or did he happened to be the right candidate for the job? Could Pilate have repented along the way and some other ruler could have taken his place?

Things like that we are not told. The glimpses we are given of God's sovereignty whether it be in events or in being elect are I think for our comfort if we wish for God's will to be done and who wish to do his will on our part.