Cured

I see, russell55. Thank you for the explanation.

Helen, if that is the true meaning of foreknowledge, then it makes no particular point at all, since we already know that Christ came to redeem people to Himself. We also already know that God is omniscient. So why did God include this passage in the Bible?

In every instance where the word 'foreknowledge' is used, it does seem to refer to specific people.

 

aaaw ok. So what you are saying is, God looks and sees that Paul would believe and chose God, if God would blind Paul and speak to him from heaven, so then God choose to blind Paul and to speak to Paul from heaven, so that Paul would believe. Where as God know also that if He did not blind Mr Smith nor speak to Mr Smith from heaven, that Mr Smith would not believe as Paul did and that Mr Smith would not choose God, so God decided to choose NOT to speak to Mr Smith from heaven or blind Mr Smith and what do you know...Mr Smith did not believe.

Is this what your saying?

 

You are missing the main point about Paul. He already was a firm, God-worshiping Jew. He sincerely believed He was maintaining the pure Scriptural faith in God. He believed he was serving God in the best way he knew. He was wrong and the God he knew to be real and the God he prayed to showed him the truth. That is a far cry from being a pagan and not believing in God in the first place.

Your fictional Mr. Smith, like every man alive, is also given enough truth to follow or suppress. See Romans 1. God knows what he will do, but God does not force or predestine him to do it.

 

Helen, predestination is not the same thing as "forcing" at all.

Here's a possible analogy: I work in a Junior High School. We oftentimes express their decision-making to them as a "choice." "Right choices, right now" we say. Supposedly, it gives them a greater feeling of self-control. In truth, it is a choice in only a very limited sense. We do not give them a full range of options to choose from. We could not even if we wanted to, for circumstances compel all of us, whether 7th graders or adults. Most of the time it still boils down to "straighten up and fly right or you will go to the principal's office. Those are your choices."

This discussion has gone so fast so far that now I either have to go back and read almost 300 posts to get caught up to speed ... or drop out and read other threads instead.

 

Smile...that is why I said 'or'.

And some of those kids end up in the principal's office, right? God has told us in the Bible and in our consciences what the right choices are, and many choose otherwise....just like in junor high school.

 

Oh, yeah, ALL of them will wind up in the principal's office if they don't straighten up! But they won't be executed for it. They are our kids and we love 'em....

And same with believers, too. That element of choice, restricted as it is, is not inconsistent with predestination at all. God didn't necessarily ordain that fly to land on my baloney sandwich just now. He also didn't necessarily ordain me to go get the flyswatter. Or at least I don't see that level of foreordination of meaningless minutiae taught in scripture, let me put in that way.

What is inconsistent with predestination is the belief that man has a so-called "free will." Just like my 7th-graders, none of us have a full range of choices, and in fact our choices are also very circumscribed. If I had been born to Zoroastrian parents in India, I might have never been blessed to learn about Christ. God arranged things so that I did. That wasn't MY choice. Nor was the fact that God opened my eyes and heart so that I could see and believe, and this rather abruptly even after I had heard the same things repeated many times before and had NOT believed. So in that sense my choice was made for me in God arranging the attending circumstances. Could I now, even loving the Lord, go out tonight and find some sinful mischief to get into and not bother to go to church tomorrow? If I set my mind to it, maybe. But God has fixed my heart so that I don't want to. I understand from the Bible that He did so in order that whatever needs to happen in order for His will to be done will happen!

 

1st let me say I disagree. but....

Lets see if this works out.

Ahyash Sad is like Paul. Ahyash already is a firm, God-worshiping Arab. Ahyash sincerely believed He was maintaining the pure Scriptural faith in God. Ahyash believed he was serving God in the best way he knew. Ahyash was wrong ...SO >>> now will God blind Ahyash as He did Paul and tell him the truth?

 

I'm not sure about every instance, but it's so obvious in Romans 8:29-30 that any other interpretation is just plain silly.

WHOM He foreknew, He also predestined. If "foreknew" meant "knew ABOUT beforehand" it would have to include everyone, in which case this passage must teach universal salvation, because those same people will end up justified and glorified.

This whole thread has degenerated into silliness, though. There's no getting around the Greek meaning of the word. It means to know someone, as opposed to not knowing them. And the language clearly indicates there's a subset that doesn't meet this qualification. Whom He foreknew as opposed to whom? It is as opposed to Whom He did NOT foreknow. That precludes the idea of knowing about someone (God knows about everyone) or know what they'll do (God knows and/or directs what everyone will do).

 

I couldn't resist highlighting this since it is implies that the post's author sometimes makes mistakes, but perhaps he is using an exclusive we here?

 

BDAG isn't a he. It's a group of hes. And other lexicons agree, too. But whatever. You're not going to change your mind, I'm not going to change mine, and all the lexicons will keep on defining it as to choose beforehand or foreordain. We could go on and on, but it would there would be no point.

 

Nor am I,
Lets do it this way. Please post the verse that uses your word "proignoo".

 

Larry

I see you been busy. Most of my posts to you are way back on page 27 if you are still there :type:

This is the nub of the one on Westminister Confession -- this "Word and Spirit" by which the "effectual call" comes, it appears to me, like justification from sins of a Catholic infant being baptized. When the priest reads the Word over the infant, who obvously cannot comprehend, Catholics say that the Spirit takes away their "original sin," their "sin guilt from Agam."

That is the "passive role" the WC seems to describe for the "elect" during the "effectual call." It can only happen to those to whom the Spirit directs it (without mentioning their names, mind you, as a good Catholic baptism would). Then that "elect," "discovering" that he/she is being "called," joins the church and begins his/her journey of sanctification therein.

The point is, they are given confirmation classes likely -- they recite the Apostle's Creed with gusto now -- but since they are "elect," there is no need of praying for salvation. Same as it is hard for a Baptist to admit he/she has gone to a Baptist church for years but was never saved in the manner God called for, it is near impossible for a Reform/Calvinist member to do so seeing the thinking there is that we do nothing in salvation -- we are passive in our own salvation.

Is that a decent rendering of "effectual calling?" Without hearing, the "elect" is given discernment of the Word and Spirit?

skypair