Featured Foreknowledge

This is the question that you keep begging without proving. This is the question at hand in the meaning of foreknew in Romans 8:28-30. You keep assuming this and taking this assumption as your argument.

I am not arguing any of that. I was answering your assertion of "randomness" and the false idea that people have that election can be separated from the "conversion experience." For the sake of argument, whatever you believe is true of one who is saved, I assert that it is true because God makes it true (monergism). In other words, election is not based on faith, but rather faith is based on election. God does not elect someone because He "looks down the corridors of time" and "sees their faith," but rather they believe because God elected them "according to the kind intention of His will." For those whom God elected according to the mystery of His will, at some point in time, He regenerates them with the effectual working of the Holy Spirit and gives them faith whereby they believe the Gospel (Philippians 1:28-29).

 

No it does not. False dichotomy. His choice is based on His eternal purpose that He has chosen not to reveal to us entirely. This does not make it "random." You are saying that the potter does NOT have the right over the clay to make one vessel for honorable use and another for common use. You are asserting a necessity upon God that He has to create a certain way (creatures with autonomous free will) because of some transcendent moral standard to which God Himself must be accountable. Therefore, you argue that an essential part of God's being--His omniscience--is partly defined by autonomous, ontologically separate entities that create this information ex nihilo. In other words, God did not create man in His image, but God and man create each other in their image (a la process theology).

And what is the Scriptural definition of each instance of ginwskw and proginwskw grammatically and in context?

God calls, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies based on His choice "beforehand" to know ("relationship") the same people. That is what the word means.

The choice we make is a result of God's redemptive chain applied to us. God applies this redemptive chain on us based on His fore-relationshipping us. This is what Romans 8:28-30 means.

No, your position of the mutual independence of God's attributes (His omniscience) on His creation is like arguing that the world came about through knowledge of what man would do, and God had to do it that way because his knowledge of what man would do is part of His being.

No, He said whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate..." whom, not about whom. Just as Jesus said of some people "I never knew [had a relationship with] you," so it is true that of those that God FOREknew [chose in eternity to have a relationship with], He predestined to conform to the image of His Son. Your assumption that God's redemptive chain is based on information about people (i.e. "foreseen faith") is NOT present in the text. You are begging the question because you are assuming the very thing that you must prove, which is the meaning of the text in the OP.

That is the very thing that you have yet to prove with Scripture. You are simply assuming it. I have argued that the text means otherwise, and all you have argued is your assumption where you are reading into the text something that is not there.

Then, why are you arguing that salvation is dependent on a foreseen choice that people make?

Yes, whom He foreknew, NOT about whom he foreknew.

 

Both your posts clearly speak directly to the issue:thumbs::wavey:

 

So, what did God see when he looked down on the children of men? Here is what he saw - They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy, there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Ps 14:2-3. God foreknew that no man would ask him for salvation.

 

Now, make that harmonise with Ps 14:2-3 if you can.

 

Okay, I hope to break this down to its simplest terms, so that you can see what is actually being stated(not being a smart aleck, so please do not take this comment that way, I honestly do not mean to even attempt to belittle you):

Psalm 14

1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.

3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Look closely at what is being said here. It states thay are all gone aside, and all have become filthy. It does not state that they were born "aside" and "filthy", but they became that way. Through their rebellion/unbelief, they made themselves this way, and not born in these conditions.

 

Willis,
It does not say that they were not born in this condition either....other verses teach that. They were born in this exact condition...it just took awhile for us to notice it.

 

Maybe, just maybe: (Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.) from a people whom he, God did foreknow of: (Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?)


Everybody kind of sorta from since, well for two or three or four thousand years
know, or kind of know who the Jews are. How? Mainly because of their religion and or customs associated with that religion. Yet way back yonder God said this about all or at least some of these people spoken to.

(Deut 32:26 I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men: )

Did that statement ever apply to the Jews who practice the Jewish religion?

Who did God foreknow that the remembrance of has ceased from among men?

Did God foreknow some who were scattered among the nations? Gentiles?

(Jer 3:14 Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion: ) ----Spoken to the elect of a people who in verse 8 it was said, God had given a bill of divorce.

 

Any linear language used in regards to God, particularly before the very advent OF time is anthropomorphic.

 

Man is born into this world as a natural being, without any righteousness, Eph 2:2-3. Eph 2:12, That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.

 

If God has to "DRAG" them, it doesen't sound like they are responding to him. The word "draw" is interpreted in the Greek to mean "to drag". It is an irristable drawing. God only calls his elect. All that are called are Predestinated, jujstified, and gloryfied, Rom 8:30. If he called all mankind, then all mankind would be predestinated, justified and glorified.

 

We are all born into this world as natural beings. The natural man will not, and indeed, cannot accept anything that is of a spiritual nature, 1 Cor 2:14. God only calls his elect out of that natural state. All who are called are predestined, justified, and glorified, Rom 8:30. If God calls all mankind, then all mankind would be predestined, justified and glorified.