I don't follow your reasoning.
Since God knows all that will happen, everything that happens is therefore predetermined?
Predetermined necessarily implies a 'predeterminer'. Who/what is this predeterminer?
-
Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!
If God Never decreed/ordained the Fall...
- Thread starter Agent47
- Start date
- Status
Since God knows all that will happen, everything that happens is therefore predetermined?
Predetermined necessarily implies a 'predeterminer'. Who/what is this predeterminer?
Presupposition
- All that God knows will pass exactly as he knows
- God knows all
God infallibly causes all to pass
In short, God's certainty of foreknowledge is rooted in causation. Is this what you are saying?
I'm saying that if God knows what will happen then what happens is predetermined in that it is going to occur (no with variance) that way that God knew it would occur before Creation. When God created man, what would become of man was already known by God as a certainly.
I am saying that God determined all things to occur at least by actively creating man, knowing exactly what would occur.
That wouldn't be a valid argument in its current form. It implicitly excludes the possibility of third party agency. God could merely be exhaustively aware of all future things, thereby rendering them certain, but he wouldn't necessarily have to cause them.
This is the only logical explanation, IMO, without going to open theism, process theology, atheism, or something similar.
I do believe that foreknowledge is more than pre-knowledge (I think Scripture bares this out). But I do not see the need to impose that interpretation on anyone. If we believe that God knows all that will happen before Creation, then end is the same. Causation and predestination have to logically be accepted at least to a degree/application. But we do not have to say that God "infallibly causes all to pass".
If God knows that Adam will sin, and God is willing to create Adam knowing that Adam will sin....then we can in this sense say that God "caused" Adam to fall by the fact that God created Adam knowing he will sin (but not that God caused Adam's sin). We can also say that God is the "cause" of sin simply because God is the Standard that we fail to achieve. But this is playing with the word "cause".
As I respond I see that I am not articulating this well. There is a difference between saying that God's design facilitated Adam's sin and God caused Adam's sin. There is even a difference between saying God caused Adam to sin and God caused Adam's sin. Does that make sense?
Things don't predetermined themselves. Look up it's meaning. So once again, predetermined by what?
Is it poor choice of words or what?
Jump to NOW. God knows whatever will be.
God determined sin as well seeing it is part of 'all things', right?
Doubtless,Foreknowledge at times bears more weight than possessing information about the future.
It is the claim that for foreknowledge to be perfect (101% accurate), God must infallibly decree whatever he foreknows.
This where where Calvin ended up in theological knots. Everything happening was of necessity decreed. Sin being part of everything was equally decreed. Then hapless appeal to mystery. Then Servetus,then bans from some forums
Last edited:
I am not saying that things predetermine themselves. I am, however, STRONGLY hinting at the idea that when we speak of God as "determining", "calculating", "figuring things out", "planning", and "allowing" we are speaking anthropomorphically. So I don't think it is necessarily a poor choice of words, but I do think we have to be careful lest we present God as man.
All things are predetermined in the sense that God has willed they occur by creating them knowing they will occur.
Has anything deviated from unfolding as God know it would unfold before he spoke the world into existence?
Then simply say God predetermined all. Saying all was predetermined then hesitating to ascribe this to God is being economical with the 'truth' you subscribe to.
So can you say God predetermined all things?
It's rather a question of how God knowing translates into unfolding.
If they unfold exactly as he knew/knows they will because he knew, then knowing is synonymous with causing
I think that you may be blending Calvin with Beza here. But we don't need to get into that.
I do not think that it matters whether you believe all things are predetermined inherently in Creation itself as God willingly created man knowing everything that would occur or if you believe God directly caused all things to occur. These differences reflect differences in human understanding insofar as understanding how God "thinks", but the logical implications on man and creation are identical. Either everything is determined (by design or as a part of that design) or the future is open and unknown to God. Those are the only two logical choices.
Why would I say "God predetermined all" when that is not exactly what I believe? I do not believe that God "predetermined" sin itself, except that it would occur as a part of Creation (I don't believe God was taken by surprise when Adam sinned).
I am not an Open Theist, so I can say that God created all things knowing what would become. In that sense, yes.
Are you saying that things unfold differently from how God thought they would unfold?
Meaning either God can't foreknow contingencies or contingencies don't exist,right?
So God predetermined sin. Thank you for your frankness
Whether he decreed or permitted is irrelevant. He knew man would sin, therefore he predetermined Adam to sin
Last edited:
There is no.....IF........
Anything that has happened was ordained to come to.pass just as it has.
Anything that has happened was ordained to come to.pass just as it has.
Yes, in the context that God knew man would sin, knew what man's sin would be, and still created men with that freedom, God predetermined that men would sin in Creation.So God predetermined sin. Thank you for your frankness
Whether he decreed or permitted is irrelevant. He knew man would sin, therefore he predetermined Adam to sin
Foreknowledge only requires certainty of events and not necessitation.
'It will be' does not mean 'it has to be'
Again, thank you.
Would you say God predetermined 200 Americans to jump to their deaths off WTC?
BUT, if the events are certain, then it is also certain that they cannot fail to occur, and there also can be no alternative event.
The question is, why are they certain? What makes them certain? If they are certain because God makes them so or 'knows' them, then God is the exhaustive author of everything including my poor grammar at (pun) this post
- Status