Hyper-Calvinists openly assert everything is predestine. Boettner says everything is predestined. But is that Biblical.
I believe that everything
in some form or other ultimately finds its origin in the "decree" of God. If you believe that God freely created the world, and you believe that God "foreknows" all things past, present, and future, you would have to agree that in some sense, God "ordained" all things that come to pass because He "knew what He was getting into" and yet created anyway.
Now, that doesn't mean that God's creatures do things robotically. They do things willfully and without coersion against their will. The mystery of how this is compatible lies with God.
No. This thread is not about Omniscience, no matter how it is defined. According to Arminianism, God knowing the future exhaustively does not predestine it. We must set aside this issue and stick with the scope of predestination.
If everything is predestined, that is Closed Theology and God is the Author of Sin, just as the Hyper-Calvinisms claim.
You must distinguish between the direct actions of God and the direct actions of the creature. God did not have to coerce Adam and Eve to sin, but it had to be somewhere in His eternal decree. If Christ is described as "the lamb slain from the foundation of the world," and those "wicked hands" that crucified Jesus also "did what God had predestined to occur," then it would seem necessary to identify sin as part of God's eternal decree, but not something that He had to "intrude" on sentient creatures who would have preferred to do otherwise. As absurd as it sounds, and I try to state things carefully and reverently, I don't see how one could reason otherwise and be Biblical.
If everything is not predestined, that is Open Theology to a limited degree, and God knowing the future exhaustively does not change that everything is not predestined according to Arminianism.
Therefore all Arminians and most Calvinists are open theists to a limited degree.
If you try to define "open theology" according to any idea that sentient creatures make free moral choices without coercion, then you would dillute the term. Open theism
requires by definition that God
cannot know with 100% certainty what free creatures will do, because for Him to know would be to make Himself "complicit" in their evil actions and absolve them of moral responsibility. No one who believes that God has exhaustive definite foreknowledge of all future actions can be described as "open theists."
Skandelon did not answer these questions. I will because I can support my views from scripture. Yes Jesus said what Peter would do. And as I have posted numerous times, Jesus can know what is in the hearts of people and therefore know how they would react given a circumstance. Thus Jesus knew what Peter would freely choose to do given that circumstance.
Open theist answers to the challenge of Peter's three denials are always found wanting. How did God know for sure
1. where Peter would be that night? He could have run away with other disciples.
2. that someone would actually confront him?
3. that he would actually deny Christ?
4. that someone would confront him
more than once?
5. that he would deny Christ more than once?
6. that it would be
three times, and not two or even four?
7. that this would happen "immediately" before the rooster crowed (early in the morning)?
There are innumerable other questions that could be asked because the contingencies surrounding the setup of this are innumerable. A dismissive statement about Jesus knowing the "character" of Peter fails. It still does not guarantee the exact and startling
details of Christ's prediction, which are the very emphatic
point of it. It was not an educated guess, it was a confirmation of His deity.
Earlier in the same chapter, Jesus makes this startling statement:
Joh 13:18 I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.
Joh 13:19 Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he.
Jesus predicted that Judas Iscariot would betray Him (i.e.
SIN). Jesus based His prophecy on a claim to His own deity and the necessity of fulfilling Scripture. He gave the test of His words such that it would demonstrate that "I am" (
ego eimi). Jesus was claiming to be Yahweh Himself. If Jesus could have been wrong about His prediction of Judas'
SIN, He would not be God! He would have also failed the test of a false prophet:
Deu 18:18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
Deu 18:19 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. [Can anyone argue that this is not a reference to Messiah?]
Deu 18:20 But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.
Deu 18:21 And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? [Glad you asked!]
Deu 18:22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.
I am sure the disciples were familiar with the history of Israel and the tests for false prophets. I am sure Jesus was aware of it. It was
necessary for the legitimacy and person of Jesus Himself to be
correct in His prophecies. If He made a false prophecy, the Jews could rightly try Him before the Roman government and say "in our law, one who claims to speak for God and makes a false prophecy should be put to death." Jesus would not have died a perfect substitutionary atonement for sinners, but would have died justly as a condemned criminal himself. I can
assure you that when Jesus predicted the
SIN of Judas and the
SIN of Peter, He was not making an "educated guess" about it or speaking His prophecies
presumptuously. His very claims to be the fulfillment of prophecies themselves, yea, and His very claim to be DEITY
require that His predictions had to be 100% accurate (not 99.9% likely).
Did Jesus declaring what would happen fix the future? Yes, no plan of God can be thwarted, if even if Peter had been altered so his response would have differed, God would have brought about the denials anyway.
So, is God the author of Peter's sin, since He "guaranteed" that it would happen?
But the real issue is why did Skandelon ask this off topic question? Because he does not understand my view.
If you think that anything less than "robotic" determinism is "open theology," I don't think you understand his, nor my view.
It would be nice if only posts that answer the question, is everything predestined be allowed.
I hope I have answered your question.
