What purpose does election and predestination serve?

[reformedbeliever]

We know for a fact that at this time, God doesn't need to learn anything more. But did He ever have to? Think about it -- though God is eternal, was creation eternal? Do you think it was "intelligently designed?" With beginning and end?? So God, Who had no beginning, had no need to learn in order to create?

No, God would not be God if He ever had to learn. Here are some verses of scripture that says He has perfect knowledge.

Job 37:16. "Do you know about the layers of the thick clouds, The wonders of one perfect in knowledge,

1 John 3:20. in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.

John 21:17. He *said to him the third time, "Simon, {son} of John, do you love Me?" Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, "Do you love Me?" And he said to Him, "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You." Jesus *said to him, "Tend My sheep.

Psalms 139

Hebrews 4:13. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

Isa. 44:7-8, 25-28 7. 'Who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it; Yes, let him recount it to Me in order, From the time that I established the ancient nation. And let them declare to them the things that are coming And the events that are going to take place.
8. 'Do not tremble and do not be afraid; Have I not long since announced {it} to you and declared {it?} And you are My witnesses. Is there any God besides Me, Or is there any {other} Rock? I know of none.' " 25. Causing the omens of boasters to fail, Making fools out of diviners, Causing wise men to draw back And turning their knowledge into foolishness,
26. Confirming the word of His servant And performing the purpose of His messengers. {It is I} who says of Jerusalem, 'She shall be inhabited!' And of the cities of Judah, 'They shall be built.' And I will raise up her ruins {again.}
27. "{It is I} who says to the depth of the sea, 'Be dried up!' And I will make your rivers dry.
28. "{It is I} who says of Cyrus, '{He is} My shepherd! And he will perform all My desire.' And he declares of Jerusalem, 'She will be built,' And of the temple, 'Your foundation will be laid.' "

You are the first person I've ever had challenge me on God's omniscience. If God is not omniscient... He is not God.

 

[reformedbeliever]

Web, you're absolutely right!

And it is all bound up in this "sovereignty" issue. Calvinists believe that because God has the power, He will force every situation to happen the way He wants it to. They want to give the glory to God but they don't realize that God isn't glorified by what God makes us do but by what we do on account of love for Him.

skypair

Actually God knows that in our natural state that we seek to kill Him, and are His enemy. John 8

The Arminians are the ones who seem to deny God's omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence.

 

[reformedbeliever]

reformbeliever,

Sorry, I though it was your only point. Here's what I was asking for scripture on ---



We know for a fact that at this time, God doesn't need to learn anything more. But did He ever have to? Think about it -- though God is eternal, was creation eternal? Do you think it was "intelligently designed?" With beginning and end?? So God, Who had no beginning, had no need to learn in order to create?

Think about this --- was Lucifer a "learning experience" for God?? Or did God create the sin of Lucifer and make Lucifer fall for grins (or as you would say, "Because it pleased Him")?? Did God have to think about how He would display His glory to all creation??

See, I believe Calvinists are stuck in a time warp of sorts. They can acknowledge what is true now but the cannot go backwards and consider that maybe God had another plan for Israel, for the angels and demons, etc. that was different.

Example: Israel wasn't indwelt like we are. But your "One Covenant Theology" assumes they were.

Anyway, see if you can answer my questions and come up with that scripture that says that God never learns anything -- cause His "repenting" of creating man prior to the flood is just one example where He appears to have learned something and regretted something.

That's what He said He did, isn't it. But suppose Pharoah had complied with God's will. Wouldn't that also have demonstrated God's power and might?

What God planned? See, I take exception to that on account of what Joseph told them later -- "you meant it for evil but God meant it for good." What role would what they meant have to play if it was God that did it?? Was it God's plan to kill Joseph, for instance? Was it God or Rueben that intervened to spare Joseph's life? Suppose they had never thought to kill Joseph -- mightn't there have been some other occasion for them to sell him to a caravan?

skypair


skypair

Among the other things that have been pointed out to you about God's omniscience, God is not bound by time as we are. God is also omnipresent in all time. There was never a "time" that God was not omniscient. Beyond that, God is immutable... meaning He does not change. For God to have had to learn would mean that He would be changing in knowledge.

 

[MB]

Actually God knows that in our natural state that we seek to kill Him, and are His enemy. John 8

The Arminians are the ones who seem to deny God's omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence.

I don't think I'm an Arminian so this isn't intended to defend there position.

What I don't understand here is that some Reformers here have claimed that God's Sovereignty means that no one thinks of or, even does a thing that wasn't first planned by God. This is not Sovereignty according to modern definitions. I believe it's original meaning is "superus" or simply "superior" The word Sovereign or Sovereignty do not appear in my Bible but the Bible does use the term "The most high God" (Gen 14:18), I do not Argue that God is with out a doubt superior to everything.
Ultimately God can be Sovereign and not necessarily in control every single thing to remain so. Sovereignty in other words has nothing to do with control, but "Authority". The Control of everything as I have searched is not found in scripture at all. Please would you show scriptural proof of the total control of everything by God with scripture? Because Sovereignty has nothing to do with authority.

I believe there will come a time when God will rule the planet but at present, It seems that Satan is in charge while God is away, (if indeed He can be).
Omnipotence is authority like Sovereignty and not necessarily control.
MB

 

[reformedbeliever]

I don't think I'm an Arminian so this isn't intended to defend there position.

What I don't understand here is that some Reformers here have claimed that God's Sovereignty means that no one thinks of or, even does a thing that wasn't first planned by God. This is not Sovereignty according to modern definitions. I believe it's original meaning is "superus" or simply "superior" The word Sovereign or Sovereignty do not appear in my Bible but the Bible does use the term "The most high God" (Gen 14:18), I do not Argue that God is with out a doubt superior to everything.
Ultimately God can be Sovereign and not necessarily in control every single thing to remain so. Sovereignty in other words has nothing to do with control, but "Authority". The Control of everything as I have searched is not found in scripture at all. Please would you show scriptural proof of the total control of everything by God with scripture? Because Sovereignty has nothing to do with authority.

I believe there will come a time when God will rule the planet but at present, It seems that Satan is in charge while God is away, (if indeed He can be).
Omnipotence is authority like Sovereignty and not necessarily control.
MB

Open theist would say that God is away also. I hope you are not open theist. Read up on it and let us know.

Open theist would also deny that God is in control of His creation.

You are entitled to your opinion, and would not be by yourself on the bb, but I hope you will read up on it a little.

You might even try to convince Job that God is not in control....

God is omnipotent (Mark 14:36; Luke 1:37). God is able to do whatever he wills in the way in which he wills it. God does not choose to do anything contrary to his nature of wisdom and holy love. God cannot deny himself, and God does not choose to do everything by his own immediate agency without intermediate angelic and human agents. Although God determines some things to come to pass unconditionally (Isa. 14:24-27), most events in history are planned conditionally, through the obedience of people or their permitted disobedience to divine precepts (II Chr. 7:14; Luke 7:30; Rom. 1:24). In any case, God's eternal purposes for history are not frustrated, but fulfilled in the way he chose to accomplish them (Eph. 1:11).

A biblical theist not only believes that the one, living God is separate from the world, as against pantheism and panentheism, but also that God is continuously active throughout the world providentially, in contrast to deism. God is not so exalted that he cannot know, love, or relate to natural law in the world of everyday experience. A study of divine providence as taught in Scripture shows that God sustains, guides, and governs all that he created. The nature psalms reflect upon God's activity in relation to every aspect of the earth, the atmosphere, vegetation, and animal (e.g., Ps. 104). God also preserves and governs human history, judging corrupt societies and blessing the just and the unjust with temporal benefits like the sunshine, rain, food and drink. Through God's universal providential activity the cosmos holds together and his wise purposes of common grace are achieved.
Elwell's Evangelical Dictionary

 

[psalms109:31]

choice

Psalms....... you have on more than one occasion implied that what I believe is not the truth, or that I am as satan, a deciever. You have implied that I do not want to believe the truth, and have implied that I am lost. I will not deal with you anymore sir/maam. Instead of dealing with the text, you resort to personal attacks or just post scripture without expounding upon it. If there is an ignore feature on this bb..... you will be on my list.

You have a choice to believe what you want to.

When you say all does not mean all I feel like eve in the garden.

The Devil main goal is to get us to doubt God's word to get a foot hold in or lives. That is what he did with eve.

The devil doesn't want the world to know the hope they have in Jesus.

I know that Paul teaching is hard to understand, that it will lead men to thier own destruction.

Paul teaching was never meant to destroy the hope that God through Jesus has brought to the world.

I have not come to condemn any one, but to spread the hope this world has through Jesus.

Jesus sent us out with good news and a better hope, that we draw near to God through Jesus Christ.

I hear people to continue to show how hopeless we are and I agree. We need to be reminded

But who can save us from this body of death praise be to Jesus.

I am not judging you but showing what my most inner most being is saying to me. To stand firm, because the world needs to know that God loves them and gave them a hope through Jesus Christ.

 

[StraightAndNarrow]

I don't disagree that man is bound by God's foreknowledge of him. I just do not see where God existing at all points in time witnessing everything everywhere at once negates man's choice and responsibility. God knows every move I have made...am making...and will make, so I am bound by His foeknowledge. This is not negating the choices He has allowed, though.

You're not bound by His foreknowledge. You make it happen. Since we don't know what God knows we have to live as if all thee decisions are ours. God can intervene at any time but at all times He knows everything that will happen.

 

[J.D.]

You're not bound by His foreknowledge.

You don't see the paradox of your statement? If He foresees it, it's bound to happen, is it not?

 

[skypair]

reformbeliever,

You are the first person I've ever had challenge me on God's omniscience. If God is not omniscient... He is not God.

Take a deep breath -- count to 10 -- and then think.

All those scriptures speak of God NOW -- in the frame of Alpha and Omega -- since creation. The scenario I presented considers before Lucifer when God alone existed. Can you fathom such a time?? Would God have known everything before He even conceived everything??

skypair

 

[skypair]

Among the other things that have been pointed out to you about God's omniscience, God is not bound by time as we are.

True. But WE are bound in time which means we had beginning and end -- which means there was a time when God didn't/couldn't know us.

Beyond that, God is immutable... meaning He does not change. For God to have had to learn would mean that He would be changing in knowledge.

This, of course, is the "classic" Calvinist crutch -- that because God's CHARACTER never changes, God cannot "change His mind," cannot change His form (becoming a human infant and that infant grow up), etc. Do you not see how "tissue thin" that reasoning is??

skypair

 

[skypair]

Open theist would say that God is away also. I hope you are not open theist. Read up on it and let us know.

Open theist would also deny that God is in control of His creation.

You are entitled to your opinion, and would not be by yourself on the bb, but I hope you will read up on it a little.

You might even try to convince Job that God is not in control....

First, let's get rid of the "open theist" SMEAR campaign and smart-aleck remarks. I do not find that tone in MB's queries of you.

God is omnipotent (Mark 14:36; Luke 1:37). God is able to do whatever he wills in the way in which he wills it. God does not choose to do anything contrary to his nature of wisdom and holy love.

God is omnipotent, true. So can He sin? Or would you again have to say that God does not choose to do everyting He could do as free will claims. Let's get into the "mechanics" of what you are describing, shall we??

[quoe]God cannot deny himself, and God does not choose to do everything by his own immediate agency without intermediate angelic and human agents. Although God determines some things to come to pass unconditionally (Isa. 14:24-27), most events in history are planned conditionally, through the obedience of people or their permitted disobedience to divine precepts (II Chr. 7:14; Luke 7:30; Rom. 1:24).

Now most would say that God, in what you just described, "relinquishs His sovereign rights" to use His omnipotence. Is that what you were trying to say?

In any case, God's eternal purposes for history are not frustrated, but fulfilled in the way he chose to accomplish them (Eph. 1:11).

And, of course, no one is saying His purposes are frustrated. Were you thinking of some will of God that was "frustrated" against His will??

(Sorry, MB, for responding in your place :love2: )

skypair

 

[skypair]

You don't see the paradox of your statement? If He foresees it, it's bound to happen, is it not?

J.D.,

I meant to get into this a little more with you but didn't. What God foresees will happen, it's true. But He foresees things beyond His will to predetermine -- other words, He does NOT choose them to happen. As reformbeliever is trying to describe, they happen "permissively."

Yet, when the total of time was foreseen (including the instances where He interjected Himself into the affairs of men through angels, believers, Christ, floods, etc.), then God ordained the whole thing to take place.

The error that Calvinism gets into is in making God determine what will happen so that His foreknowledge IS His predestination/predetermination of events. Ergo, your thinking in terms of it being a paradox. It's not a paradox IF the 2 -- foreknowledge and predestination -- are entirely different things.

skypair

 

[npetreley]

Yet, when the total of time was foreseen (including the instances where He interjected Himself into the affairs of men through angels, believers, Christ, floods, etc.), then God ordained the whole thing to take place.

So God didn't foresee everything until AFTER creation, at which time He ordained it to be as it was foreseen? In other words, God's own creation didn't conform to His will until after it did what it wanted to do including those things APART from His will, at which point God said, "Ok, so it did that stuff I didn't want it to do. Hey, nobody's perfect. I'm willing to accept it that way. I'm easy."

 

[npetreley]

As to the question: What purpose does election and predestination serve?

It serves to ensure the salvation of the elect, who would not be saved otherwise.

Or, the simpler answer: It Glorifies God.

 

[reformedbeliever]

First, let's get rid of the "open theist" SMEAR campaign and smart-aleck remarks. I do not find that tone in MB's queries of you.

God is omnipotent (Mark 14:36; Luke 1:37). God is able to do whatever he wills in the way in which he wills it. God does not choose to do anything contrary to his nature of wisdom and holy love. Now most would say that God, in what you just described, "relinquishs His sovereign rights" to use His omnipotence. Is that what you were trying to say?

And, of course, no one is saying His purposes are frustrated. Were you thinking of some will of God that was "frustrated" against His will??

(Sorry, MB, for responding in your place :love2: )

skypair

This is no "smear campaign" as you say. I'm stating fact. Read about open theism and you will see that what you and MB are stating is open theism. Nothing "smart-aleck" about it. I do not resort to smear campaigns or name calling, as this is not required when you teach/preach solid doctrine. If you go back and read, you will see that much of what I said is not my words, but from Elwell's Theological Dictionary. They are not my words, but I agree with much of it. My stance is a bit stronger than Elwell's. I'm more determinist.

Again, you and MB are not alone in your open theism.

 

[J.D.]

J.D.,

I meant to get into this a little more with you but didn't. What God foresees will happen, it's true. But He foresees things beyond His will to predetermine -- other words, He does NOT choose them to happen. As reformbeliever is trying to describe, they happen "permissively."

Yet, when the total of time was foreseen (including the instances where He interjected Himself into the affairs of men through angels, believers, Christ, floods, etc.), then God ordained the whole thing to take place.

The error that Calvinism gets into is in making God determine what will happen so that His foreknowledge IS His predestination/predetermination of events. Ergo, your thinking in terms of it being a paradox. It's not a paradox IF the 2 -- foreknowledge and predestination -- are entirely different things.

skypair

It seems what you're implying is that me and reformedbeliever are contradicting one another because I am emphasizing God's action in predestination and he is emphasizing His passivity. But in reality there is no contradiction. If we say that God plans the future, then that planning is an act, but within that plan are things which He has planned but not acted upon, and other things which he acts directly upon. Such is the case with predestination to salvation of men. God does not act upon men to cause their sin and subsequent condemnation, but he does act upon the elect to ensure their salvation.

This touches on the issue of active or passive reprobation which is debated among Calvinists, the overwhelming majority of which believe in passive reprobation, active reprobation being associated more with hypercalvinists.

The important thing about passive will (permissive) is that although God does not have to act to ensure it's coming about, it's coming about is nevertheless ensured by God's design of it. So we understand predestination to be "double" only because the reprobate (predestinated to perdition) are assured of condemnation, not because God has acted on them to assure it, but rather because He has not acted upon them to awaken them from their spiritual deadness.

Now, I said that predestination is an action of God and I stand by that inasmuch as the elect are predestined to salvation.

I have not contended that foreknowledge and predestination are the same thing and I don't know why you keep pressing that point.

Your contention is that foreknowledge is mere foresight which exludes God's own knowledge of His own plan and purposes; election is mere ratification which binds God's will and therefore He does not have free will while man does; and predestination is a mere addendum to man's sovereign choice.

And after all that, my original question has not been answered.

If God looks down the corridors of time and foresees that we will be saved, then what purpose does election and predestination serve? What do they effect?

 

[J.D.]

As to the question: What purpose does election and predestination serve?

It serves to ensure the salvation of the elect, who would not be saved otherwise.

Or, the simpler answer: It Glorifies God.

Npet, you are correct given a proper understanding of foreknowledge, election, and predestination.

My contention is that if foreknowledge consists of foresight alone, then election and predestination are meaningless, or at least, election becomes nothing more than God choosing to watch the events of history happen, and predestination becomes an impersonal fate ruled by the fixation of inevitablility.

 

[MB]

Hi JD;

God does not act upon men to cause their sin and subsequent condemnation, but he does act upon the elect to ensure their salvation.

Would you show proof of the underlined statement?
MB

 

[J.D.]

Hi JD;

Would you show proof of the underlined statement?
MB

I assume you mean you want a proof text. Here's one:

"And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sin".

He raises them from spiritual death to walk in newness of life.

 

[reformedbeliever]

It seems I have hurt some feelings with my remarks about open theism. That was not my intention. I appologize to MB and Skypair.

When "speaking" in this medium, it is impossible to read facial expressions, hear voice inflection etc. Sometimes a person may come across as sounding mean or as was mentioned earlier.... "having a tone of voice".

After reading my posts I can see where I may have "sounded" or had a "tone" that I do not want to appear to have. My appology is sincere. I pray that both of you will fogive me.

What I was saying about open theism is that they seem to have the same kind of views you seem to be giving. I'm not calling you an open theist, and may even be misunderstanding what you are saying. Again, my appologies.