Originally posted by whatever:
It will be what He knows it will be. It cannot be anything else. Compare it to the saints' prayer in Acts 4.
"... for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place."
So, God predestined ("determined before", KJV) what the Jews and the Gentiles and Herod and Pilate would do, and they all chose to do what they did freely. One truth does not negate the other.
Yes, it will be what he knows it will be, but my point is that is different from the concept of, "it will be what he determines it will be," which apparently is what you are seeking to prove as evidenced in your argument. But you don't need to make such an effort. I agree that what ever God determines will be, will be. He determined the death of Christ and hardened people in their rebellion and worked through human means to assure that came about according to His sovereign plan. I don't dispute that. There is a difference in what God permits and foreknows and what He determines and foreknows. You seem to equate the two.
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Was it possible for Adam to "not sin." Yes, it was. RC Sproul agrees with me on that point.
That's not what I asked. Was there a chance for what God foreknew would happen to not happen?</font>[/QUOTE]I answered your question. Chance means possiblity. And I told you it was possible for Adam to "not sin." God's knowledge of Adam's choice doesn't determine what Adam will choose at that moment of choice, Adam does. Adam's determination determines what God knows. We are speaking about timeless and eternal matters that we aren't going to grasp in this life. You are arguing from a linear perspective as if God was before time waiting for certain events to happen. God is above time and unconstrained by it. There is never a "time" in which Adam had not sinned for God, because for God there isn't time. I don't pretend to understand it all myself, but I make this point to show that we are merely speculating about such eternal matters. The point is that Adam could have sinned and he could have not sinned, period.
The gospel alone cannot save. Fallen men are unable to believe the gospel without the work of the Holy Spirit. The gospel was never intended to save apart from the work of the Holy Spirit.
Oh, you don't believe the gospel is a work of the Holy Spirit? I do. Paul calls it the "power of God unto salvation." The writer of Hebrews calls it, "living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." And Jesus said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life.
See how Jesus equates his words with the work of the spirit in quicking men? The gospel is never "alone" for it is the very truth and power of God unto salvation.