The Impact of Foreknowledge

Foreknowledge is an interesting twist, doctrinally speaking. It changes things to know God does not have to wait to see what we do and then react to it. Instead He knows what is going to happen before it does. Therefore He doesn’t consider anything as it happens but whatever decisions He makes, were made in advance.

Some assume that since God knew what would happen in advance, He must also have made all the decisions. I don’t believe this logically follows. All of us who have been parents have known at times what our children were going to do before they did it. Perhaps by the look on their face, an established pattern, or perhaps a lack of experience, but however we knew, we knew. Many of those times we decided how we would respond before the child took the action. Why can’t we believe that God does the same thing, except much, much better?

Others understand that God can choose His reaction to our choices in advance without making every decision for us, but believe that we are incapable of making the most important decisions. Specifically, they believe that no man can choose Christ, and instead Christ chooses us. But I think that to believe this you have to ignore the importance of the concept of foreknowledge at the times the word is used in Scripture.

If I recall correctly the word appears four times in the New Testament. Acts 2:23 talking about God’s plan to redeem us in Christ. Romans 8:29 where he is describing the predestined. Romans 11:2 referring to His relationship with Israel. And finally in 1 Peter 1:2 while describing the chosen.

Three of four uses of the word then are directly related to God making choices and how His foreknowledge played into the decision. If God determined who would be saved then it would make sense that the Bible would describe His decision making prior to His foreknowledge or perhaps leave foreknowledge out of the picture completely. But if His foreknowledge is described preceding His decision making, then it would seem that what He is saying is He was responding in some manner to our decision, specifically our decision to receive His offer of salvation.

As I said three of four uses of the word combine foreknowledge and God’s choices. Two of these have His foreknowledge mentioned as the basis for His decisions and actions. Romans 8:29 does this by setting up a series that moves from foreknowledge to predestination to calling to justification to glorification. In 1 Peter 1:2 He describes his choice as being according to His foreknowledge. So both of these verses strike me as saying God was responding to something about us. He chose how He would respond before the event actually happened, but foreknowledge allows this possibility.

The other verse that combines foreknowledge and God’s choice of actions puts His choice first, mentioning it prior to His foreknowledge. This is Acts 2:23, where He is describing his decision to have Jesus die for us on the cross. In this case it makes sense to mention the decision first because He is referring to His own decision making rather than His advance knowledge of someone else’s decision. He chose to redeem us and then held to His knowledge of His own plan.

I’d be happy to hear your ideas on my analysis, as long as they are civil. But it appears to me that understanding election, God’s choice, or predestination requires that we also evaluate foreknowledge.

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Love and Free Will

One of the truisms I use every now and then is that love only means something when it is freely given.

If I were talking about how a man won his wife’s heart you would be relatively easy to convince. It might be true that a young man wants to believe he won his wife, that he found a way to make her love him. But as a man ages he will quickly admit, happily admit, that it is more important that she chooses to love him. In fact, a man who wants to force his wife to love him, regardless of her will, would be considered manipulative at best or more likely downright dangerous.

But since I am talking theology instead of romance I expect a little more resistance, especially from those who embrace Calvinism or reformed theology. This perspective believes that men can play no role in their own salvation, that men cannot make any choice whether they will love God.

For these individuals, God’s sovereignty answers every question. He has absolute authority and therefore he can choose in advance who will be saved apart from their personal choices or activities. His Sovereignty allows Him to have it all: He can choose for men to sin, He can condemn them for this same sin, and He can choose to redeem others. Under this system He would have it all, except He would not have anyone who willingly, freely chose to love Him. Love only means something when it is freely given.

This choice is what I believe we were made for. We were created to give us the opportunity to freely choose a relationship with God. In order to allow this possibility, to allow for this greatest good to be a potentiality, He gave us free will. He knew we would uniformly choose sin, but He allowed the rebellion of sin because it became the path to the greater good. This greater good, or even greatest good, I speak of is the freely given love of those who would also choose His gift of redemption from sin.

 

Thinking about Work

 

Today I found myself thinking about works. What really constitutes works? At what point does our responding to God become works? Ephesians 2:8-10 makes some strong statements about works.

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10 KJV)

The first use of the word works is in verse 9. It is there to tell us that we are not saved by works. I know people who are busy trying to balance a cosmic scale, scrambling furiously to do good works, hoping their good works will outweigh their bad works in the final judgement. This passage makes it clear that trying to balance the scales is working the wrong plan. Our positive actions do not weigh against our negative actions so the plan is doomed.

We are saved by grace, rather than by positive works. God has offered us a gift of salvation. Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty we owed for our own sins, and has offered this salvation to us if we are willing to receive it, by faith, as a gift.

But here is where theologians muddy the water. Many define receiving a gift as work. Furthermore, they would say, since humanity without Christ is described as dead in the previous context of Ephesians 2, dead men cannot do anything to bring themselves back to life. Therefore they believe God gives the gift to whomever He chooses and without any involvement by the receiver.

Let me step through some of the reasons why I agree with so much of this logic and yet arrive at different conclusions. First let me address the argument, dead men cannot bring themselves back to life. I would say amen. They cannot, and they do not. Jesus brings us back to life when we are declared forgiven, and not only forgiven, but also righteous in God’s sight. God does the work of redemption inside of the believer, we do not do it ourselves.

Being spiritually dead is a Biblical word picture. It is like being physically alive, but spiritually useless. The lost person is useless to God because of their sinful condition. It is not that they are incapable of doing anything, they spend every day doing something, but these things are of no importance, eternally speaking.

Jesus is offering to replace this useless, perpetual death with a very useful, eternal life. It is His gift offered to us, and like all gifts, one doesn’t have it, until they receive it. A gift we refuse or ignore, we do not get. As mentioned above, many people argue, if we actively cooperate in receiving the gift, such would constitute a work.

I disagree. If a man is to be given a wonderful gift, one they could never acquire on their own, he is not given credit for some brilliant accomplishment upon receiving the gift. All praise for the accomplishment goes to the giver. God gets all the praise for our redemption. Our willingness to receive what He sacrificed so dearly to provide is also to His credit. The receiver neither deserves nor gets any glory. The work of the accomplishment is not in accepting it as a gift, but in the sacrifice that secured it and the grace in desiring to give it.

Thinking, making mental choices, is not work. Following through on the choice might be work, but in this case it is Jesus who followed through, humanity is simply the recipients of the offer. Those who are willing to receive the gift are the redeemed, but not by any merit or work of their own, but by the activity, grace and glory of Christ.

I believe this moment of decision on our part is necessary for many reasons.

Without it there is no relationship in our relationship with Christ, we are only puppets doing whatever God chose for us to do. At least, up to the moment where He gives us Salvation.

Without this moment of decision humanity is essentially given enough free will to do wrong, but not to do right, meaning God is holding them accountable for actions they had no ability to avoid.

Without this freedom to choose, humanities love or God is never freely given and love is only possible when it is freely given.

Without this choice to receive on our part, 1 Timothy 2:4 as well as every other verses referring to God’s desire to reach the whole world, don’t make sense.

The Sovereignty Question

Recently someone asked me if I believed in sovereignty. I whispered back, “Of course.” That person then went on with their life assuming I believe the same things about sovereignty that they do. I let them go because it was not an appropriate time to chase the point, but I am pretty sure they did not understand my answer.

Many people have a one sided view of sovereignty. For some this is little more than name calling. If you do not accept their views then you are assigned to class or category somewhere in between dogs and Pelagius. For others it is simply a matter of not thinking through the possibilities of how sovereignty plays out.

I believe God is the Creator and Ruler of the universe. This is a statement of sovereignty, but it is a very broad statement. Working into the specifics I want to ask more questions. Does sovereignty mean merely authority over an area, or by necessity does it mean making every decision within that area? Does God have the right to delegate?

An earthly king is said to be sovereign. However somewhere in the kingdom there is someone doing something the king disapproves of, for this example let’s name a pickpocket. This fact does not detract from the king’s authority. He is still sovereign, despite the fact he doesn’t have control over every event in the kingdom. In fact, he doesn’t even know what all is happening in his kingdom. If he did he would stop it. This example does not carry well to Deity because God knows everything and can do anything. God is omniscient and omnipotent.

Many people get hung up when trying to imagine how omnipotence and omniscience working together, affect sovereignty. Some have supposed this means God ultimately makes every decision. This description is unpalatable because it makes God responsible for sin. I have no doubt God knows everything about sin, but I don’t believe He initiated sin.

So in God’s kingdom, which includes everything, there are pickpockets. We can agree He knows. We can agree He knew in advance there would be. But does that leave us with only two choices either God made the choice for the pickpocket to engage in this activity or God is not sovereign? No, I don’t believe either of these choices. I believe God is big enough to create moral agency. Moral agency means we make and bear responsibility for our own moral choices.

For many people moral agency is oxymoronic. They believe that since God made us, He is ultimately responsible for our choices. But this is a denial of the meaning of moral agency. Moral agency, once again, is our making and bearing responsibility for our own moral choices. Just because we have a hard time wrapping our head around a concept doesn’t mean God cannot do it.

Shortcutting the definition to make God responsible, is equivalent to claiming He is not big enough to make creations with true moral agency. I think He is capable of doing so, and did. This choice did not detract from His sovereignty, it came as His decision as to how to express His sovereignty.

Sovereignty of God

The word sovereignty reflects the rule of a king. When applied to God it is a theological point to say God is the boss. But this by itself may be less descriptive than some people think. I believe in the sovereignty of God. However, what I believe about the sovereignty of God is may not be the same as what other people believe in the sovereignty of God.

For some people this means God is not only in charge of everything, but also ultimately He is making every decision whether we realize it or not. His sovereignty means He always gets His way in everything, right down to the minor details of life. In this model He not only decided to redeem man from their sins, but He also decided for them, when and how they would sin. I just don’t believe this and probably neither do you.

For other people this means God is ultimately in charge of everything, but mankind being capable of making decisions, are responsible for their own choices. Therefore God is not always getting His way in every little thing. But the framework of choices man is capable of making is strictly controlled by God, and He will get His way in the most important things. Especially, man, who is capable of making other decisions, is incapable of making a decision for salvation. Therefore, no one can be saved except for God’s decision that the one individual person would be saved. I don’t exactly believe this either. The explanation for why we cannot make a choice to be saved is inadequate to my understanding.

For me, and probably a lot of other people, God is sovereign. In His sovereignty He chose to make humanity with decision making capability. He knew this meant He would not get His way in every little thing, and in some cases not in larger things. He does, however, exercise the freedom to intervene whenever and however He chooses. I do not believe sovereignty is lessoned when someone else is allowed to hold subordinate authority. I do not see adequate reason for the ability to choose God to be outside of man’s capability. And finally, I do not see it as taking glory from God when mankind makes this choice, love means more when it is freely given.

First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all those who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good, and it pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.  1 Timothy 2:1-4  (HCSB)