At 11:13 PM 2/22/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Burgy wrote:
>
> >Dick Fischer wrote: "But if God can be "surprised" by future events, then
> >"those He foreknew were predestined" is a hard verse to reconcile with
> >that point of view."
>
> >Why?
>
> >One is not irreconcilable with the other at all, Dick.
>
> >I know that someday I will die. Along the way to that event I am all too
> >often surprised by events.
>
>Ah, but you are not God. His ways are higher and all that. What I am
>alluding to is God's foreknowledge. As someone put it, the past, present,
>and future are all in the "now" of God. If you and I were known to God
>from the foundations of the earth, then there are no surprises. Our
>fathers and mothers were known, all of our forefathers were known. Nobody
>in the long chain of countless billions of possibilities did anything that
>would have precluded you and me from being here today. And that goes for
>everyone else on the planet. All the ants and alligators too. Either God
>knows the future or He does not. You can't have it both ways.
First, I recognize that my position (and Burgy's) is a difficult one.
Nevertheless,
it seems to me (I could be wrong) that you and others fail to appreciate how
difficult your position is. For example, I can say the same to you as you have
said to Burgy. Either we have free will to chose or reject God or we do not.
You can't have it both ways. More below.
> >God knows I am of the elect. (I'm Presbyterian, BTW, one of the "frozen
> >chosen."). Yet he MAY (note the absence of a strong claim here) be
> >surprised at some of the goofs I make along the way, goofs performed
> >because I am not a robot. Hopefully, he may well be surprised at some of
> >the better stuff I do too!
>
>We could argue as to whether or not He does know the future. And I will
>admit that I am not adamant on that point, but I lean toward His being
>all-knowing because that is what permits prophesy, and the Bible is replete
>with prophesy. But if God can be surprised by what you may or may not do,
>then how could you say you were "elected"? Your election and mine is
>predicated on God's knowing that we would come to Christ. Sure, we could
>have chosen to be devil worshippers, but if we are truly part of the
>"elect," our decisions to come to the faith were foreknown to God. No
>surprises.
This seems to me to trivialize free will to the point of turning it into a
tautology.
We are free to choose but God saw in advance how we would choose? If
God put me among the elect from the beginning of time then I cannot see where
I have any freedom. Worse, if God does not place Joe Bloe among the elect at
the beginning of time, then Joe Bloe is condemned to eternal damnation from
the beginning of time. Not a pretty picture, IMHO. Now, some are taking an
analogy (I guess) from general relativity wherein God sees the entire fabric of
space-time from the beginning. This is an interesting idea, but I cannot
see how
it rescues freedom. Just because I am trapped in time and cannot see it doesn't
make me any more free, it just makes me blind, so I'm a blind robot instead of
just a robot.
Now, I don't pretend to have the answer to this. As I said, I recognize the
difficulty
in my position. I will be quite satisfied if I've at least encouraged
others to recognize
the difficulty in their position. As Pascal wrote:
"It is good to be tired and wearied by the vain search after the true
good, that we
may stretch out our arms to the Redeemer."
My own position is to always begin and end everything in Jesus. We receive
absolutely
nothing from God except as a gift through Jesus. I think the passage I
quoted from
Ephesians supports this. It seems Paul is bending over backwards to make
sure we
do not come to the (IMHO) arrogant position that God would choose us and
not someone
else. Without exception, Paul always qualifies any mention of anything
pertaining to our
election with "in Christ". I conclude from this that it is Christ who God
foreknew, He is
the Elect. We become part of this only by burying ourselves in Him. Once we
are buried
in Him, we are part of the election.
So, how can it be that God would not know from the beginning of time that I
would choose
to bury myself in Christ? I don't know. Perhaps this is one of those things
we have to
assign as unknowable in this life. But here is a speculation. Perhaps the
Creation of beings
who are truly free required a tremendous sacrifice on his part. Of course,
it cost the life of
his Son, but perhaps even more. Perhaps he had to freely relinquish some of
his power in
order to cut us loose. Then again ... Anyway, this is one of many things
I'll be very interested
in finding out in the Life to come. My guess is that God will surprise us
all :).
Brian Harper | "If you don't understand
Associate Professor | something and want to
Applied Mechanics | sound profound, use the
The Ohio State University | word 'entropy'"
| -- Morrowitz
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