Did God Know Everything in Advance?

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Some believe that everything was pre-destined. That God created the earth and all that was in it but yet knew that man would sin and He would have to destroy man, etc.

Did God ever change His mind? Was everything pre-destined?
 
Old_Scholar said:
Some believe that everything was pre-destined. That God created the earth and all that was in it but yet knew that man would sin and He would have to destroy man, etc.

Did God ever change His mind? Was everything pre-destined?
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What does your Rock say?
 
Old_Scholar said:
Some believe that everything was pre-destined. That God created the earth and all that was in it but yet knew that man would sin and He would have to destroy man, etc.

Did God ever change His mind? Was everything pre-destined?
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Given that God created time, there is no “in advance” per se… which I think is why discussion of predestination necessarily gets so muddled, either way you argue it we’re trying to limit God in a way that He is not.
 
Yes, OnlyAmbrose is correct. God transcends time. So he didn’t really know in advance. He just always knew.
 
Old_Scholar said:
Scripture says God changes His mind when things don’t go the way He planned. I feel certain yours says the same thing.
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Cal, your statement leads one to believe God is bound by time. Is that your position?
 
Old_Scholar said:
Chris, why don’t you address the subject instead of introducing other things into the thread?
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Actually, the question is quite relevant to the issue at hand. If God is bound by time, He is bound by past, present and future as we are; in this case, one could make an argument that God knows what happened yesterday, may know what will happen today, but cannot know about the future.

However, if God is not bound by time, but lives forever in “now” or “present” so that what we know as past and future because of our limitations is, for God, all present, then we can make the argument that God has knowledge of everything from mankind’s beginning to mankind’s end.

Your statement:
Scripture says God changes His mind when things don’t go the way He planned. I feel certain yours says the same thing.
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can lead one to believe Godis bound by time.
 
Though eternal God somehow transcends time in a way not well understood by us creatures currently locked-into the “time-space continuum” created by God, God’s all-knowing comprehension must in some sense include an apprehension that we creatures are not co-eternal…in some important sense, though “before” we “didn’t exist,” “now” we “do exist,” otherwise in His Own mind God didn’t create us!

So, you can bet that in some important sense God “knew in advance” that this world that He would create would generate evil, and that He would be sending people to Hell fire.

Those concepts trouble many people, essentially because they seem to imply (1) that our all-good God somehow “created evil,” and (2) that our all-loving God creates people knowing in advance that after a short life they will spend a hundred trillion trillion trillion times as much time in Hellfire!

I think that in the end we resolve the dilemmas not by trying to crawl into God’s mind, but by looking at ourselves and understanding better what the nature of the evil in each of us is.

In the absence of the grace paid for on the cross which goes forwards and backwards in time, each of us is “Jack the Ripper.” God didn’t create our “Jack-the-Ripper-ness,” but it is what created flesh does, without the raising-up of grace. Think about that: Each of us is made of 6 trillion cells, each one saying the same thing: “When do we eat?” Without the final ingredient, grace, we just won’t generate a productive answer to the question. All we’ll do is use our wits to feed ourselves, in various ways, shapes and forms, without regard to one thing in particulat – giving, as opposed to taking.

The creation stories in Genesis 1-3 hints to us about Man’s essential pre-grace evil in various ways.

Genesis 1:26 et seq provides that Man was created on Day “Six,” where “6” is the Bible type for “evil.” Genesis 2:7 says that God made Man out of the “aphar of the ground” or “dust of the ground,” where aphar is the Biblical type for “sin.” I.e., we’re made of “sinful stuff.” Genesis 2:21-22 portrays Eve as being made out of a rib of a sleeper – sleeping Adam, where “sleep” is the Biblical type for “death.” And, of course, the story itself tells us about the Original Sin, portraying our sin-prone nature.

God does not, per se, create the evil in us. Evil doesn’t “exist.” What God created was the means for us creatures to rise above our evil.

Another thing we have to understand about evil is that the nature of it is such that “evil marches to Hell flags flying.”

I believe that at the end of time, those who have opted to reject friendship with God and the grace which that entails will be given what they chose – gracelessness. I think that in the graceless state each of us is a rage-filled God-hater who will *run *from God’s presence to the only place where He won’t be – Hell.

God won’t send them to Hell. They will run to it, flags flying. I believe that Hell will have no walls. The damned – the grace deprived – will hate God so much that they will prefer an eternity of fellowship with evil people in a Bedlam of Evil over the presence of God.

Those concepts answer the difficult questions for me.
 
cfrancis said:
Actually, the question is quite relevant to the issue at hand. If God is bound by time, He is bound by past, present and future as we are; in this case, one could make an argument that God knows what happened yesterday, may know what will happen today, but cannot know about the future.

However, if God is not bound by time, but lives forever in “now” or “present” so that what we know as past and future because of our limitations is, for God, all present, then we can make the argument that God has knowledge of everything from mankind’s beginning to mankind’s end.

Your statement:
can lead one to believe Godis bound by time.
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Do you believe that God has changed His mind?
 
Old_Scholar said:
Do you believe that God has changed His mind?
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Interesting, as “God changing His mind” is not, strictly, “the subject” of this thread, as you pointed out to me. Apparently you are the only one who can determine what is and is not “subject” for thie thread.
As for your question, I do not; what we may perceive or express as a “change of mind” was God’s intent and goal from the beginnning.
 
cfrancis said:
Interesting, as “God changing His mind” is not, strictly, “the subject” of this thread, as you pointed out to me. Apparently you are the only one who can determine what is and is not “subject” for thie thread.
As for your question, I do not; what we may perceive or express as a “change of mind” was God’s intent and goal from the beginnning.
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Pehaps you didn’t read the first post where I asked specifically whether one believed God had changed His mind.

So you believe that God created Eden, knowing Adam and Eve would sin and He would have to throw them out of the garden.

Do you also believe God knew Cain would slay Abel and He would again have to expel him from his home?

If you believe these things then I suppose you don’t believe in “free will”?
 
Old_Scholar said:
Pehaps you didn’t read the first post where I asked specifically whether one believed God had changed His mind.
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I sit at my keyboard corrected. My apologies.
Old_Scholar said:
So you believe that God created Eden, knowing Adam and Eve would sin and He would have to throw them out of the garden.

Do you also believe God knew Cain would slay Abel and He would again have to expel him from his home?

If you believe these things then I suppose you don’t believe in “free will”?
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God’s omniscience and our free will are not in contradiction, opposition. Yes, I believe God knows all, from beginning to end - He is not bound by time - and yes, I believe we have free will.

In no way did Eve feel forced to eat of the fruit; she was not responding as a programmed robot. Neither was Adam forced or simply carrying out a program as he, too, ate of the apple.

Yes, God knew Able’s fate; Cain was not forced to kill Abel, nor was Cain simply carrying out a program.

Note Gen 4, as God speaks to Cain after denying his offering:
6 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?
7 “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
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God knows what will happen, as He states “sin is crouching at the door” to urge Cain to kill Abel; but His knowledge does not eliminate Cain’s responsibility, his duty: in this case, to attempt to master sin.
 
cfrancis said:
I sit at my keyboard corrected. My apologies.
God’s omniscience and our free will are not in contradiction, opposition. Yes, I believe God knows all, from beginning to end - He is not bound by time - and yes, I believe we have free will.

In no way did Eve feel forced to eat of the fruit; she was not responding as a programmed robot. Neither was Adam forced or simply carrying out a program as he, too, ate of the apple.

Yes, God knew Able’s fate; Cain was not forced to kill Abel, nor was Cain simply carrying out a program.

Note Gen 4, as God speaks to Cain after denying his offering:
God knows what will happen, as He states “sin is crouching at the door” to urge Cain to kill Abel; but His knowledge does not eliminate Cain’s responsibility, his duty: in this case, to attempt to master sin.
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So if Cain had mastered his sin would God have acted in the same way? Or did what God do depend on what Cain did?
 
Old_Scholar said:
So if Cain had mastered his sin would God have acted in the same way? Or did what God do depend on what Cain did?
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God already knew what Cain would do; His knowledge does not eliminate Cain’s responsibility.
God knew, and Cain had free will: God knew how Cain would exercise his free will.
 
Ordo Salutis:
  1. election, 2) predestination, 3) gospel call 4) inward call 5) regeneration, 6) conversion (faith & repentance), 7) justification, 8) sanctification, and 9) glorification. (Rom 8:29-30)
:tiphat:
 
cfrancis said:
God already knew what Cain would do; His knowledge does not eliminate Cain’s responsibility.
God knew, and Cain had free will: God knew how Cain would exercise his free will.
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**So you believe God knew Adam and Eve would sin, built the garden anyhow, then removed them and destroyed the garden; Knew Cain would slay Abel and would have to be moved into another country and marked for life, yet He allowed it all to happen…

I suppose He also knew the world would be so sinful He would have to destroy it with a flood; knew that even after that, Sodom and Gomorrah would turn bad and He would have to destroy it; knew the tower of Babel would be built and He would have to destroy it and disperse the people, confusing their language, etc…

Let me ask you this…do you ever read Scripture? Read the follow:**

Gen 6:5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6) And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. 7) And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. 8) But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

Why are we told “God saw there was wickedness of man”? Didn’t God know it would be that way? Why did it “repent” God and "grieve"Him at His heart?

Gen 11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. 8) So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

Why did God say “Let us go down there”? Wouldn’t He have just give them different language to begin with and scattered them abroad?

It’s easy to say God knows everything before we do it but Scripture seems to tell us otherwise. These are not the only references to God changing His mind. He did it more than once.
 
DD2007 said:
Ordo Salutis:
  1. election, 2) predestination, 3) gospel call 4) inward call 5) regeneration, 6) conversion (faith & repentance), 7) justification, 8) sanctification, and 9) glorification. (Rom 8:29-30)
:tiphat:
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In taking Paul’s writings out of context, you have eliminated the need for a Bible, church or preaching…There is no need, everything is already settled…Is that what you are saying?
 
We say God knows everything, and not ‘He knew everything in advance’, because, since God is outside of time, being Eternal, every moment for Him is in the present; all time is one to Him. So we don’t say ‘He knew’ or ‘He will know’, but rather, He knows.
 
Old_Scholar said:
**So you believe God knew Adam and Eve would sin, built the garden anyhow, then removed them and destroyed the garden; Knew Cain would slay Abel and would have to be moved into another country and marked for life, yet He allowed it all to happen…

I suppose He also knew the world would be so sinful He would have to destroy it with a flood; knew that even after that, Sodom and Gomorrah would turn bad and He would have to destroy it; knew the tower of Babel would be built and He would have to destroy it and disperse the people, confusing their language, etc…

Let me ask you this…do you ever read Scripture? Read the follow:**

Gen 6:5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6) And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. 7) And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. 8) But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

Why are we told “God saw there was wickedness of man”? Didn’t God know it would be that way? Why did it “repent” God and "grieve"Him at His heart?

Gen 11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. 8) So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

Why did God say “Let us go down there”? Wouldn’t He have just give them different language to begin with and scattered them abroad?

It’s easy to say God knows everything before we do it but Scripture seems to tell us otherwise. These are not the only references to God changing His mind. He did it more than once.
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Your Scripture references do not reveal that God changed His mind. What is does reveal is God’s sorrow for our choices… In each case you’ve presented, nothing is stated that reveals what happened was not as God knew would happen.

Is 46
9 Remember the former things, those of long ago;
I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me.
10 **I make known the end from the beginning,
from ancient times, what is still to come. **
I say: My purpose will stand,
and I will do all that I please.

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

These are but two passages that speak to God’s omniscience. And God’s omniscience does not negate our free will.

You appear to have issue with God doing God’s will in God’s time.

To reiterate Eucharisted’s comment above, God lives in an eternal “present” in which He “knows.” It is only the limits of our human reason that God’s Word, spoken and written, is given in language to which we can relate. Even aided by grace and divine revelation, our reason cannot fully grasp an eternal “present.”
 
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