I asked, “Wouldn’t “predestination” simply mean that God knows, as in God is Omniscient?”
I think it is logical to think that God’s knowledge is tied up with predestination and I also think it is Biblical given that St Paul says that those who He foreknew He also predestined. But this affirmation does not overthrow the clearly Biblical assertion that man is also free. The Bible holds both truths in tension and I think we confess them both even if we don’t understand exactly how that could be.
Do you think that how “predestination” is spoken of in the bible that this could be something to point to concerning the claim of God being Omniscient?
This seems to be what you are saying, is it
Of course we worship a God who knows the sparrows and the hairs on our heads so of course, however I think it also helpful to remember what St Thomas Aquinas said in that we cannot conceive of any attribute of God that overthrows any other attribute of God. This is the mistake the Calvinists make, they insist on the holiness of justice of God being His defining characteristics and set aside man’s freedom and God’s love in favor of a simplified construct that fits neatly into logical categories. But we cannot do that and remain faithful to the God of the Bible because the Bible does not do that.
besides this pointing to God being Omniscient, couldn’t this also point to God having some kind of preconceived Plan?
In other words, that God is not just winging it but that God has a Plan and has had a Plan since before creation and that God becoming One of us is not just a part of God’s Plan but the pivotal point of God’s Plan.
Of course God has a plan, and part of that plan is man’s freedom to choose. So when God tells Adam to not eat the fruit of knowledge of good and evil He seriously means don’t eat it. The Calvinists and Lutherans to a lesser extent fudge on God’s seriousness when the Bible declares something happens other than what God commands or what God says will happen (such as when God tells Moses that He will destroy the people and Moses intercedes and God appears to change His mind).
Does the omniscient God know that Adam will fall even though it is against His will and He could have prevented it, yes of course. So is it therefore God’s will that Adam should fall and so Adam is off the hook morally? No of course not. Because God also willed Adam to be free. Free to choose, free to fail, and in that freedom comes the certain knowledge of Adam’s rebellion and God’s certain plan of redemption thus you have John telling us in the Apocalypse that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world.
We have no logical categories for this to fit in and so many protestant groups will try to erase this verse or that verse to make the Bible say other than it does. But the Church has long held that we are to believe and hold with the tension that Scripture teaches which is why Pelagius, Jansen, Gottscalc, Luther, Calvin, and Cassianus were all condemned because they try everything to make the God of Scripture somehow a little less than what the Bible declares Him to be and so more acceptable to to human understanding.
But what does Scripture say most clearly about God, that He is not a man nor is He like a man. Remember we are made in His image, and so yes we confess His omniscience, that he has foreknowledge and a plan and the saints are predestined to salvation, and man is free and whether or not he is saved will be based on his own choices and how he responds to grace.
God Bless
