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To: OrthodoxPresbyterian
There's a logically-antecedent factor in Foreknowledge which you aren't even considering -- God's perfect foreknowledge of the different outcomes (including different Choices) which will result from different exercises of Omnipotence on His part.

Actually, I had considered that. I still fail to see how this proves that foreknowledge is causative in and of itself. Does God's foreknowledge cause events to be? If so, then how can God's foreknowledge include possibilities as well as actualities? It can't, because if foreknowledge=causation, then if God foreknows multiple reactions, they are all actual realities, and not potential realities, yet we all know of only one actual reality.

Since the different outcomes foreknown by this antecedent Prescience (God's pre-creative Foreknowledge of all Creative potentialities) include different choices of men made in logically dependent response to different elections of Divine action (see #5), we must correctly state that the Election of God pre-determines what the Decisions of Man SHALL BE.

See my #8 on the Objections thread. God's choices determined man's responses, yet man's responses were contingent upon God's acts, not necessarily effected by them.

9 posted on 11/16/2002 3:16:36 PM PST by The Grammarian
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To: The Grammarian; RnMomof7; the_doc
Actually, I had considered that. I still fail to see how this proves that foreknowledge is causative in and of itself. Does God's foreknowledge cause events to be?

No, God's creative Election of Divine Action, amongst different Foreknown Potentialities of Divine Action, causes Events to be.

You would agree that, prior to Creation, God foreknows all the differing potentialities of Divine Action available to the Power of His Omnipotence, and all the differing logically-dependent, subsequent, and contingent Events encompassed in each (including the differing Choices which Men will make in logically-dependent response to differing Elections of Divine Action), wouldn't you?

Therefore, since the different outcomes foreknown by this antecedent Prescience (God's pre-creative Foreknowledge of all Creative potentialities) include different choices of men made in logically-dependent response to different elections of Divine action (see #5), we must correctly state that the Election of God pre-determines what the Decisions of Man SHALL BE.

If so, then how can God's foreknowledge include possibilities as well as actualities?

Of course God's foreknowledge includes Possibilities. Read your Bible.

Prior to Creation, God foreknows all the differing potentialities of Divine Action available to the Power of His Omnipotence, and all the differing logically-dependent, subsequent, and contingent Events encompassed in each.

Since the different outcomes foreknown by this antecedent Prescience (God's pre-creative Foreknowledge of all Creative potentialities) include different choices of men made in logically-dependent response to different elections of Divine action (see #5), we must correctly state that the Election of God pre-determines what the Decisions of Man SHALL BE.

It can't, because if foreknowledge=causation, then if God foreknows multiple reactions, they are all actual realities, and not potential realities, yet we all know of only one actual reality.

No, you have it wrong.

Here, think of it this way:

By this consideration, we see that the Non-Repentance of the Men of Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom become Actualities in the Divine Mind only as a result of God's precedent Elections -- at least two precedent Elections in particular:

Since the different outcomes foreknown by this antecedent Prescience (God's pre-creative Foreknowledge of all Creative potentialities) include different choices of men made in logically-dependent response to different elections of Divine action (see #5), we must correctly state that the Election of God pre-determines what the Decisions of Man SHALL BE.

Think it through, Gram. It's not really that difficult.

16 posted on 11/16/2002 11:00:48 PM PST by OrthodoxPresbyterian
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