Free Republic

Fourteen years ago November, God answered my wife's prayer in an unusual manner. I had been laid off from my job after 19 years. We had been hit by Hurricane Wilma. Our power was still out after two weeks. My wife and I had decided to sell the house and move to New Mexico. We had lived our whole lives in South Florida and moving over 2000 miles away from friends and family was going to be difficult. As was her custom, when faced with a big decision, my wife turned to prayer. She asked God for clarity. God answered...

A friend sent me this essay. It quickly hit home with me — see if it does with you. Satan called a worldwide convention. In his opening address to his demons, he said, “We can’t keep the Christians from going to church. We can’t keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth. We can’t even keep them from biblical values. But we can do something else. We can keep them from forming an intimate, continual experience with Christ.“If they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken. So let them go to church, let them...

"People ask me, 'Why pray if God is sovereign?' I respond, 'Why pray if He isn't?" -- Michael Horton As I have reflected on my prayer and devotional life and this statement, I am reminded that it isn't that we "should" pray -- as in a duty -- but we "must" pray -- as in a relationship. You and I can no more attempt to live this thing called the Christian life without prayer than we can live each second and day without breath. I have jotted down several faith lessons the Lord has reminded recently from the Scripture concerning...

Greetings, I have been listening to and reading a lot of your material over the last year, and have been learning a lot - not least from the Defenders podcast. I've been searching in your material for the answer to a specific question, but haven't found it - and therefore I write you now. I'm trying to sort out the matter of free will and God's foreknowledge, and I've come to understand that there is no contradiction between God's foreknowing a free choice, and that choice being truly free. Foreknowing doesn't equal determining. But - here is my question: How?...

070.000.000       Torrey: p32THE OMNISCIENCE OF GOD 070.010.000       Torrey: p32, T:ITopic 10:   The fact that God is omniscient.070.010.010       Torrey: p32, T:I, P:1POINT 10:   God knows everything. He is perfect in knowledge. His understanding is infinite.      1 John 3:19-20 [19] This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence [20] whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.      Job 37:16 Do you know how the clouds hang poised, those wonders of him who is perfect in knowledge?      Psalms 147:5 Great is our Lord and mighty...

A Response to John Piper by Dr. Gregory A Boyd(Professor at Bethel College, Preaching Pastor at Woodland Hills Church) In what follows I shall respond to a recent packet of essays which were written and distributed by Rev. John Piper regarding my theological views. On the whole I commend John for the fairness and accuracy with which he presented his case against me. But I believe a few words of rebuttal and clarification are needed to fill out the picture of what I believe and of what this debate is about.John's essays do not contain page numbers so I shall...

MOLINA, ARMINIUS, PLAIFERE, GOAD, AND WESLEY ON HUMAN FREE-WILL, DIVINE OMNISCIENCE, AND MIDDLE KNOWLEDGE by Barry E. Bryant Upon first glance the title of this paper contains a strange mix of individuals, one or two of whom are perhaps more obscure than the others. What each has in common with the others is a vested interest in the issue of free-will. What they also have in common is the realization that arising from the doctrine of free-will is the paradox of omniscience. The paradox of omniscience acknowledges that, while free-will relocates the responsibility of evil from Creator to creature, it...

Middle Knowledge: Foreknowledge and Foreordination. Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." John 4:10 (NIV) Object to Person The most common way for humans to acquire knowledge is to study external objects. The objects that surround us in the universe are the sources of this type of knowledge. In fact, this is the normal way we learn and acquire knowledge. Humans are not born with a storehouse of knowledge, so we have to acquire...