You say that you can show it to be the case that man’s free will is not infringed upon by foreordination, but you’ve changed the wording in your answer. Maybe I can state it another way: are all your future decisions determined (predestinated)? If you answer yes, then they are already determined, and you could not do otherwise – you might think you are free, but you are not, since your decisions were predestinated before you were born. What I’d like to see is a clear answer as to how you can be free to choose in such circumstances. It isn’t freedom to be able to pick one path when only one is offered.

The following paragraph tells me you don’t understand what I’m saying about the Keilah incident (I assume you have read it, but this makes me unsure):

“Now remember that the same problem you pose against foreordination holds equally true for foreknowledge. If God forsees something, He knows it is going to happen. So really if God foresaw that the cat was going to pea on your right shoe, could the cat choose to pea on your left one?”

This entire line of reasoning assumes that if God foresees something it has to happen. This is absolutely DENIED in the Keilah incident. God foreknew what Saul would do when David asked, but when the circumstances changed (David leaves the city) the event does NOT happen. God foreknew something that did not happen — so foreknowledge is no proof or piece of data to argue predestination. There is no absolute linkage. I just don’t think you’ve grasped this point, and it’s critical, else you wouldn’t offer an argument like this.

Now remember that the same problem you pose against foreordination holds equally true for foreknowledge. If God forsees something, He knows it is going to happen. So really if God foresaw that the cat was going to pea on your right shoe, could the cat choose to pea on your left one? It is certain that it is going to happen because God saw it in the future and he knows it will happen, so the cat must not have any say in the matter, the cat is forced to pea on your right shoe by GOD. Is that even logical? That is just as ridiculous as any question you can muster in human terms. Outside the “evasive” Calvinist view you must deny BOTH the foreordination of God AND the foreknowledge of God to be consistent.

Grace be with you,
Chris

You do well pointing out stephen’s problem of not answering the question directly. Let me answer you in the same exact way that a classical Calvinist would: When God foreordains, he makes certain. This is different then forcing to occur, therefore, a classical Calvinist cannot and will not say that a person cannot choose something different then what God ordains. Rather they say that the human agents WILL choose whatever is foreordained by genuine human free will. This is why you must understand that God ordains details, because it is only by the influencing details that the ends come about.

For example, when I was searching for a seminary, God made clear his will for me by allowing acceptance only to one theological seminary, that this one seminary compensated for military, and that this one seminary had a superb DLP program where I could juggle family, job, and school most easily made my choice certain. Now I really wanted to go to Trinity Evangelical or Southeastern or even Westminster Theological Seminary, but my will was overruled by God’s and he made that clear by influencing me through the details and confirming this through His Spirit in prayer. Now could I have chosen against God’s foreordaination for me to be at Liberty? Yes and No, yes because I have genuine free will, but NO because the details made it so that I would have to alter my family life and my financial standing in order to do this and this would be completely illogical. And this is my whole point, God makes certain his plan, it is so certain that it is illogical to choose any other way than what he has ordained. AND when someone does choose the illogical choice, then it was God who allowed the man to go about his own free will. In a sense-God withholds his influencing, so that man chooses exactly what he wills to choose, even the illogical–like being a drunk or beating your wife–and since God allows it and does not influence the human agent in any way against these illogical choices–God ordains that there will be a time of drunkness and wife-beating in someone’s life, but this is due to the free choices of the wifebeater and not CAUSED by God just because he foreordained it by allowing man to have his own way for a time! Many times you have heard the stories of how God has used this time of sin in someone’s life to reach out and rescue others caught up in the same sin, or the sin may be used by God to open the man’s eyes to his absolute depravity and need for a Savior.

Grace be with you brother, I hope this answered your question, if not, it is not any deficiency in God’s sovereignty, but only in me.

Chris

Can you answer the question with this clarification?

If they could choose something different…
Perhaps they could have chosen something different but to their mind their was no alternative, even though “objectively” there was one or more alternatives, but their mind was either too narrow by nature, or blinded by an outsider(influenced) and so in no way is their “free will” violated but this is not to say that they are free… free from the flaws of their own being or the influence of others both of which are beyond the individuals choice and yet are binding on the choice.

If they could not have done otherwise, then they had no freedom of will – or you’d have to explain how “freedom” is defined as not being able to make this choice.

If they could choose something different, then how was the event fore-ordained? Something is fore-ordained but not sure?

I’d like answers to THESE questions without rabbit trails – since this seems to be the heart of the issue.

As you probably already figured out by now, I am going to say that I agree with you that your former argument does not bring any Glory to God. Actually, the way you have explained my view is the exact opposite of what the classical Calvinist argument is.

The classical Calvinist view is this: Foreordaining DOES NOT mean that God chooses something for someone else (so you cannot say that humans did not choose the sins that God allowed him to choose and therefore you cannot say that humans are not responsible for their sins!). God’s foreordaining means that he is truly omniscient and UNDERSTOOD and made certain the plan by which his creation would unfold, the beginning from the end, the ends and the means, the details and the powers that holds, directs, and completes his plan (without taking away imaging, obviously)—and ALL of this before he even spoke to move the waters at Genesis 1; that is foreordination. I think people have this unbiblical view of predestination because of fatalism and other worldly perversions.

Now how does my view glorify God?

My view: God Sovereignly creates the world, God lets man to his own will and allows him to fall into his own rebellion against God (we know God ordains this because he did not sovereignly prevent this, but allowed man to fall by his own lustful desires). However, through the creation–man knew God’s goodness, through the fall– man knew God’s justness and righteousness, through the covenants–man knew God’s holiness and faithfulness, through the redemption of mankind, man knew God’s grace through the man Jesus Christ! How amazing is his ways! Man gives God glory through each and every one of these understandings of who God is. Man deserved to die, each and every one of us, but God was so merciful and full of grace that he saved many of us–his children– and God is so just and righteous because he has endured with patience the wickedness of man for so long and he justly casts them into utter darkness.

My reply to you is this: Do you believe in a God that allows evil in order to overcome the results of man’s freedom!? Or do you believe in a God who allows evil in order to reveal himself fully to His people by the person Jesus Christ and therefore through his revelation of himself and his work in Christ bring about utter Glory that is all to the name of Christ and is able to be inherited by his people for the perfections of eternity? Make no mistake: God allows evil for the Supremacy of Christ. Man’s freedom is not infringed because of God’s absolute Sovereignty or his omniscience or his foreordination–this is a logical tension (God’s absolute sovereignty and man’s free agency) that is plain even in Scripture.

Grace be with you, I think a little study would show that foreordination does NOT necessitate an infringement on will–this is the logical chain that I opine needs to be broken on your end.

Chris