THE SYNERGISTIC ABSURDITY OF �FORSEEN FAITH� - REFUTED!
Posted : 5 Sep, 2013 12:04 PM
Many Synergists argue that God�s decree is based on His foreknowledge. In other words concerning the salvation of men, they say God decrees and foreordains certain men BECAUSE He looks into the future and sees that they will accept and believe in Christ of their own �fee-will�!
This is an error that must be challenged and refuted! Consider the following verse -
�When He made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder: THEN DID HE SEE IT, AND DECLARE IT; He prepared it, yea, and searched it out�! [Job 28:26,27]
Take a look at the verse above and carefully consider what it says! Concerning the lightning which appears to strike so randomly, it is written that God first MADE A DECREE FOR IT as to what its path should be, and THEN he sees it and declares it!
Dr. Warfield has well written: "It was not ACCIDENT that brought Rebecca to the well to welcome Abraham's servant (Genesis 24), or that sent Joseph into Egypt (Genesis 45:8; 50:20,. 'God meant it for good'), or guided Pharaoh's daughter to the ark among the flags (Exodus 2), or that, later, directed the millstone that crushed Abimelech's head (Judges 9:53), or winged the arrow shot at a venture to smite the king in the joints of the armour (1 Kings 22:34). EVERY historical event is rather treated as an item in the orderly carrying out of an UNDERLYING DIVINE PURPOSE; and the historian is continually aware of the presence in history of Him who gives even to the lightning a charge to strike the mark (Job 36:32)."
�The divine decree is the necessary condition of divine foreknowledge. If God does not first decide what shall come to pass, he cannot know what will come to pass. An event must be made certain before it can be known as a certain event. In order that a man may foreknow an act of his own will, he must first have decided to perform it. So long as he is undecided about a particular volition, he cannot foreknow this volition. Unless God had determined to create a world, he could not know that there would be one. For the world cannot create itself, and there is but one being who can create it. If therefore this being has not decided to create a world, there is no certainty that a world will come into existence; and if there is no certainty of a world, there can be no certain foreknowledge of a world.
So long as anything remains undecreed, it is contingent and fortuitous. It may or may not happen. In this state of things, there cannot be knowledge of any kind. If a man had the power to cause an eclipse of the sun and had decided to do this, he could then foreknow that the event would occur. But if he lacks the power or, if having the power, he has not formed the purpose, he can have no knowledge of any kind respecting the imagined event. He has neither knowledge nor foreknowledge because there is nothing to be known. Blank ignorance is the mental condition.
The divine decree is unconditional or absolute. This means that its execution does not depend upon anything that has not itself been decreed. The divine decree may require means or conditions in order to its execution, but these means or conditions are included in the decree. For illustration, God decreed the redemption of sinners through the death of Jesus Christ. If he had not also decreed the manner of that death the time of its occurrence and the particular persons who were to bring it about, but had left all these means of attaining the end he had proposed to an undecreed act of man that was uncertain for himself, then the success of his purpose of redemption would have depended upon other beings than himself and upon other wills than His own.
Consequently, His decree of redemption included the means as well as the end, and Jesus Christ was �by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God taken and by wicked hands crucified and slain�(Acts 2:23). Again, God decrees the salvation of a particular sinner. One of the means or conditions of salvation is faith in Christ�s atonement. This faith is decreed: �Elected unto sprinkling of the blood of Christ� (1 Pet. 1:1); �the faith of God�s elect� (Titus 1:1); �faith is the gift of God� (Eph. 2:8). But if faith depends upon the undecreed action of the sinner�s will, divine predestination to faith is dependent for success upon the sinner�s uncertain action and is conditioned by it. The means to the decreed end, in this case, are left outside of the decree. The same remark applies to prayer as a means of obtaining a decreed end, like the forgiveness of sins. If the forgiveness of his sins has been decreed to a person, his prayer for forgiveness has also been decreed!
It is to be carefully observed that foreknowledge in the Hebraistic sense of election means a foreknowledge of the PERSON simply, not of the ACTIONS of the person. �Whom He foreknew� (Rom. 8:29) does not mean �whose ACTS he foreknew,� but �whose PERSON He foreknew.� It signifies that God fixes His eye upon a particular sinful man and selects him as an individual to be predestinated to holiness in effectual calling. This is proved by the remainder of the verse: �Whom He foreknew, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son�. The holy actions of the elect are the EFFECT, not the CAUSE, of their being foreknown and predestinated. In 1 Pet. 1:2 believers are �elected unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Christ�, that is, unto justification and sanctification.
In 2 Tim. 1:9 �God has called us, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began�, and certainly, therefore, before any obedience, either partial or total, could be rendered to be the ground of the calling. In Rom. 11:2 St. Paul affirms that �God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew�. It would be nonsense even to suppose that God has cast away a people whom He foreknew would keep his commandments. This, therefore, cannot be the sense.
THE GROUND OF PREDESTINATION IS GOD�S FOREKNOWLEDGE; AND THIS FOREKNOWLEDGE IS NOT A FORESIGHT THAT A PARTICULAR INDIVIDUAL WILL BELIEVE AND REPENT, BUT A SIMPLE PRERECOGNITION OF HIM AS A PERSON TO WHOM GOD IN HIS SOVEREIGN MERCY HAS DETERMINED TO �GIVE REPENTANCE� (2 Tim. 2:25) and faith, since �faith is the gift of God� (Eph. 2:8) and since �as many as were ordained to eternal life believed� (Acts 13:48). In making the choice, God acts �according to the good pleasure of His will� (Eph. 1:5) and not according to any good action of the creature, so �that the purpose of God according to election might stand not of works, but of Him that calls� (Rom. 9:11).
[The above last paragraphs are quoted from William G.T. Shedd�s �The Divine Decrees�]
THE SYNERGISTIC ABSURDITY OF �FORSEEN FAITH� - REFUTED!
Posted : 6 Sep, 2013 11:30 PM
God made Peter deny Christ? God is ultimate cause of all things. He works all things after the counsel of his own will: Eph 1:11b
Did God make the Jews kill Jesus? God is ultimate cause of all things. "Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." Acts 2:22-23
Why doesn't God just raise up children of Abraham from stones? He has - the stones spoken of there are Gentiles. God has indeed raised up children of Abraham from the Gentiles. These are children of Abraham's according to the seed of Abraham's faith and not the seed of Abraham's flesh.
THE SYNERGISTIC ABSURDITY OF �FORSEEN FAITH� - REFUTED!
Posted : 7 Sep, 2013 12:26 PM
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THE SYNERGISTIC ABSURDITY OF �FORSEEN FAITH� - REFUTED!
Posted : Posted : 6 Sep, 2013 10:33 AM
I wonder why you like to pick on Peter so much Mark.
At any rate, we all do what God has purposed (predestined) for us to do. It does not come as some kind of surprise to God. He's not wondering what we will do -- He knows exactly what we will do and not because He gazes into His crystal ball to see it but specifically because he has determined it before we are created.
No Peter did what Satan wanted him to, and Jesus even warned him of it. Could he of resisted it, yes but he gave place to Satan's, Will and that was not preplanned of the father, it was preplanned of Satan. HE WAS TEMPTED AND FELL, BUT HE GOT UP, TAKE NOTICE OF THE SAME PETER ON THE DAY OF PENTECOST, THE FIRST ALTER CALL, PUBLIC i MIGHT ADD AND THREE THOUSAND WHERE SAVED, WHAT HAPPENED FROM THE DENIAL THE THREE THOUSAND BORN AGAIN.
If I say, next Sunday at noon i will be at the Denver Bronco game, is that because I look out into the future and see myself sitting there? Or because I bought tickets and have purposed to attend the game next Sunday? A crude example
Now, in human terms we must add "God willing" because though we determine what and when we will do something, God is the one who controls our outcomes. We are not Sovereign.
THE SYNERGISTIC ABSURDITY OF �FORSEEN FAITH� - REFUTED!
Posted : 7 Sep, 2013 09:00 PM
"No Peter did what Satan wanted him to, and Jesus even warned him of it. Could he of resisted it, yes but he gave place to Satan's, Will and that was not preplanned of the father, it was preplanned of Satan"
