I was recently discussing foreknowledge with an Arminian friend, I agree with the historical reformed Calvinistic view. He sent me this site.
Whats everyone's take on this, though I am sure it comes as no surprise.

It seems Arminians have a library of resources to counteract reformed theology. How in the world do you show someone the truth, good grief, most will not even consider it.

Foreknowledge Defined | Society of Evangelical Arminians

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Name:Dennis
Church:Northfield Congregational Church, Member.
Location:Torrington, Ct. U.S.A.

"May our hearts be so exorcised by God's word as to give the Holy Spirit opportunity to perfect the new creation."

The devil has a quiver full of many arrows, but they cannot penetrate, harm, or deflect the truth of God.

No matter what, armour up and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for the victory over all kinds of sin and error, is already yours, by faith in Him. (Ephesians 6:11-18)

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Jim Rush
Elder, Church Of The Redeemer
Independent Reformed
California

TeachingTulip at:
http://TulipTheFlowerOfChristianity.lefora.com

At first blush it seems to me that God foreknowing a decision of libertarian free-will is contradictory. Either "foreknowledge" or "libertarian free-will" has to give way to the other. At least Pinnock is consistent.

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Lance G. Marshall
Pastor
Georgetown, Indiana

Pinnock is consistently wrong.

I just had a rather lively discussion with a good friend of mine who is an Arminian, and the point that he kept coming back to is the idea that if God chooses everything, that makes us puppets. I did my very best to show him that this is not the case. What was maddening is that he accepts the sovereignty of God and even the concept that there may be elect, but he says that such knowledge is not practical, and we would be better off if we focused on man's choices.

All we, as Reformed individuals, can do is put forth the biblical truth and pray. I think we all were arminians ourselves at one point before God graciously matured us, so we can't boast about being better.

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Ben Castaneda
member of Faith Presbyterian Church (PCA)
San Antonio, TX
MDiv student at WSC
Escondido, CA

"Not all prison bars are made from metal, And not all prisoners walk about in chains." -Lysander from Weatherby, Earl of Gloucester

There is no hope at all philosophically for those who wish to retain free will and omniscience. If God knows that S will do X in the future, then it is true that S will do X in the future, by the definition of knowledge. And if it presently true that S will do X, then S is incapable of changing that truth and therefore is "forced" to do X. Pinnock figured this out and unfortunately apostatized. Anyway, the best arguments I've heard that reconcile omniscience with free will are the following:

(1) Just as a friend can know what we will do in a situation without impinging on our freedom, so God can know. But this fails because the friend's knowledge is not infallible; i.e. the friend cannot truly know what you will do. And if he did know infallibly, then it would be the case that you did not do so freely.

(2) God is outside time, and therefore to speak of God's knowing "future" events is nonsense. But this fails because God clearly has an understanding of time, as shown pervasively throughout the Bible with His covenantal interacting with His people. Or, in other words, that God is outside time does not mean that God cannot comprehend time.

Of course, the easiest way to disprove Arminianism is with Scripture. If only it were as easy to break through people's hearts; hence, prayer is paramount.

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Ben Maas. . . . .Facebook
In college, attending First Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), Ada, OH, and
Belle Center Reformed Presbyterian Church (RPCNA), Belle Center, OH
When at home, attending Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC), Mansfield, OH

“Prayer is as natural an expression of faith as breathing is of life.”
-Jonathan Edwards-

Thanks for all the replies.

Consistently wrong is still logical consistency.

Well there's no denying it; when you're right, you're not wrong!

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Bob, elder, RBC Louisville. 1689 LBCF

"... Of such also, or of those who make a credible profession of being such, all those particular churches consist, which constitute our Lord's visible kingdom. ... Consequently, all the subjects of His government must have spiritual dispositions, , and yield spiritual obedience- obedience proceeding from an enlightened understanding, an awakened conscience, and a renewed heart."- Abraham Booth 1788

Well, a consistent argument isn't necessarily true. Pinnock may be wrong, but he isn't trying to combine contradictions like the Arminians are. I have used Pinnock to drive Arminians to the wall.

Heh . . .

But is error ever logical?

Never. But it can be consistent!

Thank goodness most Arminians aren't consistent.

Error can be logically consistent.

We don't think so . . .at some point the truth will break down the erroneous argument.

Thus the teaching and admonition of Ephesians 6:11-18.

I think you are confusing the idea of error and consistency. Consistency is maintaining the error through all arguments. Hence the error is logically consistent.

Error, when followed logically, will come to a point where it clearly conflicts with Scripture. However, that alone doesn't prevent it from being internally consistent.

We have never debated an erroneous view, that did not have to change or at least equivocate upon its original premise, when confronted with the absolute and Scriptural truths of God.

It is the nature of the lying beast, to change its colors, as needs be . . .

Obviously we aren't talking about the same thing.

That's what I was thinking. I had no idea how people could talk about errors and logical consistency that much without already arriving at a conclusion.

Lance is correct. Logic, i.e. Aristotelian logic need only yield a valid conclusion to its major and minor premises. If you wish to press the mind of the Arminian you shall have to help him see that at least one of his premises cannot stand.

We thought we were talking about the false teaching Pinnock (as example) represents. Right?

Pinnock does not sustain logical consistency, when confronted with the Holy Scripture and the true gospel of grace.

His erroneous premises break down under the weight of truth.

We agree with that. We were simply saying that he is consistent with his own (false) premises.

Look closely, I was not commenting on the truth-value of his premises or his conclusions. I was making the point that Pinnock rejects the omniscience of God thereby giving libertarian free-will free reign. He does not appeal to omniscience in any of his arguments. He is consistent in that, wrong, but consistent. The Arminian's inconsistency (contradiction) is at one moment he appeals to divine omniscience and at the next moment he denies omniscience when he appeals to libertarian free-will.

Until his premises collapse from being proven illogical.

We can prove his premises inconsistent with Scripture, but they not themselves illogical.

The Holy Scriptures are the product of "Logos;" thus we contend any philosophy or human thought that departs from Holy Scripture, cannot prove to be consistently logical, for any length of time.

An erroneous premise may provide a long-lasting argument, that appears logical, but eventually it will prove to be only temporal and illogical in the light of Godly truth.

An argument can be valid and consistent without the conclusion necessarily being true.

So how does this bleak assessment help to answer the question of the OP?

I'm afraid it doesn't. This was all a rabbit trail off the comment that Pinnock was consistent with his false premises.

Return to my post in #3. The Arminian attempt to hold to both divine omniscience and libertarian free-will is both inconsistent and contradictory.

As in:

1. All who trust in a false gospel are lost
2. All Arminians are trusting in a false gospel
3. All Arminians are lost

This logical argument is consistent and its conclusion is valid. However its conclusion is false. The point of breakdown is in the second premise. Not all Arminians are trusting in a false gospel. Remember, Arminians hold to numerous self-conflicting propositions.

Praise God for blessed inconsistency!

Jim, I appreciate you and your interaction. I want to assure you that none of us believe Pinnock is correct.

My favorite Pinnock quote:

“Your work has gotten me interested in knowing more about the 'Mormon/evangelical dialogue,' how to measure it and even how to bridge it. Are we (in your opinion) co-belligerents as it were in the struggle against pagan influences in classical theism? Can we benefit each other? My sense is that we are closer to each other than process theists are to either of us. . . . Clearly we have much in common. I have always hoped with respect to your faith that Mormon thinking might draw closer to Christian thinking (or ours to yours) and not drift farther away.”

I'm just sayin'. Sigh

-----Added 6/23/2009 at 03:25:01 EST-----

The usual misunderstanding proceeds along these lines:

Necessity of a hypothetical inference...
If God foreknew Peter would sin, then Peter cannot refrain from sinning. (Incorrect)

The interpretation above wrongly interprets God's foreknowledge as impinging upon Peter's moral free agency. The proper understanding is:

The necessity of the consequent of the hypothetical...
Necessarily, if God foreknew Peter would sin, then Peter does not refrain from sinning. (Correct)

In other words, the actions of moral free agents do not take place because they are foreseen, the actions are foreseen because the actions are certain to take place.

Freedom of course defined as the choosing of one's most desired inclinations at the moment of one's choosing: the liberty of spontaneity versus the Arminian's liberty of indifference (libertarian free will).

AMR

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Patrick
Member, PCA
Chandler, AZ
ReformedTheologyInstitute.com

I fear explanations explanatory of things explained.

Yes! We so often forget that "God graciously matured us!"

Which means:
1) We need to be kind and gentle with others as God is maturing them and
2) We will alway need more maturing for ourselves.

-----Added 6/23/2009 at 06:43:07 EST-----

The faith that God's foresees is the faith He himself creates.

God foreknows who will believe, because it is He who generates the faith to believe. - from John Murray

Anyone have a word study of fore-knowledge and fore-know that they could post. Or articles examining the meaning of foreknowledge. I have a friend looking for such a rsource.

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Pergamum


"If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?"
-- David Livingstone

Arminians have no better response to the pointlessness of grief than that they are confident God can overrule man's designs because he is wiser and more powerful. And yet they believe that God will stop at some point. He will not move beyond point-X to change a situation, even to respond to a prayer. Not if it will "violate" that precious free-will of some man.

Ironic that many Arminians (all?) will say that man has no "free-will-choice" to stay or leave heaven. More consistent Arminians will say that man can (and many do) lose their salvation in this life. But in the state of glory and ideal conditions, man has "less" free will than now? Or shall they affirm that there could be another massive rebellion in heaven? Why not?--it happened once before. How do they square the impossibility of falling with perfect free-will?

At some point, everyone must impose rational limits on "free-will." Whose will, God's or man's, is ultimate? How and when are the choices available restricted? How can we make sense of the world--that was, that is, and that will be? Calvinism doesn't need to redefine "freedom" under every new paradigm.


Rather than seeing us as "puppets" (a very poor analogy, and intended to insult), let us rejoice (even when the Arminian does not) in the fact that God has "written our script" in the drama that he wrote, before time began.

We have no sense whatever of reading that script. All our actions flow with freedom and self-intention from our wills. Which makes us responsible moral actors.

This is the difference between the way in which God can determine things as God, and our puny efforts at creating drama. WE would have to put a marionette on strings. WE would have to give a man a script, and he would have to memorize it, and perhaps he would even improvise when he acted it out, thus limiting our directorial authority.

God, however, suffers not a word of improvisation, or directorial laxity. Nor did he achieve some "semblance" of sovereign direction by watching what we would do in the future, and then "writing the script." And yet, we actors have no sense of script or direction. We behave entirely as though the entire drama were an "Improv", and ourselves the incomparably skilled actors.

Only God has the power to so organize and arrange, script and direct. This is ultimate Sovereignty--to be able to exercise infinitesimal sovereign predestination, indeed to "write the script" down to the hairs that fall from each scalp, and to do so in the most "natural" of ways. To succeed in ordaining even the free acts of men. To have all things fall out according to the nature of second causes: either necessarily, freely, or contingently (WCF 5.2).

This is how great God is. The world is NOT ultimately our "improvisation." And we should be GLAD (!) that it is not. Not one "tragedy" is meaningless in GOD's drama. Not one tear falls that God must react to offer a solution, if he can find it, if men will only take it.

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Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


When posting friends, kindly bear those words of earthly wisdom in mind:
Oh, that God the gift would give us
To see ourselves as others see us.
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Here's Pink's chapter from the "Attributes of God"

4. The Foreknowledge of God

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Will
Christ Church (ARP)
Denver, NC

www.timelesschristianbooks.com

Forgive my thick headedness, but if one starts with axioms that do not match the Bible, then one will not find faith ... but that does not mean that one will be logically inconsistent. Logic does not require correctness, or even usefulness. Logic is simply a set of rules that are followed in order to draw conclusions from a set of undefined terms, axioms, and defined terms. If you follow the rules of logic within the system of axioms with which you start, you are being logical. Of course you won't live that way if the axioms are contrary to the word of God.

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Brian Withnell
Deacon, OPC
Leesburg, Virginia

You cannot train for war in the midst of a battle. Prepare before the battle starts; if the battle is long and hard, you will wish you had.

The word "foreknowledge" in 1 Peter 1:2 does not simply mean "knowing what will happen in the future." God is simply looking down the corridors of time and seeing what will happen in the future. The word "foreknowledge" has to do with a predetermined relationship or with a predetermined choice. It is like going up to a woman and saying, "You are going to be my wife."

1 Peter 1:20 says that Jesus was foreknown before the foundation of the world. When God foreknew Christ, this does not simply mean that God knows what Jesus will do in the future. It has to do with His intimacy and affection for His Son.

-----Added 6/23/2009 at 01:06:52 EST-----

For those who wish to retain free will and omniscience, the term "free will" has to be redefined to mean "act according to one's desires." It is impossible to do something that is contrary to what God knows you will do in the future.
You can only do what God knows you will do in the future. There cannot be freedom in the libertarian sense.

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Curt Hayashida
member, Community Bible Church (Non-denominational)
Vallejo, CA