Freedom and Foreknowledge
Freedom and Foreknowledge
I know what I think but what about you?
What is free will?
By God's foreordination (including foreordination
unto salvation,
predestination) we mean that God foreordains all that is to come to pass according to His eternal plan. God's ultimate plan is that His will shall be glorified. But note that I have just defined foreordination using the word "foreordains". That is not quite helpful is it? So let's be more precise and define
foreordination without using the word itself. By
foreordination, I mean
that God predisposes all that is to come to pass and the conditions in such a manner that all shall come to pass according to God's eternal plan. These events may come to pass via the free actions of moral agents (both saved and lost) or via God's causative acts.
By God's
foreknowledge, I mean
God knows always and at all times everything which is to come to pass. Why does God know this? God foreknows what is to come to pass because God has prearranged the happening of what is to come to pass. Thus we say that
God foreknows because He has foreordained. The
ground of God's foreknowledge is in His
ordaining. This last statement makes sense when we observe that when we say, “I know what I am going to do,” it is evident that we have already determined to do so, and that our knowledge does not precede our determination, but follows the determining and is based upon the determining. To admit foreknowledge carries foreordination with it.
The Scriptures speak of God’s perfect knowledge: Job 37:16,
that He looks into man’s hearts, 1 Samuel 2:3; 1 Samuel 16:7; 1 Chronicles 28:9; 1 Chronicles 28:17; Ps. 139:1-4; Jeremiah 17:10,
that God observes our ways, Deuteronomy 2:7; Job 23:10, Job 24:23, Job 31:4; Psalms 1:6; Psalms 94:9-11; Psalms 104:24; Psalms 119:168, Psalms 139:1-4; Psalms 139:15-16,
that God knows the place of their habitation, Psalms 33:13,
and the days of our lives, Psalms 37:18, Proverbs 8:22-23; Proverbs 8:27-30; Proverbs 15:3; Isaiah 40:13-14; Isaiah 40:27-28; Isaiah 41:22-23; Isaiah 41:25-27; Isaiah 42:8-9; Isaiah 43:11-12; Isaiah 44:7-8; Isaiah 44:24-28; Isaiah 45:18-21; Isaiah 46:10-11; Isaiah 48:3-7; Romans 11:33-36; Romans 16:27; Hebrews 4:13; 1 John 3:20.
Foreknowledge is
beforehand only to God’s creatures; to God it is simply
knowledge.
The above is important because I have witnessed how many confuse the terms and concepts behind them.
Foreknowledge presupposes foreordination, but foreknowledge is not itself foreordination. Misunderstandings of these terms have led the uninformed to claim that the related Reformed doctrines are fatalistic.
From these misunderstandings, we see incorrect statements such as the following:
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. That God foreknows does not mean God's
foreknowledge is the
cause of one's actions. Rather, the causes of one's actions rests within their own inclinations which arise from circumstances, experience, instincts, emotions, knowledge, etc. Nevertheless, these very inclinations are not beyond the sovereignty of God, who directs them antecedently via
necessary,
secondary, and
contingent (to us) means. In other words, God has ordained the free will of the creature and brings about all that He has ordained
without doing any violence to their will.
It is important to keep in mind the distinction between the
decree of God and
the execution of His decree. God decrees
unconditionally all things which shall come to pass. But...the
execution of the decree includes
conditions that have been decreed by God by which things will come to pass. Accordingly, we should not simply speak of what God
intends when we refer to the execution of His decree. We must include
the conditions involved in the execution of the decree.
For example, there is a condition of human moral agency by which sin came into the world. Human nature fully and freely chooses its own course, so that the fall into sin by Adam was the genuine choice of Adam. We must never say the fall was simply as God intended it, therefore it happened. We are obliged to take into account the
condition of free agency and full accountability by which this came to pass.
Herein lies common objections by some who will claim that since God has ordained all our free choices, we are not
free (whatever that means). Yet these claims ignore that God has ordained the
liberty of spontaneity of the creature as defined above. The complaints about this are more related to exactly
how God pulls off His sovereignty and man's freedom. God has not revealed
how He does so within Scripture, so speculating about the matter is usually where much divisiveness arises. I rest comfortably in the fact that God who can merely speak and create the entire universe is capable of being wholly sovereign and also holding man responsible.
Free will is simply
the ability to chooses according to one's greatest inclinations at the moment one so chooses. This is the
liberty of spontaneity, versus the
liberty of indifference (libertarian free will) claimed by others, that is the ability to choose other than what one would actually choose.
The mind’s desire always precedes the mind’s choosing. This is precisely why
libertarian free-will is impossible. Libertarian free will alleges a choice that is bereft of desire or want. People just choose because they
can, rather than because they
want. But if that were the case, either no choice would ever be made (no desire would win the contest) or the decision would be completely random, arbitrary and thus have no moral consequence. Even American jurisprudence assumes a
motive in a given crime, barring rank insanity. Yet if libertarian free-will is true, determining motive is a fool's errand. Why? Because desire is not linked in any way to choice. (Of course, those with common sense know better.)
A more detailed account of the above and related matters can be found in this debate:
http://theologyonline.com/showthrea...vinist-s-Response-(Ask-Mr-Religion-vs-Enyart)
In particular, see this:
http://theologyonline.com/showthrea...n-vs-Enyart)&p=1535835&viewfull=1#post1535835
AMR
