Honest struggles on God’s omniscience.

[Derf]

No, I'm not AI.

The ideas come from my own work and study, particularly around grief, identity, suffering, and Christian anthropology. The Fossett Framework is a model I've been developing to explore how relational rupture affects human identity and meaning-making.

That said, I understand why you asked. The internet is full of AI-generated content right now, and highly structured writing can sometimes read that way.

I'm less interested in whether the writing sounds like AI and more interested in whether the argument itself is worth discussing. If you disagree with any part of it, I'd be interested in hearing where.

Ok. The other reason is that I had difficulty seeing how your post was relevant to the thread topic. Maybe you can give a short description of your thoughts on the topic. (It's been awhile since I wrote my question to you, and I don't remember what you were getting at, just my initial impression.)

Iow, what does all that you wrote mean in terms of God's omniscience?

 

[JudgeRightly]

That's not how I understand the Gospel, nor our father Abraham (Romans 4:1, 4:12, 4:16). 1st Peter 1:20 God knew He was going to offer His only begotten Son before creation, this was the POINT of Abraham's test, so that God could preach the Gospel to our father Abraham (Acts 3:25, Galatians 3:8). The content of the Gospel, "a lamb without blemish and without spot" "was foreordained before the foundation of the world". But the preaching of the Gospel was to Abraham, "our father" because of his faith. So Abraham was integral to the Gospel from before the foundation of the World.

You are conflating two different things.

I have no problem with God foreordaining Christ as the Lamb before the foundation of the world. I have no problem with God promising blessing through Abraham’s seed. I have no problem with Genesis 22 preaching the gospel typologically through Isaac, the ram, and the provision of a substitute.

But none of that says God exhaustively foreknew Abraham’s obedience before the test.

1 Peter 1:20 says Christ was foreordained before the foundation of the world. It does not say Abraham’s individual free choice in Genesis 22 was already settled before Abraham made it. Galatians 3:8 says the gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” It does not say Abraham’s obedience on Moriah was exhaustively foreknown before God tested him.

Abraham was the man God chose and used, and once God made promises to Abraham, God was faithful to those promises. But that does not mean Abraham was metaphysically necessary to the gospel from before creation, nor does it mean God would have been trapped if Abraham had refused or failed. God can judge, redirect, preserve the promised line, raise the dead, or otherwise keep His word without Abraham’s obedience being exhaustively foreknown and fixed before the test.

So yes, Abraham is central to the promises concerning the seed. Yes, Genesis 22 is typological. Yes, God intended to provide the Lamb.

But Genesis 22 still says God tested Abraham, Abraham obeyed, and then God said:

“Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”​

And the passage does not stop there. God then says, “By Myself I have sworn... because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son,” and again, “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice” (Genesis 22:16–18). That is the language of response, not the language of a merely staged event whose outcome was already exhaustively settled before Abraham obeyed.

The typology does not erase the test. The promise does not erase the contingency. Christ being foreordained does not make Abraham’s obedience a settled future free choice before Abraham obeyed. The certainty of Christ as the Lamb rests on God’s faithfulness and power, not on Abraham’s future obedience being exhaustively foreknown and fixed before the test. God does not need to eternally decree, exhaustively foreknow, or pre-fix every future free choice in order to bring about His plans; He is able to judge, redirect, preserve, provide, raise the dead, and fulfill His word without making human choices illusory.