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| Omniscience, Prescience, and Foreknowledge |
[30/04/2025 10:06]
On Omniscience, Prescience, and Foreknowledge
Leonge
Sir, I
was put in a discussion group with this topic: Is Predestination linked to
God's foreknowledge of us?
I said, "No, based on Calvin's TULIP, the U stands for Unconditional Election, so our Predestination doesn't depend on God seeing anything good in us before electing us.
One fellow in the same discussion agrees, but he said Augustine stated that Foreknowledge is important in Predestination. Is this correct?
I
haven't studied Augustine's views on this yet. So, is it true that Augustine's
views do not entirely correspond to Calvin's views?
--------
sing
Let me express some thoughts.
Forget
about Augustine and Calvin, or any other men, including me.
Search the
Scriptures, else "sola scriptura" becomes a shibboleth.
In the biblical context, foreknow (a transitive verb) and foreknowledge (noun) are POPULARLY understood as God's prescience, prior knowledge (in eternity, i.e. before time) of who will choose to believe in Christ; and based on that, He elected and predestinated those whom He foresaw would believe.
This FABLE is an open repudiation of salvation by grace at the root; it's effectively saying, they elected themselves by their faith, foreseen by God.
This is a plain twisting of the biblical concept of the foreknowledge of God for His people.
Biblical foreknowledge and biblical omniscience/prescience are confounded.
Omniscience (knowing all things) and prescience ( knowing beforehand) are the eternal and unchangeable attributes of the Triune God; He knows all things, and knows them from eternity to eternity (i.e. before time > in time > beyond time).
Romans 8:29 "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren."
"Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father..." 1 Pet. 1:2a
Foreknowledge (a noun of the transitive verb "foreknow") describes God's sovereign act of setting His electing love upon certain people of the human race BEFORE anything else. (The decree of creation is before the decree of redeeming Himself a people.)
The first divine act of redemption is God SETTING HIS ELECTING LOVE upon some PERSONS of the race of Adam. Rom 8: 28 "For WHOM He did foreknow..."
God's act of foreknowledge is God's act setting His electing love upon a certain BEFORE ("fore") ANYTHING else. Those whom He set His electing love, He ALSO predestined, pre-determined their destiny, i.e. eternal glory in Jesus Christ.
With the right understanding of foreknowledge, "to foreknow" and "to predestinate" are two sides of the same coin.
Genesis 4:1 KJT — And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
"Adam KNEW Eve his wife..." speaks not of rational knowledge, but of intimate love.
Amos 3:2a KJT
"You
only have I known of all the families of the earth..."
God knows everything about everything else; the knowledge spoken of here is God's unique love towards Israel - chosen freely by God as the channel for the outworking of His covenant of redemption in Christ Jesus.
Leonge
Did
Augustine advocate foreknowledge in predestination?
Many
articles said Augustine advocate Foreknowledge in Predestination
sing
I don't know.
Know
the Bible well will do.
From
what you have said, Augustine understood divine foreknowledge as prescience.
"For WHOM he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren."
The
OBJECT of God's foreKNOWing are WHOM, the PEOPLE; the object of divine
foreknowing is not WHAT, an activity of
the people; the former is the truth, the latter is a fable.
God foreknew a people, not an act of theirs - that is, God foresaw WHAT they will do, i.e. that they would believe when Jesus is offered to them in time.
May the Lord grant you to understand this blessed truth.
May this blessed truth constrain you to love Him BEFORE all others too, including yourself.
Amen.
