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• Question: Does God know who will be saved?
  • Hello! I've known about your website for quite some time now, but I never really looked deep into it. But now I am even more interested in predestination. One of my friends from church believes in this, and he is always talking to me about it. I recently learned the term fatalistic, which, in my mind, describes perfectly the Calvinist universe! He gave me an excerpt from a book he was reading about it, and it attempted to say how God preordains everything, but yet the universe is not fatalistic. Sounds like a contradiction to me. And it also says that men willfully do not accept Christ. But if he doesn't choose them, how can they accept? Jesus says no one will have an excuse, but that sounds like a good one to me! These were just a few things that keep on running through my minds. I can't wait to start reading your articles on predestination, and hopefully learn the truth. I have learned my whole life that God has every single thing planned out. I just realized that this is why I have so much trouble praying. I've been raised with the attitude that it does no good, because God has already planned everything. Hopefully I will realize part of His true nature, and this will change.
  • The only thing I have trouble accepting is that God does not know who will be saved. God not knowing something just doesn't "click" in my mind. I'll have to read deeper into that article to understand it better (because I might have misunderstood).
  • Thank you very much! I can't wait to read what you have to say.
  • God Bless,
  • Jordan
• Answer: (click here to see the answer)
  1. Dear Jordan,
  2. When I was a Calvinist, I had a lousy prayer life. That’s why I was looking for answers to the question, “How can God answer prayer?” Your idea is a little different than mine. If you believe that God foreknew everything that would happen in the universe before He created anything, then, when did He begin to foreknow anything?
  3. Then, if He foreknew everything that will ever happen at some point in time past, when was that point? Did He always know it? If He foreknew everything that will ever happen all the time, all His responses to all of our prayers were also foreknown by Him. Since all of our thoughts, actions, responses, etc., were foreknown, along with His responses, then, everything is, so to speak, in concrete. Then, no matter what we do, it was already known and was locked in, with no possibility of any fluctuation.
  4. Since God predestines what He foreknows, or is it, knows, in Rom 8:28-30 we, then, see that we were predestined at the same time we were foreknown: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”
  5. Therefore, according to this thinking, everything in the future is and was determined before God created the universe. When you wrote, “I recently learned the term fatalistic, which, in my mind, describes perfectly the Calvinist universe! He gave me an excerpt from a book he was reading about it, and it attempted to say how God preordains everything, but yet the universe is not fatalistic. Sounds like a contradiction to me.”, I agree. It is fatalistic. Nothing could be any different from what God knew/knows.
  6. However, this can’t be shown from the Bible when we understand what the word repent, as it is used by God about 30 times. Repent really signifies that God is able to change His mind. The absolute foreknowledge view would contradict God’s ability to respond to anything, now, because our prayers and actions and His responses were already locked in, in eternity past.
  7. The first thing I remember about this idea was God was outside of time and exhaustively knew the future.
  8. Now, I realize that God knows everything that is possible to know, because 1 John 3:20 says, “For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.” But, that doesn’t mean He knows all of the future.
  9. God knows what is knowable. If man has any free agency - can make any choices not totally predestined by God, then, those future free acts would be unknowable. The Bible doesn’t say anywhere, “God knows the future, or God doesn’t know the future.” But the Bible does make statements which show that God does not know some of the future events of the somewhat free agent, man.
  10. Further, God shows that man has free will, because He doesn’t know for sure what man will do in all cases. Gen 22:12,15-17 is one example of this. “And He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.’ 15 Then the Angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, 16 and said: ‘By Myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son; 17 blessing I will bless you’”, etc.
  11. God also uses perhaps to show man has a certain amount of free will to make choices that are somewhat unpredictable. Here are some examples.
  12. Ex 13:17 Then it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, “Lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt.”
  13. Jer 26:1-3 In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came from the LORD, saying, 2 “Thus says the LORD: ‘Stand in the court of the Lord’s house, and speak to all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in the Lord’s house, all the words that I command you to speak to them. Do not diminish a word. 3 Perhaps everyone will listen and turn from his evil way, that I may repent concerning the calamity which I purpose to bring on them because of the evil of their doings.’”
  14. Jer 36:1-3 Now it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying: 2 “Take a scroll of a book and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel, against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah even to this day. 3 “It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the adversities which I purpose to bring upon them, that everyone may turn from his evil way, that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.”
  15. Eze 12:1-3 Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying: 2 “Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, which has eyes to see but does not see, and ears to hear but does not hear; for they are a rebellious house. 3 Therefore, son of man, prepare your belongings for captivity, and go into captivity by day in their sight. You shall go from your place into captivity to another place in their sight. It may be that they will consider, though they are a rebellious house.”
  16. If God knows the future exhaustively, why would He say perhaps, or, some things will happen, and they do not?
  17. Here’s what our all knowing God said to the prophet Jeremiah: Jer 3:6-8 The LORD said also to me in the days of Josiah the king: [God is speaking.] “Have you seen what backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there played the harlot. 7 And I said [God is speaking.], after she had done all these things, ‘She will return to Me’ But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. 8 “Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also.
  18. Another example is in Isaiah. God expected Israel to respond differently to His love. But Israel didn’t. This is shown in Isa 5:1-4 “Now let me sing to my Well-beloved a song of my Beloved regarding His vineyard: My Well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. 2 He dug it up and cleared out its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, and also made a winepress in it; So He expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes. 3 [God is speaking.] ‘And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, please, between Me and My vineyard. 4 What more could have been done to My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes?’”
  19. God could have made it sure by determining it would happen and then He could have made it happen as He states in Is 46:9-11: [God is speaking.] “Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, 10 declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure,’ 11 calling a bird of prey from the east, the man who executes My counsel, from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it.” God predicts these things and then makes them happen. But, in most cases, God does not make it happen. Instead He implores His people to return to Him.
  20. One more reason the Bible shows that God changes His mind because of man’s actions is the use of the Hebrew word na gham. In the nifil binyon of Hebrew, this word means to repent, be comforted, etc. It is used of God as well as man. When it is used of man, sin is usually involved. When it is used of God it shows He changes from a proposed or declared action to a different action.
  21. Here is an example where na gham is used by Job. When Job was talking to God, he said in Job 42:5-6, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. 6 Therefore I abhor myself, and repent [na gham] in dust and ashes.” This same word is used of God repeatedly.
  22. Gen 6:5-7 is one of the best examples, in my mind. “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the LORD repented that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the LORD said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I repent that I have made them.”
  23. Jud 2:18 And when the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the LORD was moved to pity [yi na ghaym’ is na gham] by their groaning because of those who oppressed them and harassed them.
  24. A very instructive case is 1 Sa 15:11,29,35. Here, God says He repented twice and that He would not repent, once. “I [repent] that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments.’ And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the LORD all night.” Then, when Samuel told Saul that God had taken the kingdom from Saul and turned to leave, Saul grabbed his garment and it tore. Then Samuel turned on Saul and told him that this would not cause God to change His mind, as though He was a man.: 29 “And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent. For He is not a man, that He should repent. 35 And Samuel went no more to see Saul until the day of his death. Nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul, and the LORD repented, ni gham, that He had made Saul king over Israel.”
  25. God’s principles for repenting were laid out in Jer 18:1-10 “The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying: 2 ‘Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.’ 3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel. 4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make. 5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying: 6 ‘O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?’ says the LORD. ‘Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel! 7 The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, 8 if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will repent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. 9 And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, 10 if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will repent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.’”
  26. Finally, the Lord repented so many times in the OT that He said in Jer 15:6, “You have forsaken Me,” says the LORD, “You have gone backward. Therefore I will stretch out My hand against you and destroy you; I am weary of repenting!”
  27. I hope this helps.
  28. In Christ,
  29. Bob
• Question: Can God predestine some to be saved?
  • Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions. I have one additional question though.
  • We both agree that God does not predestine all people. But can he predestine some? Like Paul, for example. In a way, he was "made" Christian. Under normal circumstances, Paul would not have been Christian. In that case, did God predestine that Paul would be saved?
  • In Christ,
  • Jordan
• Answer: (click here to see the answer)
  1. Dear Jordan,
  2. God certainly can put pressure on people. He put it on Jonah and as you pointed out, He put it on Paul, but He did not predestine Paul to be saved. God used Balaam against his will, but Balaam wasn't even saved according to the New Testament. Unless the Bible says that God predestines anyone to be saved, I surely would not say that He predestines anyone for salvation. I'm willing to pursue this subject, but we must use biblical material to make a positive statement. If we don't have biblical material, then we can make a negative statement.
  3. In Christ,
  4. Bob Hill
• Question: Where do you get the notion of Free Will?
  • Bob,
  • I stumbled across your webpage and found some interesting stuff. But what troubled me, is upon reading much of your responses to issues that you are against, you preface the answers you give with a philosophical presupposition. "Since we all have free will," or "Because God made man to have free will,".
  • This is really a problem for you. Claiming to be biblical and then foisting ancient, man-centered philosophy on the bible is truly wrong. Even us non-schooled bible students can see eisegesis when it pops up. Where in the bible did you get the notion that man has an unchained, free will? Since when has he not been a slave of sin (if unconverted) or not a slave of righteousness (if converted)? "Free will" is a myth I think. No where in the scriptures does it teach this, but just the opposite. I would not take the time to write this if I didn't care enough to speak, you are sadly mistaken in this matter. When you go running to find the passages that you think make your point, then ask just how they will fit (given your assumptions) with the plethora of clear passages to the contrary. Please use your best arguments, for I am used to correcting all the standard excuses by now and frankly hope that your foundation is not as sandy and sinking as it appears to be.
  • Paul Hartung
• Answer: (click here to see the answer)
  1. Dear Paul,
  2. I sincerely appreciate your concern for me. I agree that it may look as though it is eisegesis, but I only make those statements after thoroughly presenting exegetical reasons for arriving at that conclusion. Please see the following document for the 1st chapter of my book.
  3. In Christ,
  4. Bob Hill
  5. Calvinism Unmasked
  6. Chapter 1
  7. I'm a Calvinist
  8. After I graduated from high school in 1951, I believed in Jesus Christ as my savior. Shortly after that, I was discipled by a high school friend of mine who went to the church where I got saved. Although the church was Arminian in theology, he was a Calvinist. All the Scripture he showed me was interpreted from that viewpoint. Since the explanations seemed reasonable to me, I became a strong advocate of Calvinism, reflecting Calvin's statement in his Institutes:
  9. No one who wishes to be thought religious dares simply deny predestination, by which God adopts some to hope of life, and sentences others to eternal death. But our opponents, especially those who make foreknowledge its cause, envelop it in numerous petty objections. We indeed place both doctrines in God, but we say that subjecting one to the other is absurd. When we attribute foreknowledge to God, we mean that all things always were, and perpetually remain, under his eyes, so that to his knowledge there is nothing future or past, but all things are present. And they are present in such a way that he not only conceives them through ideas, as we have before us those things which our minds remember, but he truly looks upon them and discerns them as things placed before him. And this foreknowledge is extended throughout the universe to every creature. We call predestination God's eternal decree, by which he compacted with himself what he willed to become of each man. For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others. Therefore, as any man has been created to one or the other of these ends, we speak of him as predestined to life or to death.
  10. Later, I was influenced by my wife's dear uncle, who was a Universal Reconciliationist. He showed me in 1 Timothy 2:3-6, that God willed all men to be saved:
  11. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
  12. He explained that not all were saved in this life, but all would eventually be reconciled to God. He showed me that there were many ages in the Bible. This reconciliation would happen at the end of the ages. This added to my problem. Now I was wrestling with two doctrines - the doctrine of universal reconciliation, all will be reconciled to God, and limited atonement, Christ died only for the elect. At that time it seemed that these were my only choices. I believed God's word is true and there is consistency in the biblical statements. Either God foreknew and predestined only the elect to be saved, or He exhaustively foreknew the future and willed all to be saved. Which one was right? Did God will only the elect to be saved? Or did He will all to be saved ultimately? I thought it had to be one or the other.
  13. A Breach in My Calvinist Armor
  14. Shortly after we moved to California in 1957, my pastor presented an idea to me that was new. He showed me another interpretation of Ephesians 1:4,5:
  15. just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.
  16. He explained to me that both the election and predestination here were corporate. He pointed out in the passage that it didn't say individuals were chosen to be saved or predestined to be saved. Instead, they were elected, because they were in the body of Christ, to be holy and without blame, and predestined to the adoption as sons.
  17. In a different way of looking at it, I also saw that the nation of Israel was God's elect, but many in elect Israel did not believe and were, ultimately, not included in redeemed Israel, God's elect nation. Isaiah 45:1-4 shows Israel is His elect: "Thus says the LORD to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held - to subdue nations before him and loose the armor of kings, to open before him the double doors, so that the gates will not be shut: 2 'I will go before you and make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron. 3 I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the LORD, Who call you by your name, am the God of Israel. 4 For Jacob My servant's sake, and Israel My elect, I have even called you by your name; I have named you, though you have not known Me."
  18. These ideas were the first problems I faced in my Calvinistic belief. However, in my mind, the idea of corporate election and predestination had a serious flaw which the Scriptures did not seem to support. That problem could be stated as follows: In this theory, in contrast to Calvin's view of predestination, God's foreknowledge was the basis of His election and predestination. But, I reasoned as Calvin wrote, since to God "all things always were, and perpetually remain, under his eyes, so that to his knowledge there is nothing future or past, but all things are present", God knew everything as though it were present. Then, since I could see from Scripture that His election and predestination followed His foreknowledge, and since He knew everyone who was foreknown, then God's predestination had to be individual just as His foreknowledge was. I was right back where I started. I could not reconcile this apparent biblical antinomy or paradox.
  19. At this time of my life, this deterministic theology had a detrimental influence on my attitudes about prayer. If God knew everything, and I believed He did; and if God predestinated everything based on His foreknowledge, and I believed He did that too; then, everything that I prayed was foreknown and predestined. If I didn't pray, that also was predestined; then, it became easy to feel, why should I pray? Unfortunately, I ended up having an abysmal prayer life. The only reason I prayed, I determined in my mind, was because God commanded it in His word. I realized that Christ and Paul were zealous in prayer, however, there was no zest in my prayers. Therefore, I recognized that something was seriously wrong with my Christian life. I knew this was wrong but didn't know what to do about it.
  20. During this troublesome period, my wife and I visited her parents in Illinois. Her father had a treasure trove of theological books. I was browsing through his books when I found one by William E. Biederwolf titled, How Can God Answer Prayer? I began reading it immediately. BOOK THREE chapter IV. had the title, "Why Pray if Everything Is Predetermined by God?" That was exactly my dilemma. I eagerly turned to that page. He had three answers based on three different explanations:
  21. The first explanation declares that everything which comes to pass is first predetermined in the mind of God. It declares that God's predestination precedes His foreknowledge as the ground of certainty for human action. God only foreknows that which He has predetermined to take place.
  22. The second explanation, while admitting that God absolutely predetermines some things, contends that such things as respect the government of his free moral agents are only conditionally predetermined. God purposes to do under certain conditions, which depend upon the free agency of man, what He would not do under other conditions. This explanation further declares that God's foreknowledge precedes His predestination. God only predetermines that which He foreknows will take place and the foreknowledge of human action has no influence upon its taking place; it does not necessitate the action.
  23. The third explanation denies that God's foreknowledge is necessarily all-comprehending.
  24. The third explanation was a brand new idea to me. He then evaluated three suppositions. He started with, "Suppose we accept". I will skip the first two explanations and will start with his third supposition:
  25. 3. Suppose we accept the third explanation: the explanation which affirms that God's foreknowledge and foreordination are not necessarily all-comprehending.
  26. You shrink from an attitude of thought like that toward the Supreme Being. It appears, does it not, to reflect discredit upon His perfection? Yet, let us not be too hasty in our judgment. Many earnest and noted scholars defend the position and strenuously maintain that not only does it not dishonor God, but that it is the only scheme of thought which does not divest Him of the essential attributes of His divinity.
  27. The position is quite clearly set forth in W.W. Kinsley's "Science and Prayer," . . . This explanation, if it may be maintained consistently with the perfection of God's character, relieves us, of course, of the difficulty in question.
  28. It is contended by the advocates of this explanation, that when God created us in His own image and made us equally with Himself of sovereign will (and we know we are free to choose as we will) by His very so doing He surrendered at least partially His control over us and of necessity limited thereby His foreknowledge concerning us. Plainly it is the old time-worn controversy between two great schools of theology; between God's sovereignty on one side (involving as it does His absolute foreknowledge and predestination) and man's free will on the other, and between the horns of such a dilemma the only thing to do is to confess a wise ignorance and hang on to both.
  29. A controversion of God's perfect foreknowledge does not set well with most of us, regardless of our denominational bias. The fear, however, of any belittling conception of God its advocates would overcome by showing what the theory of such foreknowledge really involves, leaving us to decide which is the greater injustice, if any, to the all-perfect character of God.
  30. The following from the work above quoted on "Science and Prayer" will help us to an appreciation, if so be such is possible, of the position assumed by the advocates of the limited knowledge theory. The author says: "No petitioner can plead with any genuine unction unless he believes that he can actually effect some change in the purposes existing in the divine mind at the time his prayer is offered. . . . If God foreknows everything that will ever come to pass, all His own mental states must necessarily be included in that foreknowledge. A moment's reflection will convince us that otherwise there is not a single present intention or plan but what is exposed to the possibility of modification. If a single thought or emotion is ever going to spring up in God's mind unanticipated, God Himself must be as ignorant as we as to what part of His vast plan it will pertain. And so, if we would logically defend a belief in the all-comprehensiveness of God's foreknowledge, we must affirm that not a single new idea can arise in His mind-not a single new emotion be felt-and that if He is thus limited now He must have been equally so at every moment in all the eternal past, and must be through all the years to come; for if there ever has been, or ever will be, a moment when a new thought can thus come, then during all the time preceding that moment the foreknowledge was incomplete. Where does this lead? In what sort of an intellectual or emotional condition does this irrefragable logic compel us to assert God to be continually? Unquestionably that of perfect stagnation. No thought processes can be carried on under such conditions-no succession of ideas, no change of mental state; but God must have been and must still be imprisoned in a hopelessly dead calm. . . . When, then, did He form His plans for creation? Under this supposition there never could have been a time when He began to think about them. . . . If God has had no thought succession, He can have had no feeling; His emotional state having ever necessarily been that of unbroken placidity-of absolute apathy, His heart throbless as a stone. He could experience no change of feeling, for that would involve thought-succession. From all the sources of joy or sorrow of which we can conceive He would be utterly debarred - from pleasurable or painful memories, from hopes and forebodings, from social sympathies, from emotions that accompany changes, contrasts, surprises, from the glow of activity, even from the delights and griefs of contemplation; for they all involve thought-movement. Therefore, under this supposition God can have no emotional activity, for He would have no thought-activity for its background. Thoughts must, of course, come and go, or the heart lies dead." "Such," he says, "are the absurdities in which we become hopelessly entangled the moment we attempt to defend the doctrine of God's perfect foreknowledge."
  31. This was astounding to me. If this were true, it would change everything. But he had presented no Scripture to back up the argument. It was just philosophical reasoning. I had already been shown and then studied God's word on this subject. The Bible said that God worked all things after the counsel of His will. But I thought about his statements. I must find a copy of that book, Science and Prayer, and see if there was any Scripture to back up this argument.
  32. I relentlessly searched until I finally found the book in a used book store. I avidly read it, but it also was very philosophical. However, he wrote: "The doctrine of God's perfect foreknowledge is not only unphilosophical, but also unscriptural." That encouraged me to read further. I got to the part that Biederwolf had quoted. Then I realized Biederwolf had skipped the most important part, for me, the reference to Scripture. It was there! Kinsley even admonished the reader:
  33. Read if you will the ninth chapter of Deuteronomy. Moses here rehearses the several rebellions of Israel, and his three separate pleadings before the Lord, of forty days and forty nights each, without either eating bread or drinking water. Each time he fell down before a very angry God who had fully purposed, and had definitely announced his purpose to destroy the rebels, and each time, if Moses can be credited, he actually changed that purpose right then and there and rescued his people. The God here depicted had none of that foreknowledge which theologians with such strange unanimity ascribe to him. But, say you, [And many have made these statements often.] that and similar accounts scattered throughout the Bible are simply instances of anthropomorphism, of rhetorical accommodation, of describing in the language of human experiences and human limitations what really transcends the human; that it was not the intent to have these narrations interpreted as literal history, but as poetic approximations of dim shadowings of really ineffable truths. It seems to me that it would be a strange way to bring the truth within our comprehension, to state what is directly opposed to the truth, and to reiterate the downright falsehood again and again, in a most misleading way, and in a matter of such vital moment that all possibility of religious life depends on it, and through which alone any lasting comfort comes to the hungry human soul.
  34. What happened next changed my life. I read Deuteronomy 9 with a searching heart. Here is what shattered the foundations of my Calvinistic system of theology:
  35. Deu 9:8-19 Also in Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lord was angry enough with you to have destroyed you. 9 When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. 10 Then the Lord delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly. 11 And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. 12 Then the Lord said to me, 'Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly; they have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molded image.' 13 Furthermore the Lord spoke to me, saying, "I have seen this people, and indeed they are a stiff-necked people. 14 Let Me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they." 15 So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire; and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16 And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God-had made for yourselves a molded calf! You had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you. 17 Then I took the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. 18 And I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. 19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the Lord was angry with you, to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me at that time also.
  36. This Scripture shattered my presuppositions. Along with other Scripture it undermined my Calvinistic mindset about the immutability of God. Here was Scripture I had read but never grasped before. Before long, I found that there was a vast amount of Scripture which showed that God changed His mind - even repented. Since that time, I have studied the Bible on this issue for thousands of hours. This book is the result of my studies.
• Question: Where do you get the notion of Free Will? Part 2
  • Dear Bob,
  • Thank you for your prompt return, however I was hoping for a response to my objection regarding man's so-called free will. While I have a few thoughts regarding your book chapter, I am surprised that you were not anxious to defend your basic assumption. Maybe next time.
  • The brand of "calvinism" you spoke of reminds me of an assent to a formula or scheme rather than convictions based on thorough study and unifying of the whole of scripture. Sort of the problem many in the reformed community suffers from today, assuming the truth is plainly evident without the hard work of devoted study, and teaching others by skipping over the "hard" aspects which the carnal mind always trips on. It seems to me, that a universal human propensity appears whenever folks take the path of least resistance. Finding that comfortable place to set up camp is a most high value for those who don't wrestle intellectually, I fight it at times myself. However the sorts of things one is willing to bury for the sake of sleeping well at night are tragedies of the most egregious kinds.
  • I take it then that you hold to the "open" view of God. If you have believed this way for so long, then you probably don't feel what I feel when the sovereignty of God is reduced to man's level. That distinction gets adjusted by every generation, this one is nothing new historically.
  • One of the obvious (to myself) flaws in the logic is evident in the quote of "Science and Prayer" which says, "No petitioner can plead with any genuine unction unless he believes he can actually effect some change in the purposes existing in the divine mind at the time his prayer is offered...If God foreknows everything that will come to pass, all His own mental states must be included in that foreknowledge..." If God were a man, this would seem true. If He were not infinitely complex in His desires we could make a like statement. But those "if's" are not the case, biblically speaking. I can have "genuine unction" without believing that MY PETITIONS MUST change the mind of God in order to have my prayers answered, especially if God has ordained my very prayers in His will in the first place. Such an imperative fails to make the distinction between Creator/creation intellectually. Likewise, God's mental states are not full compehended by any but Himself, and is not subject to our finite limitations. To say that the Lord's "mental states" MUST BE KNOWN at the time He conceived His decretive will is to beg a prerogative we cannot possess.
  • To further add a wrinkle to the situation, consider the levels of willing in God in Lamentations 3:31-33. He CAUSES grief, but He does not WILLINGLY AFFLICT (lit. "from His heart" in Hebrew) nor grieve men. So He DOES what He DOESN'T WANT, in other words He WILLS what He DOESN'T WILL. How do you make this mesh with what you know of Him clearly? Can God be complex enough to have two wills? What He would like to do, and what He actually decrees? I don't like to discipline my son, but I do for a much greater purpose. And if a mere man can have two wills in tension, what is God incapable of having?
  • The reason Kinsley believes his logic to be "irrefragable" is that he assumed like limitations on the God of the bible as that of himself. Sad. Like a freight train such logic pores through to a man-like, man-centered end. And using your example of Moses, then ultimately Moses is the savior of Israel for diffusing the hostilities of God. Praise Moses! Do you think Deut. 9 has never been considered by those who hold to the sovereignty promoted in scripture? Is it possible God was developing Moses' character in His dealings with Israel? Is He insincere for forgiving Israel-or you and I? Can't God hate sin, and still have a forebearance towards those He is demonstrating His glory through? Funny how many limitations are put on God "necessarily" through carnal logic, but this kind of logic would indict God for forgiving anyone at all!
  • I realize you probably view any exertion on God's part upon man would render Him a robot or some other hyperbole, but again, where is your assumption "free will" taught in the bible? I have a will, but it is so utterly influenced I cannot even distinguish all the factors. To say that man is self determining ultimately, as a reflection of the Creator's own self image, is to fall headlong into the same desire as Eve wanting to be like God. And nowhere can such statements be found in scripture. To say that man MUST be self determining in order to have accountability in judgment before the throne of God (as all sophists say), is to go way beyond the revealed word erroneously.
  • I await your response. Thank you.
  • Paul Hartung
• Answer: (click here to see the answer)
  1. Dear Paul,
  2. Thank you for your fine email. It was intelligent, it was consistent, it was to the point and most of all it was written in a manner becoming to a Christian. I receive many emails that do not even sound like they were written by a Christian.
  3. When you wrote: "I take it then that you hold to the "open" view of God. If you have believed this way for so long, then you probably don't feel what I feel when the sovereignty of God is reduced to man's level."
  4. I agree that free-will can be thought of in that manner if the critic does not really read my view of God. In no way does my "Open View" reduce God to man's level. God is so awesomely powerful that He runs the whole universe and knows everything so He can, in the present, overcome any diabolical threat to His eternal purpose. He would interfere with the freedom of that being though, and I would be very happy He did.
  5. In 1 Ti 2:4 it says God "desires [qelei wills (Greek font is Logos GraecaII.)] all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." God wills it, but I agree with you that man is "in fact in slavery (just the opposite of 'freedom') to our natures". Left to ourselves, no one would trust Christ as his Savior. But that's your point as well as mine. We are not left to ourselves. In 2 Pe 3:9 it says, "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not counseling any to perish but all to have room for repentance."
  6. The Greek for come [have room] is cwrew. The basic meaning of this word is "have room, accommodate." All the definitions in BGD are nuances of this basic meaning. Matthew 19:11-12 is a good example. "But He said to them, 'All cannot accept (cwrew) this saying, but only those to whom it has been given: 12 For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He who is able to accept (cwrew) it, let him accept (cwrew) it.'" cwrew, occurs 10 times in the following references: Mat 15:17; Mat 19:11,12; Mk 2:2; John 2:6; John 8:37; John 21:25; 2 Co 7:2; 2 Pe 3:9. In the KJV it is translated receive 3, contain 2, come 1 [our verse], go 1, have place 1, receive 1, be room to receive 1. In the NKJV it is translated accept 3, goes 1, room to receive 1, containing 1, has place 1, could contain 1, and open 1. It is defined 1) to leave space (which may be filled or occupied by another), to make room, give place, yield 1a) to retire 1b) metaphorically, to betake one's self, turn one's self 2) to go forward, advance, proceed, succeed 3) to have space or room for receiving or holding something.
  7. The word "willing" which I have translated counseling, here, is boulomeno",. no one can prevent His counsel, boulhv, from happening. He is going to bring His counsel, boulhv, to pass. The participle, boulomeno", counseling, which correlates to the word counsel, boulhv, is found in this passage. I want to give my translation of 2 Pe 3:9 again. "The Lord is not slow concerning His promise, as some count slowness but is long-suffering toward us, not counseling, boulomeno", any to perish but [counseling] all to have room for repentance." No one has resisted His counsel. He has determined that everyone will have room for repentance, and they do. But they can resist His counsel for them. Luke 7:30 shows us that.
  8. In addition to that, we see this truth stated in a different way in John 1:9 "That was the true Light which enlightens every man coming into the world." We may not have been able to believe on our own, but God enlightened everyone coming into the world and counseled that everyone would have room for faith in their being.
  9. Of course, He went further. He made sure that everyone in the world heard the word. Col 1:5,6 "because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth." That concept was reiterated in Col 1:23, "if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister."
  10. Next, this Word of God generates faith in those who hear "as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit" from it: Rom 10:17,18 "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. 18 But I say, have they not heard? Yes indeed: 'Their sound has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.'"
  11. Finally, John 12:32 has the Lord Jesus Christ say, "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all to Myself." He has done that, but not all have responded.
  12. One of the greatest corollaries to free will, as defined above, would be man's ability to hinder God's will. Man can do that because God created man with the ability to make choices contrary to His will as shown by the general response to 1 Ti 2:4. God "desires [wills] all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." Yet all men are not saved. Even Christians reject the will of God. Everyone of us have. 1 Th 4:3-7 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. 7 For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness.
  13. In the verse I mentioned in Luke, before it shows that the Pharisees rejected God's counsel. Lk 7:30 "But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the will [counsel, as above] of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him." And untold millions have rejected His counsel for them since that time. Though man does reject God's counsel for himself and does resist His will, no one can resist His counsel as it pertains to His purpose. Rom 9:19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will [counsel]?" The answer is, no one.
  14. An interesting problem for non-dispensational Calvinists is 2 Pe 1:10, where they are instructed to make their election sure. If God unconditionally elected them to be saved, they wouldn't have to make it sure. "Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble."
  15. In Christ,
  16. Bob Hill
• Question: More questions Romans 8:29-32
  • Rom 8:29-32 gives the whole plan: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified
  • it sounds like ppl in this verse are predestined, yes to be conformed to the image of christ, but in this process it saysthose predesdined to be comformed to his likness are also predestined to be called?
  • *these* he called..then *these* he called he also justified..so if you are called you will be justified?
  • if this talks about everyone being called "God so loved the world" then why arn't all justified and glorified? it looks from the surface only the predestined ones are called into this process of eventually being conformed to his image
  • i thought he calls all..but do all make it to the next 2 stages of this process..justified and glorified?
  • i don't believe in predestination unto salvation as calvin did..
  • God predestines those it pleases him to hell, thats abhorrent to me..
  • but im a little confused about this process above as you can tell :)
  • danny
• Answer: (click here to see the answer)
  1. Dear Danny,
  2. I believe we should start with Rom 8:28. It should be literally translated this way: “And we know that He [God] works with those loving God, with those called according to [His] purpose all things for good.”
  3. I would rather translate it more smoothly, like this: Rom 8:28-30, “And we know that God works with those who love God, with those who are the called according to His purpose all things for good. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
  4. I believe this is not predestination of individuals. It is predestination of the corporate body of Christ which God fitted for glory. As we believe and become part of His body, we then are part of the body that will become glorified. God not only worked with Israel but works with us too. He did not foreknow individuals. He foreknew and elected Christ, Israel, and the body of Christ.
  5. When we trust in Christ, the Holy Spirit seals us and identifies us with Christ. After we are identified with Christ by our salvation, we become part of His predestined purpose. In other words, once we are saved we are predestined, as members of His body, to be conformed to Christ’s image. Notice, it does not say we are predestined to be saved. It says we are “predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son”. This verse is excellent to show our security. Our security is absolute because we are predestined. Our salvation is not predestined.
  6. Eph 1 is similar to this passage: Eph 1:3-14 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, 9 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, 10 that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth -- in Him. 11 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works the all things [the body of Christ] according to the counsel of His will, 12 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. 13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
  7. The phrase “works with” is translated from (sunergei). This word is found 5 times in the NT. The NKJV translators always translated it “works with” except in the most important passage, Rom 8:28.
  8. Mark 16:20 And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with (tou kuriou sunergountos) them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen.
  9. 1 Co 16:16 submit to such, and to everyone who works (sunergounti) and labors with us.
  10. 2 Co 5:22-6:1 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 1 We then, as workers together (sunergountes) with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain.
  11. James 2:22 Do you see that faith was working together with (sunayrgei) his works, and by works faith was made perfect?
  12. When we look at the alleged problem in Rom 8:29, I think it is good to look at God’s repentance when He changed His mind after Moses prayed in Ex 32:9-14. However, Ex 32:9-14 is not about God not knowing any of the future. God knows the future of the events He predetermines. In fact, that is exactly what our passage shows. He said in Rom 8:29,30: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”
  13. In Isa 46:9-11, God shows us how He can declare what is going to happen in the future. He makes it happen. “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure, calling a bird of prey from the east, the man who executes My counsel, from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it.” When He said my counsel “shall stand”, immediately He said, “and I will do all My pleasure”. Then He tells us how He will do it – “calling a bird of prey from the east, the man who executes My counsel, from a far country.” This occurred about 150 years later.
  14. In Eph 1:11, He made a statement similar to Rom 8:28-30. “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works [the] all things (ta panta) according to the counsel of His will” In this sentence, I added this definite article [the] in front of all things because the Greek had (ta panta) all things with a definite article. When all things has a definite article it most likely is not referring to a universal all things but the all things limited by the context. The specific all things He is referring to is the body of Christ of verses 10 and 23, “that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one [the] all things (ta panta) in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth – in Him (1:10); “which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all (ta panta) in all” (1:23).
  15. This concerns our eternal security, since in Eph 1:4,5, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, [to] be holy and blameless before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Him, according to the good pleasure of His will”. He chose the body of Christ to be holy and blameless before Him making it sure by His predestination.
  16. Now, it doesn’t say He chose us as individuals to be saved. It says He chose us in Him. Because we are in Christ, we are chosen. Christ is the elect one. We become members of the body of Christ by believing. Once we believe – we are part of a corporate body, the predestined corporation composed of all those who have trusted in Christ from Paul to the last one before the rapture.
  17. Therefore, my conclusion is: We are not foreknown as individuals, chosen as individuals, or predestined as individuals. It is the body of Christ that is foreknown and predestined.
  18. In Christ,
  19. Bob Hill
• Question: Romans 8:29-32
  • lets try this.
  • 28. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.(the Body)?
  • 29. For whom he did foreknow, (body of Christ)? he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
  • 30. Moreover whom he did predestinate, (Body of Christ)? them he also called:(Body of Christ)? and whom he called,(body of Christ)? them he also justified: and whom he justified,(Body of Christ)? them he also glorified.(The body of Christ)?
  • its still hard for me to grasp for some reason..I think if there was something in this process that said and "Whom" believed upon him" after the calling part "he justified " and He glorified..it would be easier for me to grasp and be more consistent with Ephesians 1:13..
  • here is how I keep seeing these verses
  • GOD predestined *Them* he then *Calls* them and those he calls are the ones he justifies (why would he call the body of Christ those already in the body) if this means them? calls them to what? I guess is my question..what is God calling them *The body* to? which comes before there justified, if they are already in the body there already justified and there is no need to call them unto salvation...right?
  • see how confused I am :)
  • even though I understand about the corporate body bearing chosen IN Christ to BECOME something holy and blameless ect..(before the foundation of the world) ect
  • as for Gods foreknowledge the more I study that issue the more I believe he limits himself in that area..why create beings who you already know are going to become so wicked then lament and repent over it?..doesn't make any sence, why peruse Israel his "vineyard" if he already knows there is no hope, nothing he does will work..that doesn't make sence unless he KNOWS there is a chance, because he has given them free will.. and he KNOWS he has.:)
  • and as you know there are many scriptures that show us he has chosen not to know, but does show us he KNOWS we have a free will :) in that he repents over even making man..or he is frustrated with his vineyard..ect
  • if I knew my wife would not want me no matter what..I would not waist my time..
  • thanks for being patient with me..I spend allot of time listening to you and bob enyart and searching the scriptures.."the plot" and something's I read on your site really gave me my desire back to spend time in the Word..
  • the reason I started researching "Calvinism" the 5 points is because a lady came into our chatroom and said God predestines ppl to hell..that made me mad..we had a long email debate..and she was very persuasive..in some of what she was saying..but she kept flip flopping in her definenition of predestination..that's and active word not a passive..her first definition was correct "pre-determine" but after my rebuttal she changed her definition to a passive, "that God in a passive way predestines ppl to hell in that he just doesn't bother to reach out to them" lol..predestination can't be passive
  • anyways I continue to study this topic as it will not go out of my mind
  • Ezek 18-23. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?
  • 18-32 32. For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye
  • Isaiah 45 21. Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the Lord? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.
  • 22. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.
  • Danny/Renee
• Answer: (click here to see the answer)
  1. Dear Danny,
  2. If this were predestination the way the Calvinists believe, all of these actions would take place outside of time at the same (time) since I can't think of a better word. They seem to be done by God simultaneously in time as far as I'm concerned.
  3. In Christ,
  4. Bob Hill
• Question: Before the world began?
  • In 2 Timothy 1:9,10 it says, “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, 10. But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”
  • What does this mean? Does it mean God knew man was going to fall and he had already had his plan of redemption ready? and now those who are IN Christ receive that grace?
  • danny
• Answer: (click here to see the answer)
  1. Dear Danny,
  2. God had a plan for the body of Christ before the ages. There are three scripture verses which support the following concepts, before age times, age times, and the cessation of age times. They are 1 Co 2:7; 2 Ti 1:9; 1 Co 15:24. I believe the Bible shows us that in the end, God will bring about His purpose for this world. I believe the passage you asked about has to be retranslated.
  3. In the following material, w’s are omegas. aiwn, the noun, and aiwnios, the adjective, have a variety of meanings. aion is a long period of time and aionios describes an indefinite period of time.
  4. Only after we study the Scriptures can we evaluate the biblical material containing the words aiwn, and aiwnios and make a decision. For instance, in the verses below it says that the mystery was kept secret in cronois aioniois, age times, but now has been manifest. Here, cronois aioniois is not eternal.
  5. Rom 16:25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began (Literally in age times cronois aioniois) 26 but now has been made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures has been made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith--
  6. This next one is similar to 2 Ti 1:9. Tit 1:2 in hope of eternal (aiwniou) life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began (Literally, pro cronwn aiwniwn before age times.)
  7. Consider Heb 9:25,26: not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another – 26 He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages (sunteleia twn aiwnwn), He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. We can see that Christ put away sin at the completion of the ages. Now, if we plugged in the word time as many sources do, we would have, the end of times.
  8. But according to Eph 2:7, “that in the ages to come (tois aiwsi tois epercomenois) He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus”, there are still ages to come. It seems ridiculous to try to make this say this means in the time to come when we have a word for time. Therefore, what Hebrews 9:25,26 shows is that Christ was manifested at the completion of at least two ages to put away sin.
  9. 1 Co 10:11 is even tougher. Paul states that, “things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” This would have to mean that the end of time came upon Paul and the Corinthians. But we know it didn’t. Now, in contrast to that, if the ends of the ages had come on the Corinthians two thousand years ago, and Christ, once, at the end of the ages, put away sin, then, when did they end? The time of the end of all ages could not be at the time of Christ or the Corinthians because of the statement in Ephesians 2:7.
  10. But, getting back to the meaning, before age times, God seems to have a plan for the ages. This appears to be the plan He had for the created beings that would inhabit this universe. I think it would include angels and man. 2 Ti 1:9 God, has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before age times.
  11. I believe that God knows everything that is knowable. How was this grace given to us before age times? I believe, from this material, that God determined before the ages that Christ would have a body of believers who would be holy and blameless before Him. If Adam had not fallen, we would be holy and blameless because we had not sinned. But I believe God knew that this was not realistic. Therefore, we see that Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world: 1 Peter 1:20 He indeed was foreknown (proegnwsmevnou means foreknown) before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you
  12. We find in the 10th verse that this gracious gift was made possible by the Savior, Jesus Christ when He died for us. 2 Ti 1:10 but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
  13. In Christ,
  14. Bob Hill
• Question: Will there be free will in heaven?
  • Mr. Hill,
  • Will we be free will beings in Heaven? Angels obviously have free will for Lucifer chose to disobey. If we have free will in Heaven, will we be free to do evil and to hate as on Earth?
  • Thank you,
  • Jason
• Answer: (click here to see the answer)
  1. Dear Jason,
  2. That’s an extremely good question. The Bible does not speak to that issue, but I will tell you what I think. To begin, most Christians really don’t want to sin here on the earth. I know I don’t, but we have this thing called flesh while we are on the earth.
  3. Rom 8:2-7 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. 7 Because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.
  4. When we are raptured or resurrected, we will get spiritual bodies and we won’t have that thing called flesh anymore. Then, we won’t have those constant temptations aroused in the flesh.
  5. 1 Co 15:42-54 So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 45 And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. 49 And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man. 50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed -- 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
  6. After a person gets saved, he tends to grow in the Lord if he meditates on God’s word and focuses on loving God. Those tendencies lead to a godly life even here on the earth. In heaven there will be no temptation. Also, we will be in the presence of the Lord God.
  7. Therefore, I believe we will really have free will in heaven. For the first time in my life I will be free to choose to always do what God wants me to do without the flesh’s corrupt promptings. We will not want to sin, and I think we won’t. That will be just like the angels who did not sin like Lucifer and his angels.
  8. In Christ,
  9. Bob Hill
• Question: Predestination versus Freewill
  • Dear Bob
  • Background
  • I recently send an email copy of your web-page that Discussed Predestination and Free-will to a godly pastor of a Reformed Baptist Church here in sunny South Africa.
  • I invited him to review your page and to comment back to me about it.
  • He replied by stating "Oh, this guy is an Open Theist", and gave me a copy of "No Other God" by John M. Frame.
  • Question: What tactics would you recommend (if any) for me to pursue the next round of our discussions?
  • God Bless You for your service to the truth of Jesus Christ
  • Leslie Crickmay
• Answer: (click here to see the answer)
  1. Dear Leslie,
  2. God’s Word has an overwhelming amount of evidence about God being open rather than locked in without being able to change anything in the future. This is a very important subject for believers, especially if they are doing what Christ wants them to do, leading others to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, I would read Frame’s book and make notes in the margins.
  3. I just finished reading 5 books in a row by Calvinists against the Open View of God. I made notes in all of them. I am in the process of writing a book on the subject right now. The first 4 chapters are on our web site. I have revised them some, and I have recently written the 5th chapter. I am attempting to respond to every positive and every questionable passage that could be construed to be showing a closed God. I will be happy to send you the answer to any questions you may have. I have been working on this material for over 40 years.
  4. After you are sure of what you believe, then, I would send your statements and questions one by one to your pastor friend for his response. It will be a great learning process for you, and hopefully, him.
  5. In Christ,
  6. Bob Hill
• Question: Was only Israel chosen for salvation before the dispensation of grace?
  • Was only Israel chosen for salvation (before the dispensation of grace)? I know that 1 Tim. 2:4 says that God wants all men to be saved, that means from the start to the finish of creation, right? I ask this because I was told that the word "world" in John 3:16, means only believers, or only Israel. So was the plan for only Israel to obtain salvation? If not, what was Israel chosen for; why were they called God's chosen people?
  • Please explain your thoughts on this
  • Thank you!
  • Dusti
• Answer: (click here to see the answer)
  1. Dear Dusti,
  2. In Romans 1:18-32 we find that God gave up the world. He did this to start over again with His plan of redemption. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they [Everyone, since there were no Jews until Abraham's nation was formed out of his offspring.] are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man-and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, 30 backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; 32 who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them."
  3. I believe the time of this chapter is after the flood. God had already destroyed the world in the flood. He started over again with Noah and then called Abram out of Ur. Then, we find that because of great sin, again, all the world became guilty before God. God's conclusion to this section is in Rom 3:9-20: What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. 10 As it is written: "There is none righteous, no, not one; 11 There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. 12 They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one." 13 "Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit"; "The poison of asps is under their lips"; 14 "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness." 15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 Destruction and misery are in their ways; 17 And the way of peace they have not known." 18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes." 19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
  4. God's condemnation upon all was to display His mercy to all. That's what it says at the conclusion of the doctrinal portion of Romans, Rom 11:32: "For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all."
  5. In 1 Chronicles it refers to Israel as God's chosen. 1 Ch 16:13 "O seed of Israel His servant, you children of Jacob, His chosen ones!" It does the same in Isa 43:20, "The beast of the field will honor Me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My people, My chosen." But all was not going as it should. Israel forsook God in spite of the conditional promise of Ex 19:4-6: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. 6 And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
  6. The nation was elect, but the individuals had to "obey My voice and keep My covenant" if they were to remain part of the elect. This election within Israel depended on obedience. The real elect were those who obeyed God. This was used by Paul to show why most of Israel were hardened. God required obedience.
  7. There was even a remnant of believing Israel to whom Paul was referring in Romans 11:5-7: Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. 6 And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work. 7 What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded.
  8. Israel was broken off from God's grace, the opportunity available in the olive tree, because of unbelief according to Rom 11:20-23: Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. 22 Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. 23 And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
  9. So, as it was in the OT, we see elect Israel could be lost. Our election is sure because God has sealed us and predestined our adoption. In Romans 9:6-8, 30-32 we see the importance God lays on our belief: But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, 7 nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, "In Isaac your seed shall be called. 8 That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. 30 What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; 31 but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. 32 Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone.
  10. How was Abram justified when God gave him the promise in Gen 15:5,6? He simply believed: Then He brought him outside and said, "Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them." And He said to him, "So shall your descendants be." 6 And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness. God inspired Paul to write it even more clearly in Gal 3:5-9: Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?- 6 just as Abraham "believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." 7 Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, "In you all the nations shall be blessed." 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.
  11. I hope this answers your question.
  12. In Christ,
  13. Bob Hill
• Question: If God knows everything that is going to happen, then what does it matter what I believe?
  • Hi, my name is Robin and I am a Christian. I have a nephew who is 20 yrs old. He was raised by 2 Christian parents. He and I got into a discussion about how now he doesn't believe in God. I was shocked to find this out. When I tried to discuss this with him, he came up with two questions that I am embarrassed to admit that I had no answers for.
  • 1. If God exists, where did he come from ? I told him that God has always existed . That He is the beginning and the end.
  • 2. If God knows everything that is going to happen.....if my life is already planned out, then what does it matter what I believe??
  • This was a tough one for me. This is something that I have often wondered myself....I told him that God gives us a choice. We can either choose Him or eternal suffering. The choice is ours, but He knows what we will choose.
  • Any help with these questions would greatly be appreciated. Also if you know of any good books that answer questions for people that doubt God and Christianity I would appreciate you helping in this area.
  • Thanks so much.
  • Your friend in Christ,
  • Robin
• Answer: (click here to see the answer)
  1. Dear Robin,
  2. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that God knows all the future. In fact, when we read the Bible carefully, we find that when God says He foreknows something, He makes it happen. Notice what it says in Isa 46:9-11 Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure,’ 11 Calling a bird of prey from the east, the man who executes My counsel, from a far country. [This is probably referring to the future Cyrus.] Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it. (NKJV)
  3. We also find that God changes His mind, is grieved with our actions, and repents of good or punishment that He said He would do, at times. Here is the biblical evidence for these statements.
  4. Gen 6:4-9 There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. 5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord repented [it repented the LORD] that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I repent that I have made them. 8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. 9 This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God.
  5. Ex 32:9-14 And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! 10 Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation. 11 Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God, and said: Lord, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, `He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and repent from this harm to Your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever. 14 So the Lord repented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.
  6. Psa 106:45 And for their sake He remembered His covenant and repented according to the multitude of His mercies.
  7. Jer 15:6 You have forsaken Me, says the Lord, You have gone backward. Therefore I will stretch out My hand against you and destroy you; I am weary of repenting!
  8. Jer 18:7-12 The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, 8 if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will repent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. 9 And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, 10 if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will repent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it. 11 Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good. 12 And they said, That is hopeless! So we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates of his evil heart.
  9. Jer 20:16 And let that man be like the cities Which the Lord overthrew, and did not repent; Let him hear the cry in the morning And the shouting at noon,
  10. Jer 26:2,3,13,18 Thus says the Lord: Stand in the court of the Lords house, and speak to all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in the Lords house, all the words that I command you to speak to them. Do not diminish a word. 3 Perhaps everyone will listen and turn from his evil way, that I may repent concerning the calamity which I purpose to bring on them because of the evil of their doings. 13 Now therefore, amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the Lord your God; then the Lord will repent concerning the doom that He has pronounced against you. 18 Micah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts: Zion shall be plowed like a field, Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins, and the mountain of the temple like the bare hills of the forest. 19 Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah ever put him to death? Did he not fear the Lord and seek the Lords favor? And the Lord repented concerning the doom which He had pronounced against them. But we are doing great evil against ourselves.
  11. Jonah 3:6-4:2 Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. 7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat, or drink water. 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish? 10 Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it. 4:1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. 2 So he prayed to the Lord, and said, Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who repents from doing harm.
  12. From these passages it is clear that God changes His mind because of mercy, compassion, or righteous judgment. The Bible shows God is immutable, unchanging, in His character, love, mercy, but He is not immutable in the sense of those who have based their theology on the Greek philosophy which states that God is outside of time. I have shown that God repented or changed His mind in many portions of Scripture. There are many more, too. But this is not a change in His character; it is usually a change in His stated actions toward man. Our God is a God of mercy, love, compassion and passion. What a wonderful God is He!
  13. He loves us and has made the provision for us to have eternal life. I am attaching a booklet I wrote on Predestination and Free Will.
  14. In Christ,
  15. Bib Hill
• Question: If predestination is true, why do we still need to pray?
  • If predestination is true, why do we still need to pray?
  • Dan
• Answer: (click here to see the answer)
  1. Dear Dan,
  2. When you asked me, "If predestination is true, why do we still need to pray?", you hit the nail right on the head. This idea was the first problem I faced in my Calvinistic belief. However, after I talked with my pastor, about 44 years ago, when he thought he had the solution by saying the body of Christ was corporately predestined, it didn't help. In my mind, the idea of corporate election and predestination had a serious flaw which the Scriptures did not seem to support. That problem could be stated as follows: In this theory, in contrast to Calvin's view of predestination, God's foreknowledge was the basis of His election and predestination.
  3. I reasoned as Calvin wrote, since to God "all things always were, and perpetually remain, under his eyes, so that to his knowledge there is nothing future or past, but all things are present", God knew everything as though it were present. Then, since I could see from Scripture that His election and predestination followed His foreknowledge, and since He knew everyone who was foreknown, then, God's predestination had to be individual just as His foreknowledge was. I was right back where I started. I could not reconcile this apparent biblical antinomy or paradox.
  4. At this time of my life, this deterministic theology had a detrimental influence on my attitudes about prayer just as, it seems, you have concluded. If God knew everything, and I believed He did; and if God predestinated everything based on His foreknowledge, and I believed He did that too; then, everything that I prayed was foreknown and predestined. If I didn't pray, that also was predestined; then, it became easy to feel, why should I pray?
  5. Unfortunately, I ended up having an abysmal prayer life. The only reason I prayed, I thought in my mind, was because God commanded it in His word. I couldn't understand why the Lord Jesus Christ and Paul were zealous in prayer. In my life, then, there was no zest in my prayers. Therefore, I recognized that something was seriously wrong with my Christian life. I knew this was wrong but didn't know what to do about it.
  6. During this troublesome period, my wife and I visited her parents in Illinois. Her father had a treasure trove of theological books. I was browsing through his books when I found one by William E. Biederwolf titled, How Can God Answer Prayer? I began reading it immediately. BOOK THREE chapter IV. had the title, "Why Pray if Everything Is Predetermined by God?" That was exactly my dilemma. I eagerly turned to that page. He had three answers based on three different explanations:
  7. "The first explanation declares that everything which comes to pass is first predetermined in the mind of God. It declares that God's predestination precedes His foreknowledge as the ground of certainty for human action. God only foreknows that which He has predetermined to take place.
  8. The second explanation, while admitting that God absolutely predetermines some things, contends that such things as respect the government of his free moral agents are only conditionally predetermined. God purposes to do under certain conditions, which depend upon the free agency of man, what He would not do under other conditions. This explanation further declares that God's foreknowledge precedes His predestination. God only predetermines that which He foreknows will take place and the foreknowledge of human action has no influence upon its taking place; it does not necessitate the action.
  9. The third explanation denies that God's foreknowledge is necessarily all-comprehending. (Biederwolf, William E., How Can God Answer Prayer?, pp. 106,107, The Winona Publishing Co., Chicago, Ill., 1906.)
  10. The third explanation was a brand new idea to me. He then evaluated three suppositions. He started with, "Suppose we accept". I will skip the first two explanations and will start with his third supposition:
  11. "3. Suppose we accept the third explanation: the explanation which affirms that God's foreknowledge and foreordination are not necessarily all-comprehending. You shrink from an attitude of thought like that toward the Supreme Being. It appears, does it not, to reflect discredit upon His perfection? Yet, let us not be too hasty in our judgment. Many earnest and noted scholars defend the position and strenuously maintain that not only does it not dishonor God, but that it is the only scheme of thought which does not divest Him of the essential attributes of His divinity.
  12. The position is quite clearly set forth in W.W. Kinsley's 'Science and Prayer,' . . . This explanation, if it may be maintained consistently with the perfection of God's character, relieves us, of course, of the difficulty in question.
  13. It is contended by the advocates of this explanation, that when God created us in His own image and made us equally with Himself of sovereign will (and we know we are free to choose as we will) by His very so doing He surrendered at least partially His control over us and of necessity limited thereby His foreknowledge concerning us. Plainly it is the old time-worn controversy between two great schools of theology; between God's sovereignty on one side (involving as it does His absolute foreknowledge and predestination) and man's free will on the other, and between the horns of such a dilemma the only thing to do is to confess a wise ignorance and hang on to both.
  14. A controversion of God's perfect foreknowledge does not set well with most of us, regardless of our denominational bias. The fear, however, of any belittling conception of God its advocates would overcome by showing what the theory of such foreknowledge really involves, leaving us to decide which is the greater injustice, if any, to the all-perfect character of God.
  15. The following from the work above quoted on 'Science and Prayer' will help us to an appreciation, if so be such is possible, of the position assumed by the advocates of the limited knowledge theory. The author says: 'No petitioner can plead with any genuine unction unless he believes that he can actually effect some change in the purposes existing in the divine mind at the time his prayer is offered. . . . If God foreknows everything that will ever come to pass, all His own mental states must necessarily be included in that foreknowledge. A moment's reflection will convince us that otherwise there is not a single present intention or plan but what is exposed to the possibility of modification. If a single thought or emotion is ever going to spring up in God's mind unanticipated, God Himself must be as ignorant as we as to what part of His vast plan it will pertain. And so, if we would logically defend a belief in the all-comprehensiveness of God's foreknowledge, we must affirm that not a single new idea can arise in His mind-not a single new emotion be felt-and that if He is thus limited now He must have been equally so at every moment in all the eternal past, and must be through all the years to come; for if there ever has been, or ever will be, a moment when a new thought can thus come, then during all the time preceding that moment the foreknowledge was incomplete. Where does this lead? In what sort of an intellectual or emotional condition does this irrefragable logic compel us to assert God to be continually? Unquestionably that of perfect stagnation. No thought processes can be carried on under such conditions-no succession of ideas, no change of mental state; but God must have been and must still be imprisoned in a hopelessly dead calm. . . . When, then, did He form His plans for creation? Under this supposition there never could have been a time when He began to think about them. . . . If God has had no thought succession, He can have had no feeling; His emotional state having ever necessarily been that of unbroken placidity-of absolute apathy, His heart throbless as a stone. He could experience no change of feeling, for that would involve thought-succession. From all the sources of joy or sorrow of which we can conceive He would be utterly debarred - from pleasurable or painful memories, from hopes and forebodings, from social sympathies, from emotions that accompany changes, contrasts, surprises, from the glow of activity, even from the delights and griefs of contemplation; for they all involve thought-movement. Therefore, under this supposition God can have no emotional activity, for He would have no thought-activity for its background. Thoughts must, of course, come and go, or the heart lies dead.' 'Such,' he says, 'are the absurdities in which we become hopelessly entangled the moment we attempt to defend the doctrine of God's perfect foreknowledge.'" (op. cit., pp. 106-118.)
  16. This was astounding to me. If this were true, it would change everything. But he had presented no Scripture to back up the argument. It was just philosophical reasoning. I had already been shown and then studied God's word on this subject. The Bible said that God worked all things after the counsel of His will. But I thought about his statements. I must find a copy of that book, Science and Prayer, and see if there was any Scripture to back up this argument.
  17. I relentlessly searched until I finally found the book in a used book store. I avidly read it, but it also was very philosophical. However, he wrote: "The doctrine of God's perfect foreknowledge is not only unphilosophical, but also unscriptural." (Kinsley, W. W., Science and Prayer, p. 80, The Chautauqua Century Press, Meadville, Pa, 1893.) That encouraged me to read further. I got to the part that Biederwolf had quoted. Then I realized Biederwolf had skipped the most important part, for me, the reference to Scripture. It was there! Kinsley even admonished the reader:
  18. "Read if you will the ninth chapter of Deuteronomy. Moses here rehearses the several rebellions of Israel, and his three separate pleadings before the Lord, of forty days and forty nights each, without either eating bread or drinking water. Each time he fell down before a very angry God who had fully purposed, and had definitely announced his purpose to destroy the rebels, and each time, if Moses can be credited, he actually changed that purpose right then and there and rescued his people. The God here depicted had none of that foreknowledge which theologians with such strange unanimity ascribe to him. But, say you, [And many have made these statements often.] that and similar accounts scattered throughout the Bible are simply instances of anthropomorphism, of rhetorical accommodation, of describing in the language of human experiences and human limitations what really transcends the human; that it was not the intent to have these narrations interpreted as literal history, but as poetic approximations of dim shadowings of really ineffable truths. It seems to me that it would be a strange way to bring the truth within our comprehension, to state what is directly opposed to the truth, and to reiterate the downright falsehood again and again, in a most misleading way, and in a matter of such vital moment that all possibility of religious life depends on it, and through which alone any lasting comfort comes to the hungry human soul." (ibid., pp. 81,82.)
  19. What happened next changed my life. I read Deuteronomy 9 with a searching heart. Here is what shattered the foundations of my Calvinistic system of theology:
  20. Deu 9:8-19 "Also in Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lord was angry enough with you to have destroyed you. 9 When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. 10 Then the Lord delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly. 11 And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. 12 Then the Lord said to me, 'Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly; they have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molded image.' 13 Furthermore the Lord spoke to me, saying, 'I have seen this people, and indeed they are a stiff-necked people. 14 Let Me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.' 15 So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire; and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16 And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God-had made for yourselves a molded calf! You had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you. 17 Then I took the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. 18 And I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. 19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the Lord was angry with you, to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me at that time also."
  21. This Scripture shattered my presuppositions. Along with other Scripture it undermined my Calvinistic mindset about the immutability of God. Here was Scripture I had read but never grasped before. Before long, I found that there was a vast amount of Scripture which showed that God changed His mind - even repented. Since that time, I have studied the Bible on this issue for thousands of hours. I am convinced that predestination is not for salvation but it is for our security once we trust Christ as our Savior.
  22. In Christ,
  23. Bob Hill
• Question: If God gave us free will, and wants us to love Him He isn't immutable or impassible, right?
  • Sorry to bother you again, but I have another question! I got a book by C.S. Lewis from the library, and I wanted to type to you a little part of it, and get your opinion on it:
  • "If the Impassible sometimes speaks of suffering from passion, and the eternal fullness of being in want... Then it can only mean, if it means anything intelligible by us, that the immutable heart chooses to need us." That's not the whole thing, just the gist of what he is saying. What confuses me is that C.S. Lewis believes we have free will, but here he speaks of God as being immutable. And if God created in Himself a place where He could need us (as Lewis claims) then doesn't that in itself mean He ISN'T immutable?? If God gave us free will, and loved us, and created in Himself the ability to NEED us, then He must feel emotions about and for us, which means He does change. And if He ever changed once then He isn't impassible. Right?? The quote is from the book "The Problem with Pain" and it is in chapter 3 "Divine Goodness"
  • Thanks for your time and thoughts!
  • Dusti
• Answer: (click here to see the answer)
  1. Dear Dusti,
  2. First, you are not bothering me.
  3. I believe C. S. Lewis is somewhat right in his evaluation of the biblical data on God's impassibility and immutability. That's because, when we think of immutability and impassibility, we don't find it in the Bible. Instead, we have to look to the creeds that various Calvinistic religious groups have, like the Westminster Confession.
  4. Because of these unbiblical creeds, theologians have written things like this about God's love: "Love, of course, is not bound up with sensitive passion and emotion in God, as it is in us. . . . Passions, since they necessarily entail a sensitive and therefore bodily nature, are per se imperfect and limited, and consequently they cannot be predicated except metaphorically of God. . . . we must deny these accompanying passions when we attribute love and joy to God." [Benignus, Nature, Knowledge, and God, pp. 551,552.] I ask, on what basis should we do this? What does God's Word say? Yet they arbitrarily say God does not mean what He said, or had written in his Word.
  5. I have to hand it to Dr. James Boice when he wrote the following in his book, The Sovereign God, pp. 184,185: The immutability of God as presented in Scripture, however, is not the same thing as the immutability of "god" talked about by the Greek philosophers. In Greek thought immutability meant not only unchangeability but also the inability to be affected by anything in any way. The Greek word . . . . means a total inability to feel any emotion whatever. . . . That makes good philosophy of course. It is logical. But it is not what God reveals about himself in the Scriptures, and so we must reject it, however logical it may seem." I'm glad that he departed from his Calvinistic heritage because, he said, "it is not what God reveals about himself in the Scriptures".
  6. However, on the previous page he wrote: ". . . being perfect, he never differs from himself. For a moral being to change, it would be necessary to change in one of two directions. Either the change is from something worse to something better, or else it is from something better to something worse. It should be evident that God can move in neither of these directions. God cannot change for the better, for that would mean that he had been imperfect beforehand. . . If we are talking about knowledge, it would mean that he had not known everything and was therefore ignorant."
  7. However, here Boice was just repeating the Greek philosophy of Socrates as written by Plato in the Republic. Plato explained immutability this way in, "A dialogue between Socrates and Adeimantus.": "Is it not true that to be altered and moved by something else happens least to things that are in the best condition . . . that those which are well made and in good condition are least liable to be changed by time and other influences. . . . It is universally true then, that that which is in the best state by nature or art or both admits least alteration by something else.... But God, surely and everything that belongs to God is in every way in the best possible state.... does he change himself for the better ... or for the worse and to something uglier than himself? ...for the worse if he is changed . . . the gods themselves are incapable of change. . . . Then God is altogether simple and true in deed and word, and neither changes himself nor deceives others. (Plato, Republic I, Loeb Classical Library, Book II, pp. 191-197.)
  8. Many other theologians tell us that God is immutable, unchangeable, impassible, and unaffected by anything outside of Himself. But when we look in the Bible, we find that our God is just the opposite. We do have a God who changes His mind We do have a very passionate God. We know that because the Scriptures tell us.
  9. We know He can be affected and afflicted by His people's affliction because He shows us in His Word.
  10. Jer 15:6 "You have forsaken Me," says the Lord, "You have gone backward. Therefore I will stretch out My hand against you and destroy you; I am weary of repenting!"
  11. Isa 63:8,9 "Surely they are My people, children who will not lie." So He became their Savior. 9 In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them; In His love and in His pity He redeemed them; And He bore them and carried them all the days of old.
  12. He can also experience anguish because of His people.
  13. Hos 11:7-9 My people are bent on backsliding from Me. Though they call to the Most High, none at all exalt Him. 8 How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zeboiim? My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred. 9 I will not execute the fierceness of My anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim. For I am God, and not man, The Holy One in your midst; And I will not come with terror.
  14. He had compassion even though Israel was unrepentant. After the 10 spies gave their report and Joshua and Caleb gave theirs, the people wanted to kill Joshua and Caleb. This is shown in Num 14:10,11,20-23: the congregation said to stone them with stones. Now the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of meeting before all the children of Israel. 11 Then the Lord said to Moses: "How long will these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them?" Then Moses prayed for this stubborn unrepentant people. He appealed to God's mercy, compassion, and longsuffering, asking Him to pardon them. Because of this intercessor, what did God do? It tells us in verses 20-23. 20 Then the Lord said: "I have pardoned, according to your word; 21 but truly, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord - 22 because all these men who have seen My glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put Me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded My voice, 23 they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected Me see it."
  15. Israel's misery and repentance always affected God. We find that in Judges 10:10-16: And the children of Israel cried out to the Lord, saying, "We have sinned against You, because we have both forsaken our God and served the Baals!" 11 So the Lord said to the children of Israel, "Did I not deliver you from the Egyptians and from the Amorites and from the people of Ammon and from the Philistines? 12 Also the Sidonians and Amalekites and Maonites oppressed you; and you cried out to Me, and I delivered you from their hand. 13 Yet you have forsaken Me and served other gods. Therefore I will deliver you no more. 14 Go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen; let them deliver you in your time of distress." 15 And the children of Israel said to the Lord, "We have sinned! Do to us whatever seems best to You; only deliver us this day, we pray." 16 So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord. And His soul could no longer endure the misery of Israel.
  16. In Nah 1:2, we find God could become furious. Nah 1:2: "God is jealous, and the LORD avenges; The LORD avenges and is furious. The LORD will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies."
  17. He was provoked to wrath in Deu 9:7,8: Remember! Do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD. 8 Also in Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry enough with you to have destroyed you.
  18. God can be grieved over the world, Israel and us when we go astray. Israel affected God and grieved Him. He got furious in Psa 78:16-22,36-41: He also brought streams out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers. 17 But they sinned even more against Him By rebelling against the Most High in the wilderness. 18 And they tested God in their heart by asking for the food of their fancy. 19 Yes, they spoke against God: They said, "Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? 20 Behold, He struck the rock, so that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. Can He give bread also? Can He provide meat for His people?" 21 Therefore the Lord heard this and was furious; So a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also came up against Israel, 22 Because they did not believe in God, and did not trust in His salvation. 36 Nevertheless they flattered Him with their mouth, and they lied to Him with their tongue; 37 For their heart was not steadfast with Him, nor were they faithful in His covenant. 38 But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and did not destroy them. Yes, many a time He turned His anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath; 39 For He remembered that they were but flesh, a breath that passes away and does not come again. 40 How often they provoked Him in the wilderness, and grieved Him in the desert! 41 Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.
  19. It says He was grieved with Israel for 40 years in Psa 95:10: For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, "It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways."
  20. According to Eph 4:30, we can grieve the Holy Spirit even though He seals us until the day of redemption. Eph 4:30: And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
  21. He is jealous of our worship.
  22. Ex 34:14 for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
  23. Jam 4:5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, "The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously?"
  24. He loves (Greek filei) emotionally.
  25. John 5:20 For the Father loves the Son.
  26. John 16:27 the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me.
  27. He loves volitionally (agapay).
  28. Eph 2:4-6 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
  29. He has pity in Isa 63:9: In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them; In His love and in His pity He redeemed them; And He bore them and carried them all the days of old.
  30. He takes pleasure in Psa 147:11: The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy.
  31. He was tested by Israel according to Heb 3:8-11: Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness, 9 Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years. 10 Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, "They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways. 11 So I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest.'"
  32. God even said, "What shall I do?" He was beside Himself in Hos 6:4: O Ephraim, what shall I do to you? O Judah, what shall I do to you? For your faithfulness is like a morning cloud, and like the early dew it goes away.
  33. He yearns for His people.
  34. Jer 31:20 Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For though I spoke against him, I earnestly remember him still; Therefore My heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, says the LORD.
  35. Jam 4:5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, "The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously"?
  36. From these Scriptures, we can see a great variety of emotions our passionate God has displayed in spite of what the Calvinistic theologians say about His immutability and impassibility in their creeds. Remember, impassible means not subject to passion or feelings. But being passionate wasn't enough for our wonderful God.
  37. He gave the greatest gift of all. He gave His Son to redeem us by paying for our sins. His Son, Jesus Christ, helps us to know the Father. As we learn about Him, we can love Him more for who He is. Then, as we focus on Him, who He is, and how wonderful He is, we can be filled with God's fullness. Then we can love and worship Him.
  38. That's what Paul is doing in Eph 3:14-19: For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height- 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
  39. Let me know what you think.
  40. In Christ,
  41. Bob Hill
• Question: Does saying that God doesn't know everything detract from His Godhood?
  • Bob,
  • Thank you for your reply. I know you are very busy and I appreciate your response.
  • I have read your articles on Predestination which is where I came across the knowledge issue where we disagree. My point is, which I think you're not considering in all of your articles, is that God exists outside of the time that constrains us. Sure we have free will, I completely agree with you on that. However, God knows what free-will decisions we will make. Is anything a surprise to God? Does anything take him aback and make him say, "Wow, I didn't see that coming."???
  • Just because God knows all of our future decisions does not remove anything from our free will state. Forknowledge and free-will are two separate issues.
  • For example, let's say that you're throwing a surprise birthday party for your friend. Does your knowledge of the party somehow dictate how the person will react? That's absurd. Just because you know about the party has absolutely no bearing on how your friend will react. It's the same with God. Just because he knows the future, doesn't mean he controls it. But, to say that God doesn't know everything detracts from his Godhood.
  • Sincerely,
  • Rich Morgan
• Answer: (click here to see the answer)
  1. Dear Rich,
  2. Thanks for your response. I understand that you believe that God is outside of time. I believed that when I got saved back in 1951. I was guided to that conclusion by the guy who discipled me. He said that God knew all of the future because He was outside of time. He went farther than you. He said God couldn't be wrong. Everything was already seen by God. And because it is already seen by God, it can't be any different than how He sees it. Therefore, it is ordained to be just the way God saw it. That made sense to my brain-washed mind, but when I was confronted by William Biederwolf's book, How Can God Answer Prayer, I realized I was wrong. If God knows something, our God could not be wrong. If God knew the whole future, it could not change from what He knew in one jot. That would mean all time is frozen. There are no choices-only what God sees. The Bible contradicts that in thousands of places, but not once does it say that God declares the future where He does not determine it, cause it to happen, or do it.
  3. God doesn't know the future unless He acts on things or people to make it happen. God could, and does predict the future, because He makes what He predicts happen.
  4. Isa 46:9-11 Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, 10 declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure,' 11 calling a bird of prey from the east, the man who executes My counsel, from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it.
  5. It's not that "Time is a creation of God, therefore it does not control Him." that matters. God has always existed and always will. Time is onerous to us because we have to sleep, work, punch a clock-all kinds of things that time frustrates. I'm almost 69. Time and its consequences of aging are a bummer, but God doesn't get old. My biggest hang-up was that I thought at one time that God was outside of time.
  6. If any of these things could be proved from Scripture, I would be happy to change. I believed them from Greek philosophy at one time, but the Bible doesn't corroborate what I once believed.
  7. There are many Scripture passages that say that God changes His mind, answers prayer or repents. Many Christians don't sympathize with Calvinism at all but believe that a solution to the problem of God's repentance in over twenty passages in the Bible is found in what Paul Tillich borrowed from Greek philosophy: "The eternal now, that God is not in time." I have been studying this topic for 40 years and have not found one place that says God is outside of time or even alludes to that idea. Instead, the Bible shows God working with us in time.
  8. I'm a biblicist. Show me from God's word that God is outside of time. When a Christian philosopher maintained that God was outside of time, the only thing he could tell me was his reference to "Paul Tillich's phrase, "The eternal now, that God is not in time."
  9. Again, I have heard this from many sources, but there is no Scripture which states this. What they sometimes refer to are the following passages: 2 Ti 1:9 who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. Tit 1:2 in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began. Walvoord & Zuck wrote at 1 Co 2:7, "The message which Paul proclaimed was God's secret wisdom, known only by God's revelation (Matt. 11:25). At the heart of this wisdom is the plan of salvation intended for our glory, determined before time began (Eph. 1:4)." The Bible Knowledge Commentary. Wheaton, Ill: Scripture Press, 1985.
  10. In each of these references, the Greek text does not substantiate the translation.
  11. 2 Ti 1:9 before time began. pro cronwn aiwniwn = before age times.
  12. Tit 1:2 before time began. pro cronwn aiwniwn = before age times.
  13. 1 Co 2:7 prowrisen ho theos pro twn aiwnwn = God predestined before the ages
  14. Tillich was not the one who formulated this idea about God. Augustine who lived from 354-430 AD was influenced by Plato through Plotinus. Most scholars in the ancient world of Augustine understood Plato's concept of God. He had influenced almost all the schools of philosophy of that time. Plato explained God's immutability in, "A dialogue between Socrates and Adeimantus." He wrote: "Is it not true that to be altered and moved by something else happens least to things that are in the best condition . . . that those which are well made and in good condition are least liable to be changed by time and other influences. . . . It is universally true then, that that which is in the best state by nature or art or both admits least alteration by something else. . . . But God, surely and everything that belongs to God is in every way in the best possible state. . . . Then does he (God) change himself for the better and to something fairer, or for the worse and to something uglier than himself? It must necessarily . . . be for the worse if he is changed . . . the gods themselves are incapable of change. . . . Then God is altogether simple and true in deed and word, and neither changes himself. Plato V, Republic I, Loeb Classical Library, Book II, Chapters XIX-XXI, pp. 191-197, trans. by Paul Shorey.
  15. This argument was formulated by Plato and later adopted by Augustine through the writings of the Neoplatonists, especially Plotinus. Let me emphasize again, what Plato said at the end of his dialogue. He basically said that since God is perf