Freedom and the All-Knowing God
Words are powerful. A change here, a change there – turn a phrase and entire meanings do a mega shift. By new information or change of perspective, ideas once vehemently defended evaporate before your very eyes. Worlds collide, and worlds change in an instant.
I was once passionately dedicated to human self-determinism. I still believe we make our own choices, and I still believe we are responsible for those choices. In the past, however, I believed men held the ultimate power to shape their own destinies. If you told me you believed the future was determined, I thought you believed men were puppets.
One day this conviction collided with another deeply held belief. Like many Christians, I also believed that God is omniscient. God’s knowledge is complete. He knows all things – past, present, and future. So, what happened? Human freedom and God’s omniscience collided at the definition of predestination.
I rejected the idea that God would predestine anyone for salvation. That a soul could be free and predestined just seemed incompatible. There, however, was the word predestine in the Scriptures. I had to reckon with its meaning. I latched on to the explanation that God looked down the corridors of time, saw my decision to trust him before I actually did, and chose to save me based on my faith. For predestination to not obliterate my freedom, I believed it to be rooted in God’s foreknowledge. Yet, I failed to realize such a view belittled God by relegating his choices to a secondary status. I had made my choice of God the ultimate and deciding factor in salvation. But, because God is ultimate, I knew a change had to be made in my core beliefs.
My confusion was rooted in two Bible passages. In Romans 8:29-30 Paul writes, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son…” And 1 Peter 1:1-2, “To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father…” Upon first examination I easily understand how one might think predestination is rooted in God’s foreknowledge of human decisions. This conclusion, however, unravels in several steps.
Romans 8:29 says God foreknows persons, not decisions or even faith. God certainly knows our future decisions, but the text emphasizes God’s foreknowledge of people when it says those God foreknew or in some translations, whom God foreknew. 1 Peter 1:2, while less clear, easily reads the same way. Wayne Grudem explains that these passages should be understood as describing people God foreknew in a saving way (Wayne Grudem. Systematic Theology. P. 676-678 ).
The next step needs some preliminary definitions. Predestination and foreknowledge are not the same thing. To predestine an event of history or choice of another being is to cause that event or choice to be what it is as opposed to something else. To foreknow an event of history or choice of another being is merely to be informed that the event or choice will occur in a specific manner and not in any other. The distinction between predestination and foreknowledge is causality. But, do not let this fool you.
For God to be omniscient his knowledge of the future must be faultless. What he knows is true. Therefore, it is impossible to escape the reality of a fixed future once God’s omniscience is admitted, even if you assume human choices are undetermined.
When God is omniscient, human decisions will be as he knows them and not any other. According to the model mentioned earlier, Once God looks down the corridors of time, the future he sees is determined. I was forced, therefore, to either abandon my allegiance to human self-determinism or my allegiance to God’s omniscience. Not willing to abandon my allegiance to God’s omniscience, the human freedom I previously desired to preserve evaporated in the light of God’s perfect knowledge.
Rare is the professing Christian who denies God perfect knowledge. Even those most radically committed to human freedom attempt to maintain the omniscience of God by redefining what is knowable. In the twenty-first century certain theologians finally took their commitment to human freedom to its extreme and yet logical conclusions. Explaining that omniscience only included what is knowable, theologians, known as open theists, declared the future free choices of humans unknowable – even by God. Through logical manipulation they secured man’s freedom but sacrificed God’s omniscience – no matter how much they protest to the contrary.
God’s knowledge either includes the future or it does not, and if God knows the future, the future is fixed.
Trusting my life to the All-Knowing God,
Pastor Andy
The grace of understanding comes through thinking as opposed to not thinking. - John Piper
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