Some issues with Leighton Flowers view of God's Foreknowledge

pre·des·ti·na·tion

/prēˌdestəˈnāSH(ə)n/

noun

noun: predestination; noun: pre-destination

1. (as a doctrine in Christian theology) the divine foreordaining of all that will happen, especially with regard to the salvation of some and not others."the action of God in foreordaining certain of mankind through grace to salvation or eternal life," from Old French predestinacion and directly from Church Latin praedestinationem (nominative praedestinatio) "a determining beforehand," noun of action from past participle stem of praedestinare "set before as a goal; appoint or determine beforehand," from Latin prae "before" (pre-) + destinare "appoint, determine" (destiny).

The Reformed notion of predestination as explained by Paul, who notes that we were elected πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου, εἶναι ἡμᾶς ἁγίους καὶ ἀμώμους κατενώπιον αὐτοῦ (chosen before the foundation of the world with a purpose of becoming holy and without blame before Him).

Leighton Flowers will use the expression “in Him” to smuggle a work of the believer who renders himself separate “in Christ,” when Paul decidedly excludes such a notion indicating that election was pre-temporal “by Christ or through Christ.” But the issue comes when you ask how did God know who would come to faith before the foundation of the world? This is where the stammering starts. The synergist has three views they can take: Prescience (simple-foreknowledge) view, or an Open-Theistic view, or a Molinistic view of how God’s foreknowledge works in time.

Prescience view: If the synergist says that God looked down time and seen who would come to faith, prior to time beginning, this is called the Prescience (simple-foreknowledge) view. This was the most popular view until Monergist point out what the synergist is saying is God learns. How could God learn from that to which He created?

Open-Theistic view: Dr. Tim Challies characterized this view as:

·    God’s greatest attribute is love. God’s love so overshadows His other characteristics that He could never allow or condone evil or suffering to befall mankind.

·    Man has libertarian free will. Man’s will have not been so effected by the Fall that he is unable to make a choice to follow God. God respects man’s freedom of choice and would not infringe upon it.

·    God does not have exhaustive knowledge of the future. Indeed, He cannot know certain future events because the future exists only as a possibility. God is unable to see what depends on the choices of free will agents simply because this future does not yet exist, so it unknowable. In this way, open theists attempt to reconcile this doctrine with God’s omniscience.

·    God takes risks. Because God cannot know the future, He takes risks in many ways – creating people, giving them gifts and abilities, and so on. Where possibilities exist, so does risk.

·    God learns. Because God does not know the future exhaustively, He learns, just as we do.

·    God is reactive. Because He is learning, God is constantly reacting to the decisions we make.

·    God makes mistakes. Because He is learning and reacting, always dealing with limited information, God can and does make errors in judgment which later require re-evaluation.

·    God can change His mind. When God realizes He has made an error in judgment or that things did not unfold as He supposed, He can change His mind.

The main concerns with Open-Theism are:

1. A Denial of God's Omniscience. While men like Greg Boyd deny that open-theism denies God’s omniscience, this is simply not true. Even if it is true that the future exists only as possibilities, something that is not adequately proven by open-theists, we are still putting a limit on God’s knowledge when we state that He cannot know these possibilities. This view of God’s knowledge of the future is unique in that it is at odds with every other Judeo-Christian tradition.

2. God’s goodness, greatness and glory are at stake. The God of the Open-Theists is, in the words of Bruce Ware, too small. He is not the all-knowing, all-powerful God revealed so clearly in the pages of the Bible. Christians need to always be concerned that both they and God are making poor decisions based on inadequate information. Thus we cannot always count on God to do what is best, because even He does not always know what this is.

3. The Christian’s confidence in God is at stake. If open- theism is true, the Christian cannot put his full trust and confidence in God. “The God of open-theism will always want our best, but since he may not in fact know what is best, it becomes impossible to give him our unreserved and unquestioning trust” (Bruce Ware, Their God is Too Small, page 20. When hardships arise we will have to ask if God anticipated these, or if He is as shocked and distressed as we are.

Molinistic view, synergists who are so frustrated with the Prescience and Open-Theistic view, turn to Molinism so that those “prideful” Calvinists will get off their backs about their inconsistent views of God’s foreknowledge.