How Does God Know Our Thoughts?

Does God know our thoughts, all of them from start to finish, before we even think them?

Of course he does, but how?

Perhaps he knows them by the brute fact of his essence, i.e. everything knowable is necessarily known by an omniscient God. If God knows everything essentially, just because he is the omniscient God, there would be some issues. Because God is eternal, not created nor bound by the created, the implication would be that what he knows, he always knew. It's part of his timeless being. Our thoughts-- the good, the bad and the ugly-- would be part of who and what God is from all eternity quite apart from our existence which came to be in time.

If that were the case, sin's expression in creation could only be the instantiation of what was in the thought of God himself, apart from creation. Our thoughts would be, in fact, the very thoughts of God, and there wouldn't be any way to prove them otherwise. Could our actions be free or blameworthy in the sense of being ours and not his? In "the chicken or the egg" argument about the matter, I think we would have to conclude that everything in our lives was an expression of the essence of God, including sin. 

If that were the case, our lives would be authored by God in the same way fictional characters' lives are authored by the writer of the fiction. 

Interestingly enough, there is no actual, practical difference in respect to this issue whether God's omniscience is described by Essential Omniscience or by Divine Determinism. In either case, every act of even apparently free creatures is not actually the acts of those creatures but God's. He would have thought them up prior to their existence and then actuated them through creation. Under either regimen there is no actual freedom, so no blame could be ascribed to anyone other than he who premeditated those actions and then enacted them. God would be the only sinner.

God contemplating evil or cogitating sin within himself apart from the existence of creation is a biblical impossibility. Even premeditating a plan which would pick and choose the temptations which would fill the ensuing history of mankind is out of the question. God is not against himself, ever! He's not divided or impure. Those things which are contrary to him could only have come into existence after an agency independent of him in will existed. Therefore any conception that has God, within himself, developing, planning, cogitating, or strategizing about evil apart from it actually having come into existence apart from him in creation fails.

God could know, in a general sense, that if he created beings possessing freedom they would exert that freedom in opposition to him, but he wouldn't have known to what degree or how deep or to what end until he actually created them. Then he would see it, transparently, all at once from outside of time. So, if God knows all our thoughts through all time by omniscient, omnitemporal observation there are issues for our comprehension, but none at all in regard to what is revealed in the scriptures about God and his purity. 

On Omnitemporal Observation, God sees all that happens in time without regard to time passing. All time is equally before him and accessible to him. He is neither in time nor constrained by it, anymore than he is by space. He knows all that will ever be in time because he is "already" at each millisecond of time that will ever be in the fullness of his timeless being. All time was before him, at once, from the instant he created.

This is not the quaint notion of God "looking down the corridors of time." "Looking down a corridor" implies a helplessness in waiting that isn't part of God's omnitemporal governance. God has chosen for creation to elapse in time while he is outside time seeing all at once. When it comes to time we have to wait for the future, but in any moment in time, God as he is now is already there, and he's there "now." From such a vantage he is certainly free to affect the entirety of time in any way he wishes in order to cause whatever end he desires.

 

On this view, it is true that God does come to know something by creating that he would not have known apart from creating. Of course, if that isn't the case, then God ends up being the author of sin despite one's view of omniscience and sovereignty, without exception. That God comes to know something given his decision to create doesn't at all impinge upon his sovereignty nor his omniscience. It may have the appearance of contradicting aseity, but God's essential being is not made dependent on something else by this. 

Can there be any real issue with saying that God would not have known the details of humans' thoughts apart from his decision to create humans? I think not, for if he had not made that decision there would have been nothing to know.

A. C.U.R.E.

The famous (or infamous, depending on your view) theological acronym TULIP has for centuries served the Church well in summarizing the basic tenets of Calvinistic soteriology. It arose from the disputations the Arminian school of thought offered back in the 1600's. The Calvinists carried the day at the Synod of Dort (the house was stacked) and walked away from that debate with what became known as TULIP: the Arminians walked away ridiculed with nothing but the truth.

There have been some good offerings for a similar acronym for Arminian soteriology (like FACTS), but I have never found them satisfactory because I didn't feel they were clearly descriptive. So, for the ailment of inexactitude, I'd like to offer a cure.

A.= Absolute Inability: mankind is so incapacitated by spiritual death, that none are able to turn themselves to God apart from the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit.
C.= Conditional Election: God has chosen to save all who trust Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
U.= Unlimited Atonement: the blood of Christ was shed for the sins of the entire world, and anyone who will can avail themselves of its effects through faith.
R.= Resistable Grace: The Holy Spirit's efforts at graciously influencing the sinner can be resisted by the sinner.
E.= Extinguishable Faith: the faith that the Holy Spirit's gracious ministrations made possible can be lost or shipwrecked by the person who had believed at one time.

I think this is a little more clearly descriptive than the FACTS acronym, especially for those who believe in the possibility of apostasy (and it doesn't have to be shared with a toy convention). It sure would be nice to have something as communicative as TULIP among those of us who actually got our soteriology right!

When Something Dawns on the Mind of God

There is life outside of this universe. God lives that life. His life existed when the universe did not, and would still exist if the universe dissolved into nothingness tomorrow. God is, everything else is made by him and exists at his pleasure. Therefore, there is something in and about God which has nothing whatsoever to do with creation, and which creation does not affect nor which creation orders.

God is perfect. He is entire within himself and in need of nothing. His perfections were as they were without creation, they are what they are upon creating, and they are what they would be if creation ceased to be. Therefore, God's perfections are not reliant in any respect upon creation. It could come and go but God would be the same.

When God created the universe and established something other than himself, of necessity, changes occurred within him due to his relation to that reality. That reality could have nothing to do with his perfections or else he wouldn't have been perfect apart from creation. The changes that reality caused upon its coming into existence, likewise, could have nothing to do with his perfections. So even though God does not change in regard to perfection, change is still part of his experience.

Before or apart from the decision to create, God had no relation to creation. If that reality was in his mind eternally (as would be the case on Essential Omniscience, Determinism, or Molinism) but undone, he would have been less than perfect apart from creating. He would have needed to create in order to fulfill that unfulfilled ambition, or to instantiate that knowledge in his mind which had no source in existence. Therefore, when creation did not exist God had no knowledge of it--there was nothing to know.

In his eternal perfections apart from creation, he did not know creation, created beings, nor the things that created beings did. Once he decided to create, he knew creation entirely. He knew created beings and all the things created beings did, completely, utterly, exhaustively. He did not and does not know them because he pre-conceived them in distant ages of eternity, but that in instantiating what he did conceive he knew them entirely through his omnitemporal omniscience. He knows them from the the foundations of the world, even though he wouldn't have know them "before" the foundations.

God can change in regard to thought or notion and still remain eternally perfect, as odd as that might sound. It is not at all necessary that God would have to know everything about creation before he conceived it and said, "Be." Theological conceptions which deny the first and insist upon the second lead to bizarre conclusions. In those cases the picture of God gets painted with inappropriate colors (as in Calvinism) or self-descriptions in the Word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit get denied (as in Impassibility).

That something dawned on the mind of God (like creating), and represented a change for him-- a change which affected him, should not be too difficult a concept to grasp given the testimony of scripture. The alternative is to not see God as he's shown himself to be.

A Moment In the Mind of God

We experience, act and think sequentially, in a time-bound fashion, which seems to demand that the entire concept of change be placed squarely within the domain of time. God is not time-bound and sees omnitemporally, and yet presents himself to us within creation as one experiencing change. The paradox is confusing to say the least. Nonetheless, unless we are willing to discount God's self-revelation in scripture, it's a paradox we should accept as true.

I've written previously concerning God's experience of the moment within creation. His timeless experience of the moment in creation means that he's not only always here now, but that what was then is now and what is to be is now for him. We wait on time to unfold--past opening up to present, present becoming future. God sees the beginning from the end and the end from the beginning. He sees all things in motion through time, at once, and he interjects throughout time to affect and influence where things go, at once, and leaves no scar on time to trace that he ever did so.

It is not necessary that he dreamt all this up in the misty ages of eternity, as if he always, forever had a plan to create, and then decided to instantiate it in the moment of creation. He need only to have had a thought and said "be," and in that instant all was what it is in all its time at once before him. From his perspective, all stuff, all time, all the us there will ever be came about with one all-wise, all-seeing, all-knowing decision (or perhaps six day-long decision). The thought that precipitated that decision has not passed: this, right now, is that thought, not the echo of it as it would be if he had to perceive it through the long ages of eternity before he acted.

Really, that precipitating thought was the only one necessary for God to have undertaken regarding all creation throughout its time. Extended pre-planning, meticulous preparation, experimentation, and trial and error were not necessary to bring creation into being. God is wise enough, knows enough, is powerful enough, and is unaffected by time enough to put all this into play, and to still allow creatures free will within time. We are in that moment, the very same moment, and the only moment within the mind of God that produced all creation and in which creation is sustained.

The Limits of Omniscience

Essential Omniscience: resting God's omniscience in the brute fact of his essence rather than sovereignty or observation. In other words, his divine essence is of such a nature that he knows all that can be known, including all free acts of agents throughout time, not because he sees all or controls all, but just because he is what he is.   (SLW)

If God knows everything by the brute fact of his essence, including the free acts of created agents, one has to wonder how and when such knowledge came to be. If God's omniscience is essential, rather than observational, then it would have existed as "long as" his essence has. Why not? On EO, he doesn't rely upon "waiting" for history to unfold or for agents to decide their choices--he "already" knows all by virtue of the brute fact of omniscience founded in his essence.

God's essence is eternal (i.e., without time rather than long-lasting). God is not developing, he doesn't gain some aspect of his essence (such as omniscience if that is the case) by means of time passing or by the instantiation of creation. That would make God essentially dependent upon something other than himself and breach aseity. So if God's knowing is by virtue of his essence, it means he always knew what he knows.

But if God knows every thought, every inclination, every action of every agent from all eternity, those acts and inclinations would have to be God's rather than the agent's. If EO is the case, then each and every one of those actually existed in God's essence quite apart from ever coming into being in the creature. How then could those acts and intentions ever be proven or understood to be anything other than a projection of God's own essence? They cannot.

We cannot have our cake and eat it too. We cannot say that God is not the author of intentions and acts (particularly sin) that were ultimately "in" him before they were in others. If God had in his mind the evil acts of devil and man before the devil and man had a mind, then that evil finds its genesis in God--he had evil in his heart before any of us had a heart that could be evil. If EO were true of God, we would have evil in us because God has evil in him and evil would, in fact, be God's will.

Determinism, Compatibilism, Molinism and Essential Omniscience all fail in this same way.

The interplay of omniscience and freewill can never be posited to be such that free actions were settled or known certainly in the mind of God before creation. Any attempt to do so hits this same brick wall, which has God very specifically and extensively knowing evil before evil was. If evil acts were known by God by virtue of his essence eternally, then in his essence God contemplated evil and plumbed the depths of temptation and enticement apart from their existence in creation. Therefore, permutations of Simple Foreknowledge which resort to omniscience by brute fact of God's essence fail God's scriptural disclaimer that sinful acts in general (James 1:13-15), and certain sinful acts specifically (Jeremiah 19:4-5), were founded in the hearts of sinners and not at all in God.

The only way I can see to avoid this error is to align with the scriptural accounts of God in action and the biblical instances of his self-disclosure and attribute God's omniscience (at least insofar as creaturely freedom goes) to Omnitemporal Observation. Regardless of how philosophically distasteful it may be, any of the more philosophically palatable theories fail to keep God from being the source of evil. Scripture demands that sinful intentions and sinful deeds not be attributed to God--not in conception, not in practice, and not first in the heart of God before in the hearts of our countrymen.

God doesn't think evil thoughts, how would he preconceive them for others? It seems to me that even omniscience has its limits!

How Does God Know the Future?

The future does not really exist (nor for that matter, does the past).

The past is merely the record of what used to be the present, and the future can only be what will be the present when the present gets to that point. It is the present where the action is and it is that action that produces either the past or the future. So the present is what is necessary for either the future or the past to have what existence they might, and never vice versa.

There are of course, circumstances which were in motion in the past and which determine the future to some degree. A huge asteroid could be hurtling toward us from ages past that will impact our future in very tangible ways. Celestial bodies move according to the laws of physics and their courses can be charted and accurately projected. Earthly bodies, and by that I mean humans, cannot--their responses to their environment, to one another, to God, or to themselves cannot be charted because their free actions are uncertain until taken (the Heisenberg principle of free agents?).

Freedom is entirely wrapped up in the present. It exists in the moment of decision. Insofar as choice is concerned, the past is inert and the future is is inaccessible. Decisions are made in the moment their action occurs, necessarily. Some choices are made which effect the future and/or are influenced by the past, but freedom to act, to choose, always and only happens in the present.

Therefore the future cannot be fixed in any real sense, because it is dependent upon a present which is in flux. A future which is dependent upon that which is in flux has to be in flux itself. It seems to me that if there is any truth at all to the notions of will, freedom and spirit (which produce flux) it is impossible for the future to be fixed, and by that fixity control the present. Nothing is actually written until it's written in its present.

That does not mean the future cannot be known. 

If an omnitemporal observer (God) could view all of the presents that will ever exist from a vantage outside of time, the future would be known to him, exhaustively, through observation of the present. That the future is known by this God would not make it fixed, in the sense that it determined the present, for it is the present in which action occurs, the uncertain becomes the established, and which God observes and thereby knows the future. God knows the future because God has seen the present timelessly, but it is never his knowing that causes what he sees.

It is, in fact, a confounding of cause and effect to assume God's knowing the future would bind the freedom of an agent in the present. That God knows an agent will act in some fashion at a particular time is not equivalent to saying that the agent must act in that fashion at that particular time because God knows that agent will. On omnitemporal observation of freewill, the act of the agent causes the knowledge, the knowledge doesn't cause the act. Seeing timelessly is out of our wheelhouse as humans, and therefore justifiably confusing, but it should be straightforward enough to perceive that seeing an act omnitemporally cannot be said to necessitate causing that act in time.

Furthermore, an infinitely wise and powerful God could shape the panorama of time by a directive interposition here and there (or as often as he saw fit) without affecting the existence of freedom, generally, in any present. He could shepherd time to an appointed end without meticulously determining anything that occurred in time. In being able to do so, I see no reason to posit that he would require a mental "trial run" (i.e middle knowledge and/or deterministic decrees) in order to do so. He saw all at once, once he created.

I see no other possible way than this for the future to be known exhaustively by God, for creaturely freedom to exist in the present (see this and this), and for God to not have conceived evil before evil existed. We'll address that last concept later, for now, suffice it to say that if the future is fixed and thereby determinative of the present, will and freedom would have to cease to exist in any meaningful fashion. I see no biblical warrant to suggest such a course. To posit such is to put the cart before the horse and totally miss how God knows the future.

Why Neither Molinism nor Determinism Can Be True

"Because they have forsaken Me and have made this an alien place and have burned sacrifices in it to other gods, that neither they nor their forefathers nor the kings of Judah had ever known, and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which I never commanded or spoke of, nor did it ever enter My mind"    Jeremiah 19:4-5   NASB

Molinism and Theological Determinism suffer from the same scriptural and fatal flaw, in my mind. Either regimen has to say something about how God thinks that he doesn't say of himself. We don't know, nor can we know how God thinks. We have what he tells us about himself, and that is it.

In the passage above, God tells us something about how he thinks, namely that the brutal, idolatrous infanticide practiced by apostate Jews was something that never entered his cogitations. It was not something that found it's way into his thinking nor something that arose because of his thinking. This was solely existent because of the agency of the Jews in question. God had no prior involvement, as it were.

This conclusion depends, to a degree, upon how one reads this text, there is some ambiguity in it. The general context of the passage is God's decrial through Jeremiah of a sin incomprehensibly out of place given Israel's history and God's word to them. As I see it, the extension in thought (v. 5) intended to be communicated by the author was something along the line of: "I did not command such a thing be done, I never spoke of such a thing, nor has such a thing ever even entered my mind." In other words, the antecedent of the understood "it" in that last phrase is the horrific act of infanticide, not the act of commanding or speaking.

Even if the antecedent of the understood "it" in that last phrase were to be seen to be referring to the action of God commanding or speaking (i.e., "nor did it ever enter my mind to command such, or speak of such"), there would still be an issue concerning God's decrees. If all is only as God decreed, as either Molinism or Calvinism would affirm, then the Israelites were, in effect, commanded (decreed) to burn their children from before time began and it did, in fact, enter God's mind to speak (decree) of it. His disclaimer through Jeremiah would be a disingenuous protest at best if Molinism or Calvinism were true--merely crocodile tears.

On either Theological Determinism or Molinism, my reading, which I think reflects what was the original intent, could not possibly be true. In both regimens, "it" would have had to enter God's mind before this world was actualized (which would actually be the case regardless of how one interprets that "it"). Therefore, for either system to be true, this passage would have to be false. The Word says, "let God be true and everyman a liar," so Molinism as well as Determinism must be tossed into the ash can, as far as I can see.

God's Nature and Creaturely Freedom

God's Nature
God has the quality of aseity. He is completely self-sufficient and utterly free. Though he is immutable, he is not inactive. He has sufficient power and complete knowledge to do or not do as he pleases.

God's Relation to Creation and Time
God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, has made all that is other than himself, and having created all things, he knows them completely. God is not impassible in regard to creation, but is interactive with it. All creation is before God at every point (i.e. everywhere is in his presence), but he is not in creation nor contained by it. God can step into the limitations of space and experience that space, but always with his omniscience and omnipresence intact, apart from that point of contact.

God is timeless, and is properly outside of time just as he is outside of the rest of creation. All time is equally before him at every point, although God is not in it nor constrained by time. That which is in time (creation) experiences time and is limited by its sequential nature, but God is present with equal facility in the past, present and future, simultaneously (as it were). God can step into the limitations of the moment (time) and experience that moment in real time, but always has his omniscient, omnitemporality intact, apart from that point of contact.

God's Omniscience
God's knows all that can be known. In acting in regard to creation, from the perspective of creation in any time reference, God sees and knows that action and its consequences in all time references. We must plan before we execute our actions or be at the mercy of things ignorantly set in motion, but God is able to see all at once by virtue of his omniscience outside of time. Therefore, he can act, direct and know the end from the beginning, at once, without the necessity of a pre-planned blueprint.

God's Sovereignty
God governs by law and by intervention, of which he sees the effects at once without the limitations of sequence (time). From the viewpoint of creation, there is a quality to God's governance which appears as if the clock was wound at the beginning and is now unwinding. From God's perspective, he knows at once the shape of that unwinding, not because he has minutely determined every second, but because he understands what he has made and how it functions, and sees every second at once.

The laws of nature are the manifestation of God's will for nature. Things act according to law, but without the necessity that each action was specifically willed by God. God's sovereignty is not expressed in the minute detail of every occurrence, but in the laws that produce it. If one were to throw a ball against a wall, the ball would bounce as it does because God wanted a myriad of forces to act the way they do which resulted in such a bounce in time, rather than because God wanted that ball to bounce that way at that time.

Creaturely Freedom
All things in God's creation have a nature by which they are governed and are interacted with by the rest of God's creation by its nature. Some natures are more god-like than others, with human beings (and probably at least some of the angels) being made in the very image of God. The nature of human beings, in their degree of freedom to act, will be most reflective of God's freedom. Apart from an analogous freedom as that possessed by God, human beings would not be in God's image, but only reflect God's attributes as does all creation.

The Existence of Freewill

Having invoked its creation, God governs the universe by sustaining its existence and allowing it to operate on principles of action he infused in it upon creating it. He guides its operations in time to an end he's fashioned and foreseen. He is absolutely sovereign over all that he has made, but his will is not the only one operational, nor the only one influential in the unfolding of things. At least some angels and virtually all humans also exert their wills in the mix of things unfolding, with their ability to will autonomously being the very will of God.

If determinism is actually how God expresses his sovereignty, then God engineered the plan for history before the beginning of time, wound up the spring at the beginning, and then sat back and let it unwind. To some extent this has to be true, because the effort made to establish energy and mass along with the principles of action that governs their interaction were finished by the end the sixth day of the creation week. Since then, things have generally proceeded on the basis of what was initiated and infused back then. Determinism is accurately descriptive of such governance.

Life, however, throws a wrench into the works, particularly conscious life. Mankind, and at least some of the angels, have the conscious power of choice (will) which, when exerted, affects the details of what happens to stuff in the universe. Life may not be able to change the the spinning of galaxies, but it can affect where the molecules that make up a loaf of bread (or even a mountain) end up today, and whether or not a life continues today. God, of course, can always intervene and interdict such choices, but they are real choices nonetheless, made by sentient beings by allowance under God's sovereignty.

The God who created all things is not under necessity, not determined in his action, but free to do as he pleases, whether this or that. Freewill is not an illusion, then, but the very substance of divine power and attributes which are, in turn, reflected in creation. Freewill exists in nature because God, nature's maker, has freewill and nature reflects his attributes. For freewill to not actually exist in nature would be for nature to fail to reflect a defining attribute of the Sovereign God who created it.

Foreknowledge and the Fixity of the Future

The Bible presents God as knowing the future exhaustively. The scriptures also record God making pronouncements about the future, which in turn cause people who hear them to respond to those announcements in such a way that God changes that pronounced future. Incidents of this sort drove Jonah nuts and led Moses to an altruistic intercession that came back to haunt him. Whereas these cases do nothing to contradict the tenet that God controls the future, they completely undermine any sense that just because God has had something said about the future, that future is fixed thereby.

A little confusing, to say the least.

We are told to "ask whatever we will" (emphasis mine) in prayer and that God will answer those prayers. In a putting-the-cart-before-the-horse scenario, the concept of answered prayer twists virtually every way theologians and philosophers look at time and foreknowledge. A future-effecting intervention from God outside of time in response to definite, self-intiated actions by agents (i.e. free choice) within time certainly puts a question mark over the concept of a fixed future. How can it be fixed if it is responsive to freely chosen actions in time?

There are instances in the Bible where God tells people they have done what they have done because he determined that they would. God has delivered quite detailed descriptions of what people, who don't even exist yet, will do in circumstances and events that were not even hinted at by circumstances and events at the time of the announcement. He often clearly states that such actions are at his beckon as well. Clearly, some things are predetermined by God. 

Hmmm, chalk one up for Determinism!

It is obvious that God is more than a mere observer and that he is not merely a determiner. God has told us some things about himself, in his timelessness, that can help us understand the mystery. For instance: he will never lie, he is not tempted by evil and will never tempt anyone else with it, he cannot be thwarted in the accomplishment of his will, even though mankind has the capacity to disappoint him and to cause him to reconsider (evidently, he is not impassible). He does know the beginning from the end and the end from the beginning (all things will conclude on his agenda), but there seems to be some wiggle room in all this.

It is obvious that people have real choices that matter. There is a quality to at least some of those choices in which God must "wait" to see what man actually does (despite God's analytical skills) for God to say that it is what man would actually do (e.g., see Genesis 18, and 22). Yet, those same analytical skills do allow God to see where alternate choice could have led. God always does as he wants, of course, but what he wants with us is interactivity with man's choice. 

It seems that God simultaneously sees exactly how man's choice and his own choice unfold through time to the end.

The only workable solution I see to all the complexity of timeless omniscience and the clarity of biblical revelation is simple foreknowledge. Nonetheless, I understand the difficulty many (e.g. determinists and Molinists) have in seeing it as a sufficient view. What I think is more of a problem in comprehending all of this, more than even our own time-bound limits of imagination and understanding, is our conception of a fixed future. God, who is outside of time, sees all of time at once; thereby, he can know the future both exhaustively and fluidly.

For us, the present is where we live unaware of temporal effects that occur outside our moment. Our choices in the here and now are real, our past is fixed and our futures are open, despite the completeness of God's timeless foreknowledge. God, outside of time, can do as he wants in time to shepherd time to an end stated before its time in time. That the future is what God has seen it outside of time to be does not necessitate that future is thereby fixed for those of us who must wait to see it inside of time.

Since God's exhaustive knowledge of the future is not time-bound, it does not require fixity in order to be exhaustive and accurate.

What Is Sin?

A good definition of sin is helpful in dealing with just about any issue involving God and man. Unfortunately, the Bible is not as straightforward as one might think in providing one. At one point, sin is described as breaking the law; at another, sin is said to have been in the world even when there was no law. If nothing else, that certainly tells us sin is more than breaking a rule.

Therefore, the mere concept of lawbreaking is insufficient for defining sin, since sin does not need to reference a command in order to exist or be described. In light of that, let me suggest, as I have before, that sin is nothing more than the exertion of will contrary to the will of God. A command from God would certainly invoke such a definition, but then too would any awareness of what God's will was, whether it came through conscience, conviction or comprehension. Really, will exerted presumptiously, without regard to God, could invoke a charge of sin, even if done in complete ignorance of God's will. 

Now, the Bible does say that sin is not imputed, or reckoned against one's record, where there is no law. There must be some distinction that God maintains between knowingly transgressing and ignorantly transgressing his will. Yet, as is clearly stated in the Word, death has spread to all humankind because all humans sin, even though many have had not so much as an inkling of the law. So, even if sin is not reckoned to one's account apart from the law, it still leads without exception to the penalty for sin which is death.

A child reaching for a flame, may have had no reason to believe mom or dad did not want her to do such a thing, but may nonetheless be greeted with a quick smack on the fingers as she tries to do so. She won't be punished further as she might have been had she known better, but she did receive a penalty regardless! Discovering that something is against God's will after the fact doesn't alter that it was against his will before. In other words, sin does not require the offense to be an overtly realized transgression on the part of the offender in order to be sin. 

If one knows God's will, or if one merely suspects what may be God's will, or if one is completely oblivious to God's will concerning any willful exertion, that one sins by taking a course contrary to God's whether in word, deed, or thought. Of course, if all occurs according to God's will (as in determinism), it follows that there is and could be no sin. Since it is scripturally clear that sin does exist, it is also quite clear that stuff happens that God did not will. Sin is stuff that is not "his". 

Therefore, sin is an unfortunate consequence of freewill. Without freewill sin would not and could not occur, but then neither would love nor the image of God exist.

Evil and Freewill, Concurrence & Moral Sufficiency

There could be no evil whatsoever apart from the capacity of something in creation to oppose God. That opposition would have to be something initiated independently of God; that is, it could not be decreed or impelled by God. Something nominally opposed to God but actually decreed by him could only have the appearance of evil--in actuality, it would be the very will of God. There can be no evil, therefore, apart from freewill, and since there is evil in this world, this world is one which free will exists.

Yet, even though freewill is expressed in a way that is not determined by God (or it wouldn't be free), it is allowed by him and it's exercise sustained by him. It reflects his will for the way things should be, and without such concurrence, it wouldn't be. If that is so, how can the same difficulties which determinism suffers from in regard to the problem of evil not ultimately be true for freewill as well? If God, the omniscient and omnipotent, proceeds despite evil he could foresee or does not stop what is proceeding against his will, there would seem to be a problem with evil after all.

I don't think that is so two reasons. First, God is good, and making something in his image just could not be evil by any stretch of the imagination. Even among human beings, we consider it good to have a son or daughter, even though we know they will do things that are bad. The beauty of being made in God's image is an amazing thing, human beings are amazing creatures. That God would want to make us in his image, able to will as he does and love as he does, is a remarkable demonstration of benevolent grace and something that properly could only be said to be very good.

Second, evil isn't being allowed. It's only the perspective of the current regimen of time that makes it seems so. Death and entropy themselves are arguments against evil being allowed, revealing that God has pulled the plug on this fallen realm of fallen beings. Within our bubble of time we may think evil is allowed and that it's been going on forever, but from God's timeless perspective evil is being dealt with virtually immediately. In this realm's wake, after it's been flash-burned in a cosmic reboot, evil will be something not likely to be even vaguely remembered.

So evil exists because God made creatures in his image which had the power to will, freely, as he does. That was not an evil thing to do, only good, because God is only good, and so too would be those creatures made like him at the time of their creation. Only creatures made with this god-like capacity would be able to experience the full spectrum of God's goodness relationally. God is inherently good, and inherently relational (e.g. the Trinity), and so creating creatures who will as God wills, and love as God loves could be nothing but good.

Since evil can be so evil, however, one has to wonder if doing the good of creating such creatures was a sufficient moral cause for the omniscient God to create them. I think that it was, but that it will not demonstrate itself to be so in time, where those creatures continue in evil even as God does the good he can in regard to them. Only in eternity when freewill creatures have embraced that they have been made in his image, have submitted themselves to be in that image, and choose to abide in it in agreement with God, will those creatures be like Christ and live eternally free but in perfect harmony with God. That situation will be as good as good can possibly get!

That will result in unspeakable joy for God and those creatures so abiding in it, and I think it is more than a sufficient moral cause for allowing the potential of evil in making those creatures in the first place. Does that provide a sufficient moral cause for allowing evil in the meantime, or for having to contain it endlessly, idly, incapably in the age to come? Since God is good and omnipotent, could he not have accomplished his aims some other way without allowing evil? Probably not, but since God is good, I think we have to give him the benefit of the doubt regardless.

Of course that won't stop me from saying a bit more on the subject...

The Problem of Evil

Supposedly, Christianity has a problem explaining the existence of evil in the world given the existence of God, who is good. I don't see the problem at all, so let me do my best to explain why. Primarily, I think the bulk of the problem arises from not understanding what good and evil are. So, let me start there.

God is good, Jesus said uniquely so. God is good, and nothing but good, the very essence of what good is. Evil, on the other hand, is not a thing so much as it is a description. At best, it is understood negatively, by what it isn't. Simply put, evil is that which is not good, much in the same way that darkness can be defined as the absence of light. Light is the something, darkness is the privation of it. Evil is a privation of God, an incidence of something God is not in, so to speak.

In being good, then, God can have no part of himself that is not good, or not God, or else he would be a contradiction. In the creation account in Genesis, the word translated "good" has the general sense of beneficial, so I think we can say by extension that good is that which comports usefully with the beneficial purpose of God. Since God can have nothing in him or about him which is set at cross purposes against himself without being a contradiction, good is that which is in accord with the purpose and will of God and evil is that which which is opposed to God.

As a consequence of this nature, it is possible for a thing to be both good and evil at the same time. A thing meant to thwart God most definitely comes from an evil intention on the part of the would-be thwarter, but in God's providence it may actually further his agenda of good. With that in mind, one might surmise that things which seem to us to be detrimental to life, to which our guts recoil, and which we see as nothing but evil are actually not evil from God's point of view. God intends such things for good or such are not from God who is only good.

And yet everything which exists, exists, ultimately, as a result of God's doing. Why would one who is only good, allow the existence of that which appears so obviously non-beneficial, so outrightly evil? Even if that could be written off as merely a momentary or passing appearance (to us) which served a larger good (from God's perspective), that wouldn't make those moments of evil less evil. So to me, such an explanation seems disingenuous.

What I mean is that evil is evil, even if just for an instant. If God is, then all instants are his, so why any evil whatsoever? God would not be the god who is good if there are flashes of evil in him, bits of momentary lapse where his "other side" is displayed, even if that is not his general character. No, it seems to me the existence of any evil whatsoever does not comport with the existence of an almighty god that is good; and yet, it is my unshakeable belief that the Sovereign Lord does exist and is nothing but good, and that evil exists here and now.

How can that be so? It must be that a good that God did, that was only good, must have given rise to evil. Having given rise to evil that which was made good by God, but which had become evil, has been allowed to remain so for the good that God continues to do in regard to it. So, present reality consists of the good that God, who is only good, continues to do while that which was created good, but is no longer so, continues to express it's evil.

Since evil, by definition, is that which is against God, that good that God did which became evil must have been able to act in a way that opposed God. The only way that would be possible would be for that something which God made good, but which became evil, to have had the ability to act freely, uncompelled, without necessity, as does God. Since God is good, there could be nothing evil about making something commensurate with God, but in doing so, the possibility of opposition, and therefore evil, would be intrinsic to that act.

What should begin to be clear from this discussion so far is that there could be no evil in a world in which God's will was the only one that determined things. If God determines everything that is and occurs, then evil could not possibly exist. For evil to exist within a deterministic framework, God himself would have to be evil. Since God is clearly not evil, and yet there is evil in this world, this world cannot be a deterministic one.

And there is more to delve into...


2

What God Cannot Do, Even If He Wanted To

Is there anything that God cannot do? Whatever God wants to do he certainly can do, in that there is nothing outside of himself that could possibly prevent him. That is true in regard to beings (for there are no other beings beside God at his level), or with regard to things that are abstract, like morality. In the instance of morality, there is nothing which could be imposed upon God as to measure him by, because there is nothing greater than him which could label a thing he would want to do as moral or immoral. God, in his perfections, is himself the only and final measure of what is good. Therefore, his very wanting to do a thing would be sufficient to make it moral.

Furthermore, if we tried to formulate a conception of the character of God that described him as being unable to do anything against his own nature, we would end up with a self-referent piece of fluff that neither described nor clarified anything about the actual nature of God. Besides, God has done and continues to do things we don't understand, or for which we don't have a full enough picture to be able to say whether or not it went against his nature in the first place. There is a black box phenomenon at work here. We understand God's nature to the degree we do, not because we can dissect him and see for ourselves what he is, but because we hear his word and see his actions.

All of that not withstanding, there is at least one thing God could not do even if he wanted to: God could not make a replica of himself. If God could be made, even in replica, then God wouldn't be the unmade. The great I AM wouldn't be but would begin. The Creator would be but a creation. If God could be more than one in essence, the ones being considered are not the One. If something else could be made almighty, then the almighty would be so no longer. No, the best that God could do along this line is to make someone like himself, in his image, but not him in his power and perfections.

Which brings me to another thing God could not do even if he wanted to--preserve his image in a being made in it while determining that being's actions. If a being were made in God's image, that being would have to have freewill analogous to God's, or it would not be in his image. God is not under necessity nor are his actions determined, and neither could a creature in his image be thus confined in will. This is verified by the descriptions of Adam's freedom in the Garden. He had the freedom to do a thing or to not do it, and God "waited" observationally to see what Adam would do.

So, though God is the very perfection of all that he is, in power and in ability, there are a few things that God cannot do, even if he wanted to.

A Letter to the Vision-Driven Church, Part II

Continuing our look at Christ's Message to the Church at Thyatira, the vision-driven church...

Some interpreters of the Revelation suggest that Jezebel was the wife of the vision caster in Thyratira. Even though there are a few linguistic reasons for such an interpretation, I find none of them convincing in the least. Primarily (as I've written elsewhere), the angels to whom these letters are written are not pastors, prophets, vision casters, or even humans--they are angels as is consistent with the use of the term throughout the Apocalypse. Pastors and bishops are never called angels (or messengers) in the NT, and it would be a novel application of the term to use it as such in these messages to the seven churches.

Furthermore, since the same Koine word means "wife" and "woman", it is not necessary to interpret the reference to Jezebel ("that woman") as "your wife", even if an extra pronoun (your, second person, singular) is attested in some minority manuscripts. She is female, she may be married, but there is no way she is married to an angel! The bottom line: there is nothing compelling about such an interpretation, and much that militates against it.

Christ gives this self-styled prophetess time to repent of teaching and misleading Christians in Thyatira to commit sexual immorality and participate in idolatry. Of course, in that time she actually has an opportunity to lead more astray, although time granted for the one leading others astray is also time granted for those being led astray to come to their senses and repent. If they don't, they'll go down with her because followers never shed their responsibility for following what they follow. The Antichrist may be thrown into the fire first, but those who follow him get thrown in just the same afterward.

Striking her children dead is a shocking threat, not really unique in biblical revelation, but appalling to our modern sensibilities all the same. Whatever else that says about God, it certainly undermines any notion that he is the touchy-feely type that loves everyone unconditionally. God is love, but he does with people as he sees fit, and who is there that can argue with him about it or question his judgment? History has an ample record of bracing catastrophe, e.g. the Black Death (~1340's), the Shaanxi Earthquake (1556), the Spanish Flu (1918), the Boxing Day Tsunami (2004), and the Haitian Earthquake (2010), which should convince any of us that it is a fearful thing to be in the hand of a God who can suddenly bring us into judgment.

If one sees the name Jezebel as a merely figurative assignation, (i.e. there was not a woman actually named Jezebel in Thyatira), then I would think it was permissible to see her children along the same figurative line. In that case, the children would be her second layer or level of followers rather than actual biological offspring. Those she commits adultery with would be the first layer, those that are won to her way as a result of the first layer would be the children. All three (her, her first followers, and the followers of followers) are justifiably threatened with judgment, for none are innocent.

When God strikes in judgment, it is meant to get our attention, but does he do so just because he desires to demonstrate his wrath? I think that the answer to that question must be both yes and no. No, in that he didn't desire it within himself as if wrath were an attribute of his nature; yes, in that given rebellion, he does desire to respond to it with wrath. Apart from creatures rebelling, there would be no need for, nor any expression of wrath--God is not innately wrathful. He doesn't have to, and hasn't fixed the game just so he has an opportunity to hurt someone and break things, but when it comes to unrepented of rebellion, God wants folk to know what reaction to expect from him.

So never read the wrong message into his patient forebearance--God searches the mind and heart, with absolute transparency. And what he knows in secret, he'll make known in judgment seen by all.

A Will Clinic

The only will clinic I could ever stomach...

A libertarian says, "God willed that mankind should will."
A Molinist says, "God willed what he knew man would will."
A compatibilist says, "Man wills what God willed."
A determinist says, "God wills, period."

Or so it seems to me.

Who cares what an atheist says, that one is a fool.

Another Perspective on Romans 9: Part III

Mercy and Faith
Verse 19 of Romans 9 begins an aside in Paul’s dissertation. He has a hypothetical responder object to the repercussions of Paul’s presentation, arguing that if all depends on God’s mercy, than those hardened cannot be blamed for their hardness. This, of course, presages Paul’s revelation in chapter 11 that currently, a hardening has come upon the Jews. Hardness is not presented there as a necessarily persevering quality, so the response is more directed at the hypothetical questioner’s arrogance than at establishing any principle of deterministic election.

Regardless, the principle that God can do what he wants with whom he wants is the prerogative of creators. Potters call the shots, not pots. Who, then, is in a position to question God’s motives or demand anything from him? The created can but accept their lot, and be as they have been made to be. There is hope, however, in faith as we shall see.

Vs. 22-24 is Paul’s way stating what Peter said as well. There is a patience in God, holding back the expression of inevitable wrath, so that everyone destined for mercy can be shown it. Peter keys that to repentance, Paul keys it to faith (not only in this chapter but throughout his writings). So whatever this may be saying about God’s predetermination, by the end of the argument, it is said that faith is the means by which one gets into the class of promise.

Vs. 25-33 pull all of these concepts together in application by showing that God’s purpose was inviting a people, made up of Jews and Gentiles, to righteousness. This promise was entirely a matter of God’s mercy, rather than arbitrary status or works, and is accessed through faith. And not just faith, but specifically, trust in that stumbling block that is Christ. God had to make choices in time to bring this promised Rock into place, but now that he is, whoever puts their trust in him will never be ashamed.

Conclusion
The principle of Romans 9 is not that God arbitrarily chooses certain individuals to be saved and others to be damned. Instead, it teaches that anyone who receives God’s promise by faith and relates to God on the basis of his mercy, rather than works, will be part of his people. God is God and can do as he likes, but if Gentiles, regardless of lacking the Jews' “God-givens,” can be made righteous by faith, anyone can. And by God, you too, whoever you may be, can.

Parts I, II

Another Perspective on Romans 9: Part II

Election
Paul’s use of the concept of election in Romans 9 is not accurately related to individual salvation (i.e. that God picks individuals to be saved or damned). In verse 11, election is cast in a redemption history light (and as evident by vs 4-5). Paul was neither trying to establish a principal of individual salvation by election, nor establishing, contra-Calvin, that election unto salvation was corporate. He was merely trying to establish the fact that in order to fulfill his purposes (which were salvivic), God made choices among men.

God chose Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in that regard, and rejected Ishmael, Esau, and others. This choice had nothing whatsoever to do with establishing any pattern concerning personal salvation, nor was it made for personal merit.  These individuals (and their progeny after them) were chosen merely in regard to their role in bringing forth the ultimate promise--Christ. That progeny's counterintuitive rejection of Christ is the point Paul is exploring in Chapter 9.

In verse 16 we do discover something more akin to precedential regarding salvation—that God’s mercy was the determining issue, rather than any merit or lack of merit in his selectees. In the immediate context, this refers to his choices within redemption history, but in the broader context (see chapters 3, 4, 10 and 11), it does service the concept of salvation by grace. It seems that everything in redemption history and in redemption itself, rests in God’s mercy rather than the merits of man. As always, to God be all the glory.

In making these choices in time, which would ultimately result in the fulfilling of his purpose, v. 18 says that God shows favor to some folks and disfavor to others. Disfavor results in obstinacy (hardness) toward the purposes of God, although it is not clear that it causes such (especially in light of v. 30). Pharaoh is used as an example, and at least in his case, hardening was attributed to both God’s action and his. Regardless, the choosing of which is which is God’s alone, and he answers to no one for it, although I think it worth remembering at this point that these are not choices to personally save or damn, but to accomplish his purpose in making these choices.

That purpose is finally specified in vs. 23-24. God saw the end of making these choices prior to that end occurring, that end was his purpose: that Gentiles and Jews would be called together into his salvation in Christ. He endured with great patience those vessels hardened throughout history, because he saw the glory in the end for those vessels of mercy, even us, those Jews and Gentiles being saved in Christ. So God made choices in history, not to demonstrate his methodology in establishing who would go to heaven and who would go to hell, but in order to advance his purpose through history and to accomplish it in time.

Conclusion
Romans 9 is not speaking about election unto salvation at all, as if there could be an explanation of why God, solely by decree, would determine some to be saved and others to burn in hell forever. If anything, Romans 9 is trying to explain why the elect are not being saved--why Jews, despite their status as the chosen, are not embracing Christ. Neither corporate nor individual election unto salvation is in view at all! The conclusion of the explanation, in a nutshell, is that Jews do not accept God’s mercy by faith but try to establish their own meritorious record and end up missing the promised Messiah of the Jewish people.

Parts I, III

Another Perspective on Romans 9: Part I

Introduction
Romans 9 has to be the most controversial chapter in the entire Bible among believing Christians. Generally, the issue that causes all the sparks and gets all the attention is election; however, when I read the chapter, I don’t see election, as generally understood, as the intent or the focus of the chapter. All the hullaballoo about election is misplaced, in my mind, the result of misinterpretation. Romans 9 is merely the opening salvo in explaining why Jews were not being saved in the Apostle Paul’s day (chapters 10 and 11 continue the explanation), and the determining issue in that problem is stated to be faith, not election.

Overview

The initial subject of chapter 9 (vs. 1-5) is the disheartening rejection of Christ amongst the Jews, who were supposedly God’s chosen people (the elect). The chapter goes on to explain how the benefaction of God’s promises cannot be understood according to arbitrary qualifications (who your daddy is) or by human efforts (what one does to make himself meritorious). The conclusion (vs. 30-33) is that the promises can only be pursued through the auspices of faith, and not by dependence upon one’s status in a group over which they had no control, nor by personal merit (works).

Paul's Argument

Though it is true that the Jews were the recipients of the promises concerning salvation, they were, in Paul’s day, not beneficiates of those promises. The fault, Paul explains, does not lie in the promises (God’s word), but in Israel’s unbelief; and the puzzle of it lies in their misapprehension of God’s choice (election). An arbitrary membership in a class of people was not a sufficient way to understand or define those chosen to be God’s beneficiates. Abraham and Isaac were used to illustrate the point: though Ishmael (and others) were the offspring of Abraham, they were not the result of promise nor the beneficiates of promise; though Esau was Isaac’s son, he was not the recipient of promise either.

Furthermore, that choice was not predicated upon the determination or effort of man--it was purely and simply a matter of God’s mercy and not human merit. God’s mercy cannot be tethered to deserts in the recipients but is solely according to the pleasure of God, otherwise it would be reward rather than mercy. God has mercy on who he wills, as Paul ably illustrates by the examples of Esau and Pharaoh. The bracing repercussion is that we have nothing to say to God to defend our worthiness, nor detract from his judgment which excludes us from his beneficence.

Mercy is not merely arbitrary, however. Although mercy is not extended on the basis of worthiness (which would seem to make it arbitrary), it is received on the basis of faith (which seems to make it anything but arbitrary). If this was not the intended point of Paul's dissertation from verses 1 through 29, he would never have brought up the pursuit of righteousness starting with verse 30. The long and short of it is that God extends mercy to whomever he wishes regardless of works or geneology, but that ultimate, saving mercy can only be received through the auspices of faith.

The force of the argument in Romans 9 is that Jews who thought they had the privileged position of being chosen by God because of their heritage and their works, were in fact missing the ultimate promise of that election. It is not that they were not chosen or even chosen no longer, as chapters 10 and 11 make abundantly clear. Their loss (hardening) revolves completely around their unwillingness to respond to God's mercy with faith. Instead, they endeavored to establish their own record of worthiness by the law and thereby missed out on God's mercy in Christ.

Parts II, III

Understanding Sovereignty

God is sovereign. We hear it often as a confession of resignation popularly; as in "Oh well, God is still on the throne." Or as a theological bulwark scholastically; as in "There are no rogue molecules out there." But what does it mean that God is sovereign?

First and foremost, it deals with the substance of God's freedom--he does as he wants. There is nothing to restrain him, limit him, or withstand him. We could say, "nothing, except for himself," but that would be vacuous and a bit silly to point out. In a nutshell, his range of action and choice is unimpeded.

Secondly, it means that all things are under God's authority. Nothing has power over God, but God has power over all things. Nothing can compel God to do other than he wishes, yet he has the power to compel anything not him. His determination cannot be thwarted. God, alone, is in power.

Thirdly, it means all things are under God's direction. He decides how everything will be and do. There is nothing independent of God (though God is independent of all). Everything else has what capacities God determines and accomplishes what God plans. God directs the affairs of everything.

God's sovereignty is necessary, he would not be God without it. If there were something else that had the attributes of sovereignty, it would be God. However, it does not follow that some things that are attributed to God's sovereignty are necessary to sovereignty. For instance, God's sovereignty does not require that he exhaustively determine every instant of every particle's or every agent's action. It is sufficient that he governs such by law and principle put into place at creation and which operate by such capacity throughout time.

In fact, if his sovereignty did not work in this fashion, the concept of Sabbath rest would be impossible. Although he upholds (i.e. continues the existence) all things, it doesn't mean he has to be manipulating or creating things constantly, instantly, to be in control. Of course, he has the option to do what he wants, with anything he wants, anyway he wants; but generally, things proceed according to the control "program" he instituted at the initiation. They will continue that way until he says to the Creation, "Be no more."

So, things continue according to this kind of governance. Nothing is out of control, or doing other than he wills, for he sovereignly willed for things to act and be in a certain fashion. Act and be that way they will--particles do the dance they were programmed for, agents act with the capacities they were granted. God is sovereign over all, even if he did not design every instant.

This principle particularly plays out with demons and mankind. It was God's sovereign will to create these beings with a sub-sovereignty of their own. They exercise freewill, authority and direction as they do because it is God's will that they do. Agents (and even particles for that matter) do not exercise what they exercise according to the minutiae of God's determination, but by the principles of law that govern their exercise. They do as they are programmed to do, as does everything. Mankind and demon just happen to be programmed to do as they want.