The Narrow Path Ministries

Don't fall for this one.

All too often the Calvinist will switch verbs right before your eyes and it surprises me how many people let them get away with this old trick.



When we talk about the fact that man has free will, the objection comes up that if man "could have done otherwise" or that man "has a choice", then prophesy is guess work for God.



If man has a choice in his salvation, then God could not know the future. In other words: if God knows the future...he must determine (or do) everything. He must make (do) all the ultimate decisions for everyone on earth or he could not know the future.



Here is the switch: the verb "know" is switched for the verb "do".



Simply show them that all the passages that talk about Gods knowledge of the future...only include the verb "know" and not the verbs "do", "determine", "control". Hopefully you wont have to pull out a dictionary to show them that "know" and "do" are very different verbs.


You can ask them: Do you believe that if God knows the future he must control (do) all future events? If they say yes, ask them if God knows about all the child rape that will happened in the future. If they say yes you can say: so, your view is that God controls, does all child rape and those people who are raping children could not have done other wise because God makes it happened.

More simply put: (according to their view) God does all that he knows, he knows about all sin...he does all sin.


They always say, but if Judas would have done something different the prophecies about him would have been wrong. I would argue that God would have just "known" a different future to prophesy.



This view of prophesy presupposes that all future events are true only because God knew about (did) them ahead of time. As if all future events are completely generated from out of Gods thoughts. The correct way of understanding prophecy (knowledge) is that it is the correct information about the future that only God has...BECAUSE HE CAN SEE THE FUTURE.



We believe that God saw the end of Judas' actions from the beginning. Calvinists build a straw man and say that we believe in a God that only sees Judas' actions up until a certain point and then he has to wait for Judas to make up his mind.



If God included free will in his creation...then he would be seeing the end result (future) of the actions of the free beings that have made decisions BASED on the free will they have. So God's view of the future would by definition be the ONLY POSSIBLE FUTURE. HIS VIEW OF THE FUTURE WOULD GIVE HIM A PRECISE KNOWLEDGE OF THE FUTURE INCLUDING FREE WILL DECISIONS...OR IT WOULD NOT BE THE FUTURE.

I'm glad you brought this point up. I don't understand how God must control events in order to know exactly how things will turn out. I see it kinda like a coin flip. If I had complete knowledge of all the variables involved, like how much force was exerted, air pressure and so on, I could accurately determine whether the coin would be heads or tails without controling the outcome.

That's a good point Kallin.

I was gong to say something about that too.

Calvinists say that if we could loose and gain our Salvation by choice...God could not be in control of history.

But men, normal men have started organizations and allowed employees freedom to come and go (with out making them slaves) and still controled the direction of that organization in exactly the way they wanted.

Earthly kings have controled their kingdoms with out controling every action of their subjects.

Why is that the one thing God can't do? Men have done it...but God can't.
It seems that the Calvinist is the one that is telling God what he can't do. We do not say that God could not make all the decisions for us, we just say that we don't believe he does. The Calvinist is the one making positive statements about what it is that God could not do in relation to his creation.

It seems to me that if fallen Man can manipulate things in his favor useing free beings...how much more could God do the exact same thing to his glory?

What you are describing is a classic logical fallacy, and I noticed James White committing this in the ongoing debate (as you describe with a remark about prophecy). This often happens not only with Calvinists, but also with atheists attempting to claim that theism is incoherent. One of the claims made by these atheists is that divine omniscience is incompatible with free will (which, interestingly is basically what Calvinists try to assert as well).

I don't pretend to understand the nuances of modal logic, but what I've picked up is that this has to do with confusing things that are "necessarily" true with things that are "contingently" true. In other words, if I know that something will happen, that doesn't mean I caused it to happen.

This comes up frequently in discussions about omniscience. One place it came up was in a debate between William Lane Craig and an atheist who was using this exact line of reasoning. Dr. Craig says:

Well, for example, he says foreknowledge is not compatible with freedom. Well, I think that this is simply an invalid argument. It goes something like this:

1. Necessarily, if God foreknows X, then X will happen.

2. God foreknows X.

3. Therefore, necessarily X will happen.

5. Well, that simply commits an elementary fallacy in modal logic. It is simply a fallacious argument, and most people recognize it as such. It is possible that X not happen even though God foreknows it. What is true is that if X were not to happen, then God would not have foreknown X. And as long as that subjunctive counterfactual is true, there is simply no incoherence in God's having knowledge of future contingents.

From here: http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcrai ... ley06.html

1. Necessarily, if God foreknows X, then X will happen.

2. God foreknows X.

3. Therefore, necessarily X will happen.

5. Well, that simply commits an elementary fallacy in modal logic. It is simply a fallacious argument, and most people recognize it as such. It is possible that X not happen even though God foreknows it. What is true is that if X were not to happen, then God would not have foreknown X. And as long as that subjunctive counterfactual is true, there is simply no incoherence in God's having knowledge of future contingents.

What does the bolded statement mean? If God knows in advance that you will perform action A, how can you refrain from performing A? If indeed, you do refrain from performing A, would it still be the case that God knew in advance that you would perform A? To my mind, it is a self-contradictory statement to affirm both that God knows the event X will happen, and that X does not happen.

In the book Divine Foreknowledge - Four Views, Craig quotes the logical argument quoted in statements 1, 2, and 3 above, but suggests that 3 doesn't follow from 1 and 2, and yet admits that 3' follows from 1 and 2.

3'. Therefore X will happen.

Now how does "X will happen" differ from "X will necessarily happen"?
Are they not affirming precisely the same thing? If not, what is the difference?

If "X will happen", isn't it the case that "X will necessarily happen"? If not, then one is saying that "X will happen" but "X might not happen".

Paidion wrote: Now how does "X will happen" differ from "X will necessarily happen"?
Are they not affirming precisely the same thing? If not, what is the difference?

I'm not sure if my understanding is adequate on this, but here is how I understand it:

There is a distinction made between whether X will necessarily happen and X will certainly happen.

To say that event X will necessarily happen is to say that there are antecedent causes which conspire to make X happen, and that event X cannot happen any other way. Not because someone with foreknowledge knew it, but rather because the antecedent causes cause X to happen and that the combination of those causes preclude anything but X from happening.

To say that event X will certainly happen is to say that X will happen, but the antecedent causes were not such that X and only X could happen. Events Y or Z could happen instead. Only X, Y or Z will happen, and either one of the three is equally possible. However, someone with foreknowledge knows that even though Y and Z are possible, they happen to know ahead of time that X is the one that is going to happen.

People sometimes get these two things confused and end up saying that if God foreknows something, then he somehow logically caused it to happen.

So if I receive a prophecy that John Smith will be elected President of the United States in 2012, I happen to know with precision that this will happen. But when it happens, it won't be because I knew it; it will be because Mr. Smith had an effective campaign and persuaded enough citizens to vote for him. My knowing it is incidental to the fact. I know that it will certainly happen, but it's happening won't be of necessity. It is possible for Jane Doe to get elected instead, but I in fact know that that is not what will happen.

Jared, I know of no one who thinks that knowledge of an event prior to the event causes the event to happen.

Considering the meaning of the word "know" may help to clarify the matter. Epistemologists state that if "X knows that S" is true (Where S is some proposition) then:

1. X believes that S is true.

2. S, in fact, is true.

3. X has sufficient evidence that S is true.

#3 presents problems since it is not clear what constitutes "sufficient evidence". However all epistemologists agree that 1 and 2 have to be the case.

If X, at time T, knows that P raises his hand at time T+1, then according to #2, it may be affirmed that P does raise his hand at time T+ 1. If it is true at time T that P does raise his hand at time T+1, then P cannot refrain from raising his hand at time T+1. Where then becomes of P's freedom to choose?

The problem here doesn't lie with X, the one who knows. The problem lies in the assumption that the statement "P raises his hand at time T+1" is true at time P! A similar problem appears if it is assumed that it is false that P raises his hand at time T+1". Such a statement logically implies that P cannot raise his hand at time T+1.

If we believe that P has the ability to choose either to raise his hand or not to raise it at time T+1, then logically, we cannot assign a truth value to a statement which affirms either that P raises his hand at time T+1 or does not raise his hand at time T+1.

Only statements which have truth value can be known. Statements about future choices which people make, have no present truth value. Therefore, logically, it cannot be known. For there is nothing to know.

The statement made at time T, that P raises his hand at time T+1 is neither true nor false at time T. But it will become true or false at T+1.

Application: God (or anyone else) logically cannot know what free agents will choose in the future, for there is nothing to know, the reason being that the free agents have not yet made their choice. Future events based on man's future choices do not presently "exist" so how can they be known? It is a mistake to assume that this position limits God's knowledge or denies His omniscience. It no more denies His omnscience than affirming that"God cannot create a stone so large that He can't lift it" denies His omnipotence.