Eight Revealing Questions: Question #1: Installment #3

Revealing Questions Concerning the Will of God Over His Creation:
Installment number three: Question #1

In an attempt to set up this part of the discussion (a discussion I started about two months ago, and you can click on the link on the right hand side on this page label, "Theology; Sovereignty: Compatibilism for the 2 previous entries in this series) I have provided below a brief polemic regarding the definition of sovereignty. It must be stated at the onset that, regardless of God's revelation to us, our perception of God is bound up in time; the fact that our senses and perceptions are limited by our temporal existence is perhaps a reminder that men's descriptions of God are always abstractions of the reality of God as a being—we can’t help it. In the same way, a photograph—however realistic—is still an abstraction of the reality which it attempts to represent.

Regarding the sovereignty of God, I think a definition is in order. I, and those concerned with the definition within biblical categories, would refer to the word sovereignty as a word of totality. Other such words are: unique, pregnant, dead, and alive. Those words describe absolute states of being in which there are no variations and of which there are no degrees. As an example, and regarding degrees of deadness, there are no essential variation between two different dead bodies. One cannot be any more or less dead than a comparable specimen; one either is or is not dead. Furthermore, in that condition or state of being, one does not become deader as time passes. Even if we can speak of a spectrum where, at one end the state of being alive is represented and at the opposite end the state of being dead is represented, there would be no space between them; where one ends, the other begins (similar to the observable horizon between the air above a body of water and the water itself). Once one is no longer alive, then they are dead; one exists either in one state or the other, there are no varying degrees. One moves so immediately from one state to the other that it may approach irrationality to speak of a transition in reference to the amount of time it takes to get from one state to the other. Note that we have here only discussed physical deadness.

Another example of a word of totality or an absolute word is the word pregnant: one either is or is not pregnant; there are no degrees to the state of being pregnant. A woman does however progress further along in her pregnancy as the baby grows and is eventually delivered, but she is no more pregnant (as state of being) on the day preceding her delivery than on the day of conception. What must be observed here is that the same thing applies to the word sovereignty, but because we have a finite perception of the infinite God we see that, at the same time, God has ordered our paths and yet He sometimes appears only to be responding to our choices.

So, contrary to many, we conclude that God is sovereign, and that means that He is sovereign over all things; He did not relinquish a portion of His sovereignty to man when He made him in His image, giving man the sovereignty over his own regeneration and retaining for Himself only the sovereignty over the inert portions of creation necessary for ruling over it—it can never truthfully be said that God is 99% sovereign over creation, and man is sovereign over that remaining 1% which represents his choice in salvation—there are no degrees in sovereignty; there is no ratio of sovereignty between God and those who bear His image. There really are only three conclusions in the matter: either God is sovereign, man is sovereign, or no one is sovereign. Finally, we get to the first question in our discussion of the eight:

Does God know our future choices? Even though the choices we have made or will make had not yet happened before we made them (in as far as they are bound in time) based on the testimony of scripture and the bounds of logic I can say yes, God knew our future choices—this is part of a declaration of His sovereignty.

I think that I have already stated, and with a fair amount of clarity, that logic demands that we concede to the omniscience and foreknowledge of God, now we shall take a look at a few biblical passages that confirm that truth.

Jeremiah 1:5
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.

God told Jeremiah that he knew him before he was born—He had previous knowledge of Jeremiah and used this declaration to encourage Jeremiah in the difficult thing He would ask him to do.

Hebrews 4:13
And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Here again God’s omniscience is proclaimed, all of His creatures—man and beast alike—are under His knowledge, and thus we must be if He is going to be able to hold us accountable.

Isaiah 46: 8-11
Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, 9 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 not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,' 11 calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.

So God Himself defines as essentials characteristic of His own being, omniscience and ordination and the power to make His plan come to pass.

Psalm 139:1-16
O LORD, you have searched me and known me! 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. 3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before a word is on my tongue,behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. 5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. 7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. 11 If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night," 12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. 13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

Take a closer look at verse 2-4, and verse 16. I didn’t bother to edit out the verses in between because this passage (though it is not the entire Psalm) is such a full presentation of who God is. It is a glorious display of His omniscience and foreknowledge, His omnipresence and transcendence, His omnipotence and power of decree, it is all here and yet there are still some who answer this entry’s question, “Does God know our future choices?” with an unapologetic no! But the god of their minds is the god of their own making, even if they try to hang around its lifeless neck, a sign that says Jehovah. There are many other passages that could attest to God's knowledge of the future but I will leave it at that and move on to question # 2 in the next entry.