Foreknowledge and foreordination are not the same thing

Calvinism Defended:

Foreknowledge (Trains, Planes, and God's Omniscience, With a Little Synergism Mixed In)

This is the 14th section of the e-mail exchange I had with Bill, an individual who objected to Calvinism. Click here to go back to the table of contents, or here to go to the full 88 page exchange.

Bill's Response: Foreknowledge and foreordination are not the same thing. If I look out the window of a plane and see two trains rounding a mountain bend on the same track…I foreknow that they will crash…however I have not foreordained them to crash. God foreknows our freewill choices and His purposes are not thwarted. God synergistically works everything together are our good. God does not monergistically work anything; that’s a Gnostic idea.

My Response: First, you are again confusing categories by essentially equating the foreknowledge that mere creatures like us may have with that of the omnipotent, omniscient, almighty God of heaven and earth. This is really the fundamental difference between a Reformed and non-Reformed understanding of both God and man. Any view of absolute foreknowledge already demolishes any concept of synergy, because all of the events that take place must take place of necessity, and they must take place because that is what God knows will take place, and what actually takes place God knew would take place, and because He knew it beforehand, what takes place is only that that He wants to take place. We can speak of synergy all we want then, but it is simply empty rhetoric and wishful thinking when we speak of a God who already knows what will take place, because in that case, everything has already been determined. If God knows my choice before hand, and knows what I will choose tomorrow, how is it that I have the freedom of will to do otherwise in the sense that it is a real possibility that I could do otherwise? Obviously, I do not. And this is why people are embracing Open Theism. They realize that if God knows the future exhaustively, then libertarian free will is simply a myth. In order though for them to continue holding to their mythological view of libertarian freewill, they must turn the God of the Bible into one of the mythological gods of Greece, and rob Him of both His absolute sovereignty and exhaustive knowledge of all things. In their view, God is nothing more than a glorified superman.

Second, with regard to foreknowledge and foreordination, I agree that they are different, however, they are bound together nevertheless. There are two senses in which foreknowledge is understood biblically. There is the knowledge of persons that God has beforehand. This “knowledge” is a knowledge of intimacy (i.e., Adam lay with Eve and “knew” her), so that the concept that is being taught is one of God loving someone beforehand, and not that He knew their actions beforehand (though He certainly does). The other sense of foreknowledge is where God has absolute, exhaustive knowledge of all things that have, are, and will occur, before they ever do occur.

Foreordination refers to that which God planned and purposed from the foundation of the world. This is, as I understand it, the Divine decree, as aptly expressed by the Apostle Peter in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost: “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.” (Acts 2:23, KJV) The words “determinate counsel” are also rendered as “set purpose” (NIV), “predetermined plan” (NAS), and “determined purpose” (NKJV). These are all essentially saying the same thing, though I believe that the NAS rendering captures the meaning better than the others. The Westminster Confession states the teaching clearly and concisely, “God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.” (WCF, Chapt 3, Sec 1). The point is that in the counsel of the Godhead, before anything existed, God had a perfect plan and a purpose that He infallibly implemented, and infallibly brings to pass. You may wish to deny that, but to do so leaves you with something far less than the God of the Bible.

Now, though foreknowledge and foreordination are different, they are inseparably connected. We must ask the simple questions: what is it that God knows will happen, and how does God know what will happen? The answer to both is that God foreknows that which He foreordains. In other words, the reason God knows the future exhaustively is because He has exhaustively determined what will occur in the future. Everything that transpires in time is according to His the determinate counsel/set purpose/predetermined plan of an infinitely wise, holy, loving, and sovereign God, who has ordained the end, as well as the means to reach the end.

Third, you say, “Foreknowledge and foreordination are not the same thing. If I look out the window of a plane and see two trains rounding a mountain bend on the same track…I foreknow that they will crash…however I have not foreordained them to crash.” Not only does your illustration “humanize” God in that you equate human foreknowledge with divine foreknowledge, but the illustration also fails to demonstrate the very thing it is speaking about: foreknowledge. You see, if you looked out of window in a plane and saw 2 trains rounding a mountain bend on the same track, you do not foreknow that they will crash. You may have a pretty good idea that they might crash, but the fact that they do crash is altogether unknown to you. That is not foreknowledge. That is just an educated guess based on compelling facts. The trains in question may not crash at all. Maybe one derails and falls completely off of the track. Maybe the conductors discover the dilemma and are able to apply the breaks in time. Maybe the Lord will return before they crash! In other words, you really don’t know for certain that they will crash. Foreknowledge, depending on the context, means that you have a certain knowledge of future events, things, and/or persons, etc.. So, not only would you be able to see the trains heading toward one another, but you would also infallibly know that they would indeed crash. Not only would you know that, but you would know precisely how many people died, the exact nature of injuries, how many emergency response personnel responded and the precise routes they took to get there, etc. In short, you would already know an infinite amount of information about every single facet of human existence before any single event ever occurs.

Also, you say that you “have not foreordained them to crash…” Of course you didn’t Bill, for a couple of very simply reasons: 1. As noted, you have not even described foreknowledge. 2. You are a mere man, who lacks the sovereign power to do so. The best man can do is come up with plans, but even those are subject to the absolute sovereignty of God. Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but the Lord determines his steps. (Prov 16:9; 19:21; 20:24). 3. God has known every single thing that would transpire every single millisecond in history before “history” even began, not because those things happened as if He watched a movie, but because He determined what would transpire in history, and those things that transpire could not be otherwise.

Next you say, “God foreknows our freewill choices and His purposes are not thwarted.” That, my friend, is, roughly speaking, Calvinism. God has a certain, fixed, and exhaustive knowledge of all of the choices that we will ever make (which are said to be “free” in the sense that we actually make them, and we make them according to our strongest desire at the moment), and God’s purposes are most certainly established and cannot be overcome by anything. No matter how one may try (as you have), the conclusion of Reformed theology simply cannot be escaped by any person who takes the Bible seriously, which you have demonstrated here. The only escape is to embrace Open Theism, or Atheistic Nihilism, but this is paramount to cursing God and dieing.

Then you say, “God synergistically works everything together are our good. God does not monergistically work anything; that’s a Gnostic idea.” It appears you are borrowing a bit from Rom 8:28, “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are the called according to His purpose…” Question: who is it that is said to be working here? God. Is there any other active power that is at work? No. God is the sole “worker.” The entire passage of Rom 8:28-34 is pure monergism. God is the active working agent, and “those who are the “called” are being acted upon. Thus, what you keep incorrectly calling a Gnostic idea is in reality the Biblical idea. If any one single event is determined from all eternity, then that is enough to demonstrate monergism. The concept of synergism cannot be found in any single passage I quoted earlier. Synergism, as it relates to salvation, is simply not a biblical idea. The very word “saved” itself should be enough to demonstrate that. When a fireman saves a person from a burning building who has been rendered incapacitated by smoke inhalation, the fireman can be said to be performing a monergistic work. He, and he alone, saved the person who was unable to save himself from the burning building. God “saved” us, not according to our works, but according to His mercy which He poured out on us in Christ. Were not merely incapacitated, but we were dead. God rescued us by pulling us out of the burning building, and then breathing life into us, raising us to spiritual life. That is the Gospel, pure and simple. All of God, all of Christ, all of the Spirit, all of grace from beginning to end. God and God alone planning and accomplishing all of our salvation in Christ.

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