However, I believe we choose sin. I think God gives a
choices to make however I totally believe He knows what we are going to choose
beforehand (foreknowledge).
Also, another important consideration to keep in mind is that it is not
merely that God knows beforehand what we will do.
We must ask the question of how it is that God foreknows what we are
going to choose, or what is going to happen.
In a sermon I preached back in June where I critiqued Christian
Televangelists, I make the following comments (note:
the comments that follow only appear in the manuscript.
You can read that here, as well as listen to the audio of the sermon: http://www.geocities.com/johnandursula/myarticles.
Be advised, the sermon was quite long.
I generally like to preach no more than 40 minutes.
This sermon went way beyond that, but that was anticipated.
We even built in a break period, but no one wanted to take a break…they
wanted me to keep going. Also, you will find valuable information in the
manuscript regarding the issues you are concerned with):
"But
now we must ask how it is that God knows what will take place.
Did He go to the big Blockbuster Store in Heaven and rent the DVD
entitled, “What Will Transpire on Planet Earth” and then sit back with a bag
of popcorn and watch the movie, and because He watched it, He now knows what
will happen and how things will turn out? Obviously
no! Yet, as ridiculous as this
notion is, it seems to be the view that many people…have (the classic Arminian
expression of this is that “God looks down the corridor of time to see what
will happen.”). The reason God knows what will happen in the future is not
because He looked down the corridor of time (whatever that means), or because He
saw the “movie.” The reason He
knows the future is because He decreed what would take place in space and in
time before the foundation of the world. 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 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 (consider
the following texts: Gen 50:20;
Dan 4:35; Is 14:27, 45:7, 46:9-10; Jer 18:6, 32:17,27; Lam 3:37-38; Mt 10:29-30,11:25-27;
Acts 2:23, 16:48; Rom 8:28, Eph 1:11; 1Ti
6:15; 2 Tim 1:8-10; Rev. 4:11,19:6.).
Many more texts could be cited."