One can't, but God can, since Godly precision is by definition the caliber of God's foreknowledge.
Yes, but I was also responding to your "Even humans do this all the time" statement. Sure, God can peek into the future and know all of man's random acts, but this FORCES God to work around them to get what He wants. I.e., God has to WAIT until a figure like Mary comes along at the same time someone like Judas comes along, and a monumental host of other players comes along, and so on. It is incomprehensible to me that in order to preserve free will, that all of human history is reduced to mere coincidence, with God bobbing and weaving in along the sides. But that is what it sounds like. :)
FK: "That happens with humans all the time. I plan to go to a movie tonight. But, a few hours later, my wife doesn't feel well, so we postpone until later. I had a perfectly good devised plan that was altered by uncontrollable or random circumstances."
I don't see anything random here, just outside your control.
OK, who was in control then? If it's not random, then someone must be in control, right? Did God give my wife a mild illness right then? Did God cause me to not want to go to the movie anyway with my friend instead of my wife? Since my wife knew I really wanted to see the movie, did God prevent her from insisting that we go anyway, even though she didn't feel that well? I mean, how is this not random? What kind of control and by whom are you talking about?
FK: "If the millions of random free will acts of EACH of the billions of humans who have lived were a part of God's plan, then the whole thing is just a crapshoot."
False premise: Human free will choice is random.
OK, how is free will choice not random across the human spectrum? Many things might affect an individual's choice, such as God, satan, maturity, the temperature, and whether the Cardinals won last night, and on and on. If God would never be so bold as to intrude on our free will, then across the spectrum, the results will be random, and according to man's will, not God's.
False Premise 2: God has no effect on human life and human choices.
I didn't say that imo under your view that God has no effect, He does, but only in an advisory capacity. I don't "think" Apostolics give God the authority to MAKE decisions concerning them, because that would trample on free will. God might advise, or cajole, or nudge, etc., but He is not allowed to "DO". At least, that is my understanding.
Again, I'm arguing against your logic. Logically a plan can be made and executed and the results "foreknown" (predicted correctly) by humans without controlling each individual factor - and accounting for truly random events. Even humans do this all the time.
I don't think this is comparable since the random events are not side issues, the random events are central to the main plan, human history. Plus, you must be talking about a very general plan, such as "let's build any kind of a bridge". Well, that could be accomplished involving a million random variables, but I believe that God's plan is much more specific than that. Prophecy is very specific, for example, and the whole design that is expressed throughout the scriptures is so intricate, it is incomprehensible that God's plan was on a basic or general level, and it was just luck that all the pieces fit as well as they did.
Ah. Time is hanging you up here. First, if God were in time, how long you think four thousand years would seem in comparison to eternity? But God's not in time (eternal also means infinite, unbounded, outside time). He's not "waiting" in time.
Time has an arrow of course and if events "happen" there's time in between. If God's plan is to unfold in time, there will be... time. But that doesn't mean God is tapping his foot impatiently as it unfolds. He knows when events will occur, He's not "waiting". All this is a result of foreknowledge - it's independent of determinism or free will.
It is incomprehensible to me that in order to preserve free will, that all of human history is reduced to mere coincidence..
There's no such thing as coincidence, especially to God.
If it's not random, then someone must be in control, right?
There's something in control of even random events, else you are not in the finite world of time and cause and effect. They only seem random, we call them random because we can't predict them all or control each one. God's physical laws govern physical objects, intellilgence/consciousness is an order above this, but still not random.
My point on humans earlier was purely a logical one. It's not necessary to control each individual object (or human) in order to execute a plan and have it outcome foreknown/predictable. We can account for "random" in our plan as well. We can't approach the level of God in this, but the logical point still holds.
OK, how is free will choice not random across the human spectrum?
Humans do not, usually, make choices based on a coin flip - our usual notion of random. If I put ten teen age boys on one side of a room and ten girls on the other, their locations will change over time, but the resulting grouping will not be random. I can even predict with a high degree of certainty that the two groups will not remain separate, but will tend to form in pairs. God foreknows how many children each will have and what their names will be.
I'm only saying that allowing humans to have free will choices, does not mean that there cannot possibly be a "God's plan." Free will and events unfolding in God's plan are not mutually exclusive. If we also take into account divine foreknowledge before creation, then the contradiction disappears. Knowing what the result of allowing free will would be - foreknowing - God created man with free will.
I didn't say that imo under your view that God has no effect, He does, but only in an advisory capacity.
He has the same "capacity" in our lives as he does in yours. What we believe about God does not change who God is. But physician would be more accurate than advisor.
I don't "think" Apostolics give God the authority to MAKE decisions concerning them, because that would trample on free will...God might advise, or cajole, or nudge, etc., but He is not allowed to "DO".
God doesn't make the decision that I will love and follow Him, no. He doesn't make the decision whether I will pray right now or finish this post. This, IMHO, would be an absurd view of the Gospels and of God's love and make personal experience of reality an illusion. I'm not saying we're perfectly aware, but we're not totally deluded either.
Anyway, the hope for this Apostolic is for God in his grace to make all my decisions or rather that my will become His will. My faith is that as my will decreases His will increases in me. An analogy is waiting for a visitor. He may or may not come, but I have a choice whether to be there, properly prepare for him and wait. To me, this sums up faith - that He will come; or, if He doesn't, stay put, all will be well.
I think there is a key difference in the Apostolic and Protestant view of man's nature. I believe your view is that man is naturally sinful and evil or bad. We see this as "natural" only in our fallen state, but that our essential natural state is the state that saints attain.
God heals us, we can choose to resist the treatment. This is far from saying "God is not allowed to do anything."
God might advise, or cajole, or nudge..
Apostolics are not free from the consequences of sin. I think we both can remember something in our lives a bit stronger than a nudge. :)
We're also not immune from the consequences of love, repentance, compassion, God's healing in our lives. Nor are we immune from pride and temptation. What you see as "born to lose," I see as stubborn, prideful, or not enough pain to change.
Prophecy is very specific, for example, and the whole design that is expressed throughout the scriptures is so intricate, it is incomprehensible that God's plan was on a basic or general level, and it was just luck that all the pieces fit as well as they did.
It's almost like he fore-knew it.
God's foreknowledge is not limited in any fashion by man's free will. If you know the outcome, you know the outcome. If you know what each person will do, you know what each person will do. Foreknowledge, by definition, means no surprises. It does not mean no free will allowed.
Thanks very much for your reply. You guys are keeping this thread worthwhile for me; my sincere gratitude for this.
I should have returned the pings on my reply to FK since he pinged, but I didn’t counter-ping his post’s ping before I posted.
I’m really horrible at knowing who to include when on replies where the reply is addressed to many. I forget or get confused who to include.
My apologies if I should have pinged before; apologies if I shouldn’t have pinged now.