Must I "council" you again on God and time? :-) You are putting God on a timeline again.
Remember, God is infinite. In infinity, there is no difference between "omnipotence" and "omniscience". Such things are immeasurable. There is no 'lesser' or 'greater' or focusing on one aspect over another in God.
Now to rattle your pickle...
Every point on an infinite line is the same point! Think about it.
I think this short lesson on "infinity" can help us to understand how God can allow Man's Free Will and His Sovereignty to co-exist without one overriding the other...
Nicholas of Cusa wrote some interesting stuff on comparing God and infinity to Geometry...
Regards
Are you suggesting that "Man's Free Will" (notice the Capital letters) is on a par equal to "His Sovereignty"? (also in Capital letters)
It is a hard concept.
The word infinity comes from the Latin infinitas or "unboundedness."
And in mathematics, infinity is an unbounded quantity that is greater than every real number.
Eternity – or infinite time – is time without end, without boundary. Time counts, but without end.
Time is geometric. In our perceptible universe, there are four dimensions, three of space and one of time. But there may likely be additional dimensions, either spatial or temporal.
Moreover, space/time is part of the Creation and not a property of the Creator.
Therefore, the term “timeless” would be more appropriate in meditating on God the Creator.
Or as a physicist around here grudgingly admitted after observing that there had to be a beginning of real space and real time for there to be any causality at all - “existence exists” LOL!
In Nicholas of Cusa's day most everyone believed in a steady state universe. Indeed, the insight that there was a real beginning of space and time came from the measurement of cosmic microwave background radiation in the 1960's. It was the most theological statement ever to come out of science.
A Name of God is I AM.
His Names are also Alpha and Omega. Jesus Christ is the First Cause and the Final Cause of "all that there is."
God put Himself on a timeline when He created the world and time itself. He did that for a reason. We are creatures. We understand linearly.
To say "Poof! God is infinite and therefore cause and effect don't matter" is simplistic.
God created cause and effect. God is the cause. We are the effect.
To deny that God had a "preordained" plan of salvation before you were born is to deny the Scriptures. Period. It's there in black and white for all to read.
God created the heavens and the earth in seven days. On the FIRST day He created the light and the darkness. On the SECOND day He created the firmament. On the THIRD day He created the earth , etc.
God is timeless, but He created within time. And He created the human mind to understand time for a reason -- because He wants His creatures to understand the order of existence -- God creates and men are created.
He decreed the end from the beginning. THAT is the most important aspect of what we are to know of time.
"That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been" -- Ecclesiastes 3:15 "Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure" -- Isaiah 46:10
That isn't just poetic hyperbole on the part of God. That's the truth of existence.
It's hard to wrap our minds around this considering we are all indoctrinated with the modernist "Just Do It" mentality, but we "just do it" by God's will. And the rewards of that understanding are great.
"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." -- Philippians 2:13