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To: PugetSoundSoldier
If He truly knows all - since the beginning until the end - they surely He must know what our own ends will be. Yet He gave us free will? How can that be?

That depends if he has anything to do with our end or not; whether he actually makes our choices, or if he simply lets us exercise our free will knowing what our choices will be without forcing us to go either way.

In some people's eyes, a loving Father would be all over you to make sure you don't fail. In other people's eyes, a loving father would set you free because forced love is no love, according to the old adage: those you love, set  them free; if they come back they are yours; if they don't they never were.

Here we see how human perception "determines" what kind of a loving Father God is: a micro managing Jewish yentel, or a laissezfaire urban liberal. On a universal scale he either created a puppet theater or a self-generating carousel. Personally, I believe it's the latter. Calvinists, on the other hand, believe they are hijacked by the Holy Spirit with a divine tractor beam attached to their forehead.

I see accepting the concept of “foreknowledge” - or, as some call it pre-destination - no more difficult than the concept of the Trinity where God existed as Heavenly Father, his Son Jesus Christ of Heaven and earth, and the earthly Holy Spirit.

Foreknowledge is not predestination, and vice versa. I am not sure I understand what you mean by the "earthly" Holy Spirit. Many Protestants claim to be Trinitarian Christians, but their Trinitarian theology agrees with others only in the number of divine Hypostases and not much more. I have a feeling your idea of the Trinity is radically different from how the Church understood it since the 4th century.

Unless we believe in the concept of universal salvation (that is, everyone is saved regardless of what happens), then there will be many who WILL be condemned to Hell

Very few Christians believe in universal salvation. That is a Gnostic heresy taught by Origen and other Gnostics of the time. Most believe that some will be (or are) saved and others will be condemned. The question is whether it is by their doing or God's whim. If you read the last part of Matthew 25,  it's the former. If you prefer Paul it's the latter. it wouldn't be the first time the scrioptures diverge.

God knows who they are, and where the end up. His knowledge did not result in this; the actions of man did. But God knows and grieves for those who never enter His glory. But, it was their choice, and God will leave them to suffer the consequences of their life.

That's the Catholic/Orthodox belief. Man is the one who chooses sin and rejects God and Christ's redemptive sacrifice freely offered to all, and condemns himself. A grieving God, however, is not Catholic/Orthodox belief, since an all-knowing God is never surprized or disappointefd, an eternal God doesn't change and perfect God is not subject to passions.

In fact, it is BECAUSE of God’s foreknowledge of our destinies that He sent His Son to die for us! He knew we would never reach the Glory of God, so He gave the ultimate sacrifice. He knew man would never make it - His foreknowledge of our destinies was why.

That's somewhat circular reasoning, PSS. We tend to believe that God's creation must be seen as intentional, and therefore everything that happens does so as part of God's will and desire and not as something he didn't foresee or permit.  Just as we believe that the Roman soldiers didn't kill Jesus, but rather it was Jesus who determined the hour of his death, nothing man does can affect God's creation. If God knew man would never make it, we must believe it's because he made it that way, or else it is not his world.

619 posted on 07/01/2009 4:38:38 PM PDT by kosta50 (Don't look up, the truth is all around you)
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To: kosta50

My take is we will never understand how God can know all, yet give us free will. It’s a mystery of God that defies logic. This is where faith enters the equation. We believe it because we do.


620 posted on 07/01/2009 4:50:55 PM PDT by PugetSoundSoldier (Indignation over the sting of truth is the defense of the indefensible)
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