Thank you for the posting - I learn much of Reformed thought each time that you exchange this sort of information. Piper does bring up Acts 2:23 which is quite plain, yet, there is no indication of the 'how' of the plan. Foreknowledge, certainly, but not predestination. Does God plan based upon His foreknowledge, but not predestination? That is the Christian belief from the beginning. And, since God has already experienced everything, the idea of 'plan' is an anthropocentric one, since we are in time, and God is not.
Therefore we know it was not the "will of God" that Judas and Pilate and Herod and the Gentile soldiers and the Jewish crowds disobey the moral law of God by sinning in delivering Jesus up to be crucified. But we also know that it was the will of God that this come to pass. Therefore we know that God in some sense wills what he does not will in another sense.
Actually Piper was arguing quite well until he wrote this. The interesting thing is that since the overall position is Scripturally wrong (yet defensible), he just nullified a rather good argument (arguably the best that could be made) just in this one paragraph. Do I believe that God Created His Universe and then interferes in it subtly, poking and nudging? Sure. Does He have two wills, one of which is more dominant than the other? On the face of it, no.
You're welcome. We specifically believe that God does NOT plan based on His foreknowledge, but rather on what He wills. WCF Chapter 3 says: "II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions; yet has He not decreed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions."
In essence, God's will IS His plan, and IS predestination. Providence is the means of implementing it. Although it is in fact simultaneous, for purposes of discussion the logical order would be that foreknowledge (everything that happens) is the RESULT of predestination. God can look into the future but He is seeing His own work, which has already been planned and carried out. Therefore, it would not make sense for Him to plan based on what He has already planned and completed. This is why God planning based on foreknowledge makes no sense. His foreknowledge includes His own actions which were already purposed. Instead, what God wills He predestinates and His foreknowledge is knowing that He will do (has done) as He wants.
Do I believe that God Created His Universe and then interferes in it subtly, poking and nudging? Sure. Does He have two wills, one of which is more dominant than the other? On the face of it, no.
I don't think of it as one will dominating or competing with another. One will is God's Holy standard. The other is His plan within a time filled with sinful creatures. It was God's choice. He let sin happen by His choice, not because He was beaten by a greater power. So, He chose to interact with the sinful and His will was in control. Naturally, the sinful will not live up to God's standards, so there is a plan and will that are carried out. At some point God's dealing with the sinful will be over and that will (plan) will be completed. God's perfect will, OTOH, is infinite.