Agreed. God is omniscient.
I don’t know how to get around that fact and still believe that God knows everything.
Knowing something and causing something are two different things. A limited god can only cause things to happen--a truly sovereign God knows what will happen--without being a cause--and the outcome is still what He wants.
God is sovereign in a universe full of independent free will. Doesn't that just make your skin tingle? The fact that He doesn't have to force everything in order to get what He wants? He's better than that.
The point is--we make the decision. We have full freedom to do so. Otherwise, the defense at the Judgement would be that we didn't have a chance. Since God is perfect Justice, that argument will not be allowed to stand (and it would be valid). As a result, He must allow us that free decision.
How does He do that--Titus says that the grace that brings salvation has appeared to all men. That allows us the freedom to make the choice.
The calvinist idea of God's glory is incorrect (Just who is He gonna show His glory to, if we're just objects of it?). If all God wanted was glory, He wouldn't have saved Noah and his family. He would have just started all over again with no one able to resist Him--thus "showing" Lucifer how powerful He is.
Instead, God decided to redeem us. Even with the evil in men's hearts, He still loved us enough to save His creation. This is all about His love for us--not about how powerful He is. He showed His power with Noah. Now He's showing us His love.
Love is not creating beings with no chance to be saved. Love is offering that chance and letting us make that decision.
But you are not going to get anywhere. Calvinism
is a sad obsession.
And I am going to renounce my participation in this
Sisyphean struggle as I am predestined to do !
“God is omniscient.”
......”a truly sovereign God knows what will happen—without being a cause—and the outcome is still what He wants.”
Both of your statements raise a couple of questions;
Isn’t the salvation procured by Jesus an intervening cause?
Can a person freely choose differently than what was known about him before he was born?
I do believe that knowing something does not cause it to happen. However, I also am certain that knowing something ahead of time means you know how it turns out. Otherwise, the word “know” has no meaning.
“From the foundation of the world” would mean at the same time as everything was created or that it was already in place when creation was happening. There’s no getting around that. Jesus sacrifice was known to be necessary AND established before one living soul was yet on this planet.
The only explanation for that is that God already knew the fall, the prescription, the cure, and the aftermath.
In short, the billions of lives and how they were FREELY lived on the earth was no secret to God PRIOR TO their having done anything.
Yet, The Redeemed were so important to God that despite all the pain, trauma, and turmoil of all history that fell on His Son, Jesus, He created anyway. This truth is everlastingly to His glory.
And thus, Brother ShadowAce, you have both Free Will and Predestination. But, this is biblical: “those He foreknew He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son...”