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To: The Grammarian; RnMomof7; the_doc
As to the second objection you have, I believe Ralston is using the term 'foreknowledge' in the proper sense of prescience, which isn't causative. That would be the realm of God's omnipotence.

There's a logically-antecedent factor in Foreknowledge which you aren't even considering -- God's perfect foreknowledge of the different outcomes (including different Choices) which will result from different exercises of Omnipotence on His part.

Since the different outcomes foreknown by this antecedent Prescience (God's pre-creative Foreknowledge of all Creative potentialities) include different choices of men made in logically dependent response to different elections of Divine action (see #5), we must correctly state that the Election of God pre-determines what the Decisions of Man SHALL BE.

This isn't that hard, Gram. Think about the point that is being made.

6 posted on 11/16/2002 1:44:15 PM PST by OrthodoxPresbyterian
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To: OrthodoxPresbyterian
There's a logically-antecedent factor in Foreknowledge which you aren't even considering -- God's perfect foreknowledge of the different outcomes (including different Choices) which will result from different exercises of Omnipotence on His part.

Actually, I had considered that. I still fail to see how this proves that foreknowledge is causative in and of itself. Does God's foreknowledge cause events to be? If so, then how can God's foreknowledge include possibilities as well as actualities? It can't, because if foreknowledge=causation, then if God foreknows multiple reactions, they are all actual realities, and not potential realities, yet we all know of only one actual reality.

Since the different outcomes foreknown by this antecedent Prescience (God's pre-creative Foreknowledge of all Creative potentialities) include different choices of men made in logically dependent response to different elections of Divine action (see #5), we must correctly state that the Election of God pre-determines what the Decisions of Man SHALL BE.

See my #8 on the Objections thread. God's choices determined man's responses, yet man's responses were contingent upon God's acts, not necessarily effected by them.

9 posted on 11/16/2002 3:16:36 PM PST by The Grammarian
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