🤔 Understanding God's Foreknowledge from a Provisionist Perspective

[SoteriologyA1]

Imagine God looks into the future and sees a man with an angry expression, arm raised, about to swing at something. That’s all He sees—no context, no background, just an action frozen in time. Like a snapshot.

Then, in response to this isolated moment, God decides what it means. He places a hammer in the man's hand, a nail in the other, and Jesus on the cross beneath it. Now, the man isn’t just swinging in anger—he is crucifying Christ.

But notice the reversal of order here:

The man’s thoughts and actions come before God's decree that defines them. God is reacting to the action rather than predetermining it.

Was the man just swinging at air before God assigned meaning?

Did his anger exist without an object?

How can God plan the cross if He first had to wait and see the crucifier's raised hand?

This is what happens when you separate foreknowledge from God’s decree—events exist before their meaning, choices exist before their circumstances, and God's planning becomes a response rather than a cause.

Why This View Collapses:

If God hasn't yet determined the circumstances that lead to each decision, then what is He actually seeing? Just a disconnected reel of human choices without a backstory, without a cause, and without any logical sequence.

If God knows that John will choose Christ, but hasn't yet determined John's upbringing, circumstances, thoughts, motivations, or even his existance then how does that decision even exist?

If God knows that Peter will deny Christ, but hasn't yet established the conditions that make Peter's denial possible, then what exactly is He foreknowing?

At best, this turns foreknowledge into a passive observation of random snapshots. At worst, it makes history a self-generating, autonomous sequence that God merely discovers instead of determines.

---

If you believe in a God who fills in the gaps, you’ve already admitted those gaps exist before His plan—before His sovereignty. That’s not the God of the Bible.

The only God worth worshiping is the One who declares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10) and works all things according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11).

 

[Carbon]

Imagine God looks into the future and sees a man with an angry expression, arm raised, about to swing at something. That’s all He sees—no context, no background, just an action frozen in time. Like a snapshot.

Then, in response to this isolated moment, God decides what it means. He places a hammer in the man's hand, a nail in the other, and Jesus on the cross beneath it. Now, the man isn’t just swinging in anger—he is crucifying Christ.

But notice the reversal of order here:

The man’s thoughts and actions come before God's decree that defines them. God is reacting to the action rather than predetermining it.

Was the man just swinging at air before God assigned meaning?

Did his anger exist without an object?

How can God plan the cross if He first had to wait and see the crucifier's raised hand?

This is what happens when you separate foreknowledge from God’s decree—events exist before their meaning, choices exist before their circumstances, and God's planning becomes a response rather than a cause.

Why This View Collapses:

If God hasn't yet determined the circumstances that lead to each decision, then what is He actually seeing? Just a disconnected reel of human choices without a backstory, without a cause, and without any logical sequence.

If God knows that John will choose Christ, but hasn't yet determined John's upbringing, circumstances, thoughts, motivations, or even his existance then how does that decision even exist?

If God knows that Peter will deny Christ, but hasn't yet established the conditions that make Peter's denial possible, then what exactly is He foreknowing?

At best, this turns foreknowledge into a passive observation of random snapshots. At worst, it makes history a self-generating, autonomous sequence that God merely discovers instead of determines.

---

If you believe in a God who fills in the gaps, you’ve already admitted those gaps exist before His plan—before His sovereignty. That’s not the God of the Bible.

The only God worth worshiping is the One who declares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10) and works all things according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11).

Lots of great points making open theism look really silly, which it is.

 

[makesends]

Imagine God looks into the future and sees a man with an angry expression, arm raised, about to swing at something. That’s all He sees—no context, no background, just an action frozen in time. Like a snapshot.

Then, in response to this isolated moment, God decides what it means. He places a hammer in the man's hand, a nail in the other, and Jesus on the cross beneath it. Now, the man isn’t just swinging in anger—he is crucifying Christ.

But notice the reversal of order here:

The man’s thoughts and actions come before God's decree that defines them. God is reacting to the action rather than predetermining it.

Was the man just swinging at air before God assigned meaning?

Did his anger exist without an object?

How can God plan the cross if He first had to wait and see the crucifier's raised hand?

This is what happens when you separate foreknowledge from God’s decree—events exist before their meaning, choices exist before their circumstances, and God's planning becomes a response rather than a cause.

Why This View Collapses:

If God hasn't yet determined the circumstances that lead to each decision, then what is He actually seeing? Just a disconnected reel of human choices without a backstory, without a cause, and without any logical sequence.

If God knows that John will choose Christ, but hasn't yet determined John's upbringing, circumstances, thoughts, motivations, or even his existance then how does that decision even exist?

If God knows that Peter will deny Christ, but hasn't yet established the conditions that make Peter's denial possible, then what exactly is He foreknowing?

At best, this turns foreknowledge into a passive observation of random snapshots. At worst, it makes history a self-generating, autonomous sequence that God merely discovers instead of determines.

---

If you believe in a God who fills in the gaps, you’ve already admitted those gaps exist before His plan—before His sovereignty. That’s not the God of the Bible.

The only God worth worshiping is the One who declares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10) and works all things according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11).

AMEN!!!

And just to nail it down, Acts 2:23, (my emphasis) "This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross."

 

[His clay]

AMEN!!!

And just to nail it down, Acts 2:23, (my emphasis) "This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross."

Also note the causal nature of the verse mentioned. Often I see the verse used because it says "foreknowledge." But take note the words before it, "was handed over . . . by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge." The plan and foreknowledge are causal not passive because of the words, "handed over".

One might respond by pointing to the passive "was handed over." But these words are in reference to the man. The man was handed over BY God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge. Thus, if one wishes to object by appealing to the passive verb construction, then he needs to properly identify who is being passively acted upon, and who is therefore doing to active action.

 

[Dave]

Alistair Begg once said that there are no angels running around heaven yelling "plan B, plan B".

There are also logical discrepancies in foresight being God looking into the future and reacting to man. Google "eleven reasons to reject libertarian freewill".

God providentially governs everything. I like to think of it as He, from the foundations of the world, actively chose to cause some things, and knowing the domino effect right down to the smallest detail, He then put His stamp of approval on it. In other words, while foreknowledge can be deliberately passive in God's eternal decree, it is only positively passive. Yet another way to say it is there is an element of God's eternal decree that is passive, but not in a reactionary way to man. It is only passive because God chose for it to passive.

This is how we can say that God is not the author of sin, or evil. He is sovereign over it. He eternally decreed it. He providentially governs it, but this passive element of God's decree puts all the responsibility of sin and evil in mans lap. I believe that one of the many reasons that things are decreed in the way that they are is to protect His Divine attributes.

Dave

 

[Eleanor]

Imagine God looks into the future and sees a man with an angry expression, arm raised, about to swing at something. That’s all He sees—no context, no background, just an action frozen in time. Like a snapshot.
Then, in response to this isolated moment, God decides what it means. He places a hammer in the man's hand, a nail in the other, and Jesus on the cross beneath it. Now, the man isn’t just swinging in anger—he is crucifying Christ.
But notice the reversal of order here:
The man’s thoughts and actions come before God's decree that defines them. God is reacting to the action rather than predetermining it.
Was the man just swinging at air before God assigned meaning?
Did his anger exist without an object?
How can God plan the cross if He first had to wait and see the crucifier's raised hand?
This is what happens when you separate foreknowledge from God’s decree—events exist before their meaning, choices exist before their circumstances, and God's planning becomes a response rather than a cause.

Why This View Collapses:

If God hasn't yet determined the circumstances that lead to each decision, then what is He actually seeing? Just a disconnected reel of human choices without a backstory, without a cause, and without any logical sequence.

If God knows that John will choose Christ, but hasn't yet determined John's upbringing, circumstances, thoughts, motivations, or even his existance then how does that decision even exist?

If God knows that Peter will deny Christ, but hasn't yet established the conditions that make Peter's denial possible, then what exactly is He foreknowing?

At best, this turns foreknowledge into a passive observation of random snapshots. At worst, it makes history a self-generating, autonomous sequence that God merely discovers instead of determines.

---

If you believe in a God who fills in the gaps, you’ve already admitted those gaps exist before His plan—before His sovereignty. That’s not the God of the Bible.

The only God worth worshiping is the One who declares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10) and works all things according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11).

That's why God's foreknowledge (prognosis) is simply of his own decrees before the foundation of the worlds.

 

[brightfame52]

August 16​

1 Peter 1:2​

Day 229​

​

‘According to the foreknowledge of God’​

Read Deuteronomy 7:1-14​

Many try to avoid the biblical doctrine of election and the sovereignty of God’s electing grace by telling us that election was based upon God’s eternal knowledge that some sinners would, of their own free will, repent and believe on Christ. But such doctrine is contrary to the plain statements of Holy Scripture (Dent. 7:7-9; Jer. 31:3; Rom. 9:11-18); and it makes God’s electing grace dependent upon foreseen merit in the sinner, attributing salvation to the works of man rather than the grace of God. If the word ‘foreknowledge’ does not mean ‘foreseen repentance and faith in men, what does it mean?
Divine foreknowledge certainly includes the omniscience of God. God, knowing all things, had a thorough knowledge of all his elect and all that would concern them from eternity. He knew the depths of sin and rebellion, disobedience and ungodliness, guilt and depravity into which we would fall before he called us by his grace. Nevertheless, he set his heart upon us and chose us Jer. 1:5).
The foreknowledge of God is nothing less than divine foreordination. In I Peter 1:20 the very same word is translated ‘foreordained’. Omniscience, the fact that God knows all things, is an attribute of God, essential to his being. But foreknowledge is a voluntary, deliberate act of God, an eternal act of his grace. God knows all things that come to pass before they come to pass, because he sovereignly predestinated and sovereignly controls all things (Isa. 46:9-11; Rom. 11:36).
Primarily, the word ‘foreknowledge’ signifies the everlasting love of God the Father for his own elect. ‘Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son’ (Rom. 8:29). In this sense God knew some, but not others (Matt. 7:23). Foreknowledge is God’s eternal love and unalterable delight in his elect, as he viewed us in his dear Son.
Election is not a dry, arbitrary choice of some to eternal life. Election is God’s eternal, determinate choice of his people, based upon his loving knowledge and approval of each and all of them in Christ Jesus before the world was.​

http://www.donfortner.com/html_firm/Grace For Today.htm