Hi Rev-

Jeff and I are both open theists but differ on this question. My open theism includes the salvation of people. Jeff’s excludes it, or so I understand. Jeff sees the world as open in all the usual respects most open theists believe. But when it comes to the salvation of people, Jeff believes that’s not an open issue. God determines that. Kinda of a Calvinistic openness? Perhaps that’s why he sees “foreKNOWing” here as intimate and personal. Am I wrong Jeff?

I don’t see how foreknowledge of another person can be ‘intimate’ in any case. Intimacy between persons demands ‘mutuality’, and there can be no mutuality where there’s only one ‘actual’ person, which is what you’ve got with FOREknowledge. God can’t be intimate with me before I exist and grow to make responsible personal decisions about relating to God. So foreknowledge can’t mean “having a relationship with” those who are foreknown. They don’t exist to relate personally and intimately to.

In my view, God’s foreknowledge in this instance is a) in Christ, and b) corporate and general, not individual and specific. I don’t think God knows from eternity which “specific” people will in fact choose him.

Consider…

I’m teaching a class this Fall in Arabic. I have predetermined for each student that takes that course that they become proficient in a minimum number of skills (alphabet, pronunciation, basic grammar). That’s the ‘destiny’ I have ‘pre-set’ (thus, ‘predestined’) for them. Now, when students show up, I can say that it was foreknown ahead of time that each of them would be destined for these things. I predestined those I foreknew. It’s the ‘destiny’ that is determined. But the ‘foreknowledge’ in question need NOT be thought of as foreknowing specific individuals (names, identities, etc.). All that need necessarily be said is that God foreknows the ‘body of people’, the ‘corporate group’ AS a group and destines that group for Christlikeness. But which specific individuals make it into that group need not be foreknown or predetermined.

So I don’t at all see the ‘knowledge’ in question here as individually personal and intimate as Jeff does. I see it is as corporate and general.

Tom

Mephi: The issue is about WHO was foreknown, not that the predestination was foreknown.

Tom: Right. I’m not arguing that it was the “predestining” that was foreknown.

Mephi: Think about it as if you are asking a question...

X: How do we know that all things work together for good for those who have been called according to his purpose?
Y: Because not only has the end in Christ been determined for those people, but those people will ALSO be justified and glorified...and God's previously planned purposes won't be thwarted!
X: Sweet! But who's been called really?
Y: Those people who have been destined for this.
X: Cool! Say, whose been destined for this end?
Y: Those who have been for foreknown?
X: Ok. Who are those who have been foreknown?

The answer can't be "The indeterminate group of people who will answer God's call in the future" That wouldn't even make sense.

Tom: Neither would it make sense if the discussion assumed universalism :

X: Sweet! But who's been called really?
Y: Those people who have been destined for this.
X: Cool! Say, whose been destined for this end?
Y: Everybody.
X: So who are those who have been foreknown?

Y: Everybody.

Were that Paul’s belief I can hardly think of a reason for not coming out with it and saying so in plain Greek.  

Anyhow, it makes sense to me that God foreknows a PEOPLE, a community, without foreknowing the specific MEMBERS of that people. That’s my point. And that much makes sense, and it’s enough to sustain the assurance Paul seeks to give his readers. Do you really want to dismiss corporate election and argue that from the get-go God foreknew ever single individual who would constitute the readership of Paul’s letter to the Romans? On what basis would God ‘foreknow’ these individuals? Determination? Timeless knowledge? What?

I take a bit of a different approach to Paul’s reasoning, and it begins by beginning with a question that understands Paul not as being asked “How do we know that all things work together for good...?” but as “If our hope to be free from suffering and evil awaits the future redemption of our bodies, and if we're still groaning our guts out and suffering NOW, what's to expect and live for NOW?"

In 8.23-25 Paul says we believers all ‘groan’ (= we suffer) ‘waiting’ (v. 25) for the redemption of our bodies. We have that “hope.” One day we’ll be redeemed and all our present sufferings (elsewhere in Romans) will seem like nothing. My immediate response is: Is that all? People want to know if ALL they have in this life is the mere hope that they’ll be redeemed one day or whether there’s also something available to them NOW to get them through their sufferings, some good to achieve now, some purpose to live for now. Paul answers (8.26-28) that while we’re groaning the Spirit helps us in our sufferings to achieve God's purpose NOW, and there IS a purpose to be achieved now in our lives--our conformity to the imagine of Christ. We’re not JUST waiting. We also have the Spirit leading and guiding us in our sufferings to achieve something--Christ's likeness in us. That IS the 'good' which Paul claims God works together with us toward.

The ASSUMPTION behind Paul’s answer I think is that God is always present in all circumstances working to achieve the highest good. The POINT of his answer is to assure them that where people in suffering and evil circumstances choose to love and work with God, that good is achieved now.

That’s Paul’s essential point I think. I personally wouldn’t go on to find some additional specific theologically laden point Paul makes with each of “…those he foreknew he predestined, those he predestined he called, those he called he justified, those he justified he glorifed.” It’s like Paul to ‘load up’ his language for effect where the effect is found in the loading up of langauge and not separately in each specific statement, as if there's a separate volume to be written on each one. I wouldn’t read much into these more than simply to say that Paul wants to reassure suffering groaning believers that the Spirit at work in and with them to bring about the good of their conformity to Christ's imagine is part of the package deal God foreknew. God’s not making it up as he goes. He really did think it all through, and when we suffer, the same glory-to-come that will erase the memory of our present pain is the same glorious God at work in us in the midst of that pain. In fact, I'd say that part of the point in spelling it out the way he does is to say that the good achieved NOW is part of what constitutes the GLORY to be revealed THEN. It’s all one and same project, planned and pursued by the wise God. That is something we can take comfort in, and it challenges us to LOOK for God in the crap of life and find his way to our acting like and becoming like Christ.

I honestly don’t see anything more than that in it, certainly nothing that requires we believe the foreknowledge referred to in v. 28 is foreknowlege of specific individuals--their names, DNA, birth places, etc.

Mephi: Let's use your logic. How did God "foreknow" Israel? As a group of people who would be descended from Abraham? Ok. Let's go with that. Then it would seem like we would use the idea of predestined PEOPLE GROUPS, right?

Tom: That’s not my understanding. I understand 'foreknown' here essentially to mean that God knew ahead of time (because he planned and purposed it ahead of time) that he’d find some individual to work with, from whom he could build a community of faithful people through whom he’d couuld bring salvation to the world. That was the set plan. God defined it, purposed it, foreknew it, and pursued it. That person turned out to be Abraham and his descendents turned out to be Israel. When it eventuated, there’s nothing inconsistent with God’s saying to Abraham, “Hey, I foreknew you” or to Israel, “I foreknew you.” It doesn’t require that Abraham, specifically, by name, by race, by language, by DNA, etc., was foreknown when God put the stars in place or even when God first determined what plan of action he would pursue for the redemption of humanity. In my view it simply means that Abraham ended up fulfilling the qualifications God required for such a person. He 'happened' in time to become the one through who God would pursue his purposed and foreknown plan. But it might have been some other individual for all we know. I am, after all, an open theist!

Mephi: Actually, wouldn't this go with Paul's supposed ideas as stated in Acts? Acts 17:26-27 From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the time of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him--though indeed he is not far from each one of us.

Tom: There’s nothing of foreknowledge in any of this, Mephi. All it requires is that God be actively involved in steering and guiding people groups as the world churns on, not mapping it all out from the foundations of the world. Granted, that may mean God determines a bit more than a lot of indeterminists admit (me excluded, I’ve always recognized God’s freedom to determine that sort of stuff), but it doesn’t mean all the specific people groups and specific individual citizens of each group, along with the boarders they live within, were eternally determined and so foreknown to God.

Mephi: So, are you willing to say something like...God knew, according to God's sovereign purposes, WHAT PEOPLE GROUPS (types of Gentiles and Israel) would be predetermined to be conformed to the image of Christ, and it is those people groups that God called.

Tom: No, I wouldn’t say anything like this. You’ve taken this far from what I think Paul’s point in Rom. 8 is.

Mephi: This seems, to me, the least stretching non-EDF reading. But isn't this STILL giving a lot of determinative power to God? Oh, yes, it is. This would mean something like God determining what people groups/cultures would get the proclamation of the Gospel (the call)...which would go along well with Paul's experiences and presuppositions.

Tom: I’m sure in determining the basic boundaries where people live God did what would insure the greatest possible opportunity for all to know him. Of course, Paul’s point is that in all of the ‘orderedness’ and ‘regularity’ of life (boundaries, seasons, etc.) people would reflect on THAT (not the gospel—interesting point regarding Paul’s words to the Athenians) and so long for God and perhaps reach out for him. God is, Paul says, close to every one of us, not far away. That makes sense, but none of it requires eternal foreknowledge of the specific individuals who comprise the various churches Paul writes to.

I’ll stick with corporate election.

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 7/9/2005 4:23:50 PM (GMT-5)

Gasp!  Wow! 

Psalms 119   

⁹⁶I have seen an end of all perfection: but thy commandment is exceeding broad.

   ⁹⁷O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.  

Post Edited (Paul M. Blackmore) : 7/9/2005 3:06:07 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (TGB) : 7/9/2005 3:20:41 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (jefscott) : 7/10/2005 10:04:34 AM (GMT-5)