I think that's true, but not for any arbitrary reason. That is, it's not that God gives one thing to one group of people and not to another because they have met some arbitrary condition that He has decided they need to meet, but the principle involved is, "To know God is life eternal," or, synonymously, "He that has the Son has life."

That is, eternal life is the outgrowth of knowing God, just as eternal death is the outgrowth of living for self.

Right. There's nothing arbitrary about it. It's an incontrovertible, unavoidable fact of God's creation.

Have the Son -> have life.

Have not the Son -> have not life.

In Him is no sin.

If you are in Him -> in you is no sin.

It's not arbitrary. It is strictly cause and effect. And the very predictable nature of cause and effect is the foundation of foreknowledge. And since God has a really good knowledge of the causes (general and specific), He knows very well what the effects will be (general and specific). He knows the end from the beginning because He can see the future effects of present causes.

I agree with everything you wrote, except for the last sentence, which I don't so much disagree with, but see as incomplete. God knows the end from the beginning not only, or even primarily, because He foresees what will happen, but because He understands the principles involved. Actually, I was re-read your last sentence, it's entirely possible that this is what you meant.

I'm glad you see thing things as non-arbitrary and strictly cause and effect. I think understanding this truth unlocks a great many others.

Yes, that is what I meant. Just like if I throw 10 lbs of pure sodium in a lake, I can "see" what's going to happen, and run away very fast even before the sodium hits. Then, I can literally see from a safe distance.

Again, the text doesn’t say that the Lamb offered Himself to be slain from the foundation of the world (which would have to do with His character), but that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world (which has to do with a concrete fact – a certainty, not a possibility).


Can God be surprised?


First, the future isn’t determined by God’s foreknowledge. This would mean that things happen because God saw that they would happen, which is not true.
God predicted, through His foreknowledge, that the Jews would reject Him. Did they reject Him because this had been predicted?

"Christ quoted a prophecy which more than a thousand years before had predicted what God's foreknowledge had seen would be. The prophecies do not shape the characters of the men who fulfill them. Men act out their own free will, either in accordance with a character placed under the molding of God or a character placed under the harsh rule of Satan." {RH, November 13, 1900 par. 11}

Second, suppose a mother could see, before her son is born, the video of his life, and she sees that at 14 he will have cancer and die. Is your contention that she can’t feel sorry when he is diagnosed with cancer because she knew beforehand that this would happen?

Good Arnold. Looks like we're on the same page (at least for this post!)

Christ's being slain was a possibility from when God created man.

Again, the text doesn’t say that the Lamb offered Himself to be slain from the foundation of the world (which would have to do with His character), but that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world (which has to do with a concrete fact – a certainty, not a possibility).

"The Lamb offered Himself to be slain from the foundation of the world"? That's extremely awkward. Nobody writes like that.

At any rate, it should be clear that "the lamb slain from the foundation of the world" is dealing with the character of God, because that's what the whole Great Controversy is about. Are you arguing that sin had to happen? If sin was a certainty (that is, there is no way that sin could not have happened), there are serious consequences with such a view. If sin was a possibility, and not a certainty, then Christ's death on the cross was a possibility, and not a certainty. However, His character would still be the same.

The cross *revealed* what was hidden in ages past. It didn't create a new reality; it revealed what had always been true about God.

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There are many places where God expresses Himself in ways such as expressing regret, disappointment, surprise...

Can God be surprised?

He expresses Himself in the ways I stated. For example:



That's the NIV. The KJV has "entered my heart" I think. RSV and NASB have "come into my mind," I think.

God knew of the possibility of this happening from all eternity, but it was apparently not a likely event. In many places God expresses that similar emotions speaking of His reacting in time to the hardness of heart of the Israelites. These expressions in Scripture are in harmony with Ellen White's writing that God took a risk in sending His Son, and that all heaven was imperiled for our redemption.

God created the universe with an open future, not a determined one. This is what we see expressed over and over.


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... a number of emotions, which would be impossible if the future were determined.

First, the future isn’t determined by God’s foreknowledge.

Correct! However, it must be determined for God to have a foreknowledge of it which is determined. In other words, if God foreknows the future as determined (has only one possibility -- the one He sees), then it is certainly determined, because reality is as God knows it to be.

The issue has never been that God's foreknowledge *causes* anything to be. This apparently is a very difficult point to understand because you, Daryl, and MM repeatedly make this point over and over again, but I have never stated nor implied that this is the case, but rather have repeatedly, over and over again, and redundantly affirmed, asserted, pointed out, and explicated that God's foreknowledge does not cause us, or anyone else, to do anything. That this point continues to be made is a bit perplexing.

This would mean that things happen because God saw that they would happen, which is not true.

This is backwards. The things that happen happen regardless of whether God sees them. God sees them because they happen. If there's only one future that can happen, then that's what God sees. If God sees only one future, then that's reality. One future is what there is! God cannot see things different than what they are.

God predicted, through His foreknowledge, that the Jews would reject Him. Did they reject Him because this had been predicted?

No. The rejected Him because of the hardness of their heart. God's foreseeing things does not cause things to happen. However, just like Nineveh, just like Israel (as related in Jer. 18), those in Christ's time could have accepted Him.

"Christ quoted a prophecy which more than a thousand years before had predicted what God's foreknowledge had seen would be. The prophecies do not shape the characters of the men who fulfill them. Men act out their own free will, either in accordance with a character placed under the molding of God or a character placed under the harsh rule of Satan." {RH, November 13, 1900 par. 11}

This is correct. The fact that God revealed that He sent His Son at the risk of failure and eternal lost, makes it obvious that He saw failure as a possibility. Similarly the statement that all heaven was imperiled for our redemption makes clear that heaven was imperiled for our redemption, since that's what it says. So God does not just see one possibility, which is good, because that's not the way the future is.

Second, suppose a mother could see, before her son is born, the video of his life, and she sees that at 14 he will have cancer and die. Is your contention that she can’t feel sorry when he is diagnosed with cancer because she knew beforehand that this would happen?

It's my contention that she could not say that she brought her son into the world with the "risk" that her child wouldn't get cancer. (I put "risk" in quotes because "risk" is associated with loss, and the loss here would be the loss of a good thing -- not getting cancer)

Obviously your analogy was meant to point out that although God foresees what will happen, this does not mean He cannot feel pain when the foreseen thing happens. There's certainly a different when the foreseen possibility becomes reality, and God feels pain when that happens.

Consider the following:




Unless this is a farce, these things actually happened. If Christ went to God three times to convince God to allow Him to come, and the angel expressed this as a "struggle," then it wasn't a foregone conclusion that God would do this. If God knew for all eternity that His Son would ask Him three times to allow Him to come, this could hardly be called a "struggle." The whole narrative wouldn't make sense.

What I mean is, “from the foundation of the world, the Lamb offered Himself to be slain.” Does this make sense?


This is not at all the way I understand the verse. To me, what God is trying to communicate is that not only had He never commanded such a practice, but that the very thought of it could never have been originated by Him.


You are simply changing the meaning of the word. To determine means “to establish or affect the nature, kind, or quality of; fix.” In other words, for Judas’ future to be determined, God would have said, “I need someone to betray my Son, in order that He may be crucified. I will choose Judas to do it, and he will have no choice but do it.” In that case, Judas wouldn’t have been an instrument of the devil, but an instrument of God. God would have chosen and fixed the nature of the events and the role of the participants; Judas’ will would have been affected, making it impossible for him to choose to do otherwise.


Let’s change the illustration in order to understand this subject of “risk”. Suppose I’m a doctor and there is an epidemic of a lethal disease in Africa. There is no vaccine for it, so I can’t take one. I decide to travel there to help. Suppose that before traveling to Africa I have a glimpse of the future, and become aware that I will be lucky enough to not catch the disease. The probability of catching the disease, for everyone who is in this region of Africa, is of 80%. Would you say that the probability for me was of 80% too or that it was zero? Would you say that I took no risk in going to Africa? After I have that glimpse of the future, what I saw passes away from me, so that when I arrive in Africa I’m no longer aware of how things will come out. How real will I feel the risk to be for me?


Taking a decision and implementing the decision are two different things. Even for God.

If your glimpses of the future are always 100% accurate (and you know that they are 100% accutate), then there is a 0% risk for you.

The Lamb offered Himself to be slain from the foundation of the world"? That's extremely awkward. Nobody writes like that.

What I mean is, “from the foundation of the world, the Lamb offered Himself to be slain.” Does this make sense?

There is a sense in which this is true. For example, EGW writes, "Remember Christ risked all." and Paul writes of how Christ gave Himself for us. However, it is also true that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. So to have written, "from the foundation of the world, the Lamb offered Himself to be slain" seems to me to be more limiting in meaning that to speak of the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world."

Later on you write that there is a difference, even to God, of making plans and implementing them, which is my point here. The "lamb slain from the foundation of the world" speaks to the plan that was set up, should it become necessary. Since God could still have decided not to implement the plan, let alone the fact that sin didn't need to happen at all, it would be a mistake to read into this text some statement regarding the future being determined. It's not a treatise on foreknowledge/ontology of the future. It's a beautiful statement as to God's character.

For example, when John speaks in Revelation of Christ, he speaks of how he heard an angel speak of the Lion of the tribe of Judah. But John looked and saw a lamb. This is speaking to character, and how that character is perceived.

Ellen White brings out the thoughts I've been trying to share here:



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That's the NIV. The KJV has "entered my heart" I think. RSV and NASB have "come into my mind," I think.
God knew of the possibility of this happening from all eternity, but it was apparently not a likely event. (Jer. 7:31)

This is not at all the way I understand the verse.

Of course! You don't understand any of these verses this way. But there are nevertheless many of them, verses which communicate God experiencing regret, disappointment at the way things turn out, contingency, and so forth.

To me, what God is trying to communicate is that not only had He never commanded such a practice, but that the very thought of it could never have been originated by Him.

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In other words, if God foreknows the future as determined (has only one possibility -- the one He sees), then it is certainly determined, because reality is as God knows it to be.

You are simply changing the meaning of the word. To determine means “to establish or affect the nature, kind, or quality of; fix.”

I'm using the word in a technical sense, in the context of what we are discussing. The "determined" means "fixed" in the sense of "certain" or "cannot be changed." I'm using it in the standard way the term is used when foreknolwedge is discussed.

In other words, for Judas’ future to be determined, God would have said, “I need someone to betray my Son, in order that He may be crucified. I will choose Judas to do it, and he will have no choice but do it.” In that case, Judas wouldn’t have been an instrument of the devil, but an instrument of God. God would have chosen and fixed the nature of the events and the role of the participants; Judas’ will would have been affected, making it impossible for him to choose to do otherwise.

No, that's not what it means. The term is ontological, dealing with the future. It does not necessarily imply predestination, as your scenario implies. Actually, Calivinists would argue that it does, but Arminianists deny this claim. I think the argument of the Calvinists is logically consistent (but disagree with the premise of the future being determined).

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It's my contention that she could not say that she brought her son into the world with the "risk" that her child wouldn't get cancer.

Let’s change the illustration in order to understand this subject of “risk”. Suppose I’m a doctor and there is an epidemic of a lethal disease in Africa. There is no vaccine for it, so I can’t take one. I decide to travel there to help. Suppose that before traveling to Africa I have a glimpse of the future, and become aware that I will be lucky enough to not catch the disease. The probability of catching the disease, for everyone who is in this region of Africa, is of 80%. Would you say that the probability for me was of 80% too or that it was zero? Would you say that I took no risk in going to Africa? After I have that glimpse of the future, what I saw passes away from me, so that when I arrive in Africa I’m no longer aware of how things will come out. How real will I feel the risk to be for me?

I'm not understanding your point. First of all, I don't understand why "risk" is in quotes. Why would the risk of the doctor be zero? Is he doing something not to catch the disease that others aren't doing? How real you feel a risk is has nothing to do with how real the risk actually is. God took a real risk in sending His Son. He didn't just feel like He was taking one. Heaven really was imperiled for our redemption. It's not the case that it just felt like it was imperiled.

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Unless this is a farce, these things actually happened. If Christ went to God three times to convince God to allow Him to come, and the angel expressed this as a "struggle," then it wasn't a foregone conclusion that God would do this.

Taking a decision and implementing the decision are two different things. Even for God.

I agree with this. However, if it were the case that the future is determined (i.e., it can only take one possible course, the one which God sees), then there wouldn't be any difference. God would simply do what He always foresaw He would do. Any "struggle" that would take place would have been resolved long ago in eternigy, when God first saw what He would do. "Struggle" doesn't begin to make sense in such a scenario. Neither does the concept of risk make any sense.