What is "freewill"?

God knows the beginning from the end of an open future. So not an open Theist.
Do explain. This I have to hear

If God is an eternal Being and there exists no beginning or end in eternity and Him. And if the truth, existence, consciousness, logic, belief and reality itself always existed in and with God, then knowing the "beginning from the end" must be a human construct, or I dare say self-imposed human constraint and limitation, rather than God's.
 
The Future is Closed and Certain, never changing because God intervenes every day; it already exists. Open Theism is a Heresy. Jesus Christ is the same Yesterday, Today and Forever. Today is Tomorrow's Past, and Yesterday's Future. This is something that Open Theists don't get. God is Omnipresent, and since Space and Time are the same thing; God is also Omni-When. Because of this, God knows the Future as certainly as he knows the Past, since the Future is also his Past. You can't have an Omnipresent God who isn't also Alive in the Past, Present and Future for every one of our days...

Or the past and future does exist in or with God, but is just a self-imposed limitation of humanity, because if everything that exists originated in and with Him; including the truth and reality, then the truth is that the past and future doesn't exist in God's reality. But is just a human construct.
 
Or the past and future does exist in or with God, but is just a self-imposed limitation of humanity, because if everything that exists originated in and with Him; including the truth and reality, then the truth is that the past and future doesn't exist in God's reality. But is just a human construct.

Sorry typo, it should read.

'Or the past and future does NOT exist in or with God, but is just a self-imposed limitation of humanity, because if everything that exists originated in and with Him; including the truth and reality, then the truth is that the past and future doesn't exist in God's reality. But is just a human construct.'
 
Hes not free to choose to lie right?

Is a choice known for certain from all eternity actually a choice when it is made? How can you choose otherwise if it foreknowledge for certain? This is probly way above your pay grade but I will give it a whirl for entertainment purposes.
Even if God knows the choice a person will make (known for certain from all eternity), when the person has to make that choice, it will be driven by various factors, including that person's will as applicable. The foreknowledge is not known for certain by the one making the choice, therefore they do still have a choice. I've watched small children ponder and make choices, while knowing the entire time and being ready to react appropriately for the choice they will inevitably make. They still made that choice and I still knew the choice they were going to make.

It's why it is a common testimony that a person was chasing God and afterwards realized it was God chasing them. They were making a choice that He already knew.
 
Even if God knows the choice a person will make (known for certain from all eternity), when the person has to make that choice, it will be driven by various factors, including that person's will as applicable. The foreknowledge is not known for certain by the one making the choice, therefore they do still have a choice. I've watched small children ponder and make choices, while knowing the entire time and being ready to react appropriately for the choice they will inevitably make. They still made that choice and I still knew the choice they were going to make.

It's why it is a common testimony that a person was chasing God and afterwards realized it was God chasing them. They were making a choice that He already knew.
It's not a choice if the choice is certain and cannot be otherwise. There can be a million factors but only one is for certain is relevant. For instance, tomorrow you will choose the red car over the blue one. It is certain and foreknown. What are the chances you pick the blue one?
 
It's not a choice if the choice is certain and cannot be otherwise. There can be a million factors but only one is for certain is relevant. For instance, tomorrow you will choose the red car over the blue one. It is certain and foreknown. What are the chances you pick the blue one?
None, of course. The issue comes from point of view and information. If you can foresee that I will pick the red one, then for you, it is certain. For me, who cannot foresee my choice, it is still a choice.

Back towards the topic, should we, as Christians, cease preaching the gospel since God already knows who will be saved and who will not from the foundations of the creation?

After all, we, as Christians have little to no clue who will or will not be saved; and nothing we can do will affect whether or not anyone else will or will not be saved. No matter how inspired our preaching, no matter how perfect our presentation of the gospel, nobody will be saved except those God knows will be saved. Should we waste our time doing something we cannot influence, no matter the quality and quantity of our actions?

Unless God created us as automatons, programmed perfectly for our role in His play. In this case, we have no will, no choice, nothing. The only reason we don't lay down and die would be we were programmed without any free will to choose to make that choice.

I made multiple choices in typing this response. Clearly, God already knows the choices I made, but did I?
 
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Hes not free to choose to lie right?

Is a choice known for certain from all eternity actually a choice when it is made? How can you choose otherwise if it foreknowledge for certain? This is probly way above your pay grade but I will give it a whirl for entertainment purposes.
The future is open like tossing a dice, except where God intervenes. It can occur either way. God just by sheer miracle immersively knows it right. God cannot err.

There is no future till it gets there as God created only the progressive present. The past is only a memory.

God's will is free ie non-predetermined as well, except for moral issues. God's will is not fated. God could substantively have decided not to create the universe.
 
The future is open like tossing a dice, except where God intervenes. It can occur either way. God just by sheer miracle immersively knows it right. God cannot err.

There is no future till it gets there as God created only the progressive present. The past is only a memory.

God's will is free ie non-predetermined as well, except for moral issues. God's will is not fated. God could substantively have decided not to create the universe.
Source?
 
None, of course. The issue comes from point of view and information. If you can foresee that I will pick the red one, then for you, it is certain. For me, who cannot foresee my choice, it is still a choice.

Back towards the topic, should we, as Christians, cease preaching the gospel since God already knows who will be saved and who will not from the foundations of the creation?

After all, we, as Christians have little to no clue who will or will not be saved; and nothing we can do will affect whether or not anyone else will or will not be saved. No matter how inspired our preaching, no matter how perfect our presentation of the gospel, nobody will be saved except those God knows will be saved. Should we waste our time doing something we cannot influence, no matter the quality and quantity of our actions?

Unless God created us as automatons, programmed perfectly for our role in His play. In this case, we have no will, no choice, nothing. The only reason we don't lay down and die would be we were programmed without any free will to choose to make that choice.

I made multiple choices in typing this response. Clearly, God already knows the choices I made, but did I?
But your choice is a illusion. It is certain whether contemplation is involved or not.

No you did not but God did and your choices are certain whether you know it or not. Your free will is a illusion.
 
The future is open like tossing a dice, except where God intervenes. It can occur either way. God just by sheer miracle immersively knows it right. God cannot err.

There is no future till it gets there as God created only the progressive present. The past is only a memory.

God's will is free ie non-predetermined as well, except for moral issues. God's will is not fated. God could substantively have decided not to create the universe.
Scripture doesn't deny it.
 
The future is open like tossing a dice, except where God intervenes. It can occur either way. God just by sheer miracle immersively knows it right. God cannot err.

There is no future till it gets there as God created only the progressive present. The past is only a memory.

God's will is free ie non-predetermined as well, except for moral issues. God's will is not fated. God could substantively have decided not to create the universe.
Scripture doesn't deny it.
It does not deny the moon is blue cheese either.
The astronauts have proved that one wrong. But then you admits that Scripture doesn't prove a known open future wrong.
 
But your choice is a illusion. It is certain whether contemplation is involved or not.

No you did not but God did and your choices are certain whether you know it or not. Your free will is a illusion.
I do not deny the ability of any being with a higher level of comprehension that I have to be able to discern all of the surrounding influences and deduce from that information what choices I will make throughout my life. I do believe that God, as presented in the Bible, at least minimally qualifies as such a "being with a higher level of comprehension".

I have personally managed to achieve the status of "being with a higher level of comprehension" myself in some cases, specifically dealing with small children, accurately and with certainty discerning their choices before they made them.

Does my foreknowledge of their choices remove their choice? Does it make their choice an illusion?
No and No. The child still has the choice, despite the adult knowing the choice before hand. It it part of how we teach them.

When someone moves from election and predestination by the God based on God's foreknowledge of how His creation started, ran through its cycle and ended into "all is illusion just because He knows" and similar such fatalistic drivel that turns the ones God created in His image into mere automatons, the one moves from "Reformed" to "Frozen Chosen". You have tossed out virtually everything about how believers are supposed to act, the ways in which they show their faith, the fruits they are supposed to produce as followers of Christ.

In fact, by your teaching, you are heading towards (or are already there perhaps) to Antinomianism, because since one has no free will, then why not go out robbing, raping, murdering, tripping little old ladies, taking excretory bodily functions in the middle of the street or any other such thing? After all, it is all illusion, that one has absolutely no free will choice in any of these matters. That one never made a choice, it was all predestined by God and how is one guilty of any offense if it was done (as your theology would require) at the direction of God?

Why? Because if all is illusion, there are no choices, then I HAVE NO EXPLETIVE REASON TO DO ANYTHING THE BIBLE COMMANDS! Nobody does, because there is no choice, we will either do it because our part in this robotic play will script out whether or not we do anything or not.

The greatest of the Reformed teachers have consistently taught that both election/predestination by God and the free will/responsibility of man exists and are relevant. They most definitely do NOT teach that man's free will is illusion.
 
I do not deny the ability of any being with a higher level of comprehension that I have to be able to discern all of the surrounding influences and deduce from that information what choices I will make throughout my life. I do believe that God, as presented in the Bible, at least minimally qualifies as such a "being with a higher level of comprehension".

I have personally managed to achieve the status of "being with a higher level of comprehension" myself in some cases, specifically dealing with small children, accurately and with certainty discerning their choices before they made them.

Does my foreknowledge of their choices remove their choice? Does it make their choice an illusion?
No and No. The child still has the choice, despite the adult knowing the choice before hand. It it part of how we teach them.

When someone moves from election and predestination by the God based on God's foreknowledge of how His creation started, ran through its cycle and ended into "all is illusion just because He knows" and similar such fatalistic drivel that turns the ones God created in His image into mere automatons, the one moves from "Reformed" to "Frozen Chosen". You have tossed out virtually everything about how believers are supposed to act, the ways in which they show their faith, the fruits they are supposed to produce as followers of Christ.

In fact, by your teaching, you are heading towards (or are already there perhaps) to Antinomianism, because since one has no free will, then why not go out robbing, raping, murdering, tripping little old ladies, taking excretory bodily functions in the middle of the street or any other such thing? After all, it is all illusion, that one has absolutely no free will choice in any of these matters. That one never made a choice, it was all predestined by God and how is one guilty of any offense if it was done (as your theology would require) at the direction of God?

Why? Because if all is illusion, there are no choices, then I HAVE NO EXPLETIVE REASON TO DO ANYTHING THE BIBLE COMMANDS! Nobody does, because there is no choice, we will either do it because our part in this robotic play will script out whether or not we do anything or not.

The greatest of the Reformed teachers have consistently taught that both election/predestination by God and the free will/responsibility of man exists and are relevant. They most definitely do NOT teach that man's free will is illusion.
I will say it again. Logically, if a choice is foreknown for certain, one cannot choose otherwise, your free will is a illusion.
 
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