This is Jimmy Stephens review of this article:
Amazing
This article deigns not only to shoot at a straw man, but to do so with nerf darts.
(1) The argument for foreknowledge as selective love is not merely one of citing verses where know is love-connotational. That’s not even the primary evidence.
(2) What is noncognitive knowledge or a noncognitive use of ginosko? My guess is that the other has in mind some non-propositional or non-notional knowledge. It’s unclear.
(3) The manner in which Greek pagans use words like love do not overlap well with the Biblical concept of love, yet we have no problem interpreting the terminology. Word-concept structures are worldview informed. So it’s not relevant that non-Biblical Greek uses of know don’t easily overlap with the Biblical anymore than the Greek uses of god suffering the same problem. That’s an expectable divergence.
(4) Beside (3), the love and knowledge of a Triune Creator is foreign to non-Biblical culture and it is higher than human cognition or love. So an argument would need to be presented what the overlap should be anyway between ordinary used and nonstandard. Instead, the author seems to be making the mistaking of univocizing the concepts and ignoring the creature-Creator distinction.
(5) Several claims are made about sex consciousness, that is, knowing someone sexually. None of them are defended. That is a problem.
(6) Two of his claims about sex consciousness are hermeneutically incompatible. If “know” in the sexual sense is a euphemism with no intimation of love or intimacy, then it would hardly presuppose marriage. If it presupposes marriage by default, then, by the same principle, it intimates love. Which is it?
(7) His distinctions are contrived. Since when do sexual euphemisms, by default, distinguish the act from its initiation, selection of the partner (for the act), and marital love? Sure, it can be granted that sexual euphemisms like “know” may not include such content by necessity. At most, however, that sort of language is neutral with respect to agency and marital setting, and it would depend entirely on where and how the word is used in context.
(8) The notion that sex consciousness is more cognitive or that euphemisms for sex like “know” better fit cognition than other mental states and acts is false on two accounts. First, as a euphemism, it’s intentionally vague and used of the sex act, not some sort of philosophical jargon for the noetic part of intercourse. Second, acts of judgment can be cognitive in nature, and some cases of cognition or selection are interconnected, immediately dependent on the other.
(On a side note, again, it’s unclear what cognition is supposed to be here when that term is useful because of it’s intentional broadness. Why is the author using a fish scooper for a descaling knife?)
(9) It doesn’t need to be added but might be useful to expand on (8)’s subpoint. When we look at cases of sexual “know”, as when Adam knew his wife, there’s nothing about the phrase that prefers either synonymization: Adam chose to fuck Eve, Adam and Eve selected a time to mate, Eve loved Adam erotically. They all overlap well because the euphemism is intentionally vague. Nothing about it suggests that the gnosis is emphasized.
(10) The argument that, in cases of God’s foreknowledge where the author grants a love element, God’s motivation is unspecified is both question begging, irrelevant, and falsifies sola fide. It’s question begging if God’s love for someone is not externally motivated. That is, if God chooses to move someone for His own romantic pleasure, then yes, in fact, the love of God for someone is where the motivational buck stops. The author is then just assuming that God is externally motivated to love people, and that is to assume Calvinism is false as a premise. In addition, it would be irrelevant if love foreknowledge entails election. If that entailment holds, God’s love could be motivated by the sound of a fly buzzing, but Calvinists would still be right about the verse. Finally, if God’s love is contingent on foreseen reciprocation in the one loved, that is just to say, God’s salvific love is contingent on human merit. Goodbye sola fide.
(11) The author stumbles over but fails to address the issue of persons as they object of God’s foreknowledge. If people are the object of God’s foreknowledge, what is known is more than anand not reducible to prescience of the act of faith, and the knowing can not be passive because it both precedes the person and because of an even more glaring issue the author ignores throughout his article. Context. The foreknowledge of God entails the predestination of God. No passive form of “cognition” preserves that entailment, especially not in conjunction with its ontological priority over the one foreknown and predestined.
(11) Therewith, a major problem of the Arminian view is and has always been that its view of foreknowledge problematizes the language of predestination. Why is God ensuring something will happen in response to already knowing it will happen? What does it even mean for God to take steps before time, to ensure that history turns out a certain way, after looking at the time and history that doesn’t yet exist? Gibberish.
(12) The author makes a very simple hermeneutic fallacy when he reasons that because most cases of word x mean y, word x in a specific case cannot mean something other than y. This would be like arguing that in most cases “fuck” is an explitive, therefore, the sentence, “He fucked her,” cannot be an intercourse verb is about as absurd as it gets. The author is doing his best to distract from the immediate context and inferential use of foreknow in the passage, but those are the kings of semantic determination, not the average use of a word elsewhere. Even worse, the author assumes that the verbiage as applied to temporal, finite, fallible human consciousness works the same way for a timeless omniscient Creator.
Subsequent Dialogue with a Person Who Agrees with the Article
Gabriel:
First of all, in foreknowledge, God wasn’t ensuring something will hapoen but 101% sure about it.
God doesn’t even need to ensure it if he’s already sure of it.
Jimmy:
I don’t think you understood (11). I didn’t claim that foreknowledge is ensuring something will happen.
This is incoherent. How can God be already sure of something before it’s been ensured?
Gabriel:
First of all God’s knowledge is beyond time and space for you to measure. He’s fully aware of everything from past, present, and future.
Jimmy:
He’s fully aware of things that are already there and He didn’t create?
Or you mean He’s aware of the things He created?
Or do you mean stuff just randomly pops out of nowhere and God becomes aware of it?
Gabriel:
Before it happened, he already knows what those things are before they were even made. It’s not about popping out then he knows it already.
Jimmy:
“before they were even made”
Exactly
So how does God know x if x doesn’t exist yet?
Does He look out at all the nonexistence and figure it out?
Gabriel:
the answer relies here:
First of all God’s knowledge is beyond time and space for you to measure. He’s fully aware of everything from past, present, and future.
Jimmy:
I’m not asking you whether God knows all history.
I’m asking you how God knows all history.
If God determines what happens, then obviously He foreknows it. He’s the one who planned it all. Calvinism is consistent on that.
If God does not determine what happens, then what explains God’s knowledge of what happens?
Gabriel:
What is the difference between forethought and foreknowledge?
Jimmy:
I’m not certain how you’re using the word. Forethought usually means some kind of careful preparation or an anticipation of something. It doesn’t require that you know the future. Foreknowledge does.
Gabriel:
Foreknowledge only has one nuance actually and when you look at it, the term itself “fore” means before it happens and this means he’s aware of everything beforehand and it says “knowledge” which means he’s fully aware of things from past, present, and future because God’s knowledge is beyond time and space.
Jimmy:
That doesn’t answer my question.
I just don’t think you get the argument in (11).
The point is, if God knows the believer in the sense that He looks through the corridors of time and sees the future, that presupposes the future already exists to be seen in some sense. So there’s nothing to predestine because it’s already there. Why then does Paul say those He foreknew He predestined? That’s incoherent.
The Arminian is effectively saying:
God is in the park. He has perfect omnivision of the whole park, and He looks through the trees and hills and sees a red ball on the other side of the park. Oh, and by the way, having seen that the ball is alread red, He now decides to cause the ball to be red in the first place.
What?
That’s nonsense.
Either God causes the red ball or the ball to be red or whatever, and in that cause, He only foreknew it because He selected it to be what it is.
Or the ball was already red when God looked out and knew it, and then there’s nothing for Him to predestine. It’s already there.
You can’t predestine something that, independent of your predestining, is already going to occur.
When you foreknow something, you either know it ahead of time because you planned it to come about, or because someone else is bringing it about. In the latter case, there’s nothing for you to predestine. It’s already happening. God can just sit back, relax, and wait for what he’s seen to come to pass. But that contradicts what Paul next says when he brings up predestination.
Gabriel:
I saw the problem with your point
When you use the predetermination itself, which you use it based on a human planning, it would make his knowledge temporal. You’re equating God’s knowledge with a human’s knowledge except for making them all perfect as he planned.
Jimmy:
Let me try to help you one more time:
P1. If God foreknows x, then:
(a) x is God-known because it is God-planned
(b) x is God-known for reasons independent of God’s plan
P2. If (a), God foreknows x because God determines x.
P3. If (b), x cannot be predestined
P4. The Christian (saved) identity of believers is predestined.
P5. God foreknows the Christian identity of believers because He determines that identity.
C: Calvinism
Gabriel:
P1. a is forethought
Jimmy:
What does that mean?
Gabriel:
What is the FOREKNOWLEDGE found in 1 PETER 1:2? According to the CALVINISTS, “foreknowledge” means a plan or a plan beforehand. My question is, what is the difference between FOREKNOWLEDGE and FORETHOUGHT? Let us look at the true meaning of the difference between foreknowledge and forethought in the dictionary. Here is what the dictionary says:
Foreknowledge: Knowledge of something before it exists or happens; prescience: awareness of something before it happens or exists.
So it is clear: it does not mean a plan beforehand. What about forethought? Here is what the dictionary says:
Forethought: A thinking or planning out in advance, or careful thinking or planning for the future.
So it is clear there that forethought and foreknowledge are different; their definitions are very far apart. Because in the Calvinist view, they took the definition of foreknowledge from the definition of FORETHOUGHT, even though forethought is not what the Bible used in 1 PETER 1:2, but rather FOREKNOWLEDGE or PROGNOSIS in Greek.
Jimmy:
This seems to speak right past the argument. I’m still uncertain whether you even understand it, but I don’t think I can make it clearer, so I’ll have to leave it here.
P1 one isn’t a “forethought.” It’s a proposition. Specifically, it’s a hypothetical/conditional proposition, an “if-then” statement.
Maybe you meant to say that P1 expresses a claim about foreknowledge being a “forethought” or something? That would just be patently false.
P1 doesn’t say foreknowledge and fore-planning are the same thing.
P1 doesn’t say God’s foreknowledge is a fore-plan.
No, P1 says, there’s two kinds of explanations for a future timeline that God knows: either it got there by God putting it there, or it got there without God putting it there.
I would add, however, an English dictionary’s definition of forethought isn’t an argument for Paul meaning something (very) different. There’s two problems there. One is that, it’s just question begging against Calvinism to say that Paul doesn’t mean some planning, selecting, or exclusive loving agency on God’s part in “foreknows.” That’s the very contention, so we need arguments for that, not claims.
Second, and more to the dictionary thing– there seem to be several concepts confused here:
(1) Forethought as creaturely planning
All our plans are fallible and the things we plan do not happen merely because we plan them. For example, if I plan to visit the grocery store, my committal thought, “I’m gonna go to the grocery store,” doesn’t suddenly instant-transmission me there.
(2) Forethought as divine planning
By contrast, God is omnipotent. Whatever He intends happens; whatever he plans is thereby guaranteed to occur. Nothing can overpower or undermine God’s power and wisdom.
(3) Foreknowledge as mere prescience (knowledge of or about the future)
Here again, anyone can have this. God tells people in Biblical history what will happen sometimes, granting them foreknowledge. At other times, humans can acquire enough knowledge of the past and present to reach knowledge about what will happen: ex., pulling such and such trigger will fire such and such gun.
We Christians have the prescient foreknowledge that God will return in Christ and judge us all, granting eternal life to Arminians and Calvinists.
(4) Foreknowledge as romantic preoccupation
This is what the Calvinist is arguing Paul means by the Greek word translated “foreknowledge” in 9:28. Actually, more precisely, the Calvinist is arguing the “foreknowledge” there is a very specific case of romantic preoccupation. To be romantically preoccupied with someone is the sort of thing people are on about when they say someone is in love. It means that someone is prioritized because of an inclination to their good, like when someone wants to adopt someone or kiss their spouse or hug a friend.
The reason, however, this is a very special case is because there’s nothing noble or meritorious in the one God loves meriting His love. He’s romantically preoccupied with wretched moral lepers. Why? Because He’s just that good; there’s no further explanation we have other than that it pleases God to be glorified by loving the otherwise unlovable.
.
Okay, so the question is, in Romans 8:28, which one of these is Paul meaning?
My argument (11) was that, well, it must be the Calvinist interpretation, God’s sovereign, unmerited romantic preoccupation. Why? Because if it were mere prescience, that would contradict the claim that God predestined their belovedness.
If God has mere prescience* that a person is saved, which is to say, He knows that the future caused by the present is one in which John Doe chooses God, then God doesn’t need to predestine anything. That future is already gauranteed. Sit back, relax, and let it happen.
You only need to predestine something if that contributes to it happening. In other words, God would predestine something to happen if its happening depends on God predestining it in the first place.
But that means God can’t have a mere prescient knowledge. If God is ensuring that the future comes about in which John Doe is saved by destining it to occur before it happens (and in fact, before history), then at least part of the reason why God foreknows the future is because He’s determining it.
On the Arminian reading, you can just take a black sharpie highlighter to the whole predestines part. “Those God [presciently knows] would conform to the image of His Son, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.”
On the Calvinist reading, it goes like this. “Those God [was romantically inclined toward] He predestined to conform to the iamge of his son; these He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.”
Gabriel:
When you were born, did you already know your spouse? Intimate knowledge always begins with simple knowing—from simple cognition to recognition, acknowledgment, to a close relationship.
Forelove is the product of foreknowledge. Through foreknowledge, God saw from eternity past, and then He began to love from the past.
Jimmy:
Okay. Seems you are again not understanding or at least not addressing any of my arguments. This reads instead like you are introducing your own new argument about knowledge. If so, there’s multiple issues. However, the biggest issue is that you are using human psychology to define how God’s knowledge works, rather than exegeting Romans 1 or reasoning from theological facts established by scripture. You are simply ignoring the creature-Creator distinction. If arminians have to treat God like a human being in order to make the arguments, then Arminianism is obviously false.
” For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Gabriel:
Foresight, Forethought, Foreordination, Forelove, and fore affection all of them came from a SIMPLE KNOWLEDGE
Jimmy:
Thats a claim, not an argument.
“Calvinism is true.”
I can do the same thing.
Gabriel:
Basically when using human psychology on God, you’re basically using human psychology on how God thinks based on how he interprets foreknowledge itself. It’s like this: You planned something then you do it after to make it happen. Before God foreordains, he’s fully aware of what would happen because, not because he planned it, but because of what he knows prior since God’s knowledge is beyond the time and space.
Jimmy:
“Before God foreordains, he’s fully aware of what would happen because, not because it’s known, but because he planned it.”
See anyone can make these claims.
Gabriel:
When you say “he planned it”, it would be forethought. Basically you’re saying he forethought, he predestined. When you look at the Greek of foreknowledge, which is Proginosko, Pro means beforehand and Ginosko is to know. It didn’t say it’s to plan, but to know. Big difference.
Jimmy:
You’re now committing the etymological fallacy. Words are not reducible to their grammatical constituents.
I addressed that above already, which tells me you weren’t paying attention.
It’s here that I begin to think this conversation is a waste of time because you’re not doing much to actually read and understand Romans 8 or me or Nick here, but are just here to promulgate your predecided theology.
You’re also using “forethought” in an extremely strange way. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it suggests you don’t have a good grasp on how language works./
“Forethought” normally refers to finite, fallible planning based on uncertain knowledge of the future. That’s why the dictionary includes a word like cautious or careful: because human plans can fail.
Nickk posted an article from… I think his name is Cottrel? The article is aimed at critiquing the Calvinist interpretation of “foreknowledge” in 8:28. I wrote a diatribe of points above aimed at rebutting the article. Then Nickk asked to bring (I think) Gabriel in to talk about it. You also were added. (Welcome here, laddie, by the way.)
Gabriel’s not rude, as far as I can tell, but he seems like the kind of person who has an almost fundamentalist understanding of definitions/sense-reference, and he does not appear to know how exegesis works.
So yeah, sort of, I am arguing the Calvinist view of foreknowledge. But I am arguing it in response to a specific (set of) criticism(s) ledged against it.
*lodged
It feels like your friend, otter, doesn’t understand:
(a) That’s the contention! Whether proginosko means something active or passive is the nature of the debate. Screaming that it’s passive again and again doesn’t work.
(b) “Forethought” is an English word, not Greek. It is not a word well-selected for the concept of predestination based on common usage; it’s common usage does not mean something like that. It is an okay word selected for mere etymological construct, but that worries me for the next reason.
(c) Words are not reducible to their etymology. Etymology is good and useful, especially for corroborating cases and for establishing word-history. It is very weak on its own and it is absolutely useless against a counter-case based on an author’s conceptual scheme, the immediate surrounding context, the words inferential use in the passage, and so forth. So why are we even talking about proginosko’s or foreknowledge’s grammatical pieces?
(d) English words like “foreknowledge” and “forethought” are not word-to-concept categorically distinct. They can overlap. They are also not word-to-concept exhaustive. There might be more categories. These words weren’t hand-crafted by God to talk about theology. No, they’re just two more messy cultural products just as subject to nuance and shift as any other word. So to even use them the way Gabriel is trying to is acceptable, yes, but stipulative. He needs to just accept that he’s stipulating exceptional theological definitions for the words and move forward from there.
(e) The way Gabriel is using “forethought” in particular is almost entirely etymological and has almost nothing to do with its English senses. In English, that word refers to things like a builder working out a blueprint, which is fallible, subject to change, etc. It refers to friends talking to each other and planning a game night, with hopes of avoiding scheduling problems. It refers to a mother working out in her head how to keep her infant from tantruming at the store. None of these catch what the Calvinist is mainly on about with God’s divine intentions! Instead, Gabriel seems to want to use “forethought” by defining it via composition fore-thought: “fore” (so, prior) “thought” (and thought in the plan-making sense), with the result that it is planning made to work out what is going to be but is not yet. Where normally forethought is inapplicable to God because it’s about faulty human intention making, and where my most charitable interpretation of Gabriel’s “fore-thought” is silent about whether the intentions are divine, it’s important to note that the Calvinist has in mind the unique Trinitarian counsel of God that doesn’t even need to be “careful” in the ordinary sense of the word.
So, moving forward-
We have options.
We can look at Romans 8 and evaluate our competing exegeses.
We can look at the long list of objections I made to Cottrel and see whether an Arminian can refute them. There were a few arguments I made (e.g., 11) that would be sufficient to refute Arminianism on their own.
Or
We can look at an independent case for Arminianism.
But can we please agree: none of these are even successfully attempted by shouting, “forethought is not foreknowledge!” That is the response of someone who – no offense – hasn’t the slightest idea what’s going on, maybe has a child’s understanding of langauge, and worst case scenario, doesn’t even know how to argue
The Council 