Divine Foreknowledge | Bible Study Notes

Expanded explanation

God is never learning the future as though history were hidden from him. He knows what will happen and can promise the outcome of his redemptive plan with complete confidence. But knowledge and causation are not identical. Knowing what a person will choose does not mean that the knowledge forced the choice. The biblical question is therefore not whether God knows the future - he does - but how his foreknowledge relates to human decisions, judgment, and his sovereign purposes.

Context

Passages using the language of foreknowledge must be read in context. The word may describe God's prior knowledge, his covenant recognition, or his purpose concerning a people. It should not be made to carry an entire doctrine of election or determinism without examining the surrounding argument.

Calvinist Usage

Calvinist theology commonly connects foreknowledge with God's eternal decree. Some Calvinists define God's foreknowledge as a knowing relationship with the people God chose, while others emphasize that God knows the future because he has determined it. This approach protects God's certainty and control over history. The question is whether certainty of knowledge requires prior determination of every choice, or whether God can know free actions without causing them.

Decalvinised Position

Decalvinised affirms that God perfectly knows the future and that nothing surprises him. It rejects the inference that God's knowledge makes him the cause of every future choice or that foreknowledge must mean an unconditional selection of particular individuals for salvation. God can know what people will freely do, establish his purposes around those choices, and remain righteous in judging them. Foreknowledge guarantees God's understanding, not the moral necessity of every human action.