It is therefore true in the sense in which the sentiment is advanced and sustained in the sermon, that "God foreknows in order to predestinate, but he does not (primarily) predestinate in order to foreknow.
And Calvin says, "God therefore foreknows all things that will come to pass, because he has decreed they shall come to pass.
If not, then a view of all the results preceded his determination to create; and thus we are led irresistibly to the doctrine of the sermon, that "God foreknows in order to predestinate.
This, therefore, must settle the question: God foreknows in order to predestinate; but he does not predestinate in order to foreknow.
Whatever God foreknows or foresees, will undoubtedly come to pass.
But when he foreknows an event, he presents us merely a form of his infinite intelligence, exerting no causative, and consequently no necessitating influence whatever.
For if you doubt that God foreknows and wills all things, not contingently, but necessarily and immutably, or if you scorn such knowledge, how will you be able to believe His promises, and with full assurance trust and rely upon them?
Necessity of consequence effects this: if God foreknowsan event, it necessarily happens.
And the same rule applies universally; so that although God foreknows that the wicked will be lost, they will not be lost because God foreknows it.
God merely foreknows the use man will make of his freedom.
In every case, as said before, God merely foreknows the use man will make of his freedom.
In every case God foreknows the result, not in spite of, but because He also foreknows, the man's conduct on which it depends.
They will be lost because of their own wilful abuse of their own free will; and God foreknowsboth this, and its consequences.
Of course it may be said that if the Creator foreknows how I will act to-morrow, I am certain to act in that way; and this is doubtless true.
It must be borne in mind that God foreknows but does not predetermine everything, since He foreknowsall that is in us, but does not predetermine it all.
But foreknowledge is not in the things foreknown, but in the person who foreknows them.
But when he says the reason why God foreknows some things is because they are future, this must be understood according to the cause of consequence, and not according to the cause of essence.
If God foresees events, he foreknowsthem as they are, and not as they are not.
How God foreknows free human decisions we may not be able to say, but then the method of God's knowledge in many other respects is unknown to us.
It is therefore not correct to say that God foreknows his decrees.
He not only foreknows the motives which will occasion men's acts, but he directlyforeknows the acts themselves.
He foreknows the future which he has decreed, and he foreknows it because he has decreed it.
For a valuable article on the whole subject, though advocating the view that God foreknowsacts by foreknowing motives, see Bib.
Further, God, Who foreknows the future, knew that through the demon's temptation man would fall into sin, and thus He knew full well that it was not expedient for man to be tempted.
Nevertheless, since God foreknows all future events, Divine providence has so disposed that these penalties are apportioned in different ways to various people.
In what way, then, are we to suppose that God foreknows these uncertainties as about to come to pass?
It is freely conceded, that whatever God foreknows will most certainly and infallibly come to pass.
Now all this going around and around amounts to just this, that if God certainly and infallibly foreknows a thing, he certainly and infallibly foreknows it, or that if it will certainly come to pass, it will certainly come to pass.
Is it not strange, that it did not occur to Edwards, that if to deny his position is to deny that God foreknows what he foreknows; then to affirm it, is only to affirm that he foreknows what he foreknows?
We may say that God foreknows all things, and we may mix this up with all possible propositions; but this will never help the conclusion, that "all future things will certainly and infallibly come to pass.
The necessitarian may ring the changes upon this subject as long as he pleases, and all he can possibly make out of it is, that if God foreknows a thing, it will certainly be, and to suppose otherwise, is a contradiction.
For God foreknows only what is future; and all future things will come to pass just as infallibly, without being foreknown, as they will with it.
He foreknows all things—he is therefore unfit to govern the world?
One of these concerns the medium by which God foreknows the future free acts of His rational creatures; the other, His relation to sin.
The Pelagians asserted that man works out his eternal salvation of his own free will, and that consequently God merely foreknowsbut does not fore-ordain who shall be saved.
But neither can we accept the Calvinistic doctrine, that God foreknows because He has foreordained.
Toplady says "that God foreknows futurities, because by His predestination He hath rendered their futurition certain and inevitable.
God foreknows all things, but foreordains only what He himself brings to pass.
And a free agent can not possess power to do otherwise than God foreknows he will do.
We can not understand how the Divine Intelligence foreknows all future events.
The fact that God foreknows all future events is all that is revealed to us; the manner of it He has left in darkness, and we can throw no light upon it by our verbal speculations.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "foreknows" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
