The Lie God Doesn't Know Our Future Decisions – Part 1 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Some theologians think we make a move and then God responds with a counter move. They say God gives us totally free will and adapts Himself to our choices as we make them. For them, the future for God is an unfinished novel.

Today another lie is exploded. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. We're in a series on ten lies about God. Pastor Lutzer, you say lie number seven is this, God doesn't know our future decisions. I wonder, if He does know them, isn't He really making them for us? Dave, your question actually is a very deep theological question and the implications are huge.

But I want to go back to the title chapter as you identified it. There are people out there who actually believe that God does not know the future infallibly because He has to wait for us to decide, as you mentioned Dave, we make the decision and then God finds out what we are going to do. That of course is totally contrary to scripture. God does know our decisions ahead of time.

Does He cause them? Perhaps indirectly, but there also has to be room here for volitional choice. And that's of course where the enigma comes in the relationship of God's sovereignty and human will. But at the same time, how comforting it is for us to know that God knows the future exactly. There's nothing that surprises Him. And one other comment, as we ride along in life, so to speak, He knows what is just around the corner.

And for the true believer, that is indeed a comfort. Let's begin today by taking an imaginary journey. Let us suppose that someone has been following you ever since you were born and accurately recording everything you have ever done. Let us suppose that this knowledge is so accurate that it includes the number of times that you have flicked your eyelids, the number of steps that you have taken. All of the decisions that you have made would all be recorded in minute detail. Let's suppose also that every word that you have ever spoken would be recorded and transcribed.

All words, the good words, the bad words, they are all there. Now I read somewhere that the average person speaks enough in a lifetime to fill a good-sized library. Now I know some people I think whose library is a lot bigger than others.

And sometimes it's not necessarily related to their age. But nevertheless, imagine hundreds of volumes with everything that you have ever said, every word breathed, whispered, or shouted. But let us suppose also that this library were to include all of your thoughts, that stream of consciousness that pours through your mind all of the hours that you are awake, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Now imagine the number of volumes about you. Because that library would be bigger than the other two put together because most people think before they talk or even act.

Imagine it. Now let's suppose that it not only included that knowledge but knowledge that was potential about you that would be true of you if you had been brought up in a different home, a different country, different circumstances, you'd have reacted differently. Let's suppose that all that knowledge was also a part of this library.

Now we're not just talking about thousands of volumes. Now we're talking about millions of volumes all about you and what you would have done in every conceivable situation on planet Earth. All the decisions that you have made are all there.

Now let me ask you a question. Do you think that God had all that knowledge about you already a thousand years ago? Did God know you that thoroughly? Or could it be that there are all kinds of things that God didn't know about you until you showed up on the scene. He had no idea what decisions you were going to make until you were alive and made them.

In evangelical circles today there is a debate. And the debate is whether or not God knows the decisions of free creatures ahead of time. Some of these theologians are saying that God is like a superior chess player and we are the amateurs. Now if you're playing chess you don't know what that amateur is going to do. But you do know this that you have thought of various potentialities and if he moves here then you're going to counteract the move there.

But there's no way for you to predict what his next move is going to be. That's the way in which they view God. Now as you know this is a series of messages titled 10 lies about God and how you already might be deceived. We've covered such lies that are as diverse and I will not mention them all such as the lie that God is more tolerant than he used to be. The lie that God has never suffered. Last time we covered the lie that God takes no responsibility for natural disasters. And today we come to another lie. The lie that God does not foreknow the decisions that we will make and therefore he has to wait until we make them.

That's the lie. I can imagine there's somebody here who says well you know these theologians they are always trying to think of some little thing to discuss. Why don't you think about something important for a change? What if I were to tell you that this doctrine actually impinges upon your salvation? What if I were to tell you that it undercuts all possibility that you can daily trust God?

What if I were to tell you that at the end of the day it is an assault on Christian theology? Let's suppose that there would be a missile that would leave a silo in Colorado for Moscow and it's only off by one degree. I can imagine that there is some scientists who say you know what's all the fuss? I mean one degree? I mean there are 360 degrees in a circle. What's one degree? Let them have their error.

By the time it gets to Moscow it's missed its target by hundreds of miles. Sometimes one degree matters. Sometimes one theological error matters.

This one does. Well let me give you a brief history and I just was thinking this morning about the privilege that I have to preach here at Moody Church and I just want to look into your eyes for a moment and tell you something. I would rather preach here than any place I have ever preached in all the world. First of all, the very fact that you folks put up with me is a wonderful, wonderful experience for me but also you actually listen to these theological discourses which I think is remarkable. In fact the experts tell us that's not supposed to happen. You can't do this type of thing in church we're being told.

Well somehow it's happening here and you folks just keep showing up. Thank you. Thank you. Because I'd like to begin today by getting a bit into the history of where this idea began that God is finite with respect to knowledge. What is its history? Is it biblical? What impact does it have? And then we're going to talk about God's knowledge of us specifically. By the time we're finished there will be something here for all of us.

Trust me. The early Greeks had this view of God, their gods, plural. They wanted to have such radical human freedom that not even their gods could control what they would do and not only control their actions but these gods would not know in advance what anyone would do.

They wanted to be free even from the knowledge that God would have about their intimate decisions. During the time of the Reformation there was a man by the name of Faustus Sosinius and he actually interacted with the reformers and he took this idea and he believed that the Bible was only the word of God and those things that he believed it was authoritative in rejected the rest but one of the things he said is that God is not omniscient. That is to say God does not know everything and then he redefined omniscience however this way. He said God is omniscient as long as we understand he knows all things that can be known but the decisions that we are going to make since they have not yet happened are unknowable to God. So yes he said I believe in omniscience if it is redefined. In our country William James is perhaps the greatest example of a believer in a finite God and God's finite knowledge.

May I quote his words directly? He said he cannot foresee exactly what any one actual move of his adversary might be. He knows however the possible moves of the latter and he knows in advance how to meet each one by a move of his own. There you get the idea of a chess game. God doesn't know what your move is going to be but he has some ideas in mind and will counter your move once you make yours.

William James in another text talks about the fact that God is indeed finite and said that we have to help him fight evil because he is so finite he might not be able to pull it off on his own. Now that leads me to some evangelical theologians who want to be known as people who believe in the Bible to teach in our schools and they would like to say that they accept at least that part of James teaching and that part of what was known as Sasinianism. For example Clark Pennock at McMaster Divinity College in Canada. I was just thinking about this the other day took out a little time to to do a little bit of math.

You know I've always said that when it comes to arithmetic as long as I'm right 90% of the time who in the world cares about the other 5%? I did a little bit of math and discovered it's been nearly 30 years ago I studied under Clark Pennock. I had a course from him here in Chicago. He was a wonderful delightful man interesting engaging and in many ways a very model individual but even then I strongly disagreed with what he was trying to teach us because it was in those days that he was forming the ideas that he has now written about so extensively and he and I had some very interesting discussions. Let me quote him on this point. God interacts with his creatures in a changing situation. He learns about our decisions as they happen not before they happen. His experience of the world is open and he is involved in the ongoing cause of events and so Pennock has been a leading light wanting still to be called an evangelical denying that God knows the decisions of free creatures. More recently Greg Boyd who teaches at Bethel College has written along these lines quote if we have been given freedom we create the reality of our own decisions by making them so God can't foreknow the good and the bad decisions of the people he creates until he creates those people and they create their decisions. The free will is such that God can't know what we're going to do until we do it. You know that in the history of theology there has been a debate between what is known as Arminianism and Calvinism. There was a man by the name of Jacob Arminius who said that we have free will and therefore when the Bible says that God elects people he elects them on the basis of his foreknowledge but we have freedom of the will. On the other side was Calvin and some of those other theologians who said well if our will were completely as free as you want it to be none of us would believe.

Thankfully it's not God invades our will and shows us the truth and gives us the grace to believe. All right you have the Jonathan Edwards as a Calvinist for example and you have John Wesley the great revivalist who is more Arminian. Now I need to tell you that both of those streams of thought are in theology and both of them are considered to be within the circle of evangelicalism. You can believe one or you can believe the other and you can be known as an evangelical. Problem is this view that we're talking about this morning goes much more beyond that because traditional Arminianism and Calvinism together they always believed that God knew in detail the decisions that people would make that was never in dispute.

Today it is. What motivates people? What makes them want to say that God does not know our decisions? I don't want to be too hard on them but I would like to say that they are agenda driven. Number one this radical view of freedom. We want to be so free that not even God knows what we're going to decide. You see they fear this if God knew that Cain was going to kill Abel if God knew that then somehow it had to happen.

It was fixed. There was a certain amount of inevitability and so if God didn't know well then there's more freedom. If God did not know that Lucifer was going to sin why then indeed Lucifer had more freedom because it was not known ahead of time. They want to have a view of freedom that is found nowhere in the Bible. I think it isn't too strong to say you could take your Bible and open it arbitrarily to any page to any chapter and I will show you either a verse or an implication that shows that their view of freedom is wrong but that's one of their agendas.

Let me give you another. They believe that if God is finite with respect to knowledge then the problem of evil becomes more solvable because he is more distant from it. If God did not know that Lucifer was going to sin if he did not know that Adam and Eve were going to sin and there was no way for him to know it because after all they are free then God somehow is removed and less responsible for what is going on in the world.

The more ignorant he is the less likely we are able to trace his purposes for evil back to him. So what they'd like to do is to remove God and make him more of an interested observer rather than an active player in the decisions that human beings make. Well some of you know of course that this point of view is is miles from where I'm at and next time I'm preaching the most challenging message of the whole series. It's the lie that the fall of man actually ruined God's plan so you be here for next time but now meanwhile let's talk about today. You know if you had a violin and I discovered that there are four strings in a violin see Jerry I know more about music than you may realize they're four strings that's what my Encyclopedia Britannica says. If you have four strings in a violin and one of them is is out of tune badly out of tune you have to do one of two things either you have to tune it to put it in line with the others or else you have to adjust all three strings so that they will harmonize with the one that is out of tune and here's what I'd like to suggest to you today that when we deny that God knows all things including the decisions that we are going to make we have to fine-tune our theology and adjust other parts of it so that it might be in harmony with this error.

Now what I'd like to do in the next few moments is to show you how that happens. For example I'd like to show that believing in a finite God is actually a compromise first of all a compromise of the word of God. I have my Bible open to the 46th chapter of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 46 and I want you to notice that the prophet has something to say and in a moment we're going to be turning back I believe it is to Isaiah 42 but let's begin with Isaiah 46. What does the word of God say about how much God knows?

That's the issue. You'll notice it says here in verse 9 of chapter 46. Remember the former things those of long ago. Oh I love these passages. You know I've been sort of absorbing the the passages in Isaiah beginning about chapter 40, 41 to about 46, 47 about God.

These are just marvelous. Remember the former things of long ago. I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning from ancient times what is still to come. I say my purpose will stand and I will do all that I please.

Wow takes your breath away but notice the phrase I make known the end from the beginning. Now listen this is just between us. We're not in church.

We're having coffee together and you've just put your cup right next to the chair and you're looking into my eyes. Let me ask you something. How could God say he knows the end from the beginning if he did not know that Lucifer was going to fall? I mean how did he say he knows the end from the beginning if he wasn't sure whether or not Adam and Eve would sin and was kind of hoping they wouldn't and then had to respond once they had? You know it's interesting that in the book here in Isaiah God actually uses his foreknowledge to separate himself from false gods. This is now in Isaiah chapter 41 and you know we don't taunt one another today because we think that that is so disgraceful but God loved to taunt false gods. The scriptures are filled with God shouting challenges to them and even making fun of them and this is one example. In Isaiah 41 it says in verse 21 present your case says the Lord.

Set forth your arguments says Jacob's king. Bring in your idols to tell us what is going to happen. Tell us what the former things were so that we may consider them and know their final outcome. You idols you tell me what's going to happen. Notice tell us verse 23 what the future holds so that we may know that you are gods.

Give us some information. Why is why is God ridiculing these idols this way because they're like Greek gods they don't know what is going to happen but what God is saying is I want you to know I can tell you exactly what is going to happen. Goes on to say that those who trust in these false gods are less than nothing and your works are utterly worthless and those who choose you are detestable. That was God's opinion of gods who did not know the future. Perhaps it is more than passing interest that Clark Penick whom I in many respects admire has long ago left the inerrancy of the Bible and now claims that there are errors in the Bible because once you begin you know on a certain train once you take your ticket you have to take this all the way to the to the station. Now now there's some theologians who say no we maintain inerrancy and we still believe that God does not know the future decisions of free creatures and I'll just let them and accept their word for it but how long can you interpret passages according to your theological desires and still hold to inerrancy that's a good question I think that needs to be raised. Let me tell you another problem with it is the predictions of God.

Do you know that according to their theology and they state explicitly and there are a number of theologians who are now accepting this that Jesus did not know infallibly that Judas would betray him. There was no way that he could do that. Judas could have backed out in the last minute. He could have just simply said you know what come to think of it I'm going to rethink this and I'm not going to do what I was planning to do.

We do that all the time. Judas could have done it. I want you to notice and I don't even have enough time to ask you to turn to these passages. I have a friend who's preaching eight messages on this business of a finite God.

I thought to myself you know if I could have at least six that would be wonderful. Well my friend this is Pastor Lutzer. I certainly hope that you listen to Running to Win next time for the completion of this message.

We need to understand what the Bible teaches about the knowledge of God that he knows all things. I want to thank the many of you who support this ministry. If you want to know what really brings a great deal of gladness to my heart it's when we hear stories of people coming to saving faith in Jesus Christ and recently we received a testimony from an Arabic listener.

Remember Running to Win is throughout the Middle East in Arabic. He said that he had secretly explored Christianity but after listening to one of these messages he came to saving faith in Christ. He made his decision.

He's been baptized. Why? Because of people just like you. Would you consider becoming an endurance partner? You say well I need more info. Well here's what you do.

Very quickly I hope that you write this down. Go to RTWOffer.com. When you're there you click on the endurance partner button. That's RTWOffer.com. Click on the endurance partner button or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337.

That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard Chicago Illinois 60614. Does God know what you're going to do tomorrow? You might say of course but incredibly some theologians are saying no way. As we run life's race we need a God who knows when we're going to cross the finish line. Next time on Running to Win Erwin Lutzer brings what for some is a theological debate down to where you and I really live. Join us to find out what God's foreknowledge really means. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.