We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded by your direct support for ReKnew and our vision. Please consider supporting this project.

How do you respond to 1 Peter 1:20?

“[Christ] was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for our sake. Through him you have come to trust in God…”

This passage reveals that God created the world with Jesus Christ in mind (cf. Col. 1:15–17). The divine goal was (and is) to acquire a people who freely participate in and reflect the love of the triune God, and the plan to attain this goal was by having people trust in God through Christ. Though it is sometimes cited as evidence in support of the classical view of foreknowledge, this verse actually has nothing to say on the subject.

Related Reading

Problems with the Simple Foreknowledge View

Some have proposed a model of divine foreknowledge which allows them to avoid the dilemma of affirming either that God creates people for the purpose of sending them to hell (Calvinism) or that he creates them without certain knowledge of their fate (open theism). In this alternative view God knows that certain individuals will be…

Topics:

Divine Wisdom

Why doesn’t God end it all and stop the slaughter? Why does God allow suffering and evil to go on so long? Here, Greg offers two possible answers to these questions. Option A is that all evil somehow is designed by God and somehow brings glory to him. But Greg thinks Option B is a better explanation, and it involves…

What Does a Perfect God Look Like?

The “classical view of God” refers to the view of God that has dominated Christian theology since the earliest Church fathers. According to this theology, God is completely “immutable.” This means that God’s being and experience never changes in any respect. God is therefore pure actuality (actus purus), having no potentiality whatsoever, for potentiality is…

What is the significance of Hosea 8:5?

The Lord asks, “How long will they [Israel] be incapable of innocence?” The Lord’s continual striving with Israel regarding their lack of innocence suggests that this question was not merely rhetorical. If God knows the future to be eternally settled, however, he could not in earnest ask this (or any other) question about the future.…

Topics:

How can we determine what is and is not “open” about the future?

Question: You believe that the future is partly open. You’re writing has pretty much convinced me this is true, but I’ve still got some serious questions about it. For example, how does anyone determine what part is open and what part is not? If we can’t determine what is and is not open, isn’t the…

If God is already doing the most he can do, how does prayer increase his influence?

Question: If God always does the most that he can in every tragic situation, as you claim in Satan and the Problem of Evil,  how can you believe that prayer increases his influence, as you also claim?  It seems if you grant that prayer increases God’s influence, you have to deny God was previously doing…