The God over Geopolitics

[@OnAMission2024fwd]

This verse still works in the Molinist perspective. God is sovereign while still allowing full freedom.

[@phieble]

Not if those rulers in the verse cannot freely choose anything other than what God has planned and will put into their minds to do. It would not be sovereign of God to merely foreknow things and make predictions throughout history as a mere omnipresent overseer rather than orchestrating ruler because that foreknowledge and those predictions would be ever-changing based on the whims of us under God making decisions, in which case God could be faulty and uncertain up until the very moments things take place or afterwards. God is not merely foreknowing but all-knowing, and to have all knowledge in advance from before the beginning with no one existing alongside him before creation to give him that knowledge necessitates that God is the one who predetermined all the knowledge he possesses about what will surely take place, and therefore what has happened could not possibly have been different and what we will choose cannot be changed. Where then is free will possible? Unless God's knowledge can be incomplete or wrong and have need to be updated based on our minds changing, our wills cannot be truly free. It's not possible for God to tell me 30 or more years in advance what I'm going to do and me do something other than that later, so my actions are pre-set with no freedom of my will to choose to do anything different. Also, how could God foreknow what I'm gonna do from before creation while I don't know up until moments before I do it, and I also probably couldn't even conceive of myself wanting to do what I definitely will long into the future, all the while my will is free? Biblically, God's sovereignty is his right to plan and orchestrate what he wills and then declare it over us, even several millennia in advance, and if we can't do anything other than what he has planned, foreknown, and declared, our wills are not free but only consciously active on a predestined path like an actor playing their role in a movie production based on an already decided story's conclusion. This is actually our only hope of salvation because if not predestined to it, we would never meet the requirements and keep ourselves from forfeiting salvation later based on ever-shifting 'free-will' emotions and decisions.

[@maxaplin4204]

John Piper makes a very good point about the importance of letting the Bible change our views on things. There are many Christians who are holding their preconceived ideas with such a tight grip, that they are simply not willing to listen to what the text of Scripture is actually saying. But that is precisely how not to use the Bible. That is exactly what the Bible is not for.

[@chrism1967]

It’s amazing John’s obsession with individual pre-destination. Basically takes the first half of the podcast to answer a question no one asked. 😆

[@ikemeitz5287]

The question was about the individual predestination of the actions of kings, as referenced in Revelation 17:17. It's exactly the question that was asked.

[@phieble]

It would not be sovereign of God to merely foreknow things and make predictions throughout history as a mere omnipresent overseer rather than orchestrating ruler because that foreknowledge and those predictions would be ever-changing based on the whims of us under God making decisions, in which case God could be faulty and uncertain up until the very moments things take place or afterwards. God is not merely foreknowing but all-knowing, and to have all knowledge in advance from before the beginning with no one existing alongside him before creation to give him that knowledge necessitates that God is the one who predetermined all the knowledge he possesses about what will surely take place, and therefore what has happened could not possibly have been different and what we will choose cannot be changed. Where then is free will possible? Unless God's knowledge can be incomplete or wrong and have need to be updated based on our minds changing, our wills cannot be truly free. It's not possible for God to tell me 30 or more years in advance what I'm going to do and me do something other than that later, so my actions are pre-set with no freedom of my will to choose to do anything different. Also, how could God foreknow what I'm gonna do from before creation while I don't, and I also probably couldn't even conceive of myself wanting to do what I definitely will in the future, all the while my will is free? Biblically, God's sovereignty is his right to plan and orchestrate what he wills and then declare it over us, even several millennia in advance, and if we can't do anything other than what he has planned, foreknown, and declared, our wills are not free but only consciously active on a predestined path like an actor playing their role in a movie production based on an already decided story's conclusion. Why should human authors have more rights over the paths of the characters in their story who willingly play their part yet could not possibly "freely" choose anything else, meanwhile the Author of all history somehow doesn't have those same rights over us, the clay of his hands, and to a greater degree?

[@joanpurcell503]

So should we vote in a king?

[@joanpurcell503]

And Trump’s heart too

[@maxaplin4204]

The Bible teaches that God ordains everything that happens. But this doesn't have to mean that people have no free will at all. God could know how people would freely choose in any given situation, and then arrange situations so that people freely choose what fits with His purposes.

[@phieble]

If God planned all and foreknows all according to what he has planned from before the beginning of creation, then we do not have freedom to choose within time anything other than what God planned and foreknows. We only choose according to God's plan like actors in a movie only choose and speak according to their pre-written script toward a particular ending. Secondly, we are born with a sin nature under Satan's captivity, therefore those who are not born again do not have freedom of desire to do good but only desire to do evil, which is why we must be born again to have repentance and faith. Then with the Holy Spirit, we will desire to do good, and yet according to Romans 7, we still are not free to only do the good that we desire because sin remaining in us oftentimes overtakes us. Thirdly, if Jesus died for all the sins we will ever commit then our future sins are inevitable because otherwise we have future sins that were not planned and placed on Jesus in the past to be covered, in which case we are doomed because Jesus' blood must cover 100% of our sins for our forgiveness. This means that forgiveness and mercy for our all future sins is also already taken care of, which is our only hope because we could not travel to the past to put our future sins onto Jesus for atonement.