Does Jehovah God know your future?

Foreknowledge or Foreordaining?

Before we discuss whether God knows your future or not, we need to discuss the difference between foreknowledge and foreordaining. Foreknowledge is the ability to know beforehand what will happen in the future. To foreordain or predestinate an event means to choose ahead of time what will happen or cause it to occur. Let me give an example of the difference. Suppose you are standing on a high hill. You look down at a single lane, winding road on the hill and you see two cars on opposite sides of the hill speeding towards each other. With the speed that the cars are traveling you know that the cars will not be able to avoid a collision. It is like having foreknowledge because you can see the entire road so you can see the inevitable, but you do not want the cars to hit each other. You have not set these cars up for the purpose of crashing them together, yet you know that they are seconds away from crashing. You have foreknowledge of the event but you definitely did not foreordain it. This is the way it is with God. Just because he has complete foreknowledge of future events does not mean that he chooses all events to happen.

Scripture is very explicit that God's complete foreknowledge does not mean that God foreordains all things. Take for example Herod's killing all baby boys two years old and younger at the time of the magi's visit to see the young Jesus. In Matthew 2:17 & 18 an old Testament prophecy is quoted where Jehovah God predicts through Jeremiah the death of these baby boys. Jehovah prophesied their deaths, that is foreknowledge, but he is not responsible for their deaths as he did not foreordain or plan their deaths. Herod is the one responsible.

Is Jehovah God responsible?

The Watchtower has decided that Jehovah God cannot possibly know everything about the future because they believe that complete foreknowledge would make him responsible for everything that happens. On page 140 of the Society's Reasoning from the Scriptures book, the Watchtower tries to prove that Jehovah does not know the future by making foreknowing the very same as thing as foreordaining. They ask the question "Does God foreknow and foreordain everything?" They then proceed to prove that God does not foreordain everything and try to use that to prove that he does not foreknow everything. But remember foreknow and foreordain are two totally different things.

Historic Christianity teaches that although God foreknows everything he does not foreordain everything. What scriptures does the Watchtower Society use to try to prove that God does not foreknow the future actions of his creation? Let's have a look at them. At the bottom of page 141 of the Reasoning book the Watchtower uses two scriptures to prove that there are instances where God does not know the future. They are Genesis 22:12 and 18:20 & 21. Let's have a look at these scriptures.

Gen 18:20-21 says "And the LORD said, "Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, "I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know." The Society says that this a case where Jehovah did not know the future. Is it really? This passage is not talking about the future. It is talking about the present. Since the Society agrees with Christianity that Jehovah knows everything that is happening now why did he have to go down to see what was happening in Sodom and Gomorrah? It is not because he was ignorant about the present, rather that he takes personal action in respect to mankind's sin. In any respect this is certainly not a scripture that shows that Jehovah does not know the future.

The second passage is Genesis 22:12. With this passage the Society tries to show that Jehovah could not read Abraham's heart about his commitment to obey God until he lifted the knife to kill Isaac. Since the Society agrees with historic Christianity that God knows the hearts of all mankind, he had to know Abraham's heart all along and knew that he was set on obeying him by killing Isaac. In spite of this God allowed it to progress in order to record Abraham's actions. Why did he do this? Jehovah allowed Abraham to reach the point of killing his son because even though he already knew Abraham's heart and saw his faith, we are the ones who could not read Abraham's heart and needed to see Abraham's actions to see his faith. When God said "Now I know.." he didn't mean that he didn't know the moment before for he is God. Can the Watchtower find any verses that show that God doesn't know the future? No, not even one!

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