Is God’s Foreknowledge of the Elect Merely Intellectual

By Mark W. Christy, PhD

Within the ongoing debate between Calvinists and Arminians, one passage that has attracted much attention is Romans 8:28-30:

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. 29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; 30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”[i]

In support of the Arminian stance, Steve W. Lemke understands v.29 to demonstrate that “predestination, calling, and justification are conditional upon God’s foreknowledge of those who would be led by the Holy Spirit to respond to the gospel with repentance and faith.”[ii] This rendering of Paul’s meaning is of course carefully crafted to affirm the sovereignty of God in election while maintaining an inclusive view of the atonement whereby everyone has the opportunity to freely respond to the gospel by an act of will apart from God’s agency in the final decision of the believer in this regard.

Some, like Lemke, uphold what is known as a prescient view of predestination which essentially limits it to foreknowledge. In his own words, he writes, “God’s foreknowledge of human responses comes first, with God’s election, calling, and justification flowing from his foreknowledge.”[iii] The absence of any mention of predestination is due his equating it with foreknowledge whereby “foreknowledge of foreseen faith preced[es] election and justification.”[iv]

Curiously, he labels his view as “an exalted view of God’s Sovereignty.”[v] Nevertheless, his view prohibits God’s sovereignty in regard to an individual’s salvation because God is left at their mercy pending their response to the gospel. According to Lemke’s view, God can sovereignly know them, but He cannot sovereignty choose and effectuate their salvation as He is rendered impotent in the process as He awaits their volitional reception.

While Lemke’s understanding of foreknowledge and God’s sovereignty in election certainly fits well into his Arminian theology, one must consider whether or not Romans 8:28-30 itself bears witness to his interpretation and the theology he claims that it undergirds. The Greek word translated as ‘foreknew’ in v.29 only occurs six times in the New Testament (NT). Twice it refers to intellectual knowledge that was known before (Acts 26:5; 2 Pet 3:17), and the rest of the time it posits a relational/personal designation and means ‘enter into a relationship before’, choose before, or determine before (Rom 11:2; 1 Pet 1:2, 20; Acts 2:23). When foreknowledge requires this second interpretation, it always takes God as the subject. In v.29, the fact that the verb ‘foreknew’ takes a personal object ‘whom’ provides further evidence that Paul is using foreknowledge in the relational/personal sense.

Whereas Lemke’s view sees God’s foreknowledge as merely an intellectual exercise whereby God ascertains people’s future responses so as to somehow maintain His sovereignty over election, Paul limits the objects of God’s foreknowledge to those predestined, called, justified, and glorified personal agents, i.e., Christians (vv.29-30). To put this more succinctly, since the receptors of God’s foreknowledge are persons, Paul must be employing the concept in the relational/personal manner as noted before.

From the larger context of the NT, both Paul and Peter seem to clearly suggest that God did indeed personally foreknow or choose Christians “before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4).  Given that God has made a personal choice of the elect before they ever came into actual existence, the ground of this choosing must be found in the will of God and not the will of man (i.e., his volitional act of receiving the gospel in faith).

By interpreting foreknowledge as a divine choice whereby God establishes His love for those of His choosing in eternity past, predestination, calling, justification, and glorification all become links in an unbreakable chain which has been established in the will of God. This offers God’s chosen people a complete security in regard to their salvation. Even so, many Arminians like Lemke express extreme discomfort with the conclusion that this text supports a deterministic view of salvation where one’s salvation rests wholly upon the divine prerogative.

[i]All Scripture references are taken from NASB1995.

[ii]Steve W. Lemke, “Commentary on Article 7: The Sovereignty of God,” in Anyone Can be Saved: A Defense of ‘Traditional’ Southern Baptist Soteriology, eds David Allen, Eric Hankins, and Adam Harwood (Eugen, OR: Wipf 7 Stock, 2016), 107. Lemke essentially glosses over the text itself by neglecting to offer any exegesis to support his contention. Such an effort hardly represents a scholarly defense which is exactly what the book where his article is found purports to be.

[iii]Ibid.

[iv]Ibid.

[v]Ibid., 108.