GOD'S ETERNAL WORKS OF PROVIDENCE: FOREKNOWLEDGE, PREDESTINATION, AND ELECTION

I.    Introduction

We have discussed the glorification of the LORD God as His and our chiefest or primary aim. Doing all to God’s glory becomes the Holy Spirit’s goal for us. He enables us to glorify the Father by applying Christ’s benefits to us so that we begin to live a new and different life. We have seen why sinners like you and me have no ability or desire to give God glory due to sin’s bondage. We have also reviewed the order of God’s eternal, distinguishing decrees by which He delivers trauma-broken sinners like us. 

Now, I want to examine what’s come to be known as God’s providential works. God brings about a sinner’s salvation through these three doctrines in redemptive history. The Bible speaks openly and gloriously about predestination, foreknowledge, and election. That should settle it for the Church at large, but no. You may have seen the bumper sticker that intones, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” This order makes man the final arbiter of what’s true. Unfortunately, this inverted order is incorrect. Biblically, it should read, “God said it, that settles it, I believe it.” Another rampant problem with some theological systems is redefining (or eliminating) these three doctrines to fit one’s theological bent toward a man-centered process and outcome. 

Jeff Robinson addresses the outright hostility toward the doctrine of predestination in many of today’s churches. Robinson notes,

"In some churches, it (predestination) is a word that conjures images of an angry and capricious God who acts arbitrarily to save some but consigns most sinners—including deceased infants—to eternal perdition. For many professing Christians, it is the mother of all swear words.

"Let the pastor breathe it in the presence of the deacon board, and he risks firing, fisticuffs, or worse. A God who chooses is anti-American, anti-democracy. It bespeaks a long-faced, puritanical religion, a doctrinal novelty invented by a maniacal 16th-century minister whose progeny manufactured a theological “-ism” that has plunged countless souls into a godless eternity.

"In other churches, it is a cherished word that describes a beloved doctrine. It bestows comfort and unshakable confidence that not one maverick molecule, not one rebel subatomic particle exists outside of God’s loving providential control—even in the matter of salvation. Want to start a lively conversation? Then utter the word: predestination."

Scripture nowhere gives the Church permission to pick and choose the doctrines that don’t fit our theology. Unfortunately, we handpick our dogma as if we were selecting clothes. “I like this one. Nope, don’t like that one.” The fact that Scripture uses these doctrines repeatedly in the way and context in which it uses them ought to be sufficient for us. The Church is less effective and assured because it rejects them.

N.B. It is crucial for you, the reader, to know what I’ve written next. Your eternal destiny depends on these biblical doctrines and insights. As a former Marine grunt, if someone would have asked my opinion on God’s foreknowledge, I would have immediately responded with, “God’s what?” I mean, “Who cares what God has foreknown? What difference does it make what God previously knew about me and P.T.S.D.? My life is falling apart here!” The answer is everything. Even if your life couldn’t be more pleasant and you’ve only watched The Sands of Iwo Jima starring John Wayne once, these Scriptural terms refer to you regardless of whether you have previously not considered them.

It is equally crucial to understand that man's will is morally bound by a nature that loves to sin. In this sense, man's will is not free. A casual reading of Romans 7, which details Paul's battle against his fleshly desires as a Christian, should clarify that a non-Christian has no will to choose God, nor does he want to. It is for this reason that I present, without qualifications, what I believe Scripture teaches on these doctrines.

II.    Defining Terms

A.    Foreknowledge Rom. 8:29-30; Eph. 1:11

Classical literature uses pro-egno or foreknowledge only from the fourth century B.C., as with Demosthenes, to mean ‘ordain’ and ‘determine something or someone.’ In non-Christian usage, it means to decide beforehand, that is, to predestinate. It is the basis for God’s election of some men to salvation and his choice of the rest to damnation. At this point, most folks close the book and find something else to do. However, what we don't know is where our hatred and disbelief of this biblical teaching originated. It began with Adam and Eve. When they believed the devil's lie and ate the forbidden fruit, one effect of their disobedience was the new desire to live independently of God. This inherent need found its way into the Church's theology with Pelagius, the fourth-century British monk. With Pelagius, man no longer needed grace to obey the law. The freedom of man's will took center stage soon after that with semi-Pelagianism and Arminianism. All temporal decisions referring to God overrode divine, eternal foreknowledge. God's eternal decrees became subject to man's choices, which are traceable to their starting point, man's rebellion in Eden.  

In reality, foreknowledge means more than knowing what might happen or has already happened--that He (God) only knows what is still to happen. It is a complete and perfect divine knowledge of what is and will be. “God’s foreknowledge stands related to his will and power." (emphasis added) Augustine said in De Trinitate, xv, "Not because they are, does God know all creatures spiritual and temporal, but because He knows them, therefore they are." What he knows, he does not know merely as information. He is no mere spectator. What he foreknows, he ordains. He wills our salvation to occur. He knows because, willing, he has the power to do his will. “(emphasis added)

I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass” (Isa. 46:11). “I work, and who can hinder it?” (Isa. 43:13).” (emphasis added; God’s foreknowledge of His eternal decrees He has unalterably fixed. “The New Testament’s references to God’s knowledge and foreknowledge of people have to do with His knowing them in an intimate, salvific way (Jn. 10:13; 1 Cor. 8:3). In other words, “when God foreknows a person, He sets His love upon him. Our Lord bases His choice of men and women for salvation on His sovereign decision to set His love upon them, not His knowledge of what they will do.”1

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1 G.W. Bromily, "Foreknowledge," Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Walter A. Elwell, ed. (1984; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1986), 420.

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Prothesis is the Greek word translated as plan or decision. The call of God on an individual to salvation in time is grounded or based on his eternally prior decree as recorded in Rom. 8:29, “those whom God (eternally) foreknew, He also (eternally) predestined . . .” To what goal did God foreknow willfully and thus predestine sinners? He fore-willed our election to salvation by effectively calling us in time, justifying us, and conforming us into the image of His Son to glorify us. 

However, verse thirty signifies the means or steps of this transformation in time. Having fore-willed all things in advance, God calls sinners to Himself and justifies those he calls “to give them a share in his glory. God predestined, ordained, decreed wisdom ‘for our glory.’” This process describes God's activity with men to bring them into fellowship with Himself through Christ.

A difficulty arises when we set God's foreknowledge beside “the free actions of men.” For a culture or a person that denies the possibility of the metaphysical (transcending physical matter), foreknowledge is hard to conceive in any manner. Some people deny the foreknowledge of free actions, while others deny man any free will. This problem finds its truth in Bible verses such as 1 Sam. 23:10-13; 2 Kgs. 13:19; Ps. 81:14-15; Isa. 42:9; Jer. 2:23; 38:17-20; Ezek. 3:6; Mt. 11:21. 

No one should deny that man possesses a will whereby he freely drives to the store, scratches his head, or pets his dog—so divine foreknowledge coexists with man's freedom. This knowledge is the consistent testimony of all Scripture. Still, this harmony does not extend to man's ability to perform God's law, man being born into slavery to sin, as we have seen above. God foreknows all things thoroughly and, having decreed them from all eternity, their causes and conditions, and in the exact order in which they come to pass. His foreknowledge of everything in the future and all contingent events rests solely on His eternal decrees. 

The divine predetermination of all things is not consistent with man's free will if one regards man's will as indifferent or arbitrary, which it isn't. 

Is this definition of indifference unwarranted? Your will is not random; that is, hanging in mid-air like a pendulum capable of swinging one way and another. Your choices are rooted in your nature, and this is key. You don't act contrary to who you are; you are a sinner by nature and immediate imputation. The Bible reveals to us our spiritual bankruptcy and incapacity of pleasing and glorifying God. Inability involves our instincts and emotions, intellect, and character itself. The resolution of this dilemma is readily at hand. Louis Berkhof taught that we possess a will capable of "reasonable self-determination," not inconsistent with divine foreknowledge. 

How does man's will respond to what God has fore-knowingly willed? The most prevalent theological thought in evangelical Christianity of earlier centuries and today is fascinated with "prevenient grace." According to Mark Driscol, Saint Augustine supposedly wrote about such grace in his "A Treatise on Nature and Grace." "God anticipates us…that we may be healed…anticipates us that we may be called…that we may lead godly lives." Pre-saving grace, the Arminian believes, is an "anticipating" grace that enables or goes before salvation, and God provides it to all men. John Wesley described such grace as "the porch on the house. It is where we prepare to enter the house," and it "is present in all creation." It "is frequently termed 'natural conscience,'... all the 'drawings' of 'the Father, the desires after God, ... that 'light' wherewith the Son of God' enlighteneth everyone that cometh into the world.'"

The problem with such universal grace is that a person doesn't need to hear the Gospel for salvation. Instead, such unsound teaching has always run counter to Scripture. John Hendrix reminds us that Romans 10:14-17 contradicts Weslyian-Arminian theology. "How are they to believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher?. . . 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." Hendrix correctly stated, "Prevenient grace is not effectual but rather renders the sinner "neutral" – able to decide for themselves whether they will accept or reject Christ." 

And last, "Arminians hold that while still unregenerate (or partly regenerate as they would have it), some can and will improve on that grace. In other words, God's prevenient grace takes us part of the way to salvation (makes us partly regenerate), but man's will (or nature) does the rest (or completes it)." Such theology seeks to elude the Bible's devastating indictment of man as a sinner, spiritually dead, and incapable of turning to Christ regardless of whether he inherits a boatload of prevenient grace or not.

True freedom comes to the sinner. As Bromiley has it, saying, "divine prescience (foreknowledge) means that God is in fact the presupposition of all things, including our wills, choices, and decisions. Nothing we do can inform or surprise him or impose conditions on him. He knows omnipotently as our Creator and Lord. Yet he does not destroy us with this knowledge, but with it originates and guarantees our authentic freedom. Only as sinners opposing God's will do we experience his foreknowledge as burden and bondage."

Martin Luther rightly stated, 

the “omnipotence and foreknowledge of God, I repeat, utterly destroys the doctrine of ‘free-will’. . . doubtless, it gives the greatest possible offense to common sense or natural reason, that God, Who is proclaimed as being full of mercy and goodness, and so on, should of His own mere will abandon, harden and damn men, as though He delighted in the sins and great eternal torments of such poor wretches. It seems an iniquitous, cruel, intolerable thought to think of God; and it is this that has been such a stumbling block to so many great men down through the ages. And who would not stumble at it? I have stumbled at it myself more than once, down to the deepest pit of despair, so that I wished I had never been made a man. (That was before I knew how health-giving that despair was, and how close to grace).”

God tells us His knowledge is infallible. Therefore, His divine wisdom suggests that whatever “free” decisions we make, we are “certainly not the ultimate source of them.” And remember, we decide to do something according to our instincts, emotions, intellect, and character, sinful as these are. Since God alone inhabits the eternal past, “he must be the cause of those decisions.” Man doesn't make choices contrary to his nature, which is what Arminianism suggests.

Ps. 33:15 he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds.

Prov. 16:1, 9 The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. . . . 9 The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.

Prov. 21:1 The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.

Acts 2:23 this Man, delivered over by the predetermined or-is-menay will and foreknowledge pro-gnosay of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.

Acts 4:27-28 For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever Your hand and purpose predestined pro-or-isen to occur.

Since God infallibly knows whatever “free” decisions we make—remember, we decide to do something according to our instincts, emotions, intellect, and character—we are “certainly not the ultimate source of them.” And since God alone inhabits the eternal past, “he must be the cause of those decisions.”

God’s divine foreknowledge influences every minute particle of the future and does not interfere with our actions in history. God does not injure our nature in any way nor coerce us to act contrary to our disposition and desires. “For instance,” wrote Zanchius, “man, even in his fallen state, is endued with a natural freedom of will, yet he acts, from the first to the last moment of his life, in absolute subserviency (though, perhaps, he does not know it nor design it) to the purposes and decrees God God concerning him, notwithstanding which, he is sensible of no compulsion, but acts as freely and voluntarily as if he was sui juris, subject to no control and absolutely lord of himself.”

The first thing to take into account regarding the biblical position of libertarian free will is what the Bible says about God. The Bible describes God as sovereign, and sovereignty designates control. But what exactly is the sphere of God’s sovereignty? Psalm 24:1 makes it plain: “The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” What is the sphere of God’s sovereignty? Everything. God spoke the universe, and everything in it, into existence. As Creator, He has sovereignty over His creation. This is the image used in Romans 9 when Paul refers to the potter and his clay.

So we need to ask ourselves how does libertarian free will fit in with God’s sovereignty? Can a human being, a creature, be autonomous if God is sovereign? The obvious conclusion is that libertarian free will is incompatible with the sovereignty of God. Consider this passage from the book of Proverbs: “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). This does not paint a picture of man as an autonomous being, but rather as man operating within the confines of a sovereign God.

Consider another Old Testament passage: “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” (Isaiah 46:9-10). Here again we see a sovereign God declaring to us that He will accomplish all His purposes. The concept of libertarian free will leaves open the possibility that man can freely refuse to do God’s will, yet God says all His purposes will be accomplished.

Man is not a “law unto himself.” Man is a creature in the Creator’s universe, and as such is subject to the will of the Creator. To suggest otherwise is to elevate man beyond his station and to bring God down to the level of the creature. Those who advocate libertarian free will may not come out and say this, but logically speaking, this is the conclusion that must be drawn. Consider a popular evangelistic slogan found in Christian gospel tracts: “God casts his vote for you, Satan casts his vote against you, but you have the deciding vote.” Is this how it works in salvation? Is God just one side of a cosmic struggle with Satan for the souls of men, who must resort to “campaign tactics” to sway voters to heaven? This view of God is an emasculated God who is desperately hoping mankind utilizes his free will to choose Him. Frankly, this is a somewhat pathetic view of God. If God wills to save someone, that person will be saved because God accomplishes all His purposes.

B.    Predestination 2 Pet. 3:17; 1 Pet. 1:20

Foreknowledge is an act of the infinite intelligence of God, knowing from all eternity, without change, the certain futurition of all events of every class whatsoever that ever will come to pass.

Foreordination is an act of the infinitely intelligent, foreknowing, righteous, and benevolent will of God from all eternity determining the certain futurition of all events of every class whatsoever that come to pass. Foreknowledge recognizes the certain futurition of events, while foreordination makes them certainly future.

A significant factor of the will of God has to do with the salvation of the elect and the condemnation of the wicked. God doesn’t speak in contrary terms. His will for the elect is immutable or unchangeable; thus, He never deviates from it, accomplishing all His will. If God doesn’t will it, then it won't be done. “Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My plan will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’” (Isa. 46:10). Psalm 33:11 declares, “The plan of the Lord stands forever, The plans of His heart from generation to generations.” This eternally established purpose of God echoes loudly in Ephesians 1:11. In Him we also have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things by the plan of His will. Predestination has nothing to do with “impersonal constraints” like fate, destiny, or doom, and nothing is autonomous from “the normal course of world events,” even though Arminianism assures us much that happens occurs outside God's will, such as human libertarian "free-will." 

The LORD has revealed His will openly through His prophets and secretly through inscripturation or in the pages of the Bible. “Thus, for instance, Hophni and Phineas hearkened not to the voice of their Father, who reproved them for their wickedness, because He would slay them (1 Sam. 2:25), and Sihon, king of Heshbon, would not receive the peaceable message sent him by Moses because the Lord God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that He might deliver him into the hand of Israel (Dt. 2:26, 30).”

The obvious objection to such comments is, is that fair? If God hardens men’s hearts for destruction, is God not justly condemned for such actions? Zanchius continues his dialogue, “He (God) does not hereby mock His creatures, for if men do not believe His word nor observe His precepts (rules; law), the fault is not in Him, but in themselves; their unbelief and disobedience are not owing to any ill infused into them by God, but to the vitiosity (great skill) of their depraved nature and the perverseness of their own wills.” In other words, if God gave a general call or invitation for salvation, but as soon as they appeared at His “door,” and suddenly He slammed it in their faces, we would call such a universal request a mockery and declare it unworthy of God. 

The Authorized Version speaks of Predestination as that which is “foreordained.” “(T)he foreknowledge of God is the basis of His foreordaining counsels.” It involves “His electing grace, but this does not preclude human will.” God also foreknows our exercise of faith to salvation. Paul's stress falls on God’s purposes rather than our faith in Gal. 1:16 and Eph. 1:5, 11. No one can thwart God’s councils. In 2 Peter 3:17, Predestination means knowing beforehand or having foreknowledge in advance (Romans 8:29 and 1 Peter 1:20. Hort “thinks the meaning is rather ‘designate before to a position or function.’” 

The Godhead foreordains whatsoever comes to pass (Eph. 1:11, 22; Ps. 2). Predestination is, therefore, central to both testaments. In terms of “individual freedom and responsibility . . . man, in carrying out God's plan, even unintentionally, does so responsibly and freely. If a person rejects Predestination, what other alternative is there? As a sinner, man has found a way to relieve himself from responsibility before God, and he has conceived a world of chance or determinism. But if he accepts Predestination is true, he must account for man's fall, 'which was part of God's eternal plan.'” God’s Predestination explains His choice of Jacob, not Esau (Rom. 9:10ff). “True, as the incarnate Son of God, his righteousness was such that his life and resurrection were sufficient in their merits for all men, but as he pointed out, his mediatorial work was directed to the salvation of his people only (Jn. 17). In this, he was fulfilling the teaching of the OT.” (emphasis added) Predestination includes election and reprobation. 

In reading James Arminius' rejection of the doctrine of Predestination, Vol. 1 of The Works of James Arminius, it is clear to me his arguments are philosophical in nature. Certainly he uses Scripture to bolster his refutation of Predestination. He writes, "1. It is not the foundation of Christianity: (1.) For this Predestination is not that decree of God by which Christ is appointed by God to be the saviour, the Head, and the Foundation of those who will be made heirs of salvation. Yet that decree is the only foundation of Christianity. (2.) For the doctrine of this Predestination is not that doctrine by which, through faith, we as lively stones are built up into Christ, the only corner stone, and are inserted into him as the members of the body are joined to their head." 

Further, Arminius argued,

1. It is not the foundation of Salvation

2. Nor is it the foundation of the certainty of salvation

3. This doctrine of Predestination comprises within it neither the whole nor any part of the Gospel

4. This doctrine was never admitted, decreed, or approved in any Council, either general or particular, for the first six hundred years after Christ.

5. Not in the General Council of Nice, Not in the first Council of Constantinople, Not in the Council of Ephesus, Not in the second Council of Constantinople, Nor in the third Council of Constantinople, But this doctrine was not discussed or confirmed in particular Councils, such as that of Jerusalem, Orange, or even that of Mela in Africa.

6. None of those Doctors or Divines of the Church who held correct and orthodox sentiments for the first six hundred years after the birth of Christ, ever brought this doctrine forward or gave it their approval.

7. It neither agrees nor corresponds with the Harmony of those confessions which were printed and published together in one volume at Geneva, in the name of the Reformed and Protestant Churches.

8. In the 14th Article of the Dutch Confession, this expression, soccur: "Man knowingly and willingly subjected himself to sin, and, consequently, to death and cursing, while he lent an ear to the deceiving words and impostures of the devil," &c. From this sentence I conclude, that man did not sin on account of any necessity through a preceding decree of Predestination.

9. In the 20th question of the Heidelberg Catechism, we read: "salvation through Christ is not given [restored] to all them who had perished in Adam, but to those only who are engrafted into Christ by the faith, and who embrace his benefits." From this sentence I infer, that God has not absolutely Predestinated any men to salvation."

10. It is repugnant to his wisdom in three ways.

11. It is repugnant to the justice of God.

12. It is also repugnant to the Goodness of God.

13. Such a doctrine of Predestination is contrary to the nature of man.

14. This doctrine is inconsistent with the Divine image.

15. This doctrine is inconsistent with the freedom of the will, in which and with which man was created by God. For it prevents the exercise of this liberty, by binding or determining the will absolutely to one object, that is, to do this thing precisely, or to do that. God, therefore, according to this statement, may be blamed for the one or the other of these two things, (with which let no man charge his Maker!) either for creating man with freedom of will, or for hindering him in the use of his own liberty after he had formed him a free agent. In the former of these two cases, God is chargeable with a want of consideration, in the latter with mutability. And in both, with being injurious to man as well as to himself.

And yet, Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit still declared unapologetically: 28 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 brothers and sisters 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 (Rom. 8).

Here is a classic case of a man forcing the Scriptures to conform to his doctrine rather than the other way around. Scripture is supposed to inform our theology, not vise versa. 

C.    Election Acts 15:7; Jas. 2:5

In the fifth century B.C., Herodotus used it to “pick out for oneself, choose.” In the fifth century B.C., Thucydides defined it as choosing out of soldiers or rowers in his writings. Posidippus, the third-century B.C. comedian, believed it meant “pick or single out.” Ephesians 1:4 means “to make a choice in accordance with significant preference, select someone/something for oneself.” It can refer to God choosing Abraham’s descendants (Dt. 4:37; 7:6-7) to Israel (Dt. 7:6-7), and Messiah (Mt. 12:18). And God's predestined choice encompasses election to salvation (Eph. 1:3-4). Because the human race fell completely into sin and died spiritually, God sovereignly chose to provide an escape, leading to "redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins" (Eph. 1:7). Election includes effectual calling, justification, and glorification. Election is God choosing sinners in and through Christ (Eph. 1:4-5). It involves choosing (lawbreakers) for salvation and all the means necessary to that end. God chose the elect to be holy and blameless in his sight and to adopt them as his sons (Eph. 1:4-5). Romans 8:29-30 tells us the elect are those whom God “foreknew . . . predestined . . .called . . . justified . . . glorified.” 

The Canons of Dordt, I.7

"Before the foundation of the world, by sheer grace, according to the free good pleasure of his (God’s) will, he chose in Christ to salvation a definite number of particular people out of the entire human race, which had fallen by its own fault from its original innocence into sin and ruin. Those chosen were neither better nor more deserving than the others, but lay with them in the common misery. He did this in Christ, whom he also appointed from eternity to be the mediator, the head of all those chosen, and the foundation of their salvation.

And so he decided to give the chosen ones to Christ to be saved, and to call and draw them effectively into Christ’s fellowship through his Word and Spirit. In other words, he decided to grant them true faith in Christ, to justify them, to sanctify them, and finally, after powerfully preserving them in the fellowship of his Son, to glorify them."2

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2 “The Decision of the Synod of Dordt on the Five Main Points of Doctrine in Dispute in the Netherlands” we know as the Canons of Dordt. It consists of statements of doctrine adopted by the extraordinary Synod of Dordt, which met in the city of Dordrecht (Dordt) in 1618-1619. Although this was a national synod of the Reformed churches of the Netherlands, it had an international character since it was composed not only of Dutch delegates but also of twenty-six delegates from eight foreign countries.

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Rom. 8:29, 33 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, . . . 33 Who will bring charges against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies;

Eph. 1:4, 5 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself,

1 Pet. 1:1-2 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who reside as strangers, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: (emphasis added; ESV; see also 1 Chr. 15:2; 16:13; 28:4-6, 10; 29:1; Mt. 24:22, 24, 31; Lk. 18:7; Jn. 6:37, 39, 44; 17:1-2, 6, 9; Acts 1:2; 9:15; 10:41; 13:17, 48; Rom. 9:11-13; 11:7; Col. 3:12; 2 Thess. 2:13; 2 Tim. 2:10; Tit. 1:1; 1 Pet. 1:1, 2:9; 5:13, etc.)

A point needs to be stressed here about determinism in light of foreknowledge. Determinism is a philosophical understanding “that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. Some philosophers have taken determinism to imply that individual human beings have no free will and cannot be held morally responsible for their actions.” We all do and say things of our own volition multiple times a day. But what we find impossible is freely doing those things God commands, such as repenting and believing. 

Now, if God has foreordained all things, how can God charge any sinner with misconduct? The Westminster Confession of Faith’s clarity on how man is solely responsible for his sinful actions is apparent under the heading of God’s Providence; chapter V declares,

2. Although concerning the foreknowledge and the decrees of God, the first cause, all things come to pass unchangeably and flawlessly (Acts 2:23.), yet by the same providence he orders them to occur, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingent (Gen. 8:22; Ex. 21:13 with Dt. 19:5; 1 Kgs. 22:28, 34; Isa. 10:6-7; Jer. 31:35).

3. God, in his ordinary providence, makes use of means (Isa. 55:10-11; Hos. 2:21-22; Acts 27:31, 44.), yet is free to work without (Job 34:10; Hos. 1:7; Mt. 4:4), above (Rom. 4:19-21) and against them (2 Kgs. 6:6; Dan. 3:27) at his pleasure.

If God has ordained whatsoever comes to pass, and He is the first cause of all things (WCF V, ii), then how can He not be charged with causing sin? For one, James 1:13 is quite clear: No one is to say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. The Apostle John wrote, “God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 Jn. 1:5). For another reason, even though God decreed all things, He ordered them to occur according to second causes.3 How do you know if God has foreknown you intimately and predestined you to salvation? Repent and trust in Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.

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3 “Either (1) necessarily, as in the case of planets moving in their orbits, (2) freely, that is, voluntarily, with no violence being done to the will of the creature, or (3) contingently, that is, with due regard to the contingencies of future events, as in his informing David what Saul and the citizens of Keilah would do to him if David remained in the city of Keilah (1 Sam. 23:9–13).” Contingency means that whatever occurs comes from men or angels, but most assuredly not from God.

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III.   What Difference Ought These Doctrines Make to Your Traumatic Stress? 

We have arrived at the nuts and bolts of God's decree/s. Everything for the elect begins in eternity past, including P.T.S.D. Its actuality and significance originated within the Godhead. By their infinite wisdom, they have created a means to communicate their Personhood and work for us in a broken world. They have our attention through pain, but that pain is insufficient to our inability to hear and understand. So, the Holy Spirit enlightens our minds and renews our hearts so that we hear, My grace is sufficient for you in your weakness, and in hearing this enabling mercy, we obey. 67 Before I was afflicted I went astray, But now I keep Your word. . . . 71 It is good for me that I was afflicted, So that I may learn Your statutes (Ps. 119). What did David learn about God through his suffering? 68 You (O LORD) are good and You do good; Teach me Your statutes. Through his afflictions, God revealed His character and gave him a greater desire to know God's law. 

P.T.S.D. is God's tool to do that in your life. He chose you from all eternity to share in His inheritance in Christ. He decided to set His love upon you and has willed your eternal destiny to come to pass, including all the means necessary to combat brief trauma and not worth comparison with the glories that follow. Foreknowledge, predestination, and election are our confidence that we are in Christ and nothing can separate us.

I think too many Christians trusted Christ with the expectation that God would make them happy. And when He led them through the valley of the shadow of death, they balked. Instead, we break God's law daily and then are ready to leave the faith or divorce our spouses when combat trauma rears its ugly head. When we married, we married for better or for better. As long as I'm happy, that's all that matters. Jesus, Peter, James, John, and Paul would disagree. These divine decrees from eternity past come to us with great suffering in mind. Jesus has won everything for us for life, godliness, and salvation, and death may come in an unexpectedly painful way.