FOREKNOWLEDGE
Foreknowledge
Foreknowledge is the rendering of a Greek word (, Act 2:23, 1Pe 1:2, the cognate verb being , Act 26:5, Rom 8:29; Rom 11:2; Rom 1:20, 2Pe 3:17) which occurs nowhere in the Septuagint and not very often in the NT. In the apocryphal book of Wis. it occurs three times (Wis 6:13; Wis 8:8; Wis 18:6), always in the plain sense of knowing beforehand. In this sense St. Paul uses the verb in his speech before Agrippa, when he tells him how his manner of life was known to all the Jews, having knowledge of me from the first, if they be willing to testify (Act 26:5); and in this sense also St. Peter uses it in the concluding warning of his Second Epistle when he reminds his readers of their knowing these things beforehand (Act 3:17).
In the remainder of the references given above it is the Divine foreknowledge which is in the mind of the Apostle, the object or objects being not facts or things but persons-these persons being objects of favourable regard-and the theme under consideration being some aspect of the Divine purpose of grace towards men. When St. Peter, in addressing the Jewish multitudes on the day of Pentecost, describes them as having by the hand of lawless men crucified and slain Jesus of Nazareth, he speaks of Him as delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God (Act 2:23). That death had been designed and planned in the counsels of eternal love, and the foreknowledge of God had rested with satisfaction upon the Divine sufferer who had undertaken, by the sacrifice of Himself, to win redemption for men. Of the same purport is the expression used by St. Peter when in his First Epistle he speaks of the blood of Christ, a Lamb without blemish and without spot, who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was manifested at the end of the times for your sake (1Pe 1:20). Mere prescience in the sense of previous knowledge does not exhaust the meaning in either of the foregoing passages. Hort (The First Epistle of Peter, 1898, ad loc.) sees in the latter reference previous designation to a position or function. And he notes the pregnant sense of know in such passages as Jer 1:5, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; Isa 49:1, The Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name; and Exo 33:12 (spoken of Moses), I know thee by name, and thou hast found grace in my sight (cf. 2Ti 2:19). The pregnant sense belonging to knowledge may well belong also to foreknowledge (1Pe 1:2, ).
This knowledge, says Hort in his note on the expressions, is not a knowledge of facts respecting a person, but a knowledge of himself; it is, so to speak, a contemplation of him in his individuality, yet not as an indifferent object but as standing in personal relations to Him who thus foreknows him. It must not therefore be identified with mere foreknowledge of existence or acts (prescience); or again, strictly speaking, with destination or predestination (, ), even in the biblical sense, that is, in relation to a Providential order, much less in the philosophical sense of antecedent constraint,
When we turn to St. Pauls more exact and precise exposition of doctrine we see that foreknowledge is still directed to poisons as its object, and also that prescience, knowing beforehand, is inadequate to the expression of the mysterious thought convoyed. With St. Paul foreknowledge is the first link in the chain of the Divine purpose of grace, the first step in the spiritual history of the believer (Rom 8:29, ), foreordination the second, effectual calling the third, justification the fourth, glory the fifth and last.
Mere prescience [on Gods part] of human volition, says O. J. Vaughan, leaves man the originator of his own saivation, in utter contradiction to Scripture here and everywhere. That which la made the first step in the spiritual history seems to express, not indeed so much as predetermination (which would confuse with ), but yet a resting of the mind of God beforehand upon a person with approval (cf. Exo 33:12, Psa 1:6), which can only he mentally and doctrinally severed from the second step, (St. Pauls Epistle to the Romans3, 1870, ad loc.).
That the expression is used also of Israel by St. Paul is quite in keeping with this pregnant sense: God did not cast away his people which he foreknew (Rom 11:2). It is the chosen people, the covenant people ( ), of whom the Apostle declares that God foreknew them. Here, again, foreknowledge is thought of as directed not to a person or a people simply, but to a person or a people in relation to a function, for Israel was designated afore to fill that place in the purpose of God which has been theirs among the nations.
There is no ground in the teaching of St. Paul for the view that because God foreknow that certain persons would respond to the gospel call, and remain true to their first faith to the end, He therefore foreordained them to salvation. Those whom God foreknew as His own of sovereign grace, He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son; but St. Paul makes this conformity to be the result, not the foreseen condition, of Gods foreordination. Foreknew points backward to Gods loving thought of them before time began; their conformity to the image of His Son points to the realization of this thought of God and its being carried to its furthest goal in the course of time. Of any foreknowledge by God of others than those who are effectually called according to the Divine purpose neither St. Paul nor any other NT writer has anything to say. According the teaching of the two apostles already referred to, the Divine foreknowledge represents the first step in the scheme of redemption, marking out the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world which taketh away the sin of the world, and the first movement of grace in the heart of God towards those who shall be saved.
The Patristic usage of the word takes no notice of its theological significance as we find it in St. Peter and St. Paul. Clement speaks of the first apostles being endowed with perfect foreknowledge to enable them to hand on to approved successors the ministry and service they had fulfilled (1 Clem. xliv. 2). Hermas attributes to the Lord the power of reading the heart, and with foreknowledge knowing all things, even the weakness of men and the wiles of the devil (Mand. iv. iii. 4).
Literature.-F. J. A. Hort, The First Epistle of St. Peter. I. 1-II. 17, 1898, pp. 18, 80; Commentaries on Rom 8:29-30 by C. J. Vanghan (31870), Sanday-Headlam (5International Critical Commentary , 1902). J. Denney (Expositors Greek Testament , 1900), and T. Zahn (Introd. to NT, Eng. translation , 1909); C. Hodge, Systematic Theology, i [1872] 397-400, 545; A. Stewart, article Foreknowledge in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) .
Thomas Nicol.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
Foreknowledge
SEE PRESCIENCE.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
FOREKNOWLEDGE
Human knowledge is governed by the awareness that people have of a past, a present and a future, but Gods knowledge is not. God is eternal, and his knowledge is not related to a sequence of events that he must experience in a world of time and space (Isa 57:15; Jer 23:24; see ETERNITY; TIME). Human language uses the word foreknowledge in relation to God because it is the most convenient word available to indicate knowledge of events that human beings sees as future. From their viewpoint, Gods knowledge of the entire history of the universe is foreknowledge (Psa 139:4-6; Psa 139:16; Isa 46:9-10; Act 2:23).
When the Bible speaks of Gods foreknowledge it means more than merely that he knows what will happen. Usually Gods foreknowledge is linked with Gods purpose, which means that it is often the same as his pre-determined will. Gods foreknowledge is according to his plan, and therefore may be another word for predestination (Act 2:23; Rom 8:29; Heb 11:40; see PREDESTINATION).
Gods sovereignty does not alter the fact that people are responsible for their actions. This may be a mystery beyond our understanding, but we do not solve the mystery by weakening the truth. We accept the perfect purposes of a sovereign God and at the same time acknowledge the free will of responsible human beings (Luk 22:22; Act 2:23; see also ELECTION).
Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary
Foreknowledge
FOREKNOWLEDGE.See Predestination.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Foreknowledge
. A knowledge of persons and events before they exist. It is one of the divine attributes of God, by which persons were foreknown of Him and events determined. It is a capacity altogether beyond the mind of man to grasp. Act 2:23; Rom 8:29; Rom 11:2; 1Pe 1:2. The verb is also translated ‘know before,’ 2Pe 3:17; and ‘foreordain.’ 1Pe 1:20.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Foreknowledge
Foreknowledge. The foreknowledge of God is repeatedly spoken of in Scripture. Act 2:23; Rom 8:29; Rom 11:2; 1Pe 1:2. There are curious and intricate questions in reference to his foreknowledge, which it would be quite foreign to the character of this work to attempt to discuss. It must be sufficient to say that the Scripture attributes the most perfect prescience to the Deity. It is one of those high attributes which place him immeasurably above all pretended gods. Isa 41:22-23; Isa 42:9; Isa 44:6-8. God does not gather knowledge as we do: before his eye all things past, present, or to come, are spread with equal clearness: he sees all possibilities, those events which may happen as well as those which will happen. 1Sa 23:9-13; Jer 38:17-23; Jer 42:9-22; Mat 11:21; Mat 11:23; Act 27:24; Act 27:31. Yet this divine foreknowledge does not compel men; it fetters not their free action; it does not deliver them from the responsibility of their own deeds. Gen 50:20; Isa 10:6-7. And, if we are unable exactly to comprehend this, we may well remember that God’s judgments are unsearchable, Rom 11:33, his ways higher than our ways, his thoughts than our thoughts. Isa 60:9.
Fuente: People’s Dictionary of the Bible
Foreknowledge
Knowledge of the future of which two types may be distinguished(a) anticipation or prescience which professes to be immediate and non-inferential and (b) expectation, which is inferential prediction of the future on the basis of the remembered or recorded past. See Anticipation, Prescience, Expectation. — L.W.
Fuente: The Dictionary of Philosophy
FOREKNOWLEDGE
of God
Isa 42:9; Isa 46:10; Dan 2:28; Mat 24:36; Act 3:18; Act 15:18; Rom 8:29; Rom 11:2
1Pe 1:2
–SEE Predestination, PREDESTINATION
–Christ’s. See CHRIST’S DIVINITY