God has revealed to us in Genesis chapter 1 the good that He created.
In verses 4,10,12,18,21,and 25 in the 1st chapter of God's Book of Beginnings,Genesis, God states after the creation of certain things on a certain day,"And God saw that it was good."
In creating nor in stating these things is God learning nor discovering such to be good but rather they are so by God's decree.
In the final verse(31) of this 1st chapter of Genesis God pronounces 'everything' to be 'very good' that 'He had made'.
In,during,or after the making of these things God's knowledge did not increase. Nor was His knowledge in any wise diminutive prior to any of these created things mentioned. The reason for this is that God in His being is immutable. All God's attributes,both communicable and incommunicable, are immutable.
This truth is significant as we would delve into the knowledge and/or foreknowledge of God as they are inseperable.
Any foreknowledge God has originates in His immutable character and His attribute of immutable knowledge.
Such truth is pertinent to refute such erroneous statements of the nature of foreknowlege proposed by men who would make the Word of God to suit their own theological conclusions or rather delusions.
Two such statements by two men who held to and taught such erroneous views of the nature of foreknowledge should suffice.
"From this follows the fourth decree to save certain particular persons and to damn others, which decree rests upon the foreknowledge of God, but which he has known from eternity which persons should believe according to such an administration of the means serving to repentance and faith through his preceding grace and which should persevere through subsequent grace, and also who should not believe and persevere." (James Arminius)
"We must not think they are because he knows them. No; he knows them because they are. Just as I (if one may be allowed to compare the things of men with the deep things of God) now know the sun shines: Yet the sun does not shine because I know it, but I know it because it shines. My knowledge supposes the sun to shine; but does not in anywise cause it. In like manner, God knows that man sins; for he knows all things: Yet we do not sin because he knows it, but he knows it because we sin; and his knowledge supposes our sin, but does not in anywise cause it. In a word, God, looking on all ages, from the creation to the consummation, as a moment, and seeing at once whatever is in the hearts of all the children of men, knows everyone that does or does not believe, in every age or nation. Yet what he knows, whether faith or unbelief, is in nowise caused by his knowledge. Men are as free in believing or not believing as if he did not know it at all." (John Wesley)
GOD DOES NOT CHANGE
For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed (Mal. 3:6).
But he is unchangeable, and who can turn him back? What he desires, that he does. For he will complete what he appoints for me, and many such things are in his mind. Therefore I am terrified at his presence; when I consider, I am in dread of him (Job 23:13-15).
The revelation of such Truth of God's Being incites terror,dread and reverential fear of God.
Men are given to change
"My son, fear Jehovah and the king; do not meddle with those who change (Prov. 24:21). The Hebrew word sha^na^h is translated change both here and in Mal. 3:6.
God's knowledge cannot be added to, as to do so necessitates change.
RE: Time and the time element
God is eternal and continuously inhabits eternity.
For thus said the high and exalted One, Inhabiting eternity, and holy is His name: `In the high and holy place I dwell, And with the bruised and humble of spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of bruised ones (Isa. 57:15).
The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms. And he thrust out the enemy before you and said, Destroy(Deut. 33:27).
To think of God otherwise will only prove that one has created a god in their own image leading to thoughts such as the following:
"Obviously God must know all things that can be known and know them truly. To be able to know all that can be known is a dimension of God's power….omniscience need not mean exhaustive foreknowledge of all future events. If that were its meaning, the future would be fixed and determined, much as is the past. Total knowledge of the future would imply a fixity of events. Nothing in the future would need to be decided. It also would imply that human freedom is an illusion, that we make no difference and are not responsible. It would seriously undermine the reality of our decisions if they were known in advance, spelled out in a heavenly register and absolutely certain to happen. It would make the future fixed and certain and render illusory the sense of our making choices between real options…This implies that God learns things…If this matter of God's learning surprises anyone, be reminded that simple foreknowledge also implies that God learns from what creatures do. I am not speaking in a temporal sense now but in the sense that part of what God knows depends on what creatures do." (Clark Pinnock)
The above is known as the false doctrine of "Open Theism".
As the term "open" implies, according to these false teachers the future has not yet been fully decided, as God nor any other completely knows future events as it 'depends on what creatures do'.
These false teachers make the Eternal God to be in and/or subject to time.
To these God says,
"Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,' calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it (Isa. 46:8-11).
"all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, "What have you done?" (Dan. 4:35)
May we all hear God and His Truth as He reveals in His Word,
"(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations) before him whom he believed, even God, who reviveth the dead, and calleth those things which are not, as though they were" (Rom 4:17).
"Then the LORD said to him, "Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?(Ex. 4:11)
"I am Jehovah, and there is none else; there is no God beside me: I girded thee, and thou hast not known me; that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the going down, that there is none beside me. I am Jehovah, and there is none else; forming the light and creating darkness, making peace and creating evil: I, Jehovah, do all these things. Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness; let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and with it let righteousness spring up. I, Jehovah, have created it.Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let a potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that formeth it, What makest thou? Or thy work, He hath no hands? Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? Or to his mother, What hast thou brought forth? Thus saith Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: Ask me of the things to come; concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands, command ye me. It is I that have made the earth, and created man upon it; it is I, my hands, that have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded. It is I that have raised him up in righteousness, and I will make all his ways straight: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith Jehovah of hosts...Declare ye, and bring near, Yea, they take counsel together, Who hath proclaimed this from of old? From that time hath declared it? Is it not I--Jehovah? And there is no other god besides Me, A God righteous and saving, there is none save Me"(Isa.45:5-13,21).
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