Jeremiah 38:17
Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “Thus says the LORD God of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘If you will indeed go out to the officers of the king of Babylon, then you will live, this city will not be burned with fire, and you and your household will survive. But if you will not go out to the officers of the king of Babylon, then this city will be given over to the hand of the Chaldeans; and they will burn it with fire, and you yourself will not escape from their hand.’” Then King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I dread the Jews who have gone over to the Chaldeans, for they may give me over into their hand and they will abuse me.” But Jeremiah said, “They will not give you over. Please obey the LORD in what I am saying to you, that it may go well with you and you may live. But if you keep refusing to go out, this is the word which the LORD has shown me: ‘Then behold, all of the women who have been left in the palace of the king of Judah are going to be brought out to the officers of the king of Babylon; and those women will say, “Your close friends Have misled and overpowered you; while your feet were sunk in the mire, they turned back.” They will also bring out all your wives and your sons to the Chaldeans, and you yourself will not escape from their hand, but will be seized by the hand of the king of Babylon, and this city will be burned with fire.’” Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Let no man know about these words and you will not die.”
So, God knows what is, and what could be, which Arminians say is knowledge that is based upon the individuals, and what they would do, in various situations, based upon alternative choices by Zedekiah, whereas with Calvinists, they would say that such knowledge is based upon God, and what God would determine for them to do, and thus is not knowledge about the individuals at all, but about God.
Calvinist, Donald K. McKim: “God foresees all things because God decrees them eternally.” (Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith, Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992, p.98, emphasis mine)
Calvinist, R.C. Sproul: “God’s omniscience refers to God’s total knowledge of all things actual and potential. God knows not only all that is, but everything that possibly could be.” (What is Reformed Theology?, p171, emphasis mine)
When set in the context of divine determinism, then for God to know all that He could potentially determine, script and decree, it would have to be limitless, and this is what Calvinists are saying that God knows, that is, something that is limitless, which is akin to saying that God knows the highest number, also something being limitless.
When we look at Jeremiah 38:17-24, God relays the potential things that others would do, in relation to alternative choices by Zedekiah. So this is objective knowledge, as it is based upon real people in real scenarios, and given what God intimately knows about them.
Arminianism: God knows precisely what these others would self-determine to do.
Calvinism: God knows what He would externally-determine for them to perform, and therefore whatever limitless things that God could conceivably determine, are what Calvinists are saying is among the limitless, all things “potential” that He knows.
Therefore, there is a big difference between an Arminian saying that God knows all things potential, vs. a Calvinist saying that God knows all things potential, because the Arminian is objectively referring to a finite number of things that an individual would self-determine to do, in any given situation (and the more objective scenarios raised, the more that God could relay about it), whereas the Calvinist is hypothetically referring to an infinite number of things that God could determine to do (as it is no longer speaking about what the individual could do, but about what God could determine).
Consider the divine knowledge expressed at of Jeremiah 38:17-24 in relation to the following dialogue:
Calvinist, James White: “If you think about it, if God really knows what man’s going to do, is man really free?, and that’s why the Open Theists go the direction that they do.” (Arminianism: It Robs the Gospel of its Personal Nature)
To a Calvinist, the answer is no, and in this way, a Calvinist uses the doctrine of omniscience as a proof-text for Determinism.
James White: “How God can know future events, for example, and yet not determine them, is an important point….” (Debating Calvinism, p.163, emphasis mine)
James White: “How can God know what these free creatures will do in the future, if they are truly free (the argument open theists are aggressively promoting today)?” (Debating Calvinism, p.168, emphasis mine)
It’s clear that White doesn’t believe that God could know what free creatures would do, unless God determined their actions, and thus meaning that they are no longer free.
James White: “If God’s foreknowledge is perfect, does it not follow that the future is, in fact, fixed? And if it is fixed, upon what basis did it take the shape it did?” (Debating Calvinism, p.360, emphasis mine)
It is fixed by those in the future who make their own self-determined choices, and God can relay what those choices are, both in terms of what God does, and what man does, set in the form of prophecy.
James White: “Is he saying that man’s actions determine the future and that God merely knows what will happen?” (Debating Calvinism, p.57, emphasis mine)
Dave Hunt responds: “White denies omniscience in his repudiation of any ‘grounds upon which to base exhaustive divine foreknowledge of future events outside of God’s decree.’ If God must decree the future to know it, He’s not omniscient.” (Debating Calvinism, p.389, emphasis mine)
Therefore, according to Calvinists, God can only infallibly know what others would do (in relation to the alternative choices of Zedekiah), is what God determines their choices to be, absent of which, God could not infallibly say whether the city would have alternatively survived or whether Zedekiah would have been killed. In contrast, Arminians believe that God intimately knows the individuals involved, and therefore can accurately relay what would happen in any alternative situation.
Psalms 139:1-4: “O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O LORD, You know it all.”
