Free Will + Omniscience = ?????

[MindForgedManacle]

Not to mention it has pretty fatal epistemic problems.

Please elaborate.

The short of it is that you can't even know that you've been saved. After all, God could merely be using your false sense of certainty to accomplish other things, despite you not actually having attained salvation.

[Upside Down Dog]

Also, if Man cannot choose to repent, then why are the Holy Scripture filled with exhortations to do so?

Because it's part of the process of regeneration. Once it happens, it's a sign that a person has become regenerated. God has set up a process for it and describes it in scripture. Which segue ways perfectly into my next response...

The short of it is that you can't even know that you've been saved. After all, God could merely be using your false sense of certainty to accomplish other things, despite you not actually having attained salvation.

I'll submit to that. There is no way I can know for sure. But, as I stated in the agnostic theist thread, there is no way I can "know" anything for sure. Nothing is 100% because I'm not omniscient.

I can have reasonable belief that I am elect based on the examples and instructions of the elect as described in the Bible.

Following those examples, one can deduce with reasonable certainty (relative to actual knowledge) that one is elect.

This also plays into the concept of faith. Faith is a gift from God to His elect, and it serves has a way a person can have that "knowledge" or 100%... because we can't reach that on our own. That has to be given to us by God.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I think further elaboration on my part is required…
MMM, briefly summarized my philosophical objection to predestination. God’s ‘omniscience’ extends only to those things of which it is possible to know. You cannot have knowledge of something that does not actually exist. Thus God cannot know the future because it does not yet exist. That in itself is not an argument favoring either “omniscience” or free will. It merely presents a way to reconcile the two.
Predestination inherits all the problems of determinism. That means that both the spiritual and the physical universe are causally closed. Physical closure, on its own, is a huge barrier to a coherent and common sense philosophy of mind. This barrier is why I said it “bows to ontological naturalism.”

Predestination undermines rationality. If the initial conditions of the universe have already charted the course of your thoughts then you have no control over your own mind. Qualitative mental properties, like qualia and intentionality, reduce to physical properties that can operate just fine without them. Mental properties, in a physically closed world, must be either epiphenomena or causally redundant (over-determination). And that’s just the start.

With respect to the witness of the Holy Scriptures, Calvinists conflate predestination with fatalism. This taints their interpretation of problem texts like Romans 8:29, Ephesians 1:5, etc. The key difference between destiny and fate is this: your fate is beyond your control but you must strive to fulfill your destiny. Everyone is predestined for Heaven, meaning that God has provided this blessed goal to all who seek it in Christ Jesus. It is up to each person to choose that goal as their own.

If only some are predestined to heaven, then the rest are predestined to hell. According to Calvin, God condemns people to hell merely for the crime of having been created by Him. And in the reverse it undermines the value of our love for Him. For example, if you had a love potion that made someone fall in love with you, that love would not be freely given. Love that is compelled isn’t really worthy of the name. Every knee will bow,…by force, not respect.
Contrary to what you may have been told, repentance is not part of the regeneration process. You must repent first (i.e. choose to turn back to the Lord) before you begin regeneration (conforming yourself to His image).

[MindForgedManacle]

The short of it is that you can't even know that you've been saved. After all, God could merely be using your false sense of certainty to accomplish other things, despite you not actually having attained salvation.

I'll submit to that. There is no way I can know for sure. But, as I stated in the agnostic theist thread, there is no way I can "know" anything for sure. Nothing is 100% because I'm not omniscient.

That's nonse and worse, self-refuting. Do you KNOW that there is no way you can know anything for sure? Further, there are things I know with complete certainty:

-That I exist (thank you Parmenides and Descartes)
-That things are themselves (law of identity)
-Things aren't not themselves (law of non-contradiction)

I can have reasonable belief that I am elect based on the examples and instructions of the elect as described in the Bible.

Only if you presuppose the truth of the Bible and your interpretation of the relevant passages (which historically has been far from agreed upon amongst Christians).

Following those examples, one can deduce with reasonable certainty (relative to actual knowledge) that one is elect.

And yet you could very clearly still not be.

This also plays into the concept of faith. Faith is a gift from God to His elect, and it serves has a way a person can have that "knowledge" or 100%... because we can't reach that on our own. That has to be given to us by God.

This is in contradiction to your earlier claim that we can't be completely certain of anything. And it's clearly possible that God, on your view, could merely make you THINK you were 100% certain, while you are not.

[Cato]

Sam Harris is just saying that because the initial conditions of the universe make him say that. He doesn't really believe it.

I think even Sam would have to laugh at this. I almost pissed myself.