beads,
Maybe it is just me, but you seem to be contradicting yourself and are definitely confusing me.
You say: “we must remember that God's ways are higher than ours, so just because we don't understand it doens't mean it's not true.”
I say: I do not know whether to be insulted by what you are implying about my ability to understand or to be disappointed that God requires me to believe just based on the old parental cop out—“because I said so.” I am teasing about being insulted but any ‘belief’ or “concept” that is based on a lack of ‘understanding’ or that is ‘beyond’ explanation is very suspicious, wouldn’t you agree?
You say: “nor is His election based on His foreknowledge” then you make the statement: “but God knows who will and who won't.”
I say: If as you say “God knows” but not “based on His foreknowledge” then that means that “God knows” but without knowing, knowledge or foreknowledge. Isn’t that contradictory? If not, how can that be?
You say: “God knows who will and who won't” yet “everyone has the possibility of accepting it.”
I say: So you are saying that God’s knowledge of “who will and won’t” “has the possibility” of being in error when someone exercises their free will and decides to go ahead and ‘accept it’ even after God, who some how or other “knows who will or won’t,” and had “known” that they wouldn’t. That must be what you are saying! For God’s ‘knowing’ to be without possibility of error then what he ‘knows’ must be absolutely correct and that necessarily removes free will, right? Yet you say: “especially when you throw free will into the mix?” Isn’t that confusing and contradictory?
You say: “You seem to be saying that God doesn't know who will accept Him, so that's why He offers it to everyone.”
I say: How else can the love and the invitation be “unconditional?”
You say: “You would would turn your back on a God . . .”
I say: Please show me where I ‘turn my back on God.’
You say: “yet you would worship a God who is not omniscient?”
I say: I worship the God I find revealed in the Bible! Please show me “omniscient” in the Bible.
Please do not confuse what God CAN DO with what he actually DOES DO. Let me explain what I mean: the Bible reveals that God is Almighty; however, I submit to you that even though God has the capability to act in an all-powerful way he has not yet done so! Even the power used in the act of creation was just a drop in the unlimited ocean of God’s capacity of power. Imagine for a moment that you are the strongest man in the world. Would you feel compelled to hug a newborn baby with all your strength? Or, if you were allowed to hold a Faberge egg, would you want to grip it with all your might? God has self-control does he not? Therefore any of and all of God’s qualities, attributes and capabilities are never exercised without self-control and in disharmony with or uninfluenced by all his other qualities, attributes and capabilities and certainly not in disregard for the consequences of such exercise. Again, what he CAN DO should not be confused with what he DOES DO (please follow this link). Men, not God, have concocted several “omni” words to describe some of God’s qualities and have also concocted definitions to go with their words. I submit to you that what the Bible reveals about God does not agree with all the man-made definitions and ideas of “omniscience.”