Vincent of Lerins (early fifth century Christian writer in southern France) said that orthodoxy is "that which has been believed everywhere, always, by all."¹ What has been the orthodox view of the Church on the matter of God's knowledge? Exactly what does God know, and is there any limitation to that knowledge? How does God know what He knows? Can He foreknow future free will decisions? And, what did Arminius believe on the foreknowledge of God?

Hello. I know our Friday Files have been lax for a couple of weeks. Because of this, I wanted to take the time to mention what the Friday Files is all about.

Our purpose is to provide resources for better understanding Arminianism. Because our primary objective is resources, and not our own thoughts or opinions, we primarily highlight the individual work of our members, and point to their sites.

The purpose of Friday Files is to highlight articles and blog entries from the archives here that we believe would be beneficial for you guys to look at.

This week, we are looking at Episcopius, who was an essential actor in the initial rise of that particular articulation of the truth: Arminianism. This blog entry gives a good brief run down on who he is. Those who are interested in the history of this debate may want to bookmark this piece:

http://evangelicalarminians.org/node/24

John Piper was asked by Cathy Grossman, from USA Today, what he would tell the children who lost their parents on 9/11. She understood Piper to be suggesting that a victim should concentrate on the greater opportunities that God had granted to the children now, instead of focusing on their past loss. Piper responded that he did not suggest that scenario. Instead, he offered the following:

The following article by James H. Railey gives a brief critique of Open Theism and supports the traditional Arminian position that God foreknows all future events, including the free choices of His creatures.

http://www.agts.edu/faculty/faculty_publications/articles/railey_open-th...

It has been noted by some Calvinists that Calvinism was the dominant theological position of the Church throughout its history. For example, Calvinist Loraine Boettner writes:

The great majority of the creeds of historic Christendom have set forth the doctrines of Election, Predestination, and final Perseverance, as will readily be seen by any one who will make even a cursory study of the subject. On the other hand Arminianism existed for centuries only as a heresy on the outskirts of true religion, and in fact it was not championed by an organized Christian church until the year 1784, at which time it was incorporated into the system of doctrine of the Methodist Church in England.¹