Election could not have been based on foreseen responses - Michael Horton

“Suppose you order a steak in a restaurant. How do you know in advance that you are going to be served a steak and not a hot dog? You know, because that is what you ordered! Of course, God knows beforehand what will happen because he has ordered the end from the beginning. Since ‘no one can come’ to Christ ‘unless the Father… draws him’ (John 6:44), what would God have foreseen apart from his own work? He would have foreseen unresponsive, lifeless, spiritual corpses who do ‘not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God’ (1 Cor. 2:14) and are ‘dead in… transgressions and sins’ (Eph. 2:1). Hence, election could not have been based on foreseen responses which, apart from regeneration by God’s Spirit, we were entirely incapable of making.”

– Michael Horton

Putting Amazing Back Into Amazing Grace