All Knowing?

First of all, I want to apologize for not writing anything recently. I blame it on a combination of writer's block and ADD. That's a condition more suited to my practice of posting quotes in my Facebook status, believe you me. Or anything else that's short, sweet and doesn't require much effort on my part. I can't promise it won't happen again, but I can promise I won't be gone long. When it comes to my faith issues, something keeps pulling me back. Wonder what that could be?

The other day, I was talking with my pastor about various things and we happened on to the subject of whether God knows everything or if he knows all the possible outcomes. I lean toward the latter while she believes the former to be true. As we were talking about this, I felt I was doing a miserable job of voicing my thoughts on the matter. And, as usual, I figured out what I wanted to say about an hour later. Now, I can only tell you my side of this, since I didn't think of any of it while I was talking with her and I don't really know how she'd respond to this particular view. What I was trying to say is that if God knows everything, are my actions truly my own or are they preordained and I'm just a puppet dancing on a string?

Why is this important? It's tied up in the different ideas about salvation. I'm not going to get into a in depth comparison of Calvinism vs Arminianism here. That's a whole post by itself. Possibly multiple posts. Short version is that the Calvinists believe that God has detailed foreknowledge of everything that happens (or that's how I understand it, anyway). In fact, that he planned everything out in advance and (here's the part that ties into what I'm talking about) that he knows who will accept his grace and salvation. Not everyone will do this, only the Elect. Who the Elect is was decided by God before any of His acts of creation. The Arminian idea is that grace and salvation are available to all and it's up to the individual to decide whether he accepts the gift. Perhaps it's vanity, but I like the idea that I have some say in what happens in my life.

I've probably butchered both ideas of how salvation and grace works, but it's the best I can do right now. I said from the beginning this was a work in progress and that's where I am right now. I'll keep working it out, though.