Bob Hill said:
The basis of my belief is the Bible. At one time, I was a strong Calvinist and agreed with a lot of Augustine’s works.
Where did you learn the idea of unqualified immutability, Bob? You didn't get it from Augustine. Or Calvin. Please, tell us where you learned it.
Bob Hill said:
But, I found that pagan philosophers like Plato and Aristotle were the ones who maintained that God was in a state of timelessness, not the Bible. Some seem to think that just because God does things one thing at a time, that makes time “ultimate over God.”
See what I mean? God is not only a bad accountant in the Open View, but God is not much of a multi-tasker either. He'd make a crummy waitress.
Bob Hill said:
The Bible described God doing things in sequence, one day at a time in the creation account, but that put no limitation on Him.
On the Open View, God doesn't "micromanage" the universe. According to the Bible, Jesus Christ holds every atom together. I think the pagan philosophers had a better grasp of God and creation than Open Theists do.
Bob Hill said:
... We are slaves to time because we need to sleep, eat, and eventually we die. God faces none of these. Time is no burden to God. “With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet 3:8).
That makes Thomas Alva Edison a very god-like man. I understand he was able to work for long periods with little sleep or food.
Bob Hill said:
The only thing that counts in true biblical theology is God’s word. Therefore, I think you would agree that we must look at the biblical evidence.
Looking at biblical evidence is profitable between two men who agree hermeneutically. When I look at the Biblical evidence with a Jehovah's Witness, it quickly becomes pointless because they see everything through their JW lenses. It doesn't do any good to merely throw Bible verses at each other. So instead, I attack the underlying presuppositions of their view. For example, the JW doesn't believe in an everlasting hell. The underlying presupposition is that everlasting hell is too cruel, which on the one hand implies that God does not have a very high view of His own righteousness, yet on the other hand implies that fallen man can rightly decide that a good God wouldn't be so mean. Likewise, when I look at the Biblical evidence with an Open Theist, it isn't enough to merely toss Bible passages back and forth. The underlying presuppositions of Open Theists must be exposed.
Bob Hill said:
The foundation of the view of immutability does not have a biblical basis.
Actually, it has tons of it.
Bob Hill said:
The Bible doesn’t show God as immutable, unchangeable, or impassible, that is, not influenced by anything outside of Him, for instance, by our problems?
Sure it does. God does not have mood swings. His emotional state is not governed, let alone ruined, by the wills and actions of finite creatures. When the Bible describes God's emotions, it is a rich figure called anthropopathism, which is used to convey both God's prescriptive will and to describe His actions toward finite man.
Bob Hill said:
Does God ever change? I agree with you that the question is not, does God change in His attributes. He doesn’t. He is omnipotent. He is always holy. God is light. God is omniscient. God is love. He has many other attributes that do not change.
I see that you, like Bob Enyart, qualify God's immutability. Don't let Clete Pfeiffer, who likes to speak for you both, hear you say that. He says qualified immutability is an oxymoron. You both can't be right about this. Perhaps Mr. Pfeiffer will be kind enough to set you straight on this.
Bob Hill said:
But that is not the question. The question can be stated a number of ways: Does God ever repent?
No, that's a figure of speech that refers to God's change of actions.
Bob Hill said:
Does God ever change His mind?
No, that's a figure of speech that also refers to God's actions.
Bob Hill said:
Does God ever think something will happen, and then it doesn’t?
No. The only time He uses this figure is to impress the hearer with an especially emphatic sense of God's righteousness, justice and indignation against particularly egregious sins. Appylying logic and consulting other parts of scripture suffice to convey to the non-poisoned reader of what these passages so richly describe. Only the Open Theist takes them literally, thereby reducing God to nothing more than a skilled Google-user.
Bob Hill said:
Does God ever show emotion?
Sure He does. But He is completely in control of His emotions and decides to emote in accordance with His own counsel.
Bob Hill said:
Does He ever change in any way in the state of His being?
In existentialist terms, yes. In essentialist terms, no.
Bob Hill said:
I believe the answer to all these questions is yes He does.
Of course you do. Anything to bring God down and to lift man up.
Bob Hill said:
His ability to change, instead of degrading God, causes us to appreciate and glorify Him all the more.
No, it allows you to project humanistic limitations on God and to explain away the things that used to embarrass you about God.
Bob Hill said:
He does do the things asked in my questions, but the most significant fact for me, on a personal level, concerns His supposed impassibility. I believe there is a strong biblical basis that He suffers. He has passion. This is the opposite of impassibility, of having no passion.
It is obvious, from these statements, that your former Calvinism was flawed, or perhaps you've forgotten what you used to believe, because your characterization of the doctrine of impassibility conveniently simplistic and inane. Consider the following short treatment of
Divine Impassibility in my critique of Enyart's debate with Lamerson.
Bob Hill said:
I believe these things because the Bible shows us God’s changeability over and over.
Immanence vs. transcendence.
Bob Hill said:
I want to validate what I wrote in my last post. Frst, we read that God suffers! That gives me great comfort.
Yes, that is a humanistic proclivity. We assign human frailties, suffering and emotions to nearly everything: our cars, our pets, and now, thanks to Open Theists, our God. It comforts us to project in this way.
Bob Hill said:
My God is touched by our sufferings. My God suffers because of us, with us, and for us. For instance, in Hosea 11:1-4,8,9 it says, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son. As they called them, so they went from them. They sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to carved images. I taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by their arms, ...
When did God take Ephraim by the arms? Did God take him by the wrists, the hands, or the elbows? What's that you say? I'm being too literal? Where do you draw the line? I know precisely where to draw it. You seem to do it arbitrarily, according to whatever makes God less than God but a little bit more than man.
Bob Hill said:
... but they did not know that I healed them. I drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love, and I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck. I stooped and fed them ...
He stooped? He fed them? Did He use a utensil? Or did He just scoop the food with His hands?
Bob Hill said:
Is this our passionate God or just misleading statements made by God?
It is our compassionate God being compassionate far beyond what Open Theist distortions could ever portray. This is because the Open Theist God is already not much higher than man. The Biblical view shows us a God who is transcendent, infinite. So when THAT God deigns to be compassionate to His creatures, it is a wondrous and beautiful thing. The Open Theist can never fully or truly appreciate the humility of God in the incarnation, because it wasn't that much of a leap from being a weak, poorly-multi-tasking, bad-accountant, emotion-swept and fickle God to becoming a human being. The Biblical view of the incarnation, and all of God's plans surrounding it, staggers the mind in its awesome and ineffable greatness:
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
Here's an Open View revision of that passage:
O the depth of the riches both of the good intentions and good-faith efforts of God! how comforting are his sufferings, and his ways being higher but not lower! For who hath NOT known the mind of the Lord (all you have to do is look at your own)? or who hath NOT been his counsellor (since he learns by trial and error)? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again (except the stuff that God learns by trial and error)? For of him, and through him, and to him, are some things, since he does not micromanage the universe: to whom be glory for ever, or until God figures out what to do next. Amen?