Yes, I agree. And it does not need clarifying.sentientsynth said:
ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 1
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sentientsynth
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I said: So God uses us for His purposes AND we're responsible for our actions. Do you agree? How would you clarify this if you felt it needed clarifying?
Awesome.
Hmmm. Interesting. We agree.Lighthouse said:
Awesome.
seekinganswers
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godrulz said:
I'm sorry, I confused two people. Edwards was the one who was a major influence in the Scottish Sacramental Occasions. This was the precoursor to George Whitefield (who is the great preacher of the Awakening). Whitefield was a contemporary of Wesley's who was "Wesleyan" in many ways and yet was also a Calvinist (try that one on for size). Finney continues on the work of Edwards in the Awakening experience. I have read his lectures on revival, and it is quite clear that his views on revival are what he wants to place in a central and normative place within the church. Finney was not influenced by John Wesley. Wesley would never have supported a break from the Anglican Church (remember Wesley was an Anglican, and remained an Anglican ordinate to his death). Those who broke off from Wesley in the Americas received from him an order of service that is not too different from the present day Book of Common Prayer (and Wesley only did this because he knew the break was inevitable, not because he saw the break as a positive thing). Wesley envisioned worship as centered on the table and as submitted to the greater body of the church, not as an Awakening experience. Wesley encouraged locality beyond anyone else in the Anglican Church, yet his local vision for the church was still submitted to the very people who ordained him. He never envisioned a locality appart from submission to the early creeds of the church and to the life of worship that had been passed for ages. Finney saw such life as a fear of "new measures" because Finney assumed that the Spirit could not work through stangnant practices. People grow bored of doing the same things, so you have to be constantly renewing the service so that they continue to feel guilty and can be awakened over and over again. Finney is the source the psychotic messes that the present Awakening churches are responsible for creating. Wesley had a reserve with regards to such experiences.
The question at stake is whether we are going to shape the church after modern-day consurmerist culture, or whether we are going to be faithful to what Christ has called the church to be, the ekklesia (the called out ones).
Peace,
Michael
I think Wesley's writings influenced some of Finney's sanctification views (though he rejected 'entire sanctification). Finney would have been familiar with his predecessors, including Wesley and Edwards (Finney/Wesley influenced the modern Pentecostal movement that I identify with).
sentientsynth
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Duos,Letsargue said:
There's a measure of truth in what you've said. But, as anyone around can tell you, I'm really picky about words. The Lord made propitiation on my behalf. But in Him His Body is made guiltless.
And you, that were once alienated and enemies in mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight;
SS
seekinganswers
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godrulz said:
Yes, and why do you think that I might know a bit about them as well? You do realize that the Pentecostals and the Nazarenes share the same origin. We arise out of the camp movements of the late 19th century, which develop out of the "Second Great Awakening" (or entire sactification). Wesley never embraces entire sanctification simply because the experience is not sure for him. His heart is strangly warmed but there is no assurance that precludes a doubt concerning the experience. Wesley remains true in as much as he is very pastoral and as he is faithful to the church (especially as he embraces the practices of Christ).
But what you do not see is that the Second Awakening is a repetition of the first. The Second is contingent upon the ideology of Whitefield. And all of it comes from a transformation of the church so that the church becomes tied to the state, to the project of the Enlightenment grounded in Capitalism (consumerism). And even more than this, its origins can be traced back to the High Middle Ages when the church forgot what ritual was and became enwrapped in the Transubstantiation doctrine of the late mass. It is the embrace of transubstantiation that drives the reaction against it of the Scottish Sacramental Occasions, because it was the shift from participation in the Eucharist (thanksgiving) to observation of it (voyeurism) that moved the significance of the practice from the Body that gathered to the internal conscience of the individual. In the late mass the bells and whistles come out to turn the entire practice of the Eucharist into a spectacle that is to be watched (i.e. that is to be focused on the reaction of the individual) rather than to be a practice that draws us together as we gather to hear the witness of the scriptures (the testimony of Christ), to pass the peace that Christ gives to us through that testimony (the way of the cross that calls us to love one another and to share that love with even our enemy), which culminates in our gathering at the table to share in the gifts of the same host (a host who is not present with us in body, but whose place is symbolized by the elements and made alive in the Spirit; Christ's presence with us who gather now is in the Spirit, not in the elements). You see, Eucharist is worship, in as much as it draws us to Christ (to be fed of Christ). It is not a literal cannibalism (nor has it always been literal within the church catholic). If the church had always held such a view would not the Anglicans have embraced transubstantiation? But they did not. It is a relatively new concept in the church, that came to us with the Late Medieval Mass.
So I do not embrace the solution that comes to us by the Protestants. They want to shun ritual because in the Enlightenment ritual becomes a barbaric practice of backwards peoples which has been overcome by the modern "civilized" humanity of Europe. Humans only engage in "religion" because they share a common "spiritual" grounding that is shared by all humans (given to them by God). And now we can place Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Budahism, Shamanism, Hinduism, and any other "ism's" into the same category of religion; all of them become expressions of the "religious center" of men, of their "faith," and this inevitably leads to the rise of secularism, because such religiosity can now be blamed for all the wars and evils of men. The Modern state becomes a "neutral" space for people to live at peace with one another, and religion is placed on the margins, constantly checked by the state.
Have you ever read what Finney has to say about the practices of the church? He turns them all into "measures" which are only important in as much as they bring awakening. If something is no longer effective in doing that, then the practice is expendable. Finney turns both Baptism and Eurcharist into these "measures" which are expendable practices of the church.
Finney is not a positive influence for the church; Finney affirms Whitefield's removal of the church from the church, and then takes the new church of Whitefield (the circuit preaching) and brings it back into a new stucturalized church. Finney unites the church to consumerism and Capitalism as a norm.
Peace,
Michael
themuzicman
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RobE said:
It's actually possible under both determinism AND OVT. It's just accomplished in different ways.
Letsargue
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sentientsynth said:
---Why is it, - the scriptures I use are wrong, and not the truth. --- The scriptures you do or don’t use are the absolute truth, and over-rides my truth???
---You don’t have to answer that, I know why you guys can only believe certain scriptures, and other words are WRONG.
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---------------Paul---
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RobE
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themuzicman said:
:think: Calvinism says that God foreordered it to happen and the OVT says that God forearranged it? Remember that your definition of free will requires God to foreknow absolutely nothing or your will isn't free.
(Let's not get back into the Judas argument again :chuckle: )
The difference,
Rob
This is not so Rob. As long as there are two or more options from which to choose, God could theoretically know ever other thing related to a particular action that is knowable and my freedom would remain intact.RobE said:
Resting in Him,
Clete
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sentientsynth
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deardelmar said:
I'm sorry, delmar.
Run that by me one more time.
Why is it that I pray again?
Please. Break it down to me like I'm a six year old. Obviously you've seen into my mind more clearly than I have. So I need you to tell me why it is that I pray.
Thanks.
Open Theism Makes Prayer into Incidental Wishing
The Open View perverts and paganizes the wonderful and awesome role of prayer and reduces it to wish-making. Prayer, according to the Unsettled Theists, also denigrates God, portraying Him as stingey, unresponsive and distant. Despite the words that Incidental Deists bandy about, their God is not really very near, or personal, or relational, or loving, or good in any specific, tangible and active way. After repeated requests for examples, none were forthcoming. I don't think there can be any examples forthcoming, because that would require a conception of God who is in control. But regardless of what Open Theists claim, they cannot give specific, tangible, active examples of His control.
The best I've gotten from one Open Theists is that God might respond if the need is significant enough. Another Open Theist said God was a secret "Thought Planter," but admitted that we don't know when God does this, which hardly sounds very relational or personal or loving. Open Deists obviously live in quiet desperation, asking God for things that never come to fruition, praying for things that never come to pass, and when something does come to pass, they can't tell whether or not it was just coincidence, luck, or God actually doing something. He never actually lets them know that it was really Him, which hardly sounds like a living, loving, personal, good and relational God at all, does it?
Col 4:3 Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds ...Paul knew this would be answered 'yes,' because it was for the purpose of proliferating the Mystery that he was called.
Those who follow the Biblical examples of prayer know to pray with absolute confidence and certainty in the inexorable plan and boundless power of God. They can pray knowing with full assurance of faith that God is truly working in us, having pre-ordained the good works we will do (Eph 2:10), that He works in our wills, to accomplish His good pleasure (Php 2:13). They can know with unshakeable certainty that God will absoltely not fail to bring to completion the good work that He has begun in them until the day of Christ (Php 1:6). Open Theists can only wish -- the equivalent of vainly tossing pennies into a pond -- and vainly hope that God figures it all out eventually and maybe someday be able to say, "It Is finished -- I think."
The Open View perverts and paganizes the wonderful and awesome role of prayer and reduces it to wish-making. Prayer, according to the Unsettled Theists, also denigrates God, portraying Him as stingey, unresponsive and distant. Despite the words that Incidental Deists bandy about, their God is not really very near, or personal, or relational, or loving, or good in any specific, tangible and active way. After repeated requests for examples, none were forthcoming. I don't think there can be any examples forthcoming, because that would require a conception of God who is in control. But regardless of what Open Theists claim, they cannot give specific, tangible, active examples of His control.
The best I've gotten from one Open Theists is that God might respond if the need is significant enough. Another Open Theist said God was a secret "Thought Planter," but admitted that we don't know when God does this, which hardly sounds very relational or personal or loving. Open Deists obviously live in quiet desperation, asking God for things that never come to fruition, praying for things that never come to pass, and when something does come to pass, they can't tell whether or not it was just coincidence, luck, or God actually doing something. He never actually lets them know that it was really Him, which hardly sounds like a living, loving, personal, good and relational God at all, does it?
False dichotomy. The believer ought to pray because he knows his future is determined, and that his prayer is itself predetermined and works together with God to bring about that predetermined future. All the Biblical examples demonstrate this. When Paul, who is example for the Body of Christ, prayed, he knew that God, in His sovereign decrees, had predetermined everything. Believers today are to follow Paul's example and pray confidently in accordance with God's revealed will. Prayer differs from crying out to God and pleading with Him, which we do when we do not know what He has planned. But when we pray, we are to do so with full assurance, unwavering confidence that our prayers will be answered 'yes.' If we pray anything that we do not know will be answer 'yes,' then we are praying unbiblically.some Open Deist said:
Col 4:3 Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds ...
If the future is not settled, then prayer becomes vain. There is no assurance, no certainty, no sure hope. Just empty wishing, often met only with silence and imagined results. The Unsettled View of prayer reduces God to less than a Genie in a bottle. Most professing Christians -- and Open Theists, given their pagan/humanistic/existentialist theology, must be the worst offenders -- go through life praying all kinds of things that have nothing to do with God's revealed will. It must be a stench to His nostrils. Why pray to a God who doesn't know the future? Why pray to a God who is so ignorant that He actually gets surprised? Why pray to a God who is such a bad accountant that scores of people die every day, people that God supposedly loves and died for, and they dive headlong into hell while God sits idly by and watches it happen? Where was the Great Thought Planter in the sky? Couldn't He have planted thoughts of salvation and repentence in their minds?deardelmar said:
Those who follow the Biblical examples of prayer know to pray with absolute confidence and certainty in the inexorable plan and boundless power of God. They can pray knowing with full assurance of faith that God is truly working in us, having pre-ordained the good works we will do (Eph 2:10), that He works in our wills, to accomplish His good pleasure (Php 2:13). They can know with unshakeable certainty that God will absoltely not fail to bring to completion the good work that He has begun in them until the day of Christ (Php 1:6). Open Theists can only wish -- the equivalent of vainly tossing pennies into a pond -- and vainly hope that God figures it all out eventually and maybe someday be able to say, "It Is finished -- I think."
The Settled View Makes Prayer and Everything Else Totally Meaningless
No matter how you slice it what Jim has presented renders everything meaningless - everything. Predetermined prayer yields predetermined results that are meaningless. A predetermined lack of prayer likewise yields a predetermined meaningless result. Jim's hatred of the open view is predetermined, his arguments were all predetermined, our collective rejection of them was predetermined and his insistence that we had no ability to do otherwise is predetermined along with his continued self-proclaimed pissing in the wind arguments against us. All of it was predetermined from before time began including the results or lack thereof.
And this is the Achilles heal of the settled view. The proponent cannot escape the necessary conclusion that everything that happens, including God's own actions which also have been predetermined (by what or whom I don't know), are the utterly meaningless and mindless actions of puppets on strings. We are all just marionettes and can no more love anyone (including God) than Howdy Doody.
Resting in Him,
Clete
No matter how you slice it what Jim has presented renders everything meaningless - everything. Predetermined prayer yields predetermined results that are meaningless. A predetermined lack of prayer likewise yields a predetermined meaningless result. Jim's hatred of the open view is predetermined, his arguments were all predetermined, our collective rejection of them was predetermined and his insistence that we had no ability to do otherwise is predetermined along with his continued self-proclaimed pissing in the wind arguments against us. All of it was predetermined from before time began including the results or lack thereof.
And this is the Achilles heal of the settled view. The proponent cannot escape the necessary conclusion that everything that happens, including God's own actions which also have been predetermined (by what or whom I don't know), are the utterly meaningless and mindless actions of puppets on strings. We are all just marionettes and can no more love anyone (including God) than Howdy Doody.
Resting in Him,
Clete
Spit, hack.....Hilston said:
* Cleaning the coffee from my computer monitor.... *
The above statement might very well be the most ironic statement EVER posted on TOL. :rotfl:
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the LORD and depart from evil. - Proverbs 3:5-7
Jim, God gave us our "own understanding" He gave us the ability to choose to NOT acknowledge Him. God will guide our hearts - IF WE LET HIM.
The settled view makes the claim that God guides our hearts even if we DON'T acknowledge Him and that we don't have our "own understanding". If a man cheats on his wife that is divine guidance according to Jim! If a man trips an old lady crossing the street that is divine guidance according to Jim! :doh:
Jim, God really can listen to us and He really can respond to us if we will let Him.
Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:12-13
Yeah... maybe so but more importantly it doesn't seem if Jim understands the consequences of his own position very well. :chuckle:godrulz said:
Letsargue
New member
Knight said:
---God gave us understanding, through the Scriptures. God guides us through the Scriptures. God even gave us the prayers to pray in the Scriptures, (Psalms). WE are not ANYTHING, guys. -- It's ALL the Word of GOD. Are we wise?? NO, God gave us wisdom throught the Scriptures.
---Isa. 55:11. –“So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I send it”. – (GO INTO ALL THE WORLD AND PREACH THE GOSPEL). What is it that WE DO???
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--------------------Paul---
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