ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 1
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Seems like the steering wheel is broken and the bus careening from one ditch to another and making no forward progress.
Logic will not save you, folks, and seldom is a good tool to use in scripture study. God is not bound by our western, temporal expression of "logic".
All of these ravings are good evidence why its better to be a Biblicist than a defender of some late-blooming "revelation" or philosophy about what God may or may not do. God created man to be an under-God and gave him dominion and authority over the created order, and instruction. Man blew the assignment. Redemption is "in progress". The final chapter has not been revealed.
Bob Hill
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I understand from the Bible that God can know the future. But the Bible shows us that when He does, He determines it. When He determines it, He makes it happen. Therefore, He can know that it will happen, but that does not mean that He knows it because He looks into the future to know it.
As some of you know, the Hebrew word nacham, repent, is used in the Bible in reference to God over 30 times. The one that really affected me greatly was found in Deuteronomy, but I prefer the passage in Exodus where it shows God repented of stated harm because of Moses’ prayer. Ex 32:9-14 And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! 10 Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.” 11 Then Moses pleaded with the LORD his God, and said: “LORD, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and repent from this harm to Your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14 So the LORD repented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.
From this and many other passages with that Hebrew word relating to God, I have drawn this conclusion. If God was outside of time and saw the future actions of men, God could never be wrong about predictions. I also believe: If the future actions of men are unknowable because they have not been decided, our all knowing God would not know them. None of them actually exist, so there is nothing to know.
God always exists in time. But, time is no restraint to Him like it is to us. We need to rest at times. But He doesn’t. We are growing old. He is always the same it that attribute. Most of us have deadlines to keep and other time responsibilities that are measured by time. With God, time is no burden. I see time as the measure between two events. Since God can control every event, if He so desires, time is never a burden to Him at all. He created the universe. We haven’t even seen the farthest galaxy in this tremendous universe. When God created it, it seems like it was instantaneous. Read some of my articles on my biblicalanswers.com site. I do not believe the future exists.
In Christ,
Bob Hill
As some of you know, the Hebrew word nacham, repent, is used in the Bible in reference to God over 30 times. The one that really affected me greatly was found in Deuteronomy, but I prefer the passage in Exodus where it shows God repented of stated harm because of Moses’ prayer. Ex 32:9-14 And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! 10 Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.” 11 Then Moses pleaded with the LORD his God, and said: “LORD, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and repent from this harm to Your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14 So the LORD repented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.
From this and many other passages with that Hebrew word relating to God, I have drawn this conclusion. If God was outside of time and saw the future actions of men, God could never be wrong about predictions. I also believe: If the future actions of men are unknowable because they have not been decided, our all knowing God would not know them. None of them actually exist, so there is nothing to know.
God always exists in time. But, time is no restraint to Him like it is to us. We need to rest at times. But He doesn’t. We are growing old. He is always the same it that attribute. Most of us have deadlines to keep and other time responsibilities that are measured by time. With God, time is no burden. I see time as the measure between two events. Since God can control every event, if He so desires, time is never a burden to Him at all. He created the universe. We haven’t even seen the farthest galaxy in this tremendous universe. When God created it, it seems like it was instantaneous. Read some of my articles on my biblicalanswers.com site. I do not believe the future exists.
In Christ,
Bob Hill
RobE said:
God's abilities are not limited. The possible objects of certain knowledge (free will choices) may be limited by His choice. He has many ideas about the future since He knows the past and present perfectly. Even weathermen and insurance companies can extrapolate aspects of the future fairly accurately. God does not guess. He may know something as probable, but that still does not make it certain until it is actualized. God knows things when they become knowable. God is infinite in wisdom and intelligence. His best guesses are vastly superior to man or machine who have limited intelligence and limited past/present knowledge.
The reality is that God would not know or guess this random, spontaneous mess from trillions of years ago. It is also no deficiency in His intelligence or omniscience since it was not a possible object of certain knowledge before this moment89sg =t3iyhji];lknk[rskpjsym nmyj3y387687ml; mvb. v ;poerthaehpoe
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Unless you assume the future is played out in a parallel universe (science fiction) and is just like the fixed past or actual present, or unless you assume that God caused me to do this dumb thingr8g b;ngh[nb .xcv bebnhobhnkj n
....negating any sense of freedom and being self-determining vs robotic in the image of God...then you should change your exhaustive definite foreknowledge views.
Go ahead....try mushing your keys....then explain to me if YOU or God caused the random letters and/or how He would 'see' you doing this from before the beginning of the universe. If He saw it, then could you have been killed in a car crash yesterday?
gj9e9jugh-9gjhu=89aj :rotfl:
RobE said:
Planning is intention and possible/probable. One can know as possible/probable, or one can know things as certain/actual. God plan and knew possible and probable outcomes, but this does not mean He knew exhaustively every moral and mundane choice as certain for all time and eternity. His plans were wise, but reality unfolds leading to new experiences and knowledge for God. This does not mean He was imperfect or limited in His knowledge. It is just that the possible objects of certain knowledge grow exponentially every day. God correctly and exhaustively knows all that is knowable. The non-existent future is not a possible object of certain knowledge unless God brings it to pass by His ability (which He does for some vs all of the future).
RobE said:
Theodicy...the problem of evil.
A Calvinist would say that God caused or had a purpose for the existence of evil.
A free will theist would say that evil entered the universe through the misuse of God-given free will.
God created everything 'very good'. Lucifer and Adam had the will to obey or disobey God. They both misused their will, without causation back of the will (hence culpable), and fell, becoming what God never intended and introducing evil into a righteous universe. The rest is history...
God_Is_Truth
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zapp said:
You cannot study scripture without logic. In declaring God above logic and logic as temporal you show that you have no real understanding of what logic is.
Indeed! :thumb:God_Is_Truth said:
The Bible declare Jesus to be the very personification of Logic! Just as God is Love, God is also Logic!
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The Greek translated "Word" in the above passage is 'Logos'. Our English word 'Logic' is a transliteration of this same word. Logos and Logic are the same word, they mean the same thing.
Logic Is God
"It is to be hoped that these remarks on the relation between God and truth will be seen as pertinent to the discussion of logic. In any case, the subject of logic can be more clearly introduced by one more Scriptural reference. The well-known prologue to John’s Gospel may be paraphrased, "In the beginning was Logic, and Logic was with God, and Logic was God.... In logic was life and the life was the light of men."
This paraphrase—in fact, this translation—may not only sound strange to devout ears, it may even sound obnoxious and offensive. But the shock only measures the devout person’s distance from the language and thought of the Greek New Testament. Why it is offensive to call Christ Logic, when it does not offend to call him a word, is hard to explain. But such is often the case. Even Augustine, because he insisted that God is truth, has been subjected to the anti-intellectualistic accusation of "reducing" God to a proposition. At any rate, the strong intellectualism of the word Logos is seen in its several possible translations: to wit, computation, (financial) accounts, esteem, proportion and (mathematical) ratio, explanation, theory or argument, principle or law, reason, formula, debate, narrative, speech, deliberation, discussion, oracle, sentence, and wisdom.
Any translation of John 1:1 that obscures this emphasis on mind or reason is a bad translation. And if anyone complains that the idea of ratio or debate obscures the personality of the second person of the Trinity, he should alter his concept of personality. In the beginning, then, was Logic." - Gordon H. Clark
"It is to be hoped that these remarks on the relation between God and truth will be seen as pertinent to the discussion of logic. In any case, the subject of logic can be more clearly introduced by one more Scriptural reference. The well-known prologue to John’s Gospel may be paraphrased, "In the beginning was Logic, and Logic was with God, and Logic was God.... In logic was life and the life was the light of men."
This paraphrase—in fact, this translation—may not only sound strange to devout ears, it may even sound obnoxious and offensive. But the shock only measures the devout person’s distance from the language and thought of the Greek New Testament. Why it is offensive to call Christ Logic, when it does not offend to call him a word, is hard to explain. But such is often the case. Even Augustine, because he insisted that God is truth, has been subjected to the anti-intellectualistic accusation of "reducing" God to a proposition. At any rate, the strong intellectualism of the word Logos is seen in its several possible translations: to wit, computation, (financial) accounts, esteem, proportion and (mathematical) ratio, explanation, theory or argument, principle or law, reason, formula, debate, narrative, speech, deliberation, discussion, oracle, sentence, and wisdom.
Any translation of John 1:1 that obscures this emphasis on mind or reason is a bad translation. And if anyone complains that the idea of ratio or debate obscures the personality of the second person of the Trinity, he should alter his concept of personality. In the beginning, then, was Logic." - Gordon H. Clark
Resting in Him,
Clete
When you discover that your theology leads you to accuse God of being "the author of sin," it should be cause to re-evaluate your foundational beliefs that led you there. an error somewhere. As you're writing it, you ought to intuitively know, "This can't be right. I must have made an error somewhere along the way."Hilston said:
I'd be like if you find yourself saying that celebrating Christmas is worse than abort-- Oh, wait. Let me put it another way:
It's like when you're doing a long physics problem, and when you arrive at the answer you (along with everyone else) can plainly see that it's completely out-to-lunch, so if you have any sense you know to go back and check your work.
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. James 1:13
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God_Is_Truth said:
Why is it that the all powerful God that is described by the SVer is unable to express who and what He is, and what it is that He wants and desires from us in terms we can understand? Why is an all powerful God so challenged in translating what it is that He wants us to know of Him, He ends up (according to the SVer) having to say the very opposite of what He means? Is this really too hard for God? If He said He repented in His word, yet He didn't really meant it, is it really that hard to let us know that He really didn't mean it?
elected4ever
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Is God in control or not?patman said:
First of all, it's not an accusation, Turbo. No one can rightly accuse God of anything (contrary to what existentialist Open Deism teaches). Second, it's not an accusation, but a feature. The fact that God authored evil and sin for His good purposes is precisely why the Settled Theist can trust Him. Open Deists cannot rationally trust their God because He is only a skoche less clueless than finite errant men. The Unsettled Sand God is a humonguous Loser who doesn't know Shinola from a hole in the ground. The humanistic existentialist mind is so malnourished of biblical nutrients that it can't even apply it's own humanistic ideas to God's authoring of evil for good. There's nothing wrong with God being the author of sin anymore than there's something wrong with Agatha Christie being the author of murder mysteries. Just because Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote books that contained evil acts does not mean that Sir Doyle was evil himself.Turbo said:
There is no error. It's a feature. It's a wonderful truth that believers ought to take comfort from. It's no wonder that Unsettled Deists are so mentally scattered and caught in an emotional maelstrom. They have no sure footing; no solid Rock upon which to base their faith, trust or confidence, let alone their philosophy of life or knowledge of reality. All according to God's decree, of course.Turbo said:
Contrary to what you might think, there is no "long problem" that draws out a complex and far-removed conclusion that God exhaustively and meticulously planned every event in history, past, present and future. It's a very short exercise, and ineluctably accessible to those who have ears to hear and eyes to see. There is no "work" to check, Turbo. It's as plain as day, except, of course, for those who have cemented the Open View lenses to their faces (all according to God's decree, of course).Turbo said:
How is that verse, in your mind, relevant to anything you've written?Turbo said:
By the way, I want to thank everyone who contributed to the negative reputation points. I was getting worried. Now I'm sure that I am on the right track.
elected4ever said:
The better question is what type of control does God exercise? A teacher can be in 'control' of the classroom without controlling every student's thoughts, moves, actions. If they act up, and they likely will, then the teacher can step in. If they act within reasonable parameters, the teacher does not have to 'control' anything.
Hyper-sovereignty makes God a cosmic control freak. A good parent does not control children lest they never mature or experience love and freedom. God is so competent that He does not need to meticulously control everything to bring His purposes to pass (relational theism vs determinism). Providential, responsive, creative, flexible control is the biblical model (see John Sanders study on providence/sovereignty: "The God who risks").
God is in control, but not the way hyper-Calvinism distorts it.
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