ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 1

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Philetus

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Philetus: Euphythro fails to remember that the 'knowledge of good and evil' wasn't part of the original creation. It resulted from the fall, it wasn't the cause of it.

Clete: I don't think I follow you. It sounds interesting though!

Please elaborate.

It always sounds better before I try to essplain it to Lucy. Oh, well.

Iffythrow's argument centers around the concern that either good is Good because God says it is good, or because Good is really Good, not just good because God says so or maybe isn't really good at all, not even better. (Same ol philosophical BS like God is perfect therefore God can't change without becoming either more or less perfect.)


For Christians at least (who cares about the Greeks) the starting premise is off base, in that the original creation wasn’t based on the 'knowledge of good & evil', it was based on relationships pure and simple. The created order was a pure reflection of WHO God is, perfect relationship, balance and unity - not on what is Good or evil - not even more or less on less is more.:rolleyes: The universe was characterized as abundance. Everything needed was provided. Reciprocal loving relationships are not based on judgment, but mutual respect and selflessness. Second guessing relationships started the whole judgment dilemma of good and evil. This is good, that is not good. But, what’s good for the goose is Good, period. That’s the kind of universe God created. Good! We messed it up by not honoring the freedom that relationship afforded; hence everything since (even God and God's way?) is judged by us as either good or evil and either contributing to or frustrating relationships. The reason we can not fulfill the Law (which Paul judges as a good thing) is because we no longer have the character of God. The reason we judge our neighbor to be evil is, more often than not, to make ourselves look good in our own eyes. That’s what got nailed to the cross in Christ and started the new creation on its way to a new future. (Boyd's "Repenting of(or from) Religion" is great help at this point, but it is a killer for Pharisees and would give some of the "not nicer than God" crowd heartburn.

Once again Greek Philosophy hijacks the Gospel; side tracks the discussion; and frustrates the heck out of the simple truth.

There, I’ve told you more than I know.:shut:
 

Philetus

New member
Clete, in other words I was right. You don't know what you are talking about.

No, Clete didn't know what I was talking about and neither you, Clete nor I know what you are talking about yet.

You need to lighten up or I will shoot you again.:chuckle:
 

Philetus

New member
Yesterday, 02:44 PM
________________________________________
Enyart's argument is the most covoluted argument I've seen on this delima.

Nonetheless, he might in some distorted way have some glimpse of truth.

Enyart would be better off defining good and evil first.
Morality is derived through human reason. Even Enyart's distorted argument is through his "reason."

This moral consistency doesn't work. If one act of a person such as commiting theft is a sin then a hundred good acts does not erase the sin.

Enyart seems to be trying to say you have these three God heads of the trinity checking up on one another. This is similar to the Greek Gods where you had a heirarchy of Gods and even when they commited bad acts in the end it was all balanced out.

A description of God's nature argument is the same as the track record if we see God kills people in the Old Testament, then it is an evil act no matter if God does a hundred good acts later.

What Enyart should try to say is that as we do in just war, the killing is incidental, but the goal is to maintain justice or preserve the good.

So if you try to say God decides what is moral and leave human reason out of it, you slip into arbitrariness.

Open theism is the second horn and Enyart hasn't shown any way around it or realized that open theism opens the door to it.

You see, Johnny Boy, I agree that Enyart’s argument is weak, but your insistence that he define/essplaine good and evil is where your whole line of reasoning goes south and he buys into it. There is NO essplaining good and evil. God is great, God is good, and we still have to eat spinach and be thankful! (Theodicy 101.)

There is no such thing as a one sided relationship. God in essence says, we can do this the easy way, the way of relationship, or the hard way. We chose 'good and evil' over relationship and wonder why it is so difficult to essplain ourselves or God’s responses. Good and evil is part of the problem not the solution.

The Cross!!!!! Repaying evil with Good is the solution. What we see in the Old Testament is the only recourse we left God, other than total destruction of creation or self-sacrificing love.

Ah, but Noah found GRACE in the eyes of the LORD.
 

Philetus

New member
Open Theism 101


Ge 6:8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

Ge 6:9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

Ge 6:13 - So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.

1Pe 3:20
Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

BEFORE YOU POST THAT:

I didn’t say Enyart’s argument was wrong. I said it was weak.

Morality is a problem in human reasoning, not in divine character.

Open Theism isn’t the other horn, it’s the saw that dehorns the bull.

Open Theism says that even though humanity chooses to invent a dilemma for its self, God remains redemptive, and open to relationship.
 

Johnny Boy

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Banned
Philetus, your whole statement mentions this is good and that is evil, so if you are using good and evil is your statement, you should be able to define it.

Otherwise whose to say that evil is actually or that the words have absolutely no meaning.
 

Philetus

New member
Philetus, your whole statement mentions this is good and that is evil, so if you are using good and evil is your statement, you should be able to define it.

Otherwise whose to say that evil is actually or that the words have absolutely no meaning.

You got the point.

They have absolutly no meaning whatsoever in a relationship based on mutual respect and selflessness.

Is your future writen in stone or on the heart of God?
 

Yorzhik

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JB... the fact that you need a definition of good and evil is where your argument fails. But I won't explain it to you because you keep trying to argue and it's pretty funny.
 

Philetus

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Philetus, your whole statement mentions this is good and that is evil, so if you are using good and evil is your statement, you should be able to define it.

Otherwise whose to say that evil is actually or that the words have absolutely no meaning.
NOT!

So, go back and find the one thing I said was good and anything I said was evil.

Be sure to quote it, word for word.




Another tin bullett was left on the desk.
 

Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
Philetus,

Ignoring the moron in the group for the moment, and focusing instead on this idea you are putting forward about good and evil, would you say that the terms 'good' and 'evil' are equivalent to 'righteous' and 'unrighteous'?

If so then I have more questions but if not, then how would you say that they are different?
 

Nang

TOL Subscriber
Philetus,

Ignoring the moron in the group for the moment, and focusing instead on this idea you are putting forward about good and evil, would you say that the terms 'good' and 'evil' are equivalent to 'righteous' and 'unrighteous'?

If so then I have more questions but if not, then how would you say that they are different?

Hmmm . . . new here . . .

Sorry to see Clete is still acting emotional and calling people ugly names in the attempt to spread his false teaching.

He is easily put down, if you folk will simply call his bluff.

Nang
 

Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
Hmmm . . . new here . . .

Sorry to see Clete is still acting emotional and calling people ugly names in the attempt to spread his false teaching.

He is easily put down, if you folk will simply call his bluff.

Nang

Do it then!

I call morons, morons and liars, liars. If you don't like it leave and don't come back.

Otherwise, put your butt in the sling your mouth likes to swing and "put me down", if you can.
 

Philetus

New member
Philetus,

Ignoring the moron in the group for the moment, and focusing instead on this idea you are putting forward about good and evil, would you say that the terms 'good' and 'evil' are equivalent to 'righteous' and 'unrighteous'?

If so then I have more questions but if not, then how would you say that they are different?

Words come up short but I think you are on to the real dilemma we face. To speak of God in terms of our own mess fails miserably.

Only God is ‘righteous’ and everything and everybody else (all creation) is measured accordingly from their own perspective (by judging others we only succeed in condemning ourselves). This, that, and the other isn’t evil because God declares it to be evil, it is only evil because it is out of balance, out of right relationship to/with God.
To speak of ‘good and evil’ is to speak not of God, but about our selves in and from a fallen state, i.e out of relationship.

The dilemma comes when in Christ Jesus, God satisfies God’s own righteousness, and by GRACE declares any and all who believe to be righteous. Our own righteousness remains as filthy rags, yet, God says we are in right relationship anyway.


Why do you call me good?
 

Nang

TOL Subscriber
Do it then!

I call morons, morons and liars, liars. If you don't like it leave and don't come back.

Otherwise, put your butt in the sling your mouth likes to swing and "put me down", if you can.

I see you have not changed . . .you know, your online reputation grows, and follows you.

You are a hateful person, and it is impossible for hatefulness to bear Godly fruit.

Hopefully, there are many on this site who already see through you, and discount your ravings. I would hate to have to be the one to repeat your sorry history and failings.

Nang
 

Johnny Boy

BANNED
Banned
Goodness is wholeness or perfection of being and is therefore objective.

Evil is what ought to exist by something's nature and is subjective.

So goodness is not a subjective relationship like evil. Also gooness can exist without evil.

This is how we know God is good because he is the most perfect of being.

Now I'll admit that what we can say about God is limited in either an anological way or that or language to express god is limited, but nonetheless human reason, which is what these argumnents are based on and what God gave us to know him by can say something about God's nature.

And if through reading Scripture, we see God commit an act that we know is evil, then we have to understand that act in terms of our reason why it is only incidentally evil.
 

Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
Words come up short but I think you are on to the real dilemma we face. To speak of God in terms of our own mess fails miserably.

Only God is ‘righteous’ and everything and everybody else (all creation) is measured accordingly from their own perspective (by judging others we only succeed in condemning ourselves). This, that, and the other isn’t evil because God declares it to be evil, it is only evil because it is out of balance, out of right relationship to/with God.
To speak of ‘good and evil’ is to speak not of God, but about our selves in and from a fallen state, i.e out of relationship.

The dilemma comes when in Christ Jesus, God satisfies God’s own righteousness, and by GRACE declares any and all who believe to be righteous. Our own righteousness remains as filthy rags, yet, God says we are in right relationship anyway.


Why do you call me good?
I don't see how any of this is responsive to the question I asked.

The point was basically that I think you are getting hung up on the terms good and evil and missing the point that the dilemma is about the concepts not the terms. God is either righteous or He is not, He has either always been righteous or He is not righteous at all. For the purposes of Euthyphro's Dilemma the terms 'good' and 'righteous' are interchangeable.

If you suggest that in relation to God the term 'righteous' has no meaning then you have only taken one horn of the dilemma and resolved nothing.

Resting in Him,
Clete
 

Philetus

New member
Real butter or the movie butter coconut oil? Aw, never mind, pour it on, lots please.

There just might be a second round, after all.

And in this corner, weighing in with sticks and stones ...
Hmmm . . . new here . . .

Sorry to see Clete is still acting emotional and calling people ugly names in the attempt to spread his false teaching.

He is easily put down, if you folk will simply call his bluff.

Nang

Oh, come on. And play.

Right now he is calling my bluff.

You will get a turn.
 
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