ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 1

[Mustard Seed]

The Trinity is a revelation in Scripture. We would not intuitively assume God is triune unless He revealed Himself as such. Likewise we would not know if there was one God or many gods unless He revealed His nature and character.

It's no such thing. That's why it took the councils and creeds to establish it. Their mere existence shows how lost the early church had become to the nature of God. The trinity is just a philosophical interpolation created by those who dominated the councils.

True divine revelation bares out something far different from the trinity. That's why Stephen saw Jesus standing on the right hand of the Father.

The issues surrounding free will and foreknowledge are biblical, logical, and philosophical. Even with secular philosophy, apart from belief in God (cf. mathematics), it can be demonstrated that foreknowledge is incompatible with free will.

That's using an outdated and incomplete form of human logic. Look into the present mathematics in super string theory (or even just quantum theory) and they bare out a far different view on the surrounding issues than you presently fathom.

This is a huge debate in academic circles. I suspect you are not conversant enough with it to understand why many thinkers see it as an actual vs apparent problem.

Up untill just recently the idea of extra dimensions was mocked to scorn in such circles, now it's a very real possibility, and may, at some point in the near future, prove to be a certainty. Your trust in such 'grand' academic circles is odd as their concensus has drasticaly changed with rather great frequency in a great many topics once viewed as settled not long ago. To think their keen intellects have arrived at certainty in this realm, or that my stance is not as worthy consideration simply because I lack a few pieces of paper that they have or a few extra letters in my formal title is simply a foolish position to take.

God correctly knows the future as possible, not certain/actual, until it becomes actual in real space-time history.

This above positions assumptions are not even certain in today's physics. I'm not a genius but I know that much.

God has a history. This shows that He is not timeless and that the future is partially open and unsettled at this moment in time/history.

It shows no such thing.

This is how God reveals His experiences in revelation (Hebraic view). The other view is a Greek, Platonic concept of an absolutely changeless, perfect Being. The problem is that this logically makes God impersonal, not personal, since will (actions), intellect (thoughts), and emotions (feelings), require change, time, sequence, duration (not so-called incoherent timelessness).

Only following your finite and flawed logical paradigm does it do such. If all is weighed in the balance you would see that God both has an absolute knowledge of all chronological points AND maintains the agency and free will of all of us. It may give fits to your narrow mind but that does not negate it's reality. Revelation has made it clear that God knows what we will chose. That's why God had no qualms about stating what Job's response would be to ANYTHING Satan would dish out.

I've yet to see anyone successfully counter, in terms of logic, the Job scenario from what you see to be the "open" view.

 

[godrulz]

Rob:

Inanimate creation operates under the law of cause and effect. If I drop a rock, it will fall unless intervened upon supernaturally.

Animate creation is governed by the law of instinct. Birds migrate every year instinctively.

Moral creation is not merely cause-effect like typing on a keyboard. We operate on the law of love, freedom, and choice. We can chose between alternatives with our wills and intellect. If I tell God or someone that I love them, this is a higher level and freedom than a rock falling. It is a humanistic philosophy that reduces us to data in/data out. Murder or love involves more than neuropathways moving or arms. This is why we are culpable/responsible for our choices. Strict cause-effect is worthy of rocks, but not those who are in the moral, personal, and spiritual image of God. Does God not have more freedom than a law of cause/effect in His awesome, free choices?

 

[Mustard Seed]

Rob:

Inanimate creation operates under the law of cause and effect. If I drop a rock, it will fall unless intervened upon supernaturally.

Animate creation is governed by the law of instinct. Birds migrate every year instinctively.

Moral creation is not merely cause-effect like typing on a keyboard. We operate on the law of love, freedom, and choice. We can chose between alternatives with our wills and intellect. If I tell God or someone that I love them, this is a higher level and freedom than a rock falling. It is a humanistic philosophy that reduces us to data in/data out. Murder or love involves more than neuropathways moving or arms. This is why we are culpable/responsible for our choices. Strict cause-effect is worthy of rocks, but not those who are in the moral, personal, and spiritual image of God. Does God not have more freedom than a law of cause/effect in His awesome, free choices?

I believe that with a higher law comes a higher cause and effect. You're almost trying to portray a universe with a truly omniscient God as one which is no different than a clock. We may all, individualy opperate on free will but there are many indicators that despite the chaos the macro view is full of recognizable and, at some point, forcastable paterns. Akin to the seeming contrast betwixt newtonian physics and quantum physics. On a quantum level it almost seems as though every point in the universe had, to some degree, it's own free will (actualy a concept I hold as plausible) it's chaos. Particles literaly arriving before they leave. appearing in two or more places at once. going from one loop on a figure eight equivalant shape without leaving the figure eight or passing between the center crossing point. Quantum physics truly appears to mirror the paterns as they play out on a micro human scale. Each individual seeming utterly unpredictable. Yet as a whole paterns are emerging and what we once saw an incling of in weather we are getting a glimps of in things like economics and macro social views. Even history makes the paterns obvious. Love is a law. Since it is such it follows a paradigm. While this paradigm crosses beyond easy calculation and becomes unified to a great degree, if not an absolute degree, with agency, it is not something beyond the grasp of God to discover the direction it will take the masses. God knows all. He doesn't restrain anyone, doesn't force anyone. Everyone makes the choices so they too can discover what the Almighty knows about them. God wants all, and if he can't have all, as many as possible, to return to him. The worth of souls, ANY AND EVERY SOUL, is great in the sight of God. No one is predestined to salvation or damnation. They make the choice and in so doing bare out and reveal to their own minds hearts and souls the greatness God knows is in them. We all have the seeds of eternal life. We are left to determine what we will do with the soil. Simply because God has all present before him does not mean that he's chosen anything for us.

 

[Clete]

Free Will vs. Divine Foreknowledge

 

[elected4ever]

Rob:

Inanimate creation operates under the law of cause and effect. If I drop a rock, it will fall unless intervened upon supernaturally.

Animate creation is governed by the law of instinct. Birds migrate every year instinctively.

Moral creation is not merely cause-effect like typing on a keyboard. We operate on the law of love, freedom, and choice. We can chose between alternatives with our wills and intellect. If I tell God or someone that I love them, this is a higher level and freedom than a rock falling. It is a humanistic philosophy that reduces us to data in/data out. Murder or love involves more than neuropathways moving or arms. This is why we are culpable/responsible for our choices. Strict cause-effect is worthy of rocks, but not those who are in the moral, personal, and spiritual image of God. Does God not have more freedom than a law of cause/effect in His awesome, free choices?

God did not create man, moral. Man had the ability to choose morality. Man choose morality over the will of God. A choice that God specifically told man not to make. Man chose his own morality over the reveled will of God. A moral man is no closer to God than an immoral one.

 

[Mustard Seed]

God did not create man, moral. Man had the ability to choose morality. Man choose morality over the will of God. A choice that God specifically told man not to make. Man chose his own morality over the reveled will of God. A moral man is no closer to God than an immoral one.

Nice point touching the amoral nature of life sans the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If there was not good or evil the entire existance of morality, in the innocent context of the garden, is gone.

 

[elected4ever]

Nice point touching the amoral nature of life sans the tree of knowledge of good and evil' Would you edit this word. I don't know what it is.

 

[Clete]

God did not create man, moral. Man had the ability to choose morality. Man choose morality over the will of God. A choice that God specifically told man not to make. Man chose his own morality over the reveled will of God. A moral man is no closer to God than an immoral one.

e4e,

Is God good?

 

[elected4ever]

e4e,

Is God good?

Jesus said he was so yes, God is good.

 

[Sozo]

e4e,

Is God good?

Are you?

 

[elected4ever]

e4e,

Is God good?

Would you agree that good is a subjective term when used by man and applied to man by man?

 

[Clete]

God did not create man, moral. Man had the ability to choose morality. Man choose morality over the will of God. A choice that God specifically told man not to make. Man chose his own morality over the reveled will of God. A moral man is no closer to God than an immoral one.

God is good

:dizzy:

 

[Clete]

Would you agree that good is a subjective term when used by man and applied to man by man?

No.

Any such subjective application is in error. Good and evil are not subjective but rather are objectively defined by a discription of God's character.

 

[elected4ever]

:dizzy:

You have been :dizzy: most of the time anyway. So what is new?

 

[Clete]

Are you?

I am, in Christ.

 

[Sozo]

I am, in Christ.

How do you know?

 

[elected4ever]

No.

Any such subjective application is in error. Good and evil are not subjective but rather are objectively defined by a description of God's character.

I agree but we are not talking about Biblical application but man's application to himself.

 

[Clete]

I agree but we are not talking about Biblical application but man's application to himself.

No we aren't. You said that God did not make Adam moral but that he had to choose between morality and God. That sounds like a Biblical issue to me.

 

[Clete]

How do you know?

Because the Bible says so.

2 Corinthians 5:21For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.​

 

[elected4ever]

No we aren't. You said that God did not make Adam moral but that he had to choose between morality and God. That sounds like a Biblical issue to me.

Are you asserting that Adam had a knowledge of good and evil before he ate the fruit of the tree? That also sounds like a biblical issue.