ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 2

[godrulz]

Overstreet, like his mentor Finney, complains:
"the one great problem of original sin is that it clashes with man's irresistible convictions of justice"

In other words, Overstreet just doesn't "feel" the doctrine of original sin is "right".

Yet Overstreet's alternative proposal is nothing more than the same depraved, graceless, theology held by his spiritual ancestors, Finney and Pelagius. This is grave error and not worthy of being associated with Christianity.

In other words, deductive, proof-texted Calvinism is true and everyone else is false.

Does Overstreet believe in Finney? I was not aware of this? Please show me the proof apart from a common rejection of Catholic original sin.

 

[Philetus]

God has value and worth because of who He is in His being. We have value and worth because we are in the Imago Dei. This is why Francis Schaeffer argues against abortion and euthanasia, because he understands this biblical truth. The image of God in man is defaced, not erased, marred, not destroyed. Christ does not die for and redeem junk.

I am not sure why I made this point. It seems so off topic to OT?!

Total depravity, maybe?

The settled (and Mystery’s) view reduces man to a nothing. I'm not sure God would be pleased with such demeaning of His handy work. Sin destroys. It robs, steals and kills. I can’t imagine God would care if what it destroys is of no value to Him. Anyway it all boils down to loving reciprocal relationship which God made possible again through the death of Jesus.

 

[Philetus]

You just said that we are to love our neighbors. We love, because He first loved us. If we only love our neighbors because ther is something in them worthy of our love, then we will begin to place more worth on some and less on others. God had to bring all of us to the same level of complete and utter depravity in order to make the riches of His glory known to all. Have you never read the book of Romans? What do you think Paul is saying in chapters 2-5?

"But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.) May it never be! For otherwise how will God judge the world?"

God’s righteousness is magnified through the revelation of our unrighteousness. Man may think that it is unjust for God to judge us when we have no choice but to be who we are… unrighteous, unholy, dead, sinners. However, it is necessary to show us our condition so that we will turn to God to find grace and mercy.

This cuts to the core of the gospel. Your view of God and man is distorted, and you are attempting to close the gap on God's righteousness and man's unrighteousness. You are destroying the work of the gospel which is the power of God unto salvation. The righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel (God is right, and you are not). God gave the Law to reveal the enormity of the chasim between God and man, so that man would see that he is utterly hopeless, utterly lost, and completely dead. We are wholly in darkness, and God's enemies. You blaspheme His sacrifice when you give that which He died for value.

The only value we have is that God values/loves us enough to die for us ... to redeem us at His own expense and give us life again. I understand your position. We don't love our neighbor because they deserve it. We are to love them because we are loved by God. We love them because God ascribes infinite worth to them, even in their wretched state.

 

[Nang]

The only value we have is that God values/loves us enough to die for us ... to redeem us at His own expense and give us life again. I understand your position. We don't love our neighbor because they deserve it. We are to love them because we are loved by God. We love them because God ascribes infinite worth to them, even in their wretched state.

Philetus,

God deals with all men as sinners.

God cannot even look upon sin, so what worth do you think God saw in any of us as sinners?

What was in any of us that would deserve God's attention, let alone His sacrifice?

And even those of us who have been forgiven our sins . . .what can we offer God? What can we give to God or add to God? What can we boast about? Nothing! We are bereft of contributing virtues before His perfection (completeness).

Does God need anything from us?

Does God require anything from us?

No.

God does command something of us though. He commands that we be thankful for His great love, mercy, and grace.

Nang

 

[elected4ever]

Your Christology is still defective (deny His Deity), but at least your spelling is improving.

I can always count on you for a stupid post.:juggle:

 

[Philetus]

Philetus,

God deals with all men as sinners.

God cannot even look upon sin, so what worth do you think God saw in any of us as sinners?

What was in any of us that would deserve God's attention, let alone His sacrifice?

And even those of us who have been forgiven our sins . . .what can we offer God? What can we give to God or add to God? What can we boast about? Nothing! We are bereft of contributing virtues before His perfection (completeness).

Does God need anything from us?

Does God require anything from us?

No.

God does command something of us though. He commands that we be thankful for His great love, mercy, and grace.

Nang

That's because all have sinned.
None. I don’t know why but God ascribed/assigned/attributed worth/significance/importance to us while we were still sinners. Blows your mind doesn’t it.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Not one thing.
Faith.
To love even as we are loved.

We both know better but God thought you were worth dying for. Amazing, isn't it.



Where ya been, Nang. Missed ya.
Philetus

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

God’s Love

Selfishness is the antithesis of love. Putting Himself first is the right thing, not the selfish thing. He is worthy because of His great value, not because He has an ego or is insecure.

Knowing you, you do not understand arbitrary. God is impartial, loving, just, holy, etc., but He is NOT arbitrary, fickle, capricious.

GR,

I am not sure you fully understand God’s love.

In your many posts, you seem to start from the human experience instead of from the Word of God, ignoring clear revelation while exalting your own ability to find out God and determine His nature. In other words, you reason in error, making God in the image of man.

As anyone reading Job must conclude, any attempt to demonstrate by purely intellectual processes the truth of God's nature is absolutely hopeless. We do not elicit knowledge from God as we do from other topics of study. God conveys knowledge of Himself to man—this is a knowledge which man can only accept and appropriate.

God's goodness exercised towards his creatures assumes the higher character of love. God's love can be thought of as that perfection of God by which God is eternally moved to self-communication. God's love cannot and will not find complete satisfaction in any object falling short of absolute perfection, for God is absolutely good in Himself. God loves His creatures for His own sake, or, expressed differently, God loves in them Himself, His virtues, His work, and His gifts.

God is an integrated being with attributes that are harmonious. Defining God’s attributes in isolation from one another leads to many conflicts, especially with respect to justice and love. We should be defining God’s attributes in the light of one another. Hence, justice is loving justice and love is just love. There is absolutely nothing in the Scriptures that conceives of God’s love apart from God’s justice. It is not biblical. One cannot fully understand love unless love is seen as including justice. If love excludes justice, what remains is sentimentality.

Some may even say that justice is love distributed—to all our neighbors, those at hand, and those even far removed. Justice means that love must always be shown, whether or not some situation presents an immediate and vivid need. Biblically, love is not simply indulgence of the near at hand for love inherently involves justice. What I mean by this is that there is a concern for the ultimate welfare of all of humanity, a passion to do what is right, and enforcing the consequences for actions that are wrong. There is absolutely no tension between God’s justice and love.

 

[Philetus]

Quote:
Originally Posted by godrulz

Selfishness is the antithesis of love. Putting Himself first is the right thing, not the selfish thing. He is worthy because of His great value, not because He has an ego or is insecure.

Knowing you, you do not understand arbitrary. God is impartial, loving, just, holy, etc., but He is NOT arbitrary, fickle, capricious.

GR,
I think what AMR said is that "God is so arbitrary!" :yawn:

Philetus

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

In other words, deductive, proof-texted Calvinism is true and everyone else is false.

Huh? Is this relative to anything in my previous post? Or are you just feeling combative lately?

Does Overstreet believe in Finney? I was not aware of this? Please show me the proof apart from a common rejection of Catholic original sin.

Why do I always have to do the heavy lifting for you?

"Calvinism", "Catholic original sin" -- Can you ever make a post that does not include unsupportable dogmatic assertions? It is as if you are so desperate for your words to be taken as profound that you will use any attempt to appear as the "voice of reason".

Would Overstreet's own words suffice?
http://evangelbooksonline.com/author.html

 

[Nang]

That's because all have sinned.
None. I don’t know why but God ascribed/assigned/attributed worth/significance/importance to us while we were still sinners. Blows your mind doesn’t it.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Not one thing.
Faith.
To love even as we are loved.

We both know better but God thought you were worth dying for. Amazing, isn't it.

I don't believe God died for a single soul according to any human "worth." Jesus Christ died for a people because the Truine Godhead determined to display God's worthiness and grace.

Where ya been, Nang. Missed ya.
Philetus

Oh, causing trouble, here and there . . .

You must not read anything but this thread. :sigh:

 

[Clete]

An act which was committed by one who was righteous before the act.

He was righteous before that particular act but not before He acted at all. There has never been a time before God the Son loved the other members of the Trinity. Love is a righteous act of the will (i.e. it must be chosen) thus God's righteousness cannot be divorced from an act of His will (i.e. His chosen action).

Would you like to tell me which dispensation those were written to?

Justice is a transdispensational principle Lighthouse. It is completely irrelevant which dispensation these passages where written too. Justice remains an unchanged principle and attribute of the unchanging nature of the Living God.

And aren't you one who believes that we cannot lose our salvation, even if we sin? So how is it we are allowed into Heaven, based on our nature and not our sin, and those who are not allowed into Heaven are not allowed based on their sin and not their nature?

This is completely off topic because you somehow got the idea that this is a dispensational issue but nevertheless, the answer to you question is that where there is no law, sin is not imputed. For those who are in Christ, the law has been taken out of the way and nailed to the cross. Thus sin is not imputed to the believer because Christ has taken our punishment upon Himself. God thereby JUSTLY allows the believer into heaven on the basis of the one Man's righteous act at Calvary. It is not on the basis of our nature, nor is it on the basis of our lack of sin, but rather on and only on the basis of Christ's righteous action on our behalf.

Well, I could say they were for a different dispensation, certainly. But I don't know if that would be my only answer, if given time.

Well its good that it wouldn't be your only answer because as I pointed out, the fundamental principles of justice do change from one dispensation to the next. The particular rules (i.e. the house rules i.e. the oikonomia) might change but never has God condemned anyone for anything but their very own sin. No one will go to Hell for Adam's sin except perhaps for Adam. A principle affirmed by both Jeremiah 31 and Romans 5.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Clete]

I don't believe God died for a single soul according to any human "worth." Jesus Christ died for a people because the Truine Godhead determined to display God's worthiness and grace.

It is incredible to me the far distance Calvinism removes believers from the most basic principles of Scripture. To the Calvinist Christianity has nothing to do with God loving us but rather with God figuring out how many ways He can show off. How is it possible for a Christian to be brought to a place where they would affirm that God died for any other reason than that He loves us and thought us worth saving? Doesn't anyone ever read John 3:16 any more? :doh:

God did not give Himself for us because He wanted "to display [His] worthiness and grace" but because He so loved us...

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.​

How many decades does it take to remove this simple truth from the mind of a Christian child and replace it with the God of vanity that Calvinism promotes?

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Nang]

It is incredible to me the far distance Calvinism removes believers from the most basic principles of Scripture. To the Calvinist Christianity has nothing to do with God loving us but rather with God figuring out how many ways He can show off. How is it possible for a Christian to be brought to a place where they would affirm that God died for any other reason than that He loves us and thought us worth saving? Doesn't anyone ever read John 3:16 any more? :doh:

God did not give Himself for us because He wanted "to display [His] worthiness and grace" but because He so loved us...

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.​

How many decades does it take to remove this simple truth from the mind of a Christian child and replace it with the God of vanity that Calvinism promotes?

Resting in Him,
Clete

John 3:16 says God so loved the world (created "kosmos") . . .not so loved, sinners.

The salvation of a remnant of mankind is a by-product of God's love and purposes for creating in the first place.

I broached this elementary subject with you once, by you chose not to pursue it . . .so if you continue to not comprehend the things of God, it is not my doing, is it?

Nang

 

[godrulz]

I can always count on you for a stupid post.:juggle:

We aim to please. Just trying to be a smart aleck.

 

[godrulz]

Would Overstreet's own words suffice?
http://evangelbooksonline.com/author.html

Thanks for the homework. I did not know anything about Overstreet and have not even read most of his article that I link to?! I thought it would be good to look at all sides of the debate and felt that he was on the right track.

I do not have a problem with Finney informing our views if they are right. I do have a problem with Augustine, Calvin, Luther informing your views if they are wrong and tainted by Greek philosophy or the Catholic Church.:wave2:

Until we read everything Finney wrote and sit down with him to clarify the issues, we should not jump to conclusions. No man is right or wrong about everything.

 

[Philetus]

I don't believe God died for a single soul according to any human "worth." Jesus Christ died for a people because the Truine Godhead determined to display God's worthiness and grace.




Oh, causing trouble, here and there . . .

You must not read anything but this thread. :sigh:

Yeah, I know. Election is individual (not corporate), Christ died for the whole group (well, not the whole group exactly ... just part of ‘em ) and God loves everybody in general and nobody in particular.

Why are you so afraid of admitting that God can actually have a personal one-on-one relationship with an individual without compromising who He is? Can't God love the whole world and still express His love for each individual without making the others jealous, indifferent or callous? How does God ascribing worth to others compromise His own worth? How does actually loving somebody else and ascribing value to their existence as human beings diminish one's own worth?

"Jesus loves ME, this I know;
For the bible tells ME so."​

There is nothing egotistical about that little profundity; at least not to the little weak ones who belong to Him by grace through faith.






Actually, I read a lot. But my on-line-time is restricted to this thread. Barely have time for this one and it has been dry lately.

Philetus

 

[Nang]

Thanks for the homework. I did not know anything about Overstreet and have not even read most of his article that I link to?! I thought it would be good to look at all sides of the debate and felt that he was on the right track.

I do not have a problem with Finney informing our views if they are right. I do have a problem with Augustine, Calvin, Luther informing your views if they are wrong and tainted by Greek philosophy or the Catholic Church.:wave2:

Until we read everything Finney wrote and sit down with him to clarify the issues, we should not jump to conclusions. No man is right or wrong about everything.

Finney was wrong . . .

 

[Nang]

Yeah, I know. Election is individual (not corporate),

Correct.

Christ died for the whole group

The "whole group" of whom? The whole group of elect individuals, yes.

(well, not the whole group exactly ... just part of ‘em )

No. Jesus died for ALL His particular elect that the Father had given Him.

and God loves everybody in general and nobody in particular.

That is what Muz and others of Arminian persuasion teach. Not me.

Why are you so afraid of admitting that God can actually have a personal one-on-one relationship with an individual without compromising who He is?

Uh, dear friend . . .this is the basis of the doctrine of Unconditional Election. God loves particular sinners according to His gracious Person, not according to their sorry failures to live up to His glory.

Can't God love the whole world

God does love the whole world, which is His creation. That does not mean God loves all the wicked creatures in the world, who hate and rebel against their Maker. God is not obligated in the least to loving those who hate Him.

and still express His love for each individual without making the others jealous, indifferent or callous?

You contradict yourself. If God (supposedly) loves each and every individual in the world, who would be left to suffer the emotions such as "jealous, indifferent, or callous?"

How does God ascribing worth to others compromise His own worth?

Can you provide me with specific Scripture that reveals God ascribing worth to sinners?

How does actually loving somebody else and ascribing value to their existence as human beings diminish one's own worth?

I don't know what you reference, because the Bible does not teach that God "values the existence" of sinners. Let alone that His love for His elect diminishes His own worth.

I think you do not realize the definition of "elect of God" at all!

For the Elect of God, is first of all, His Elect Son. (Isaiah 42:1, I Peter 2:6)

Then there is the particular humanity that is called "elect" which are only those acceptable in the "Beloved" Elect Son of God. (Ephesians 1:5&6).

God's love is bestowed upon Jesus Christ, and only those found positioned in Him, by the gift of grace from God, are saved by this love.

"Jesus loves ME, this I know;
For the bible tells ME so."​

There is nothing egotistical about that little profundity; at least not to the little weak ones who belong to Him by grace through faith.

Amen!

Nang

 

[Clete]

John 3:16 says God so loved the world (created "kosmos") . . .not so loved, sinners.

The salvation of a remnant of mankind is a by-product of God's love and purposes for creating in the first place.

I broached this elementary subject with you once, by you chose not to pursue it . . .so if you continue to not comprehend the things of God, it is not my doing, is it?

Nang

According to you, it's God's doing.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

God’s being revealed by His attributes

God’s being revealed by His attributes

God’s being revealed by His attributes:

Some would have us believe that unless God acts then God is not this or that, e.g., loving or just. Yet, when we consider the simplicity of God (basically that He is without constituent parts), we see that God and His attributes are one. God’s attributes are not so many parts that comprise the composition of God, as God is not composed of different parts (as are His creatures). Nor can God’s attributes be thought as something that is added to God’s being, for God is eternally perfect.

Then how do God’s attributes relate to God?

They certainly are not related to God’s essence as differentiators or major genus, as every other entity is, since God is the sole member of His genus or class. “Besides me there is no other.” We think of a chair as being a piece of furniture (major genus) with seat, four legs, and a back (differentiators from other kinds of furniture). Yet, God cannot be described in this manner. Also, the attributes of God cannot be considered symbolical representations, such as a crown is symbolic of a king. For in this case, the crown only represents the king, and the king is wholly other than a crown. On the other hand, the attributes of God are like Him. Indeed, they are more like Him because they are identical with His being. God’s attributes do not hide what and who God is, but rather they reveal Him. God’s attributes are what God is, in some meaningful way. God’s attributes are identical with His essence. His attributes are not hypostases, as in polytheism or medieval Jewish speculation. God’s attributes are not independent archetypes of beauty, love, and the like, as in Platonism. God’s attributes are not emanations out of God, as in Gnosticism.

When the Scriptures say God is righteous, it means that righteousness is an aspect of God’s being, God seen from a particular aspect/perspective—all of God in that aspect/perspective—and so on for every Scriptural statement about God. When the Scriptures say that God is righteous it means all of God—God in every respect—is righteous. Every positive attribute of God inheres in all positive attributes of God.

In summary, when discussing how God can be righteous, loving, omnipotent, etc., we must be careful to avoid separating the divine essence and the divine attributes/perfections. We must also guard against false conceptions of the relation in which these attributes/perfections stand with each other. God’s attributes are very real determinations of His Divine Being, that is, qualities that inhere in the being of God. God’s perfections are God Himself as He has revealed Himself to mankind. God’s attributes are not parts composing the Divine Essence. The whole essence is in each attribute, and the attribute in the essence. We should not conceive of the divine essence as existing by itself, and prior to the attributes. God is not essence and attributes, but in attributes. Indeed, knowledge of the attributes carries with it knowledge of the essence.