ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 2

[RobE]

I would think that Deism is closer to Calvinism (winding up history an letting it go), than OVT. OVT requires a God who is active in responding to the course of history as it unfolds, so that He will bring about His purposes.

Muz

Open Theism's god certainly has to work hard to try to outwit, outplay, and outlast his pesky creation. I wonder if it the work will ever be 'finished'(or was it?).

Calvinism's God's purpose was creation even though it seems a little messy to us. In the end the Bible assures them that it was all part of his original plan and purpose. Jesus Christ began and finished the plan.

Even though I'm not a Calvinist, that position is more appealing to me than having to worship a benign Greek or Norse God who must constantly meddle in the affairs of mortals to get his way.

Don't get me wrong, I believe God is involved intimately with the workings of His creation according to His original plan(not as a knee jerk reaction). Certainly God is able to change His mind, but why should He? A perfect plan yields perfect results whether we're able to understand the process or not.

 

[Clete]

And, of course, we should all determine our theology based on what is "more appealing".

 

[godrulz]

Pinnock's book or OVT "is more about the openness of God's creation, not of God?"
You have made that statement several times. (That's OK.) But, I think you need to flesh it out a little. What is meant by it?
Can you really have one without the other? Can creation be unsettled in any aspect that doesn't affect the traditional (classical) view of God and His exercise of sovereignty in some way or other?

(Excellent post above, by the way.)

They are related. The authors who make similar statements (there is no such thing as an original idea) seem to be framing the debate as centered on the type of creation God actualized (open vs closed), rather than leaving room for a denial of omniscience, which OT affirm (God knows all that is knowable; a partially open creation is known as such until contingent choices in real time 'close' it).

Thank Boyd for his thoughts which should be read in the whole context, not just my imperfect paraphrase.

 

[godrulz]

I'm not sure we should speculate on God's abilities at this point in the conversation since I have no way to comprehend Him.



How have you been it's been awhile? :wave:

Good to see you back, jack. I am fine, I suppose. We can know truth about God based on His self-revelation, but we do not know all things about Him exhaustively. Other areas can be speculated on with godly philosophy and reason without dogmatism.

e.g. incompatibilism vs compatibilism (relating to free will/predestination)...we should be able to formulate an opinion based on biblical evidence and sound reasoning.

 

[godrulz]

Open Theism's god certainly has to work hard to try to outwit, outplay, and outlast his pesky creation. I wonder if it the work will ever be 'finished'(or was it?).

Calvinism's God's purpose was creation even though it seems a little messy to us. In the end the Bible assures them that it was all part of his original plan and purpose. Jesus Christ began and finished the plan.

Even though I'm not a Calvinist, that position is more appealing to me than having to worship a benign Greek or Norse God who must constantly meddle in the affairs of mortals to get his way.

Don't get me wrong, I believe God is involved intimately with the workings of His creation according to His original plan(not as a knee jerk reaction). Certainly God is able to change His mind, but why should He? A perfect plan yields perfect results whether we're able to understand the process or not.

Open Theism's God is Calvinism's God. The Christian God is not the Islam god. Our understandings of the nature of sovereignty (providential vs meticulous control) varies, but this does not mean one is God and the other is a god.

The evidence supports a warfare vs blueprint model or reality (see Gospels). Jesus opposes sin, sickness, and Satan as contrary to God's will. He does not affirm it as God's will (or He would be opposing the Father).

I honestly believe the Open view is a more glorious, biblical view of God and His ways.

 

[godrulz]

And, of course, we should all determine our theology based on what is "more appealing".

No, but a loving, responsive, creative, glorious God (OT) is more appealing than an insecure, weak Cosmic Control Freak who can't create non-robots without risking a disaster (Calvinism)?!

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

Godrulzian Deciphered and Reformed

Godrulzian Deciphered and Reformed

Is 'unsettled theist' pejorative also? You complain about short posts. You better read this one.

Open Theists believe creation is partially open/unsettled and partially closed/settled.

Open! No, a wee bit closed.
Unsettled! No, a wee bit settled.

Pregnant! No, a wee bit pregnant.

This does not unsettle a sovereign, omnicompetent God who can providentially control without meticulous control.

If God is not in control of every charmed quark in the universe, then we have no hope that what He says He can accomplish. For if God must release sovereign control, and grant autonomy to anything or anyone, then we have no guarantee that He will know when to act or what to do when He makes a reasoned guess to act. God becomes a great probabilistic handicapper, betting He gets it right and regrouping when He misses the mark (Curses! Those pesky autonomous free agents have struck again). And don't give me this, well, "God is wise, powerful, and loving" as the hope it will all work out, for nothing therein passes any logical test for asserting certainty in any outcome, given the autonomy you’ve assumed in His creatures.

Moreover, you cannot in one breath lay claim to creaturely autonomy, and in the next breath claim God is "powerful". What exactly is this "power" that respects a creature's ability to do otherwise, yet can somehow assert, "My will be done"? What if every single person just says "No!". You see, with an omnipotent and truly sovereign God, such a conjecture (“just say no!”) is foolish and an impossibility. That the unsettled theist holds a position that would even admit the conjecture diminishes the God whose mighty hand brought Israel out of bondage, or guarantees our eternal glory. Well, you will say, God will make sure that not everyone says "No!". Fine, then welcome to the horns of the dilemma of sovereignty versus the libertarian free will you cling to. Either God is sovereign and His will will be done, or His creatures are so free that God can only hope they come around to seeing things His way. For God no longer decrees, He merely pines away for His creatures.

Moroever, you have conceded the existence of God as a probability to the non-believer. After all, the non-believer will claim, there is a probability, yet while infinitesimally small, that the universe could have popped into existence with all the finely tuned constants in place. If the Christian God is a probabilistic gambler, why not assume everything is a probability? Both are equally plausible with the laws of probability.

Sproul wrongly assumes that God must have unilateral control to be sovereign. If He does not, he even says He cannot be God?!

Godrulz, God Rules -- numbers our very days, lays out the paths we will walk, and keeps the very stars hanging in the heavens, all by His will.

Why should we accept understanding of divine sovereignty? There is no rational or biblical reason to assume that sovereignty must or should entail exhaustive, meticulous, divine control. Why would God cease to be God (Sproul's assumption) because He decided to created something He did not meticulously control?

GR, you and the proponents of unsettled theism prefer to define God in your own, rational and humanistic terms, as if He were somehow amenable to human reasoning. You sound like Job’s commiserating friends when you make these sort of statements. Fortunately, there is nothing rational, and everything Biblical, about the Almighty God, who chooses the lesser over the greater, the second son over the first, and the undeserved over the worthy.

This view restricts God's omnipotence to one possible mode of behavior: unilateral control. God must control everything in order to exist?! Cmon, Sproul and AMR. Why should we assume this is the most exalted, let alone the only conceivable, form of sovereignty?

We should assume as such because we are told as such. Unsettled theists want to invent a new means of interpreting the Scriptures, like Enyart’s hapless NOAH acrostic, tossing out anything that disagrees with their own image of what God should be like. Did Job get any answers? No. Was he owed any? No. Are you? No. Unsettled theists enjoy tossing around loaded words like ‘unilateral’, ‘meticulous control’, etc. As if by saying them loud enough it will make their humanistic doctrines more plausible. And when proper exegesis fails, when the reasoned views of the church fathers don’t line up with their rationalism, pound the table and call God a despot. That’ll get their attention! All you do with these tactics is demonstrate the humanistic egalitarian philosophy that so pervades unsettled theism doctrine. It is as if you would rather God exchange places with you, the sinner, and answer to you than have Him seated on His throne in Heaven.

Can we not conceive of a God who is so great (omnicompetent vs omnicausal...I like that) that he dares to create agents who can, to some extent, make autonomous decisions (significant others with a say-so, as Sanders says). Can we not conceive of a God who might choose to experience risk, adventure, novelty, change?

Why, yes, unsettled theism would have a Forest Gump kind of God. We could all study Gumpology in seminary, for God’s existence is a box of chocolates, a journey, an adventure, full of novelty, change, and, of course……surprises. God better be on His toes, for those pesky autonomous creatures of His will thwart Him at every turn and this Gumperian God is not going to stack the deck in His favor. The probabilistic God can at best only offer the unsettled theist a ‘chance’ that His will shall be realized. Oh, sure, since God is the ultimate chessmaster, He will outfox everyone, manipulating, regrouping, but never, ever, coercing. Yet the probabilistic dilemma remains:

If God is genuinely responsive to humans and to the course of history, and if God cannot infallibly know the future free decisions of man, it is in principle impossible for God to know infallibly what He will do in the future as well.

In other words, God's knowledge of His own actions in the future is at best probabilistic. Thus, God's statements that He will ultimately triumph over evil is no absolute guarantee. But, GR, I know you and I agree that God is not a liar, so the assumptions by unsettled theists about God's knowledge must therefore be incorrect. The problem then, lies with unsettled theism’s assumptions of what God knows and God's sovereignty.

One need only look to the permissive parent and see the outcomes of this behavior. No, you will say, parents do yank their child from the oncoming bus. Well, again, we are back to your opening salvo. Is God just a wee bit pregnant, or is He really pregnant? You cannot have it both ways.

Given the probabilistic nature of God’s future actions, for unsettled theists to insist on a guaranteed final outcome in history, either:
(1) God must be able to unilaterally intervene and override libertarian free will, or
(2) Unsettled theists must assume that God's ultimate plan to eliminate evil is not an absolute certainty.

And, if God unilaterally intervenes, the question remains, given the free choices of man, how God can infallibly know when it would be the right time for Him to intervene. In effect God must make His decision to intervene based upon incomplete knowledge.

Moreover, if God intervenes, such intervention overrules the unsettled theist's free will, for God’s intervention seen to be 'coercive'. Given unsettled theism’s position on moral responsibility and sin, the unsettled theist would be forced to conclude that there is no moral responsibility for those that would be held accountable by God who have had their free will overridden by God's intervention.

Read the above again. The logic is inescapable. If you have hopes for the eschaton, where do they lie, behind door number (1) or door number (2)?

Scripture says that God experiences surprise and disappointment. This fits a providential, warfare vs blueprint model and takes revelation at face value. Can we imagine God growing tired of controlling or simply foreknowing everything in meticulous detail from all eternity? Does this make it possible for Him to respond better than simply based on His great character and attributes? We are in the image of God and desire novelty, risk, adventure. Why should we limit God to fatalistic, fixed boredom?

On the contrary, there is absolutely zero Scriptural warrant for God being ‘surprised’ by the actions of His creatures. Your suggestion that God, just like humans, can become ‘bored’, is yet another telling aspect of unsettled theism’s humanistic doctrines. Clearly, unsettled theism needs a more capable apologist. Someone, Clark? John? David? How about the second-stringer, Bob? Someone, get the hook!

It is hard to conceive of a weaker God than one who would be threatened by events by puny man outside of His direct control.

Yes, your conceptions of God are the issue, as are they for all unsettled theist’s. Fortunately, the God of the Scriptures has not asked for your conceptualizations. He has already revealed His majesty and sovereignty in His special revelation. Get your nose out of Pinnock, Sanders, and Enyart’s books, and stick it in the Bible. The one, true, holy, and sovereign God awaits you therein.

It is difficult to imagine a less majestic view of God than one who is necessarily limited to a unilateral, deterministic mode of relating to the universe (which view is limiting God and underestimating His great ability and seeing things through the image of man? watch your accusations, AMR. Your view of God is actually a lesser view than OT).

Huh? “My God can beat up your God. Nanananabooboo!” I beg to differ, GR, for the unsettled theist’s conceptualization of God would never infallibly see anything coming, after all, He frequently gets surprised, no?

Sproul insists that God could not create a world with some openness, novelty, adventure, even if He wanted to. This is not a contradiction like exhaustive foreknowledge and free will. It is an unusually ignorant statement to say God would cease to be God if He created a world that was not hyper-sovereign and deterministic?! Power is about choices. A wrong view robs God of choice and omnipotence.

When I invoke Sproul, feel free to quote him to me, GR. For now, I will stick to sola scriptura. We need not speculate on what God could or could not do, for you see, He already has done so. By the way, power is not about choices, power is about ability, capacity, authority, and right.

A view that says God cannot be God without exhaustive definite foreknowledge also limits God (necessary attribute). The idea of a partially open future is not a logical contradiction. This is the type of world God actualized (unless you make this motif figurative, without warrant), so the corollary is that EDF is not possible, even for an omniscient God. So, you beg the question to assume God must have EDF and must create a deterministic universe, despite the evidence to the contrary (theodicy ring a bell)?

Thankfully, and mercifully for the casual reader, I have read nearly all of your available robo-posts, so I speak godrulzian quite well now. It is kind of like a mix between Vulcan and Ferengi, both of which make one’s eyes bleed when initially encountered. On the contrary, GR, I beg no questions, for I have not made any assertions about what kind of world God could have created. Unlike the proclivities of unsettled theists exemplified within these forums, I do not strain at gnats speculating about inanities such as God writing new songs, being a toaster or a cup of tea, or creating new flowers. It matters not, for you see, godrulz, we are here and this is the reality of our existence……for now. What God has done is done and written down for us.

As for theodicy, contemplate the implications of unsettled theism’s notions of senseless violence, having no cosmic reason, allowed by God because, after all, He loves us so much that He will let idiots slaughter one another rather than interfere with our libertarian free will. And when we wonder “Why did this happen?”, our answer from God is,

“Well, you know, I am just as surprised as you are by these turn of events. Let me see what I can do by estimating what some of these idiots’ next moves will be. I know I will be taking some risks here, but I am wise, I am powerful, and I love you. So I am almost, like Ivory® soap percentages (99.44%), certain I am competent enough to straighten this mess out. The really tricky part will be deciding when to take some action, because, everyone is doing things that I don’t infallibly know anything about until they do them. Therefore I don’t have, nor will ever have, all the facts. I just need to try and stay a wee bit ahead of these idiots to try and pull this off. So bear with me, for I am wise, I am powerful, and I love you.”
​

You know what, GR, I think I prefer to believe God has a morally sufficient reason for the evil in this world, and whether or not He deigns to inform me of His reasons, I can rest confident that since He is 100% completely sovereign and in ultimate control, what God says is going to happen is guaranteed to happen.

It is not a supremely praiseworthy form of sovereignty to be a control freak, nor is it necessary for God to bring His sovereign purposes to pass. Even if God just chose to be this way, it is still not meritorious. I have absolute power over my little finger, but this does not make me praiseworthy on this basis. God could control everything if He wanted to, since it is His creation, just as my finger is my finger and I could control it. Apply this to a human ruler over subjects or parents over children. Love, freedom, and relationship are to be valued over raw control, a sign of weakness and insecurity.

You are obviously running out of steam, GR. You started stridently, aggressively, now you are wilting, slipping into the usual godrulz metaphysical realm. You need to practice making more of these longer posts to build more stamina. Let’s hope you are in “meticulous” control of your finger, GR, else that digit I see upright in my direction has taken on a life of its own.

You state, “Even if God just chose to be this way, it is still not meritorious.” So, you stand in judgment of the merits of God’s choosing? Witness the humanism of unsettled theism at its worst!

Oh, and by the way, God loves His people, God gives His people self-determining wills to do as they are most inclined to do, and God infallibly secures our eternal bliss and His glory. God does not have a guesstimate of that date and time only known to Him. The date and time is as fixed from eternity as are the number of hairs on my head.

There is nothing instrinsically praiseworthy about sheer power. Praise has to do with character.

Anyone, are my eyes bleeding? GR, “character” is a collection of attributes or features that makeup a being. God’s attributes are identical with His essence.

"What is praiseworthy about God's sovereignty is not that He exercises a power He obviously has but that out of His character He does NOT exercise all the power He could."

Be careful when you lift quotes without any context. I realize this is a common flaw of the unsettled theist, but here, taken at its face value, you have quoted nothing that I disagree with.

This is a voluntary self-limitation by the sovereign God to have love vs robotic relationships, not reducing God to man's image (finite godism/Process is NOT OT).

You jump the shark starting with God’s actualized power versus His total power and inexplicably land in the Love Boat. The conclusion does not follow from any pipe you have attempted to lay. And, by the way, take up the issue of unsettled theism’s relationship to process theology with Paul Fiddes. Whitehead is dead and unavailable to whine to now.

Our understanding of God is analogically rooted in our experience. What kind of sovereignty do we normally admire? Hitler, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Mugabe or a democratic view that does not undermine authority and freedom? Do we praise leaders who must control other people to always get their way, or do we see them as insecure, weak, and manipulative? Conversely, do we not admire leaders who influence others by the respect that their character earns more than those who control others through coercion? We admire leaders who influence and empower others, not control them like robots. The capacity for reciprocal relationships is indicative of love and power, not a compromise of sovereignty.

Ignoring Godwin’s Law, I will only state that our understanding of God is to be garnered from His analogical communications to us in the Scriptures. Like all unsettled theists, you would cast God in your own image and experiences. Who you or I admire (or don’t) among earth’s population is, frankly, irrelevant. God did not say to us, “look at Moses or Solomon, I am like those guys”. Rather, God was clear that there were none like Him, and our attempts to exhaustively know Him would be to our own folly. You would have us reasoning upward, when God has been reasoning downward to His creatures from the dawn of creation. Inexplicably the 726,109 words God spoke to us (NIV translation) appear to be insufficient for you to understand a few things about God. I realize that only 14,462 of those words (NIV translation) are unique, but do we really need to add godrulzian motifs, to the list?

You are nearly finished with your screed, and have trotted out virtually all of the unsettled theist’s neologisms. It appears that only thing remaining for you is to let out the unsettled theist’s war cry, “Greeks!”

Rejecting a wrong view of sovereignty is not rejecting God's greatness and glory.

Prior to Augustine, the early church theologians also denied omni-controlling and implied it was a denial of biblical sovereignty. They all agreed that there was no coercion in God. They argue that control is akin to pagan fatalism. Athenagoras said that God exercises a universal and general providence of the whole. Origen (who is wrong about other things) said that God's governance is one that is consistent with the preservation of freedom of will in rational creatures (by God's sovereign choice, not an elevation of free will above God's will). Omnicausality denies that God regulates all things, undermining biblical sovereignty.

You know what, you are correct, rejecting a wrong view of sovereignty is not rejecting God's greatness and glory. Instead rejecting a wrong view of sovereignty is rejecting God’s clear communications to us in the Scriptures that He is our Sovereign, ultimately and completely in control.

As Spurgeon once preached:

“There is no attribute of God more comforting to his children than the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe troubles, they believe that Sovereignty has ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and that Sovereignty will sanctify them all.

There is nothing for which the children of God ought more earnestly to contend than the dominion of their Master over all creation—the kingship of God over all the works of his own hands—the throne of God, and his right to sit upon that throne.

On the other hand, there is no doctrine more hated by worldlings, no truth of which they have made such a football, as the great, stupendous, but yet most certain doctrine of the Sovereignty of the infinite Jehovah. Men will allow God to be everywhere except on his throne.

They will allow him to be in his workshop to fashion worlds and to make stars. They will allow him to be in his almonry to dispense his alms and bestow his bounties. They will allow him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever-moving ocean;

but when God ascends his throne, his creatures then gnash their teeth; and when we proclaim an enthroned God, and his right to do as he wills with his own, to dispose of his creatures as he thinks well, without consulting them in the matter, then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on his throne is not the God they love.

They love him anywhere better than they do when he sits with his sceptre in his hand and his crown upon his head.”
​

 

[godrulz]

Thx for the response, I think?

You are as unmoved as your static concept of God.

Methinks you underestimate God's great ability and character. By doing so, you wrongly must find security in a controlling vs capable, responsive God.

It is really a straw man that does not make me respect you to portray the Open View as a hand-wringing God. Surely a maverick molecule (see quantum mechanics and chaos theory) cannot thwart an omnipotent God's plan and purposes.

**Omnicompetent vs omnicausal. Macromanaging vs micromanaging. **

I think I will go back to short posts and simple assertions (less for you to mock).

 

[Nang]

Open! No, a wee bit closed.
Unsettled! No, a wee bit settled.

Pregnant! No, a wee bit pregnant.

If God is not in control of every charmed quark in the universe, then we have no hope that what He says He can accomplish. For if God must release sovereign control, and grant autonomy to anything or anyone, then we have no guarantee that He will know when to act or what to do when He makes a reasoned guess to act. God becomes a great probabilistic handicapper, betting He gets it right and regrouping when He misses the mark (Curses! Those pesky autonomous free agents have struck again). And don't give me this, well, "God is wise, powerful, and loving" as the hope it will all work out, for nothing therein passes any logical test for asserting certainty in any outcome, given the autonomy you’ve assumed in His creatures.

Moreover, you cannot in one breath lay claim to creaturely autonomy, and in the next breath claim God is "powerful". What exactly is this "power" that respects a creature's ability to do otherwise, yet can somehow assert, "My will be done"? What if every single person just says "No!". You see, with an omnipotent and truly sovereign God, such a conjecture (“just say no!”) is foolish and an impossibility. That the unsettled theist holds a position that would even admit the conjecture diminishes the God whose mighty hand brought Israel out of bondage, or guarantees our eternal glory. Well, you will say, God will make sure that not everyone says "No!". Fine, then welcome to the horns of the dilemma of sovereignty versus the libertarian free will you cling to. Either God is sovereign and His will will be done, or His creatures are so free that God can only hope they come around to seeing things His way. For God no longer decrees, He merely pines away for His creatures.

Moroever, you have conceded the existence of God as a probability to the non-believer. After all, the non-believer will claim, there is a probability, yet while infinitesimally small, that the universe could have popped into existence with all the finely tuned constants in place. If the Christian God is a probabilistic gambler, why not assume everything is a probability? Both are equally plausible with the laws of probability.

Godrulz, God Rules -- numbers our very days, lays out the paths we will walk, and keeps the very stars hanging in the heavens, all by His will.

GR, you and the proponents of unsettled theism prefer to define God in your own, rational and humanistic terms, as if He were somehow amenable to human reasoning. You sound like Job’s commiserating friends when you make these sort of statements. Fortunately, there is nothing rational, and everything Biblical, about the Almighty God, who chooses the lesser over the greater, the second son over the first, and the undeserved over the worthy.

We should assume as such because we are told as such. Unsettled theists want to invent a new means of interpreting the Scriptures, like Enyart’s hapless NOAH acrostic, tossing out anything that disagrees with their own image of what God should be like. Did Job get any answers? No. Was he owed any? No. Are you? No. Unsettled theists enjoy tossing around loaded words like ‘unilateral’, ‘meticulous control’, etc. As if by saying them loud enough it will make their humanistic doctrines more plausible. And when proper exegesis fails, when the reasoned views of the church fathers don’t line up with their rationalism, pound the table and call God a despot. That’ll get their attention! All you do with these tactics is demonstrate the humanistic egalitarian philosophy that so pervades unsettled theism doctrine. It is as if you would rather God exchange places with you, the sinner, and answer to you than have Him seated on His throne in Heaven.

Why, yes, unsettled theism would have a Forest Gump kind of God. We could all study Gumpology in seminary, for God’s existence is a box of chocolates, a journey, an adventure, full of novelty, change, and, of course……surprises. God better be on His toes, for those pesky autonomous creatures of His will thwart Him at every turn and this Gumperian God is not going to stack the deck in His favor. The probabilistic God can at best only offer the unsettled theist a ‘chance’ that His will shall be realized. Oh, sure, since God is the ultimate chessmaster, He will outfox everyone, manipulating, regrouping, but never, ever, coercing. Yet the probabilistic dilemma remains:

If God is genuinely responsive to humans and to the course of history, and if God cannot infallibly know the future free decisions of man, it is in principle impossible for God to know infallibly what He will do in the future as well.

In other words, God's knowledge of His own actions in the future is at best probabilistic. Thus, God's statements that He will ultimately triumph over evil is no absolute guarantee. But, GR, I know you and I agree that God is not a liar, so the assumptions by unsettled theists about God's knowledge must therefore be incorrect. The problem then, lies with unsettled theism’s assumptions of what God knows and God's sovereignty.

One need only look to the permissive parent and see the outcomes of this behavior. No, you will say, parents do yank their child from the oncoming bus. Well, again, we are back to your opening salvo. Is God just a wee bit pregnant, or is He really pregnant? You cannot have it both ways.

Given the probabilistic nature of God’s future actions, for unsettled theists to insist on a guaranteed final outcome in history, either:
(1) God must be able to unilaterally intervene and override libertarian free will, or
(2) Unsettled theists must assume that God's ultimate plan to eliminate evil is not an absolute certainty.

And, if God unilaterally intervenes, the question remains, given the free choices of man, how God can infallibly know when it would be the right time for Him to intervene. In effect God must make His decision to intervene based upon incomplete knowledge.

Moreover, if God intervenes, such intervention overrules the unsettled theist's free will, for God’s intervention seen to be 'coercive'. Given unsettled theism’s position on moral responsibility and sin, the unsettled theist would be forced to conclude that there is no moral responsibility for those that would be held accountable by God who have had their free will overridden by God's intervention.

Read the above again. The logic is inescapable. If you have hopes for the eschaton, where do they lie, behind door number (1) or door number (2)?

On the contrary, there is absolutely zero Scriptural warrant for God being ‘surprised’ by the actions of His creatures. Your suggestion that God, just like humans, can become ‘bored’, is yet another telling aspect of unsettled theism’s humanistic doctrines. Clearly, unsettled theism needs a more capable apologist. Someone, Clark? John? David? How about the second-stringer, Bob? Someone, get the hook!

Yes, your conceptions of God are the issue, as are they for all unsettled theist’s. Fortunately, the God of the Scriptures has not asked for your conceptualizations. He has already revealed His majesty and sovereignty in His special revelation. Get your nose out of Pinnock, Sanders, and Enyart’s books, and stick it in the Bible. The one, true, holy, and sovereign God awaits you therein.

Huh? “My God can beat up your God. Nanananabooboo!” I beg to differ, GR, for the unsettled theist’s conceptualization of God would never infallibly see anything coming, after all, He frequently gets surprised, no?

When I invoke Sproul, feel free to quote him to me, GR. For now, I will stick to sola scriptura. We need not speculate on what God could or could not do, for you see, He already has done so. By the way, power is not about choices, power is about ability, capacity, authority, and right.

Thankfully, and mercifully for the casual reader, I have read nearly all of your available robo-posts, so I speak godrulzian quite well now. It is kind of like a mix between Vulcan and Ferengi, both of which make one’s eyes bleed when initially encountered. On the contrary, GR, I beg no questions, for I have not made any assertions about what kind of world God could have created. Unlike the proclivities of unsettled theists exemplified within these forums, I do not strain at gnats speculating about inanities such as God writing new songs, being a toaster or a cup of tea, or creating new flowers. It matters not, for you see, godrulz, we are here and this is the reality of our existence……for now. What God has done is done and written down for us.

As for theodicy, contemplate the implications of unsettled theism’s notions of senseless violence, having no cosmic reason, allowed by God because, after all, He loves us so much that He will let idiots slaughter one another rather than interfere with our libertarian free will. And when we wonder “Why did this happen?”, our answer from God is,

“Well, you know, I am just as surprised as you are by these turn of events. Let me see what I can do by estimating what some of these idiots’ next moves will be. I know I will be taking some risks here, but I am wise, I am powerful, and I love you. So I am almost, like Ivory® soap percentages (99.44%), certain I am competent enough to straighten this mess out. The really tricky part will be deciding when to take some action, because, everyone is doing things that I don’t infallibly know anything about until they do them. Therefore I don’t have, nor will ever have, all the facts. I just need to try and stay a wee bit ahead of these idiots to try and pull this off. So bear with me, for I am wise, I am powerful, and I love you.”
​

You know what, GR, I think I prefer to believe God has a morally sufficient reason for the evil in this world, and whether or not He deigns to inform me of His reasons, I can rest confident that since He is 100% completely sovereign and in ultimate control, what God says is going to happen is guaranteed to happen.

You are obviously running out of steam, GR. You started stridently, aggressively, now you are wilting, slipping into the usual godrulz metaphysical realm. You need to practice making more of these longer posts to build more stamina. Let’s hope you are in “meticulous” control of your finger, GR, else that digit I see upright in my direction has taken on a life of its own.

You state, “Even if God just chose to be this way, it is still not meritorious.” So, you stand in judgment of the merits of God’s choosing? Witness the humanism of unsettled theism at its worst!

Oh, and by the way, God loves His people, God gives His people self-determining wills to do as they are most inclined to do, and God infallibly secures our eternal bliss and His glory. God does not have a guesstimate of that date and time only known to Him. The date and time is as fixed from eternity as are the number of hairs on my head.


Anyone, are my eyes bleeding? GR, “character” is a collection of attributes or features that makeup a being. God’s attributes are identical with His essence.

Be careful when you lift quotes without any context. I realize this is a common flaw of the unsettled theist, but here, taken at its face value, you have quoted nothing that I disagree with.

You jump the shark starting with God’s actualized power versus His total power and inexplicably land in the Love Boat. The conclusion does not follow from any pipe you have attempted to lay. And, by the way, take up the issue of unsettled theism’s relationship to process theology with Paul Fiddes. Whitehead is dead and unavailable to whine to now.

Ignoring Godwin’s Law, I will only state that our understanding of God is to be garnered from His analogical communications to us in the Scriptures. Like all unsettled theists, you would cast God in your own image and experiences. Who you or I admire (or don’t) among earth’s population is, frankly, irrelevant. God did not say to us, “look at Moses or Solomon, I am like those guys”. Rather, God was clear that there were none like Him, and our attempts to exhaustively know Him would be to our own folly. You would have us reasoning upward, when God has been reasoning downward to His creatures from the dawn of creation. Inexplicably the 726,109 words God spoke to us (NIV translation) appear to be insufficient for you to understand a few things about God. I realize that only 14,462 of those words (NIV translation) are unique, but do we really need to add godrulzian motifs, to the list?

You are nearly finished with your screed, and have trotted out virtually all of the unsettled theist’s neologisms. It appears that only thing remaining for you is to let out the unsettled theist’s war cry, “Greeks!”

You know what, you are correct, rejecting a wrong view of sovereignty is not rejecting God's greatness and glory. Instead rejecting a wrong view of sovereignty is rejecting God’s clear communications to us in the Scriptures that He is our Sovereign, ultimately and completely in control.

As Spurgeon once preached:

“There is no attribute of God more comforting to his children than the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe troubles, they believe that Sovereignty has ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and that Sovereignty will sanctify them all.

There is nothing for which the children of God ought more earnestly to contend than the dominion of their Master over all creation—the kingship of God over all the works of his own hands—the throne of God, and his right to sit upon that throne.

On the other hand, there is no doctrine more hated by worldlings, no truth of which they have made such a football, as the great, stupendous, but yet most certain doctrine of the Sovereignty of the infinite Jehovah. Men will allow God to be everywhere except on his throne.

They will allow him to be in his workshop to fashion worlds and to make stars. They will allow him to be in his almonry to dispense his alms and bestow his bounties. They will allow him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever-moving ocean;

but when God ascends his throne, his creatures then gnash their teeth; and when we proclaim an enthroned God, and his right to do as he wills with his own, to dispose of his creatures as he thinks well, without consulting them in the matter, then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on his throne is not the God they love.

They love him anywhere better than they do when he sits with his sceptre in his hand and his crown upon his head.”
​

Wow!

:first:

Nothing better than when AMR gets riled up!

 

[CabinetMaker]

Wow!

:first:

Nothing better than when AMR gets riled up!

Only if you like putting limits on God.

 

[godrulz]

(paraphrases/thoughts from Boyd "Satan and the problem of evil" p. 147)


** "What is praiseworthy about God's sovereignty is not that He exercises a power He obviously has but that out of His character He does NOT exercise all the power He could."

Rejecting a wrong view of sovereignty is not rejecting God's greatness and glory.

AMR: One of your root problems is assuming hyper-sovereignty is biblical and other attributes and character are secondary.

Do you agree with Spoul that God would not be God if He did not control everything? Why could God not create a world with a partially unsettled future. If He is omnicompetent, He could deal with any contingency without control, coercion, causation, EDF.

In my job as a paramedic, I have the ability to respond to a myriad of different calls based on principles, training, and ability. If one gives a non-medic a scenario and a script, they could do the 'call' to pass a test, yet they could not function on the streets. Ability trumps control or EDF, even for a human.

In my contrast of blameworthy dictators and truly great leaders, why does your model of sovereignty side with dictators and not great leaders who rule without coercion/control/manipulation?

Sometimes reality resonates with truth? Perhaps you have a preconceived filter that distorts the biblical evidence?

Does your wife think you are stubborn or are you divorced or single?

 

[godrulz]

Wow!

:first:

Nothing better than when AMR gets riled up!

Birds of a feather, flock together? We do tend to like those whom we agree with. Interact with Boyd instead of uncritically accepting AMR who simply put up a straw man to undermine God's greatness.

Why quote the whole page to make a commendation? Say something helpful or just allude to the post. There is a shortage of server space.

 

[CabinetMaker]

If God truly predestined everybody and preordained everything then there is no need for anything. We are but pre-programmed automatons running a program that was loaded before we were born. There is no need for a savior for all were predestined for heaven or hell from the beginning anyway. There is no sin because everything you say/do/think/feel was put there by God. No options. No deviation. No hope.

Calvinism is a the most depressing interpretation of the Bible I have ever seen. It offers no hope. Either God liked you or He didn't. No appeals. No second chance. No hope.

 

[Nang]

Birds of a feather, flock together?

Yep. Irritating, isn't it? . . .but we Calvinists live with it day and day out with you OT'ers back-slapping each other.

We do tend to like those whom we agree with.

I tend to absolutely LOVE those who are biblically right.

Why quote the whole page to make a commendation? Say something helpful or just allude to the post. There is a shortage of server space.

You are right. Next time I might just do that.

Sleep well . . .:wave2:

Nang

 

[godrulz]

I am working all night. You sleep well since I cannot sleep.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

AMR: One of your root problems is assuming hyper-sovereignty is biblical and other attributes and character are secondary.

No, one of your problems is to deny the simplicity of God's being, to relegate Him to a composition of parts.

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.

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.

Here is where you fail in your reasoning: 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.

Do you agree with Spoul that God would not be God if He did not control everything? Why could God not create a world with a partially unsettled future. If He is omnicompetent, He could deal with any contingency without control, coercion, causation, EDF.

Sproul writes ("What is Reformed Theology?", pg. 27):

"In Reformed theology, if God is not sovereign over the entire created order, then he is not sovereign at all. The term sovereignty too easily becomes a chimera. If God is not sovereign, then he is not God. It belongs to God as God to be sovereign. How we understand his sovereignty has radical implications for our understanding of the doctrines of providence, election, justification and a host of others. The same could be said regarding other attributes of God, such as his holiness, omniscience, and immutability, to name but a few."

I have no beef with what Sproul has written. Do you not see the flaw, in that you want to rationalize God to your own way of thinking about what He should be like?

Let's try what I'll call AMR's Wager (akin to Pascal's Wager).

For the moment, assume you have adopted my doctrinal positions as soon as you finish reading this sentence. Voila!

Now what has changed in your daily life? Nothing. Do you suddenly feel less free than you did five minutes ago? You go about your life, choosing as you choose every day, and just being, well, you. Did you suddenly become enveloped in some "meticulously controlled" bubble that is stifling you? I doubt it.

The only thing you can raise up as an argument, is some mental gymnastics about "I am not a robot", or the equivalent. Again, at this very moment, assuming you have adopted my position, do you feel like you are a robot? Doubtful. So then, the only thing going on within you is human reasoning about what you think God should be like, nothing more.

But spiritually, what has changed is that you can be supremely confident that what God says, will happen. You know that God chose you, you did not choose Him. You know that God worked it all out without knowing anything about you, but only that you were someone He wanted to choose so badly that He became flesh and atoned for you. You will know that there is nothing that will take that gift from you once given. Nothing. And God did this from eternity. For you. You will know that God's purposes for you are completely known to Him and that, since He is God Almighty, what He purposes for you must be good, for His glory, and will irrevocably happen. You will know that you will walk the path God set out for you to walk. Remember, you are that person right now under the conditions set above. Do you feel different? Blessed that God chose you? Humbled that God has laid out the steps of your life to do His bidding and realize His glory? Confident that despite anything, that you will achieve His ends? Confident that, despite your stumbles, that nothing can take away the gift of grace you have received, for you did not get yourself saved, and you cannot get yourself lost?

OK. Voila! Now you are back to godrulz, the ever pondering and thinking person you are now. Now suppose I am wrong, and you are correct? Where are you compared to what I have noted above? You are back to straining for an image of God that seems to fit how things should work around us. That is because, after all, you chose God, God did not choose you. So what you have chosen must fit your mold. You got yourself saved, and consequently, you can get yourself lost. You can hope it all works out, but your doctrines are clear, sometimes it does just not go the way as planned. Nothing is 100% certain, for those around you are just as autonomous as you are, casting events in a stream of temporality that flows around and upon you, buffering you about, while God competently tries to make it happen, even if not on schedule. You can also stumble along the way, and find yourself in dire straits at the Judgment Throne.

In my job as a paramedic, I have the ability to respond to a myriad of different calls based on principles, training, and ability. If one gives a non-medic a scenario and a script, they could do the 'call' to pass a test, yet they could not function on the streets. Ability trumps control or EDF, even for a human.

I am not following the analogy. Blood in my eyes or something.

In my contrast of blameworthy dictators and truly great leaders, why does your model of sovereignty side with dictators and not great leaders who rule without coercion/control/manipulation?

Nice try, but I won't take the bait. My "model" has nothing to do with what you tried to cast as an analogy. Yours is a human contrivance, while I asserted the sovereign God of the Scriptures as my model.

Sometimes reality resonates with truth? Perhaps you have a preconceived filter that distorts the biblical evidence?

There are no linkages from reality to the Scriptures. The linkages go in the other direction. Scripture defines the realities of our existence, for the Scriptures are axiomatic. Again, GR, think God seeking man, not man seeking God.

Does your wife think you are stubborn or are you divorced or single?

Married. Blissful 26 years and counting. I am the head of the family, wife is the neck. Neck is the part that turns the head. :think:

 

[Delmar]

I tend to absolutely LOVE those who are biblically right.

Awwww thanks
I love you too! Even though you are not!

 

[RobE]

And, of course, we should all determine our theology based on what is "more appealing".

I'm sure many of us do. An interactive struggling God is more like us and therefore more personal from some points of view. Others find that God remains personal even when the universe isn't out of control.

 

[Edmond_Dantes]

Honestly I'm not that well versed in these two schools of thought. I've read over them, but there seems to be a lot of baggage, or 'pork' attached. It seems to break down like this, correct me if I'm wrong.

God knows everything that will happen, with the implication that He is therefore responsible for everything and we have no free-will.

or

God is dynamically resolving at run-time in response to our free-will, with the implication that He is not in absolute control.

Not sure which camp it puts me in but I have always summed up my perspective thus: God's power is limited only by His will. A bit simplistic but it's the impression I get from studying the Bible.

This might be naive on my part but why can't it be both? That is : God resolves according to our free-willed choices, He just always knew what those choices would be (due to his unique perspective).

 

[RobE]

No, but a loving, responsive, creative, glorious God (OT) is more appealing than an insecure, weak Cosmic Control Freak who can't create non-robots without risking a disaster (Calvinism)?!

Instead of control freak I would have chosen the terms competent, intelligent, and powerful. As far as the term 'robots', it seems that there is a misunderstanding between the concepts of 'created' and 'equal' in your view. We aren't His equals - not even close.