ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 2

[PKevman]

When I realized that God didn't have to be in the chair I was sitting on to still be God is when it dawned on me that yes, God is in fact free and can choose where He is and isn't.

Unfortunately the false pagan doctrine of Omnipresence denies God freedom and says that in order for God to be God He MUST be everywhere at once, no questions asked. This is not even a discussion as to whether or not God is capable of being everywhere at once. God is capable of being everywhere He wants to be whenever He wants to be there. Understanding this statement leads you to easily understand that God knows everything knowable that there is to know. This is explains why there are many things we find in Scripture that indicate God didn't know the outcome of a situation (such as what Adam would call the animals).

 

[Ktoyou]

God does know all in the minds of all who have minds and knows the nature of fantasy and false belief, but He knows the real and does not care, in my opinion, about ones ‘land of make believe’, just how these fantasies may corrupt those whose fantasy impedes the Truth

 

[Nathon Detroit]

No it was not "new" to God when it (the physical universe) came into being.

God sees and acts within the temporal continuum He created. He understands the ordering of events within time; He understands these and all events comprehensively, exhaustively. Necessarily then, God, being omniscient and eternal, has known from eternity when and how He will act within this temporal continuum. In other words, whenever God acts in our time based existence, His actions were actualized from God's decrees that were made from eternity.

AMR, all truthsmaking aside...

I just don't get that. The idea that the existence of the physical universe was not new at creation is something I cannot fathom why any Bible believing person could assert.

and.......

Based on your further explanation (above) it still seems like you don't actually understand the question, for instance when you say.... "In other words, whenever God acts in our time based existence, His actions were actualized from God's decrees that were made from eternity." that is a description that any Armininan, or Calvinist or even a Open Viewer could be happy with within the right context, yet it doesn't really address muz's question even after he clarified it for you.

The question was NOT about God acting, or creating, or anything like that.

The question is more specific to the idea that creation didn't exist eternally into the past therefore when it did come into existence, it's very existence in relation to God had to be a new thing otherwise we should rename the book of Genesis because clearly that doesn't describe something that has existed eternally with God.

Your attempt at answering Muz's question might be one of the most bizarre assertions that has ever been uttered here on TOL in all of our 10 years.

 

[godrulz]

Here is the position stated clearly: God knows everything knowable that He chooses to know.

The last phrase still seems problematic to me. I prefer the idea that God knows everything knowable. God cannot chose to be ignorant of something that is a possible object of knowledge. The reason He does not know the future exhaustively is that He chose a contingent vs deterministic universe. The future is not yet and is not a possible object of certain knowledge. If men and the devil know something (like past sin), then God must also know it or He is not omniscient and would know less than creatures in some cases.

 

[godrulz]

Oh..... Ok. God knows everything knowable that He chooses to know. I don't think you can get any more clearer than that.

Are you attempting to argue that there are things God knows that He doesn't want to know? Are you attempting to argue that there are things God knows that are unknowable?

If so, maybe you can answer the simple question: Does God know how many people live in the "Land of Make Believe"? Is it insulting or blasphemous or dishonoring to God to say no?

This relates to the first clause. Give us an example of God not chosing to know something that can be known.

 

[godrulz]

When I realized that God didn't have to be in the chair I was sitting on to still be God is when it dawned on me that yes, God is in fact free and can choose where He is and isn't.

QUOTE]


Omnipresence should not be confused with pantheism or panentheism.

 

[Lon]

Get a clue Lonster. "I wish I could get Open Viewers to think like I do and read the scripture the way we always have, so we could all just get along and the world could live in peace and we could all be calviniest so I could be more confident when I become one too."

And this is a slam? Of course I wish that. Not for my confidence, but because I believe it to be right. It took me a few months to see our contrasting views. If anything, I'm more challenging than I've been when I initially arrived here.

According to men who read the same scripture you read and love the Lord their God as much as you do and desire to know Him and serve him with the same passion you have.

I've got no problem with your bolded statement. If I saw you as not desiring God, I probably would need to be greatly moved in the Spirit to spend a lot of time here and would feel a lot of oppression.
(I'd say this is the intense part of the movie, because you've clutched the guys arm next to you and are neglecting your popcorn).

Quit being a jerk. I'm sick of this trite approach that you and AMR continue to dump on this thread. Grow up and quit being so condescending.

In looooove,
Phelitus

Alright, I can read a few things into this, even things you didn't mean to convey. So I'm both encouraged to go on and pray in doing so.
And at the same time warned.

I'd appreciate a specific quote I've made in this thread that would lead you to assess that I'm a 'jerk,' that I've been 'trite,' and/or 'condescending.'

 

[Lon]

And Dr. Lamerson was wrong for all the same reasons you are.

I am not afraid of answering simple questions. Nobody should be. After all.... aren't we all in search of the truth here? :idunno:

I don't *understand why folks like you, Lonster, Nang and all the other settled viewers hate answering simple questions. Our old buddy Hilston was the exact same way, kinda makes ya go.... "hmmm". :think:

* I actually I do understand why you avoid simple questions. Truth stands tall in light of simple questions, yet..... untruths tend to crumble quickly in light of simple questions.

We've talked about this a little bit. Your logical world is much more stark than mine. Our paradigms for understanding actually have us at a disadvantage with communicating with one another because you see stark where I see grays.

Your light (yes/no question) may reveal the birch tree right here and even a few surrounding birch trees, but until I walk the forest, I cannot concur it is a 'birch' forest. Because God's forest is so vast, and I've seen glimpses of other trees, I've come to the conclusion that calling it a birch forest is premptive and settling, where my perception has not closed possibility. OV is 'open' but some of its conclusions are very closed and final.

 

[Lon]

...creation didn't exist eternally into the past therefore when it did come into existence, it's very existence in relation to God had to be a new thing otherwise we should rename the book of Genesis because clearly that doesn't describe something that has existed eternally with God.

Your attempt at answering Muz's question might be one of the most bizarre assertions that has ever been uttered here on TOL in all of our 10 years.

'past' 'new' 'Genesis (beginnings)' are all meanings to finite temporal man. God understands these terms and how we use them, for He is relational to us, but not constrained to these ideas and terms, nor is His existence accurately, wholly, explained by them. Language is not eternal, it has a stopping point of what it can explain. God supercedes our concepts of Him. So you are forcing creation, beginning, and new into a constraint that wasn't the intention of Genesis. "In the beginning...." is such a broad stroke statement. We are not given 'whose' beginning, the beginning of what, the starting place to measure beginning.
From the text we understand it is the beginning of all creation. Before 'beginning' there is no reference of time for us. We do not know what timeless looks like because we've never perceived it. God was outside of time as 'we' know it, for what we use to measure time was nonexistent. Our understanding of presence, duration, and time is constrained to our logic and perception. God communicates to us in our constrained logic and perception, but can only measure a very small portion of who He is, what He has done, and His relationship to us. We are constrained in our possible apprehension of Him. Time is a finite conception. It is a segment. Our understanding of time can have no meaning against a timeless (eternal) God who has no beginning and no end. I believe sequence as related to 'time' is not a necessary consideration of time. God could rearrange the universe in less than the blink of an eye with no time passed at all. Time is a measurement of progression, not progression itself.

I tried here. I know that we are not on the same page in even understanding here because we've carried this conversation on for a few days now, but I'm realizing our perception and understanding is paramount because my perplexity of your not seeing this, and your and other's frustration with it have not subsided.

 

[PKevman]

This relates to the first clause. Give us an example of God not chosing to know something that can be known.

Can God forget our sins completely and utterly? If so then there are things that God chooses NOT to know. Can God turn His back on the wicked completely? If so, then there are things God chooses NOT to know. Those are two examples. We say if God wants to forget what wicked people are doing He can because He is free. He is not a meaningless database full of information that cannot be wiped away......

 

[PKevman]

When I realized that God didn't have to be in the chair I was sitting on to still be God is when it dawned on me that yes, God is in fact free and can choose where He is and isn't.

QUOTE]


Omnipresence should not be confused with pantheism or panentheism.

Can God choose where He is and isn't? Or is He an innocent bystander forced to watch every single wicked act that has ever occurred? Was God always in Sodom for instance?

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

AMR- Honestly if you are constantly worrying about being baited, how strong can your position be? State your position clearly and Biblically and quit worrying about "being baited".

I have done as such. No one here is in any doubt of what I believe and why if they have read my posts. What is clear is that you have not been following the many posts I have made and need to come up to speed.

As to your comment of proving the case for Open Theism Biblically, that has been done many, many times over on this board.

I see. Shall we just weigh your pointers to others' work against the ones I can easily point to? You, not someone in a thread "on this board", asked me some specific questions in the start of our conversation. Out of courtesy to you since this is our first communication, I answered your questions honestly and carefully. I could have just said to you, "PK, go read this paper or that book." I did not. Yet your response then was effectively "I don't agree" and is now basically "go read some stuff elsewhere".

Perhaps you are pressed for time, I don't know, but you have shown me much less of the courtesy I have extended to you. To give you the benefit of the doubt, I will simply await your personal exegesis of my original response detailing why the verses I have shown and rationale used can be interpreted differently.

From the below, I see you want to move on to what appears to be yet another new topic.

AMR- Why did the Lord God bring the animals to Adam?

Your quoted reference for this question is Ge. 2:19, but we need to go back one verse to get the full context. Here we find God saying that, of all the animals, when they had been placed in order, not one was found which might be a fit helper for Adam. There was no affinity of the nature of these animals that Adam could choose for himself a companion for life out of any one species.

Nor did this occur out of ignorance, as each species had passed in review before Adam, and Adam had named them; yet there was no just proportion between Adam and the animals. Therefore, unless a wife had been given Adam of the same kind as himself, Adam would have remained destitute of a suitable and proper help.

Moreover, what we read of God’s bringing the animals to Adam (v. 19) signifies nothing else than that God had given the animals a disposition to obedience, so that they would voluntarily offer themselves to the man, in order that Adam, having closely inspected them, might distinguish them by appropriate names, agreeing with the nature of each. This act by God was more of a trial of the wisdom of Adam. God did not need to know the names of these animals as He already knew what Adam would call them. This act was to demonstrate to Adam his own superiority and authority over the animals.

The Hebrew translated in Gen. 2:19 “to see” is an indirect question “to observe” or “to behold”. The same use of the Hebrew appears in other verses, such as:
Gen 37:20 Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams."
Deu 32:20 And he said, 'I will hide my face from them; I will see what their end will be, For they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.
Jer 7:17 Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

From the Hebrew, we clearly see that the meaning here has nothing whatsoever to do with God’s learning something. Instead, as noted above, God is enacting and observing a trial of wisdom for Adam’s sake, that Adam might come to know His relationship to the world he has been given dominion (authority) over and to show Adam how necessary the help meet God is to provide him is to be.

Nevertheless, to answer your question correctly, there are some other proper messages we might extract from this action in Genesis on God's part:
1. God planned woman. Woman was as much the creation of God as was man.
2. God planned woman because man needed a helper, a companion—a suitable helper and companion. The Hebrew word "meet" or "suitable" (keneghdo) means fit, corresponding to, adapted to, agreeing with, counterpart, opposite, equal to.
Yet, midway in this discussion of the creation of a companion for Adam, we find the naming of the animals. Why?
3. God needed to reemphasize a critical fact: He is the Creator of all man's companions, of all living creatures. Man needed to learn this, to have it driven into his mind. If man was to have a special companion—a companion with his very own nature—God was the One who had to create her. Man had to depend upon God to give him the companion who would be a perfectly suitable partner.
4. God shows man that man is superior in intelligence, authority, and being to the animals.
5. God's purpose was to show man his great need for woman, for a companion just like himself.

Jeremiah 18:7-10

7 The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, 8 if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. 9 And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, 10 if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.

God clearly shows that He can change both His words and His mind if He so chooses? Why? Because God is love. Because God desires men to repent and turn to Him! It's unfortunate that so many do not, wouldn't you agree? But God is not to blame for their refusal to submit their lives to Him! He did everything He could do to save men by sending His Son to die for them!

The “God is Love” (1 John 1:48) mantra of open theism is a classic example of the fallacy of adopting an interpretive center in biblical hermeneutics. This is the error of designating a clear text, an interpretive center, a theological and hermeneutical key, a locus classicus, a defining passage, a starting point that serves as a filter for all other interpretations of Scripture. To interpret obscure passages in light of such “a clear text” may seem reasonable on the surface, but it robs other passages of their distinctive contributions to the broad revelation of Scripture.

There is no dispute that the Scriptures say plenty about God’s love. Indeed, depictions of God should always include this marvelous attribute. Yet the Scriptures also say God is holy (Le. 19:2; 1 Pet. 1:16). The Scriptures also say that God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29). To exclude any one of these or the many other attributes of God spoken of in Scripture is to give an unbalanced view of His person. The doctrine of God should grow out of the whole counsel of God, not just selected parts. To interpret Lev. 19:2 or Heb. 12:29 through the eyes of 1 John 4:8 does severe injustice not only to the contexts of Lev 19:2 and Heb 12:29, but also to the context of 1 John 4:8, which nowhere sets forth the idea of an overriding theological concept. This is a classic example of the locus classicus fallacy. Open theists are not the only group that commits this error. Evangelical feminist hermeneutics have illustrated this hermeneutical malpractice by using Gal 3:28 as an interpretive filter in analyses of 1 Cor 11:2-16; 14:33-35; 1 Tim 2:11-15; Eph 5:22- 33; 1 Pet 3:1-7.

The choice of a hermeneutical key on any biblical subject will inevitably reflect the pre-understanding of the interpreter, not the objective teaching of Scripture. To use such a key is also inconsistent with the evangelical doctrine of plenary inspiration. Including all texts on a given subject allows each text to have its distinctive input and avoids interpretations that are slanted by human bias. God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent as Psalm 139 so beautifully recognizes (139:1-16). To allow any of these other qualities to overshadow God’s love would be equally misleading as allowing the om’s of God to overshadow His love.

This hermeneutical procedure used by open theists typically goes by the name of discourse analysis. This technique seeks a larger picture in a passage before investigating the details. In fact, it disparages traditional methods that investigate the details first, before proceeding to the larger picture. This hermeneutical approach has given rise to a practice that some termed hermeneutical hopscotch, the practice of hopping from one carefully selected part of a larger section to another. By selecting only parts that contribute to supporting a predetermined opinion, the hopscotch approach can demonstrate just about anything the interpreter desires to prove.

Witness this hopscotch in action:
Open theist Boyd begins with Gen. 6:6, and says, “The LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” Boyd then uses this to "prove" that God did not know in advance that humans would come to this wicked state. Then Boyd does the same thing with 1 Sam. 15:10, 35, drawing the same conclusion about God’s ignorance of the future. Boyd cites Num. 14:11 and Hos. 8:5 where God asks questions about the future. Most have interpreted these as rhetorical questions, but Boyd, after acknowledging rhetorical questions as a possibility, concludes that the questions somehow must reflect God’s lack of knowledge about the duration of Israel’s stubbornness. Boyd continues to string together such passages, picking only the instances that support his case.

Open theist Sanders proceeds in much the same way as Boyd, picking only those points that suit his purpose, first with Genesis 1 and then with Genesis 2–3 . Sanders then picks up with Genesis 6 as did Boyd. Then he goes to the story of Abraham, moving from Gen 12:1-3 to 15:1 to 15:2-3 to 15:9-21 to 15:13-16 to 16:11 to 18:4 to 22:1 to 22:12 to 22:15-18. Sanders stays with each passage only long enough to milk it for the argument he needs to prove his preconceived point. Sanders does the same with the Joseph narrative. Along the way he is careful to explain away Gen. 18:14—”Is anything too difficult for the LORD?” (God’s unqualified omnipotence)—and Gen 50:20—”And as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive” (God’s absolute sovereignty).

Frankly, this kind of selective interpretation hardly deserves the name of exegesis.

Many a passage of Scripture will not be understood at all without the help afforded by the context; for many a sentence in a verse derives all its point and force from the connection in which it stands. Most of the biblical cases for openness come from narrative type passages and the Old Testament prophets, which are not the ideal types of literature for deriving doctrinal conclusions. For learning who God is, passages that have as their objective to teach that doctrine are much more satisfactory.

Now we move on to your next question.

First, let's agree that the ESV or NASB versions of these verses more accurately renders the Hebrew:

Jeremiah 18:7 (ESV)
7 If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it,
(NASB)
7 "At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it;

Jeremiah 18:8 (ESV)
8 and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.
(NASB)
8 if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it.

Jeremiah 18:9 (ESV)
9 And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it,
(NASB)
9 "Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it;

Jeremiah 18:10 (ESV)
10 and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it.
(NASB)
10 if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it.

What is the context here?

God instructed Jeremiah to go to the potter’s house. There the Lord would give His prophet a very special message for the people of Judah. The Lord included Jeremiah’s experience in His Holy Word because He intended that the message be shared with the nations and people of every generation.

When Jeremiah arrived at the potter’s house, he saw him working at the wheel, attempting to mold the clay into a jar. Turning the bottom wheel with his feet, the potter worked the clay on the top wheel as it turned. All of a sudden the potter noticed a defect, a flaw in the jar. It had not turned out as he had hoped. So the potter squashed the jar into a lump of clay and started again. Patiently, he worked and reworked the clay time and again until he had formed the jar he wanted.

When the jar was finished, the Lord explained that the potter and clay illustrated His relationship with His people (vv.5-10). As the potter held the clay in his hands, so the Lord held His people in the palm of His hand. This is a descriptive way of saying that the Lord can do with His people as He wills. Holding them in His hands means that He possesses all rights and power over them. He can set up the laws that decide people’s fate (v.6). In other words, God is sovereign--supreme in power, rank, or authority.

You are arguing that the pairs relent-intend/planned and think better/promised, imply that God is “open” to changing His mind. These verses contain God’s decree by which the whole of God’s conduct towards man is regulated.

God is saying that He will relent of the punishment He was going to bring upon a people if that people turns from its sin. In fact, God often tells them that He will punish them, which causes them to repent, whereby God then proclaims that He will not punish them. God knew they would repent, and knew this from eternity. God used His spoken threat to bring them to that place of repentance. If He did not tell them what would happen to them if they were to continue in sin, they wouldn't have repented. In other words, God ordained the means of that repentance. Nothing in these verses suggests God is changing His mind.

The changes spoken of in these verses are not in God, but in the circumstances which regulate God’s dealings: just as we say the land recedes from us when we sail forth, yet it is we who recede from the land (Eze. 18:21; Eze. 33:11). This is applied practically to the Jews’ case.

Open theists cannot use narrative verses in the scriptures to circumvent proper grammatical-historical exegesis. See Milton S. Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics: A Treatise on the Interpretation of the Old and New Testaments, 2d ed. (Reprint; Grand Rapids: Zondervan).

Open theists are abandoning proper biblical interpretive methods. This is clear when open theists speak of sovereignty, they do not mean “supreme in power, rank, and authority” any more than they mean that God knows all when they speak of His omniscience. Nor do open theists mean that God is everywhere present when they speak of His omnipresence or that He is all-powerful when they speak of His omnipotence. Open theists do not mean that God existed before time sequence became a reality when they speak of His eternality. Open theists have retained traditional terminology, but have attached their own definitions to these words because of the contradictory nature of their system in saying all these attributes are only partial.

It is a very dangerous slope you are on, leading to these sort of statements:

“[God] knows what each will do under given conditions, and sees the end from the beginning. His foreknowledge is based on intelligence and reason. He foresees the future as a state which naturally and surely will be; not as one which must be because He has arbitrarily willed that it shall be.”

Open theists probably agree with the statement above, too. Right?







So does its author, Elder James E. Talmage (1862–1933) of the Mormon Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Open theism has created quite a few fans.

Folks like Sanders and Pinnock, two major open theist philosophers, like attending conferences like this one (see bottom of the page). Such visits by these proponents of open theism are making headway, influencing new scholarship that “will lead to a theological tradition that can stand on its own with other theologies”.

Pinnock wrote: “Your [a Mormon professor] work has gotten me interested in knowing more about the 'Mormon/evangelical dialogue,' how to measure it and even how to bridge it. Are we (in your opinion) co-belligerents as it were in the struggle against pagan influences in classical theism? Can we benefit each other? My sense is that we are closer to each other than process theists are to either of us. . . . Clearly we have much in common. I have always hoped with respect to your faith that Mormon thinking might draw closer to Christian thinking (or ours to yours) and not drift farther away.”

:sigh::sigh::sigh::sigh::sigh::sigh:

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

Can God choose where He is and isn't? Or is He an innocent bystander forced to watch every single wicked act that has ever occurred? Was God always in Sodom for instance?

Are you seriously maintaining, on top of all the other notions you have stated, that God is not omnipresent and immanent? What am I to make of you?

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

And Dr. Lamerson was wrong for all the same reasons you are.

I am not afraid of answering simple questions. Nobody should be. After all.... aren't we all in search of the truth here?

I don't *understand why folks like you, Lonster, Nang and all the other settled viewers hate answering simple questions. Our old buddy Hilston was the exact same way, kinda makes ya go.... "hmmm".

* I actually I do understand why you avoid simple questions. Truth stands tall in light of simple questions, yet..... untruths tend to crumble quickly in light of simple questions.

Perhaps the reason is that some of us understand why it took 726,109 words (NIV) for God to reveal Himself to us. You apparently would reduce His revelation to a fortune cookie insert.

 

[Stripe]

Perhaps we should have a Simple Answer Contest. The winner gets a SAC medal.

 

[Evoken]

Oh..... Ok. God knows everything knowable that He chooses to know. I don't think you can get any more clearer than that.

It is still as ambiguous as it was before.

Are you attempting to argue that there are things God knows that He doesn't want to know? Are you attempting to argue that there are things God knows that are unknowable?

I am not attempting to argue anything. I simply pointed out that your statement is ambiguous and doesn't really says anything.


Evo

 

[Evoken]

When I realized that God didn't have to be in the chair I was sitting on to still be God is when it dawned on me that yes, God is in fact free and can choose where He is and isn't.

Can God choose where He is and isn't? Or is He an innocent bystander forced to watch every single wicked act that has ever occurred? Was God always in Sodom for instance?

You have a seriously confused conception of God. What is next? Will you also realize that God doesn't has to be dealing with us humans and thus that he left us to our own devices? Very much like the God of deism?


Evo

 

[themuzicman]

Before the universe was created there was no time or space. Both are properties of the known universe.

Your comment is related to God's Immensity. Accompanying God's eternity is the attribute of immensity (nonspatiality). God is not limited in time, nor is he limited in space. In God’s immanence He fills space, but God is not spatial. Only material things exist in space and time, and God is not material. “God is spirit” (John 4:24). As spiritual, God is not material or spatial. It is part of God’s transcendence that He is beyond both time and space.

added: as Evoken indicates above, the universe was created by God ex-nihilo, out of nothing.

Well, that's the contradiction. When God said "Let there be light", that was new. Before that, there was no universe. The physical existence of light, even if the idea was eternal, was new to God. That had never happened before. It was NEW.

And that's how we have to speak of "ex nihilo" creation: Before God created, there was nothing. And then the universe was brought into existence by God, after that nothingness.

Do you see the temporal terms we must use with reference to God's existence in order to embrace ex nihilo creation? Ex nihilo creation and atemporality are logically incompatible. You can't have both and claim a logically consistent position.

Muz

 

[Clete]

Well, that's the contradiction. When God said "Let there be light", that was new. Before that, there was no universe. The physical existence of light, even if the idea was eternal, was new to God. That had never happened before. It was NEW.

And that's how we have to speak of "ex nihilo" creation: Before God created, there was nothing. And then the universe was brought into existence by God, after that nothingness.

Do you see the temporal terms we must use with reference to God's existence in order to embrace ex nihilo creation? Ex nihilo creation and atemporality are logically incompatible. You can't have both and claim a logically consistent position.

Muz

Prediction:

This post will go ignored or the response of AMR (or whomever disagrees with it) will be simply to repeat their position without actually addressing the argument.

The only reason I MIGHT be wrong on that prediction is because I've made it where Calvinists can read it.

 

[Delmar]

How could you possibly know that God is different than us in that sense?

Especially in light of the fact you have stated several times that we do have the ability to comprehend God.

I hate to tell you AMR but I think you fatally marginalized yourself.

Here is what I don't get. When we sight an OV verse, like "God repented that He made man" AMR says it is "clearly a figure of speech", because we are finite beings and that is the only way God could explain it so we can get it. Yet when AMR explains that God is outside of time I clearly get what AMR is saying. So, if it were true, why would God not have explained it just that clearly?
I do understand that God would not have used the "hovering above time on a helicopter" example, but even the Greeks had mount Olympus!