ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 3

[Lighthouse]

The issue is godly faith vs godless unbelief, not works. Peristent disobedience is not fleshly sins, but GODLESS disobedience and GODLESS unbelief (antithesis of saving faith and godly obedience because He lives in and through us).

If He lives in and through us, how can we be disobedient? Let alone Godless...

Calvinists also misunderstand Arminian rejection of OSAS/POTS, so it does not surprise me. Pity you are in the determinist vs free will camp.

Only that God has determined never to let me go. Amazing is His grace!

 

[godrulz]

If He lives in and through us, how can we be disobedient? Let alone Godless...


Only that God has determined never to let me go. Amazing is His grace!

Paul used exhortations and imperatives because we are not robots, but can resist and reject God's will and ways. You usually argue this way against Calvinists, yet are inconsistent.

God does not believers go, but this does not preclude the possibility of reversion from belief to unbelief (unless we are robots/sock puppets).

 

[Lon]

You believe in eternal security, moron. Nobody misrepresents your view, saying that you believe one must be obedient to any rules in order to maintain salvation. Least of all me. Twit.

Hmmm, I was saying that GR was right because using LH for your should have been clear. Absolutely I agree with you concerning Salvation but it isn't exactly a OSAS position with me. It is rather that I believe in perseverance of the saints. It has much overlapping but my concern is that assurance comes from being 'in' Him. There are those without Him with a veneer of godliness that should be questioning.

 

[DFT_Dave]

That is true of all debates. We tend to follow stronger debaters unfortunately (because they can be wrong, just better debaters).

Again, I'm not certain I have to answer this question too specifically and my compatible nature on things tends to be a hard pill for OVer's to swallow logically. It is a hard call when we are talking about God and speculating. I tend NOT to lean as heavily on my logic but try to have faith with things of Him whether a thing is indepthly explained or not, and it really has more to do with trusting Him over myself, not an anti-intellectual approach to the topic. I just don't want to overstep my bounds and say God 'must' be this way or that when the basis of saying so is purely my intellect that is asserting. In other words, without specific revelation, I'm more careful but there are things we see clearly and by intellect, that are musts like a tri-une view.

I think I just say in a way that it can be acquiesced, but it is more of saying that certain logical ends, even with OV, must point strongly to more than just predicting and guessing on God's part and that whatever that is, it, in my mind and as best as I can logically draw conclusion, resembles the classic definition of EDF even as OV is opposed to the idea.

Again, only because I see Him relational to us but I'm embracing a counter-intuitive model and saying He's both. It is a logical problem, but it doesn't presume as much to say what He can or cannot, does or doesn't do. I'd rather be in the dark than presumptive, asserting, or wrong. Better not to say until or if I ever know. I have my guesses and logical reasoning for where I am swayed but I'm much less dogmatic on things that are speculative at best. If scripture is silent on an issue like EDF, I think it is true, but I'm only staunch because OV is staunch on the opposite end of the discussion. I believe in EDF but it isn't something that I want to argue against but if the alternative is a God who guesses and can make mistakes, that isn't something I can acquiesce. It is problematic and needs much further discussion.

Except that I'm a compatiblist? I see truths of both sides *(Noam Chomsky) but lean with J. E. R. Staddon on the compatible approach. Skinner himself hated negative reinforcement and always pushed positive.
I'm not sure if it is a problem with you, but it is for most OVer's. They don't like it when their alternating views seem in conflict. To me, that is polarizing because on most issues, we all tend toward the mediating position. Because of this, I'm much more confrontational with extremes in faith as OV necessarily is on these considerations.

Nothing you say here makes any sense at all. By your own admission, you're faith is irrational, you say :

"I see Him relational to us but I'm embracing a counter-intuitive model and saying He's both. It is a logical problem..."

"I tend NOT to lean as heavily on my logic..."

"I just don't want to overstep my bounds and say God 'must' be this way or that when the basis of saying so is purely my intellect that is asserting."

"I'd rather be in the dark..."

When you say, "I see truths of both sides", what you really mean is, you see truth in contradiction, which is irrational. That's why what you are saying is a "hard pill to swallow". OV is not a "hard pill" to swallow because it is rational; our faith in God is consistent with scripture and makes sense with freewill. You think you’re taking the intellectual "high ground" with your position, I see it as a pseudo-intellectual "no ground" or an "anti-rational low ground". I'm not saying you, or anyone who takes the position you advocate are not smart, all of you have just accepted a view that is irrational, and as a result, you cannot be reasoned with.

--Dave

 

[Lon]

Nothing you say here makes any sense at all. By your own admission, you're faith is irrational, you say :

"I see Him relational to us but I'm embracing a counter-intuitive model and saying He's both. It is a logical problem..."

"I tend NOT to lean as heavily on my logic..."

"I just don't want to overstep my bounds and say God 'must' be this way or that when the basis of saying so is purely my intellect that is asserting."

"I'd rather be in the dark..."

When you say, "I see truths of both sides", what you really mean is, you see truth in contradiction, which is irrational. That's why what you are saying is a "hard pill to swallow". OV is not a "hard pill" to swallow because it is rational; our faith in God is consistent with scripture and makes sense with freewill. You think you’re taking the intellectual "high ground" with your position, I see it as a pseudo-intellectual "no ground" or an "anti-rational low ground". I'm not saying you, or anyone who takes the position you advocate are not smart, all of you have just accepted a view that is irrational, and as a result, you cannot be reasoned with.

--Dave

It is not. You guys really must get over this and stop being silly. Everybody lives with antimony, everybody including OV.
Everbody is illogical, Everybody.

Everybody thinks he/she is the only one right.

So let me spell this out again clearly: 1) God is the ONLY ensurer of His truth. If you really want to be right, it'll only happen as you lean on Him.

2) We don't have every scenario spelled out for us. In the NT, the Sadducees and Pharisees were arguing about eternal life. The answer came not from the scriptures they'd been arguing over for who knows how many years, the answer came because Jesus decided to explain it.

3) Apparent contradiction are just that to me. You guys go way too far in trying to rationalize your faith to logical ends, thus serving an agenda of self-preserved logic over a trust in Him on the particular.

Here is my assertion: Whatever God has left unclear, He meant to leave unclear. Instead of reinventing a whole new theology (that was rejected years and years ago) why not learn to do what the rest of us do? Trust Him and take the apparent contradictions into that trust. God has always eventually answered my pressing questions. I don't demand immediate answers to everything from Him. I'm not a spoiled child. I ask, then wait patiently, trusting. I'm WAY less hung up on apparent logical contradictions than you.

Why?
Because God is completely logical and so there is always an answer whether it is immediately explained or not. Just because you make up a formula for something doesn't mean you answered the dilemma correctly. It just and only means you have a logical formula to a question (and some illogical ones as well). So here is the basis for my position: I'd MUCH rather be in the dark than adopt a made-up logical explanation. Sure it looks logical on the veneer, but I'll wait until God reveals the right answer. It is kind of like math class. I remember once having trouble and over half the class said "do it this way, it's the right answer." I kept working on it alone and was the only one in class to come up with the right answer. Why? Because I listened to the teacher and kept working it out instead of being satisfied with the 'apparent' right answer.

OV just seems wrong on so many levels to me including denial of EDF. It again never entered my mind that God doesn't have EDF. My scripture readings have always naturally lent to this surmise. I've even used philosophical and logical proofs to show that time as we know it is completely different from what God experiences so that we can never logically say He's constrained in any way shape or form to our constraints.

 

[Lon]

Faith is not anti-intellectual

 

[tetelestai]

God knows much more about the future than man does because of His intelligence/ability and perfect knowledge of the past and present.

Dr. Ronald Nash:

In Genesis 22:12, as we know, God told Abraham to take his son Isaac up to the top of the mount and there offer him as a sacrifice. And God says "Do not lay a hand on the boy. Do not do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld from me your son, your only. . ." Surprise! Here is a classic case where open theists say "God learned something new. God is surprised." But notice the implications here. This is what open theists can't trace out. Remember, open theists say God can't know the future, but they insist, as they had better, that God can know both the past and the present. But the open theists' straightforward reading of Genesis 22:12 actually implies that poor God couldn't know the present. He did not know at that moment that Abraham really trusted Him. God's knowledge was lacking not only with respect to the future, it was lacking with respect to the present. And moreover, it was also lacking with respect to the past. Now clearly, when our God can't know the past and the present, He really is a finite deity, and that is an implication of their position.

Like the Dr. says, OVT'ers not only take away from God's foreknowledge, they also take away from His knowledge of the present and past.

 

[DFT_Dave]

Faith is not anti-intellectual

"Everbody is illogical, Everybody"

As I said, debating and reasoning with you is not possible given your irrational state of mind.

--Dave

 

[Lighthouse]

Paul used exhortations and imperatives because we are not robots, but can resist and reject God's will and ways. You usually argue this way against Calvinists, yet are inconsistent.

He used them because we can still submit to the flesh, which isn't good for us. But that doesn't mean we lose our salvation when we do that.

God does not believers go, but this does not preclude the possibility of reversion from belief to unbelief (unless we are robots/sock puppets).

It is impossible to stop believing something you know to be true.

Dr. Ronald Nash:


Like the Dr. says, OVT'ers not only take away from God's foreknowledge, they also take away from His knowledge of the present and past.

WRONG!

To say that God could not know the present is a fallacy of proportions too grand to comprehend. But knowing that God is capable of not knowing something, because He can choose to not know, is the truth that the "omnipotence" crowd seems determined to ignore.

 

[tetelestai]

To say that God could not know the present is a fallacy of proportions too grand to comprehend.

I agree. However, one of the consequences of open theism is that not only does it take away God’s perfect foreknowledge, OVT also takes away God’s perfect present and past knowledge.

 

[Lighthouse]

I agree. However, one of the consequences of open theism is that not only does it take away God’s perfect foreknowledge, OVT also takes away God’s perfect present and past knowledge.

No it doesn't. It says God is sovereign over His own knowledge.

 

[tetelestai]

No it doesn't. It says God is sovereign over His own knowledge.

Is Greg Boyd part of "it says?

This is from Boyd's book "God of the Possible"

"Next to the central doctrines of the Christian faith, the issue of whether the future is exhaustivly settled or partially open, is relatively unimportant. It is certainly not a doctrine that Christians should ever divide over."

This is a move made by every heretic in church history. JW's and Unitarians said the deity of Christ is not something we should fight about.

 

[DFT_Dave]

We have been looking at the nature of God, I would like to look at the nature of the created world in lelationship to what we have been debating.

C. S. Lewis in his book Mere Cristianity writes: “Our life comes to us moment by moment. One moment disappears before the next comes along: and there is room for very little in each. That is what Time is like. And of course you and I tend to take it for granted that this Time series—this arrangement of past, present, and future—is not simply the way life comes to us but the way all things really exist. We tend to assume that the whole universe and God Himself are always moving on from past to future just as we do.”

“God, I believe, does not live in a Time-series at all. His life is not dribbled out moment by moment like ours: with Him it is still 1920 and already 1960.”

I think that Lewis is correct about our existence, we live moment by moment. We are created finite and so we are limited in that we cannot go back to the past nor jump ahead into the future.

Before I make some points here, does anyone want to disagree with this, add to this, or change it in anyway?

 

[tetelestai]

We have been looking at the nature of God, I would like to look at the nature of the created world in lelationship to what we have been debating.

C. S. Lewis in his book Mere Cristianity writes: “Our life comes to us moment by moment. One moment disappears before the next comes along: and there is room for very little in each. That is what Time is like. And of course you and I tend to take it for granted that this Time series—this arrangement of past, present, and future—is not simply the way life comes to us but the way all things really exist. We tend to assume that the whole universe and God Himself are always moving on from past to future just as we do.”

“God, I believe, does not live in a Time-series at all. His life is not dribbled out moment by moment like ours: with Him it is still 1920 and already 1960.”

I think that Lewis is correct about our existence, we live moment by moment. We are created finite and so we are limited in that we cannot go back to the past nor jump ahead into the future.

Before I make some points here, does anyone want to disagree with this, add to this, or change it in anyway?

(2 Peter 3:8) But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Dave:

How about if you tell us how you understand this verse?

Delmer gives the following: “A day is as a thousand years" is about perspective. Two hours on the highway, to a five year old, seems like an eternity! To a 50 year old trucker, it's just the start of a good morning!”

 

[nicholsmom]

We have been looking at the nature of God, I would like to look at the nature of the created world in lelationship to what we have been debating.

C. S. Lewis in his book Mere Cristianity writes: “Our life comes to us moment by moment. One moment disappears before the next comes along: and there is room for very little in each. That is what Time is like. And of course you and I tend to take it for granted that this Time series—this arrangement of past, present, and future—is not simply the way life comes to us but the way all things really exist. We tend to assume that the whole universe and God Himself are always moving on from past to future just as we do.”

“God, I believe, does not live in a Time-series at all. His life is not dribbled out moment by moment like ours: with Him it is still 1920 and already 1960.”

I think that Lewis is correct about our existence, we live moment by moment. We are created finite and so we are limited in that we cannot go back to the past nor jump ahead into the future.

Before I make some points here, does anyone want to disagree with this, add to this, or change it in anyway?

This is our current state, yes. I wonder though what Paul meant when he said that Christ will "transform our lowly body" (Phil 3:21). How will things change for us then? Will we still be temporal beings? I don't know.

 

[DFT_Dave]

(2 Peter 3:8) But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Dave:

How about if you tell us how you understand this verse?

Delmer gives the following: “A day is as a thousand years" is about perspective. Two hours on the highway, to a five year old, seems like an eternity! To a 50 year old trucker, it's just the start of a good morning!”

This verse comes from Psalm 90:4 Peter is saying that a thousand years pass by for God like a day passes by for us.

--Dave

 

[tetelestai]

This verse comes from Psalm 90:4 Peter is saying that a thousand years pass by for God like a day passes by for us.

--Dave

What about the second part? "and a thousand years as one day."

 

[DFT_Dave]

What about the second part? "and a thousand years as one day."

It does not matter if it is one day or a thousands years of days, they pass by, one passes as a thousand, a thousand passes as one, God is "long suffering" toward us not willing that any should perish. This speaks of God's duration and supports OV.

--Dave

 

[eveningsky339]

No it doesn't. It says God is sovereign over His own knowledge.

Everyone is sovereign over their own knowledge...

 

[tetelestai]

It does not matter if it is one day or a thousands years of days, they pass by, one passes as a thousand, a thousand passes as one, God is "long suffering" toward us not willing that any should perish. This speaks of God's duration and supports OV.

--Dave

You keep forgetting that I am not a Calvinist.

I agree that God does not want any to perish, and I believe in free will. However, I do not believe in open view theism.

How does a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day to God support OVT?