themuzicman
Well-known member
Then, on what basis do you claim that what anyone says about God is wrong?
ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 3
- Thread starter Nathon Detroit
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Whoa, a personal being cannot be atemporal, especially a triune one. You are assuming infinite means atemporal (beg question?), whereas God can be infinite and temporal (have sequence, duration, succession in His triune being's relations even before material creation). The fact that there is a before and after creation and that creation is not co-eternal with God shows that timelessness is not truth.
God Himself uses finite language to express His infinite being. He also uses tensed expressions about His experience, which He need not or would not if He was timeless. This does not mean that His accommodation does not convey truth about who He is (see Sander's discussion on anthropopathism/morphism in 'The God who Risks'. We cannot understand God exhaustively, but we can know true things about Him. If He was timeless, He could have communicated this. Jesus lived a temporal existence as the God-Man without affecting His Deity. He preexisted and is uncreated Creator. He has not always been incarnate, so there is a change (implies time/chronology in God's experiences).
You wrongly assume that time is a limitation on God. How is it a limitation for God to think one thought after another instead of in a cacophonic eternal now simultaneity? He can listen to classical music in sequence rather than as one eternal chord.
Time is unidirectional. It is a concept, not a created thing like a line. Your view uses time as a line that God is above. This confuses time and space. Lucas is not reducing time to a line (except for illustration).
<---------------------present------------------> There is nothing mathematically, philosophically, logically impossible about presentism vs eternalism (A vs B theory of time).
We agree that God has no beginning and end. The Bible evidence is that God has a history and a chronology. It is sheer unbiblical philosophy to assume He is timeless, whatever that could possibly mean to a personal being.
You seem to be hung up on a similar issue as Zeno's Paradox. Despite what the philosophers say, the arrow does reach the target. Despite what you think, God can be temporal and have no beginning and no end. You seem stuck on circular reasoning and are convinced that God must be atemporal. This negates personhood, contingency, etc. If makes God static, not dynamic. Change is not always a change from perfection.
Bruce Ware is a fellow Calvinist with you and as opposed to OVT. He has rejected atemporality and is heading in the right direction. You won't listen to us, so try grasping his arguments for endless time vs timelessness.
I believe you fail to grasp the intricacies of the arguments and proofs and are rejecting a straw man view of OVT. I am not a genius, but I can intuitively understand why EDF and free will are incompatible. You do not see it because you have a deterministic viewpoint and deny free will. Calvinism may be self-consistent in some ways, but if one assumption is wrong, the conclusions are wrong and the whole house of cards falls. You admit to not being an expert on Calvinism (and I doubt you are one on OVT), so I hold out hope that you will see the light even as I did 30 years ago (after trying to conform some of the new, good insights from OVT with my old traditional Arminian/classical views on eternal now, etc....it cannot be done...they are mutually exclusive views that cannot be synchronized...one is right, the other wrong).
There are no married bachelors, square circles, black oranges, etc. A view that must appeal to mystery or antimony when confronted with incoherence is suspect. Just because we do not have all the answers or cannot understand God exhaustively does not mean that God cannot communicate His reality to us. Either God changes in some ways or He does not. Either He created a deterministic universe or a free will universe. Either the future is settled or it is partially unsettled. Either God experiences duration or He does not.
Wrong assumptions lead to wrong conclusions.
You can't say that if we differ on what omniscience is. I believe omniscience is perfect knowledge of past, present, and future, and you believe omniscience is perfect knowledge of past and present only.
Therefore you can’t say we affirm God’s attributes if we disagree on the definition of the attribute.
Moreover, I stand my ground that your view of God’s omniscience is finite compared to my view of God’s omniscience which is infinite.
This has noting to do with intricacies or tradition. Nor does it have to do with Greek philosophers.
You guys can attempt to blame Augustine, Reformers, and Greek philosophers all you want. However, I’ll “blame” my position on passages such as Malachi 3:6 (For I am the LORD, I change not)
Since you believe in anthropomorphisms, can you give me just one anthropopathism from the Bible you believe?
Or, do you interpret every one of God’s “emotions” as a literal description of God?
Have you ever noticed that impassiblity, immutability, infinite, etc is negative language? We are saying what God is not. This should remind us that who God is, is a great mystery.
As a finite human being it is easier to say what He is not than what He is.
themuzicman
Well-known member
And as long as you continue to take these proof texts out of context, you'll be confused as to God's real nature, and you'll have to continue to explain away texts that more fully reveal who God really is.
Mal 3:5 "So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me," says the LORD Almighty.
6 "I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," says the LORD Almighty.
"But you ask, 'How are we to return?'
6 "I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," says the LORD Almighty.
"But you ask, 'How are we to return?'
Notice that God is speaking about Israel's failure to embrace the Old Covenant, and yet God, as He has with previous generations, continues to call Israel back to live in covenant with Him.
This is speaking of God's just and loving nature, and does not address impassibility or any other aspect of immutability.
So, as we can see from context, this isn't a general statement about all aspects of God, but God's character with respect to covenant keeping.
Muz
Scripture is God's accommodated self-revelation. Here He reveals what He is to us, rather than what He is in himself.
God does not really repent! Such language is used to help us understand how eternal God relates to his time-bound creatures.
themuzicman
Well-known member
Where do you see that in Scripture? Or is that your Greek Philosophical view peeking through?
Again, where do you see that in Scripture?
What I see in Scripture is God repenting/relenting in multiple places (Gen 6, Exo 32, etc.)
Just because something doesn't agree with your theology doesn't mean you can ignore it.
Muz
The RSV..
The RSV..
RSV: Hebrews 6, 17-18: So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of His purpose, He interposed with an oath, so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible that God should prove false, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us. The fact is his purpose is being worked out. It is unfolding according to his plan. If something is immutable it is standing still. It is finished, accomplished. There is a tension here. bybee
The RSV..
RSV: Hebrews 6, 17-18: So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of His purpose, He interposed with an oath, so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible that God should prove false, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us. The fact is his purpose is being worked out. It is unfolding according to his plan. If something is immutable it is standing still. It is finished, accomplished. There is a tension here. bybee
Let's look at this post by Lighthouse:
LH does a good job showing the difference between an anthropopathism and an anthropomorphism with his toaster analogy.
However, what LH, you, and other open theists are doing is this: On one hand you guys acknowledge that the toasters don’t have eyes and mouths, but then on the other hand you guys really believe that the toasters are brave (litererally).
If God's self-revelation of His emotions do not mean what they say, what do they mean? If God did want to describe that He experiences emotions, how else would He do it other than what He wrote?
Malachi's context shows that God does not change in a fickle, capricious way like man does. He has constancy of character, unlike us. It is not a metaphysical statement that God is strongly immutable or absolutely changeless in every way. This is proof texting at its worst.
We both affirm that God knows all that is logically knowable. He has perfect knowledge of anything that is an object of possible/certain knowledge. The fact that He does not know where Alice in Wonderland is does not mean He is not omniscient. The fact that He cannot create a rock too heavy to lift does not mean He is not omnipotent. These are logical absurdities, not limitations on God (even secular thinkers understand this). The issue is whether the future is fixed or partially unsettled. If God created a non-deterministic universe with a non-fixed future, then He must know it/reality as it is. Simple foreknowledge would assume that we somehow made choices before we even existed, otherwise it was actually God coercing our future choices (determinism) leading to a negation of free will and responsibility. Though you cannot see it yet, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Either EDF and determinism is true or free will and no EDF is true. You cannot have libertarian free will and EDF (this is why Calvinists are right to reject LFW in favor of compatibilism).
Just assuming God knows the future because He is God is circular reasoning and does not surmount the logical, philosophical, biblical problems with the issue (which you apparently do not grasp or are not aware of).
If you really want your head to spin, refute middle knowledge/Molinism. Thankfully, William Hasker and others have done so with this minority alternative.
God is personal with will, intellect, emotions. He is not a static, impersonal force.
We are in the image of God. Lo and behold, we also are personal with will, intellect, and emotions. We are like God in some ways (personal, spiritual, loving, character, free, etc.), but unlike God in other ways (omnis, eternal, Creator, triune, etc.).
This is not humanizing God nor deifying man, contrary to our simplistic, strident critics (not you, of course).
Big assumption and big question begging...using this logic, we can know little about God and God is unable to communicate who He is and what He is like. Rather than accept mystery and contradiction, why not take God at His Word and understand what He wants us to? God is able to communicate significant aspects of His attributes and character through language. Figurative language is not meant to teach the opposite of what it says or implies.
Context determines figurative vs literal, not preconceived theology. God does not have wings like a bird or arms like a man (except in Christ). There is no problem taking this as figurative based on other verses about God being spirit or non-avian.
This is not true about clear descriptions that must mean something and cannot be understood otherwise. How else would God say He changes His mind (whether you think he can or not) other than the way He said it? If it does not mean what it says, what is it trying to tell us about God? God's essential character does not change, but His knowledge, relations, disposition, thoughts, feelings, etc. can and do change. He is personal. There is nothing to contradict this possibility. Change your misconceptions and ideals about God rather than dismissing the texts that contradict your ideas.
Lon
Well-known member
1) His Holy Spirit. He says what is true and is final authority.
2) Figure out what is being said. I concede square-circles isn't a great term, just that I could understand where someone might be coming from. This doesn't make them all wrong, just imprecise. It depends on the one holding the impression and the severity of detriment. If someone is Arminian or Calvinist, this isn't as huge as if the person is heretical. Sometimes these debates point to that direction but I'm not convinced that our particular debates are over salvation issues, they tend to touch on them, which is why I think the heat, but not specifically in those areas. We mutually desire Christ and mutually desire Him for the lost.
3) Yes, I use my brain, but I still hold it suspect along with the rest of humanity. We are pretty smart and can figure stuff out but not everything.
Our debates clearly show that.
4) I do look to scholars and this is why: I'm not an expert on everything. Some did rather well and better in history than I. I grasp those things, but it isn't my area of expertise. Mine was a focus on the languages and theology proper as well as ministerial. So, I do look for good writing from somebody who has been through a particular more times than my years alive.
5) I refer back always to #1
Lon
Well-known member
God is atemporal. This does not mean exactly what I believe you think it does coming from me. It is rather that whatever I understand about temporal things cannot be applied to an eternal past. He isn't expressible in my language in expressing an eternal non-beginning nor can He be seen as constrained to my logic of a sequential duration simply because the 'now' question is prevented from ever taking place.
So specifically, when I say atemporal, it means 'not of our temporal experience or knowledge.'
He does not have to be sequential like you and I. I see no reason to overtly assume that His existence mirrors our own as this carries problematic concerns as well (like being able to come to a point called 'now' in an eternal existence that never could reach 'now.' In other words, saying He is experiencing duration as we has its own logical problems.
I say 'atemporal' more as a argument against our comprehension of that which is temporal. I cannot see temporal terms logically applying to God. They don't very well.
Example again: "His past 'is' never-ending." This is impossible to express without dichotomy of terms. "How can a past event be an 'is' instead of a 'was?' We cannot clearly express what God has given us as a truth other than to be perplexed and I think it exactly why He gives us some of these concepts: to keep us humble, to keep us reliant, to keep our minds open to a vasteness we are just beginning to scratch when it comes to God.
Yes. I was just making it clear for all.
Redundant!
God is not a toaster, imbecile.
Lon
Well-known member
I like the fact that scriptures speak of God in terms that are hard to grasp. I like God too big for me. Just because I like it doesn't mean it is right but scriptures suggest as much time and again: "You cannot see My face and live," "I pray you discover the height,depth, and breadth of God's love which is without limit (i.e. that you couldn't then discover the dimensions),"
"I AM." The terms, whether viewed as Calvinist or not, are freely given in scripture: Foreknowledge, predestined, visions and dreams. I cannot but see this as all God-given scriptural inspiration and it stacks up as something that is unpalatable to the OVer, but I must see what is there clearly in scripture.
The difference is, I'm not going to overstep them. In Samuel, we have "God doesn't repent" and then "He breaths a heavy sigh." When I first read them in the text, virtually side-by-side, I was perplexed. Not because I couldn't puzzle my way through it, but the opposite. I've never wanted to bring my own interpretation into the text without clear leading and guiding so I came to a theological position and rule of thumb: "Stay perplexed." Why? Because if God hasn't made it clear to me, it is up to Him whether He desires to do so. I try hard to allow Him to mold my views and keep as much of 'me' out of interpreting because it is His Word and I'm the one in need of correcting. I've found perplexed and trusting is a very safe place to be when I'm leaving it to Him. I could 'lean on my own understanding' but Proverbs gives us warning from doing that and instead tells us "to acknowledge Him in all of our ways, and He will direct our paths."