ARGH!!! Open Theism makes me furious!!!
- Thread starter Swordsman
- Start date
GIT,
Why do all things work for good? It is both. God is in control, and God uses all for our good. If God is not in ultimate control, there seems to be no way for God to work all things after the counsel of His will and all things for our good.
You at least seem to admit that God uses suffering and pain for good...
Why is it, if it is left up to us, that faith is no where mentioned in these verses? Why is it that "accepting" or "believing" or "repenting" is not mentioned in these verses? Why does Paul jump from "called" to "justified"? To me, there is something special and effectual about this call, otherwise it would not bring about justification. If not all respond to the call, then not all the justified are not necessarily glorified either...if you can be called and not respond, then you can be justified and not be glorified...
Faith, in other words, is not supernatural in any sense. It is not really given to us to have faith.
The essence of faith is looking away from ourselves to Christ, right? How can depraved and arrogant hearts turn away from themselves and obey the command, "Repent and believe the Gospel"???
2Th 3:1 Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you,
2Th 3:2 and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith.
Rom 8:7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.
Wow...I thought Open Theism was supposed to make God more personal and "down-to-earth," but He didn't even love me specifically. He did not even have me in mind when on the Cross. However, Calvinism teaches that God loved each believer specifically and personally with a covenant type love, the love a husband has for her bride. He had me specifically in mind when He was bearing MY sin on the Cross...you know how much He loved us?
Mal 1:2 "I have loved you," says the LORD. But you say, "How have you loved us?" "Is not Esau Jacob's brother?" declares the LORD. "Yet I have loved Jacob
Mal 1:3 but Esau I have hated.
Maybe you will see the point of those verses...doesn't make much sense if unconditional election is not true.
This is where you suggested it:
"we have been predestined to be like Christ as a result of our accepting the gospel. God chose from the foundation of the world to do this to all who believed in him. to say that he also predestined which people specifically he would do it to, is reading into the text more than is there"
That passage contains the doctrine of salvation in a nutshell basically, and it is ALL God's work. So how is that reading into the text? Where does it speak of "believing" or "accepting" or "having faith"?
Because inability does not negate responsibility. Notice the following verse:
Col 1:10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
We are to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, which is living a life that is fully pleasing to Him. We are to be bearing fruit and increasing in the knowledge of God. All of that is pleasing in His sight, right? We are commanded to do that, right?
Heb 13:20 Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant,
Heb 13:21 equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
How are the things that are pleasing to Him produced? By us? We are commanded to do it, right? It is GOD who is working in us to produce that which is pleasing in His sight! We are commanded to do it; He does it in us.
It seems you interpret those verses in Proverbs as God "controlling our every action." Why is that?
God can foreknow what you will do without causing you to do it though...
You presuppose you must be free at that moment or it is not freedom; I don't think the Bible ever teaches that at all.
If God sees what you WILL do in the future, how does that make you less free? He knows you COULD HAVE done otherwise, but since He knew, because He is God after all, what you would ACTUALLY do, then He ordained that that action take place.
You OVers seems to be so infatuated with your "will" as if is another god in the universe...if any view is influenced by others, it would be the OV with its Enlightenment and humanistic ideas...
I gave you verses that God governs our actions, and YOU seem to draw that we are "robots," not me, nor Calvin. Do you think Calvin taught that we do not make real choices or decisions?
To act "out of character" and to be depraved and choose God is a huge difference. When we do we ever, for example, not desire to eat vanilla ice cream, but eat it anyway. If we ate it willingly, it was because we desired to do so, whether we like or not! We always act in accordance with out nature. That is self-evident.
If you watch a tv show in one hour, will you watch it willingly? Just because God knows what you WILL do, does not in any way mean He "forced" you to do it. That is absurd. You are assuming if God knows A, then God obviously caused A to happen. That is fallacious. That is like saying, my rooster crows every morning, then the sun comes up, so that must mean the rooster crowing causes the sun to come up. It is false logic.
Therein lies the assumption and presupposition of the whole argument.
Can God not know, given a specific situation and certain circumstances and certain options, which option you will choose? Once again, just because He knows what you will choose, does not mean He made you choose it.
I simply meant you do not seem to understand the Calvinist doctrines of providence, divine decrees, free will, and the sovereignty of God. I am not saying you are unfamiliar, but I don't think you get what they are actually teaching.
Why do all things work for good? It is both. God is in control, and God uses all for our good. If God is not in ultimate control, there seems to be no way for God to work all things after the counsel of His will and all things for our good.
You at least seem to admit that God uses suffering and pain for good...
Why is it, if it is left up to us, that faith is no where mentioned in these verses? Why is it that "accepting" or "believing" or "repenting" is not mentioned in these verses? Why does Paul jump from "called" to "justified"? To me, there is something special and effectual about this call, otherwise it would not bring about justification. If not all respond to the call, then not all the justified are not necessarily glorified either...if you can be called and not respond, then you can be justified and not be glorified...
Faith, in other words, is not supernatural in any sense. It is not really given to us to have faith.
The essence of faith is looking away from ourselves to Christ, right? How can depraved and arrogant hearts turn away from themselves and obey the command, "Repent and believe the Gospel"???
2Th 3:1 Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you,
2Th 3:2 and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith.
Rom 8:7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.
Wow...I thought Open Theism was supposed to make God more personal and "down-to-earth," but He didn't even love me specifically. He did not even have me in mind when on the Cross. However, Calvinism teaches that God loved each believer specifically and personally with a covenant type love, the love a husband has for her bride. He had me specifically in mind when He was bearing MY sin on the Cross...you know how much He loved us?
Mal 1:2 "I have loved you," says the LORD. But you say, "How have you loved us?" "Is not Esau Jacob's brother?" declares the LORD. "Yet I have loved Jacob
Mal 1:3 but Esau I have hated.
Maybe you will see the point of those verses...doesn't make much sense if unconditional election is not true.
This is where you suggested it:
"we have been predestined to be like Christ as a result of our accepting the gospel. God chose from the foundation of the world to do this to all who believed in him. to say that he also predestined which people specifically he would do it to, is reading into the text more than is there"
That passage contains the doctrine of salvation in a nutshell basically, and it is ALL God's work. So how is that reading into the text? Where does it speak of "believing" or "accepting" or "having faith"?
Because inability does not negate responsibility. Notice the following verse:
Col 1:10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
We are to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, which is living a life that is fully pleasing to Him. We are to be bearing fruit and increasing in the knowledge of God. All of that is pleasing in His sight, right? We are commanded to do that, right?
Heb 13:20 Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant,
Heb 13:21 equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
How are the things that are pleasing to Him produced? By us? We are commanded to do it, right? It is GOD who is working in us to produce that which is pleasing in His sight! We are commanded to do it; He does it in us.
It seems you interpret those verses in Proverbs as God "controlling our every action." Why is that?
God can foreknow what you will do without causing you to do it though...
You presuppose you must be free at that moment or it is not freedom; I don't think the Bible ever teaches that at all.
If God sees what you WILL do in the future, how does that make you less free? He knows you COULD HAVE done otherwise, but since He knew, because He is God after all, what you would ACTUALLY do, then He ordained that that action take place.
You OVers seems to be so infatuated with your "will" as if is another god in the universe...if any view is influenced by others, it would be the OV with its Enlightenment and humanistic ideas...
I gave you verses that God governs our actions, and YOU seem to draw that we are "robots," not me, nor Calvin. Do you think Calvin taught that we do not make real choices or decisions?
To act "out of character" and to be depraved and choose God is a huge difference. When we do we ever, for example, not desire to eat vanilla ice cream, but eat it anyway. If we ate it willingly, it was because we desired to do so, whether we like or not! We always act in accordance with out nature. That is self-evident.
If you watch a tv show in one hour, will you watch it willingly? Just because God knows what you WILL do, does not in any way mean He "forced" you to do it. That is absurd. You are assuming if God knows A, then God obviously caused A to happen. That is fallacious. That is like saying, my rooster crows every morning, then the sun comes up, so that must mean the rooster crowing causes the sun to come up. It is false logic.
Therein lies the assumption and presupposition of the whole argument.
Can God not know, given a specific situation and certain circumstances and certain options, which option you will choose? Once again, just because He knows what you will choose, does not mean He made you choose it.
I simply meant you do not seem to understand the Calvinist doctrines of providence, divine decrees, free will, and the sovereignty of God. I am not saying you are unfamiliar, but I don't think you get what they are actually teaching.
God_Is_Truth
New member
I affirm that God is in ultimate control and uses all for our good. There is no need to jump to the conclusion though that because of this, he then has ordained all things.
The reason faith isn’t mentioned is because Paul is talking simply about God’s work in regards to salvation. He’s giving a summary of what God has done to us. Just because he didn’t mention our part doesn’t mean we don’t have a part. That’s an argument from silence at best and those don’t tend to be very strong.
Unless one is being drawn by the Father and being convicted of their Sin by the Holy Spirit, one cannot. The Thessalonians verse is saying that “not all have faith� in Christ, meaning that they have not yet placed their faith in the source of life. Their faith is dead and what’s dead is essentially non-existent. It’s the same as if they had no faith whatsoever. The Romans verse says that those who are still living according to the flesh, whose goal is pleasure and gratification of the sinful nature, they cannot please God as long as they do those things. They cannot because those things are not pleasing to God. If they repent, then they can please God.
I understand your concern, but remember, that in Open Theism God still loves you the same as in Calvinism. He did love you specifically on the cross but in a different sense. You were only known as a possible person. God died for all the possible people that might exist. That makes the atonement of Christ a bigger thing than in Calvinism where it was only for a few elect.
Yes, it does make you a little less “special� in open theism in that God didn’t specifically elect you personally for no reason whatsoever. But theology is about truth, not feelings.
That’s a reference to nations, sorry.
That’s the thing though. I don’t see it as the entire doctrine of salvation there. I see it as Paul’s description of what God has done to us since we accepted the gospel. It’s him telling us God’s part in our salvation. That may be part of the reason we interpret it differently.
Remember that the command was written to those who already were believers.
It’s both. He works in us to bring about the desires and motives and wants to do good things. But we are the one who does them. Thus, he works in us to do good works.
That’s not how I read them. It’s how many Calvinists read them.
Ok, let’s think this through. Now before creation, before the existence of anything at all, the only thing that exists is God. Now you say God already foreknows that you will be born as you are now. Now back when God was the only thing that existed, what made that statement true that you would exist? For what reason was it true that you were going to exist? What “force� or “power� determined that you were going to exist? Well, if only God exists (which we are stating) then it has to be him that brings it about. Thus, any future even that God knows for sure must be a result of his bringing it about. So, if God has foreknown everything from eternity past, then it must be because he ordained it and brought it to pass himself. In other words, he is the creator, doer and ordainer of all things if he has had EFK from eternity past.
If he already knows what I’ve “actually done� before I actually do it, how am I free at all? I haven’t “actually� done anything in the future yet! I have NOT made every choice I’m going to make yet. I haven’t chosen what to eat for lunch tomorrow, I haven’t chosen what time I want to take a shower yet, I haven’t chosen what my work schedule will be like this summer or any of the jillions of decisions left in my life. I haven’t made those choices yet. Thus, to say that God has seen what I’ve “actually done� is nonsense because I have not actually done those things. The only possible way that God can know what I will do for sure is to choose for me what I will do. But then, if he does that, I’m not free in any sense whatsoever.
That quote was from his writings. What do you think?
Then in what sense do we ever “act out of character�?
It does mean that if I haven’t made the choice to do that yet! The choice of watching tv is my own, it is for me to decide and I have not made that choice as of yet. However, if God knows that I will watch tv in one hour then my choice has been taken away. I am not free to do anything but watch tv. God has made my choice for me.
In your scenario yes, it’s fallacious. But when God is the ONLY thing in existence and he knows beyond the shadow of a doubt what will happen, those things have to come from him. there’s nowhere else they can come from.
Tell me, if they aren’t from God, where are they from?
He can know what I will probably choose or what I am likely to choose. But the second he knows beyond the shadow of any doubt what I will choose before I choose it, I lose my choice. Free will by definition includes an element of uncertainty. To be free, our choices cannot be certain before them for there is always that option of us doing the unexpected or the unlikely. That is why free will and exhaustive foreknowledge of the future are incompatible.
Most Calvinists I talk with agree with those things though.
God bless,
GIT
Depravity is not inability.
The image of God is defaced, not erased.
Exhaustive foreknowledge of future free will contingencies is not theologically or philosophically coherent.
Why is it so hard to accept that God has created other free moral agents resulting in a future that is partially open? He can do this because He is sovereign Creator.
The image of God is defaced, not erased.
Exhaustive foreknowledge of future free will contingencies is not theologically or philosophically coherent.
Why is it so hard to accept that God has created other free moral agents resulting in a future that is partially open? He can do this because He is sovereign Creator.
God_Is_Truth
New member
i find myself asking that about other people a lot these days.
Swordsman.... I don't want this to get lost in the shuffle. This was from my post #119....
If "repent" is an anthropomorphism then could you please explain the anthropomorphism to us?
In other words.... what does "repent" mean if indeed it is an anthropomorphism? What type of behavior or emotion is it describing?
If "repent" is an anthropomorphism then could you please explain the anthropomorphism to us?
In other words.... what does "repent" mean if indeed it is an anthropomorphism? What type of behavior or emotion is it describing?
Swordsman?
Bump.
LOL....
:singer: echo... echo... echo...
Hello?
GIT,
I also see no reason not to "jump" to that conclusion...If God doesn't control all the "microdetails," then why are we sure He controls the "macrodetails"? Where does the Bible draw that line?
The point I am making is that in two salvation passages (Eph. 1 and Rom. 8), our faith is never mentioned as a reason that we are saved. God is though. Not to say that faith doesn't play a part, because it does. However, I find it hard to say faith is our work, especially in light of what we have said of faith in other threads.
I agree. I think the question is not can we have faith, but why do we have faith when we do. Once again, look at the essence of faith and I don't think it is simply because it seems like the right thing to do...
I see no problem really with that...my point was there are some who have faith in Christ, and some don't. It is not as if all have faith in Christ and they just have to "accept it" or something like that...
The thing about that verse is those in the flesh CANNOT submit to the law of God. They are unable. Is repentance part of God's law?
Act 17:30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
According to Paul, unbelievers are unable to submit to that because they are constantly living according to the flesh. I agree, if they repent, they can please God. By themselves, they CANNOT repent. What makes that less that "total INABILITY" (cannot/unable)?
I don't think so. The OV God does NOT love me like the God of the Bible []. Christ loved me and the rest of His Bride in a way different from the rest of mankind. It was a special love. There is NO REASON WHATSOEVER IN ME why He chose to love me. It was His good pleasure.
How did Christ die for "possible sins" that we not yet sins since they did not exist? Is there any possible text to prove that? Or would it have to be proven by presuppositions and logic?
That is not comforting at all to hear that Christ only loved a non-person. How in the world can Christ love a non-person? He cannot know that which does not exist, and He cannot love that which does not exist.
Pinnock has said, "God's openness means that God is open to the changing realities of history, that God cares abot us and lets what we do impact Him. Our lives make a difference to God--they are truly significant. God is delighted when we trust Him and saddened when we rebel against Him. God made us significant creatues and treats us as such."
The OV wants to make God personal and loving and caring, but yet when they throw away the fact that God loved specific people personally, WHILE THEY WERE YET SINNERS (how can God love sinners when they are not yet sinners???), God becomes depersonalized and not the God of the Bible, Who loved His Bride and gave Himself for HER. We are no longer foreloved, predestined to be sons, etc, etc. God just loved a non-person who He didn't even know would exist. That is not the love of the God of the Bible as I perceive it...
So now God hated entire nations, not just individuals? What is more devastating, hating individuals or entire nations???
I understand how your "interpreting" it, but your reading into the text. Where does it speak of these things being after we accepted the gospel???
How are we still "free" if God is working in us to will and do His good pleasure? I do not see how these verses are consistent with your view...
Also, I think you missed that we are COMMANDED to do these things, yet they are produced by God. How can God command us to do something that only He can produce? That is the thing the OV says God cannot do...
Could you explain how you read them?
Pro 16:1 The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD.
Pro 16:9 The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.
Pro 21:1 The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.
So God isn't the One who gives life and the One by whom all things consist?
Rom 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
Rom 11:34 "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?"
Rom 11:35 "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?"
Rom 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
Where do all things come from?
He knows what you will actually DO.
That is simply a logical argument of bringing God down to our level. We cannot know what someone will do because they haven't done it yet. Therefore, God must not be able to know what will happen either, because it hasn't happened yet.
We are not the reference point and standard by which God's attributes are judged and explained...we are made like Him; He is not made like us.
I do not think that Calvin taught we do not make real decisions or that foreknowledge negates free will.
Your assumption is that we can act "out of character." I do not know that we ever act in a way that is not in accordance with our desires, which may or may not be in accordance with our true character.
It is your choice; God just happens to know what choice you will choose.
If God knows that you will watch tv, it is because He knows you would watch tv in that situation! It isn't because He forced or coerced you to make you watch tv just because He knew it. He knew it because He knows our hearts and motives and desires, and therefore knows how we will act actually and knows how we could have otherwise acted.
See above...
We are free to do whatever we please. God is more so. God gives you the choice to watch tv or to not. He can know what you will choose, and He can know if something small was changed, then you would have chosen otherwise. If you have nothing to do, and it is around the time when you sit down to watch sports everyday, then God knows what you will choose certainly without causing it. If you get ready to sit down to watch tv and get a phone call saying your child is in the hospital, then God knows you could sit down to watch tv still; that is a possibility. However, He certainly knows what you will do, and yet you are free to make that decision. You could have done otherwise, but God just knew what you would do when given the choice, and He decreed that that choice would be so and certainly come to pass, which is why you were still free and God still ordains all things.
I also see no reason not to "jump" to that conclusion...If God doesn't control all the "microdetails," then why are we sure He controls the "macrodetails"? Where does the Bible draw that line?
The point I am making is that in two salvation passages (Eph. 1 and Rom. 8), our faith is never mentioned as a reason that we are saved. God is though. Not to say that faith doesn't play a part, because it does. However, I find it hard to say faith is our work, especially in light of what we have said of faith in other threads.
I agree. I think the question is not can we have faith, but why do we have faith when we do. Once again, look at the essence of faith and I don't think it is simply because it seems like the right thing to do...
I see no problem really with that...my point was there are some who have faith in Christ, and some don't. It is not as if all have faith in Christ and they just have to "accept it" or something like that...
The thing about that verse is those in the flesh CANNOT submit to the law of God. They are unable. Is repentance part of God's law?
Act 17:30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
According to Paul, unbelievers are unable to submit to that because they are constantly living according to the flesh. I agree, if they repent, they can please God. By themselves, they CANNOT repent. What makes that less that "total INABILITY" (cannot/unable)?
I don't think so. The OV God does NOT love me like the God of the Bible [
]. Christ loved me and the rest of His Bride in a way different from the rest of mankind. It was a special love. There is NO REASON WHATSOEVER IN ME why He chose to love me. It was His good pleasure.How did Christ die for "possible sins" that we not yet sins since they did not exist? Is there any possible text to prove that? Or would it have to be proven by presuppositions and logic?
That is not comforting at all to hear that Christ only loved a non-person. How in the world can Christ love a non-person? He cannot know that which does not exist, and He cannot love that which does not exist.
Pinnock has said, "God's openness means that God is open to the changing realities of history, that God cares abot us and lets what we do impact Him. Our lives make a difference to God--they are truly significant. God is delighted when we trust Him and saddened when we rebel against Him. God made us significant creatues and treats us as such."
The OV wants to make God personal and loving and caring, but yet when they throw away the fact that God loved specific people personally, WHILE THEY WERE YET SINNERS (how can God love sinners when they are not yet sinners???), God becomes depersonalized and not the God of the Bible, Who loved His Bride and gave Himself for HER. We are no longer foreloved, predestined to be sons, etc, etc. God just loved a non-person who He didn't even know would exist. That is not the love of the God of the Bible as I perceive it...
So now God hated entire nations, not just individuals? What is more devastating, hating individuals or entire nations???
I understand how your "interpreting" it, but your reading into the text. Where does it speak of these things being after we accepted the gospel???
How are we still "free" if God is working in us to will and do His good pleasure? I do not see how these verses are consistent with your view...
Also, I think you missed that we are COMMANDED to do these things, yet they are produced by God. How can God command us to do something that only He can produce? That is the thing the OV says God cannot do...
Could you explain how you read them?
Pro 16:1 The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD.
Pro 16:9 The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.
Pro 21:1 The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.
So God isn't the One who gives life and the One by whom all things consist?
Rom 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
Rom 11:34 "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?"
Rom 11:35 "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?"
Rom 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
Where do all things come from?
He knows what you will actually DO.
That is simply a logical argument of bringing God down to our level. We cannot know what someone will do because they haven't done it yet. Therefore, God must not be able to know what will happen either, because it hasn't happened yet.
We are not the reference point and standard by which God's attributes are judged and explained...we are made like Him; He is not made like us.
I do not think that Calvin taught we do not make real decisions or that foreknowledge negates free will.
Your assumption is that we can act "out of character." I do not know that we ever act in a way that is not in accordance with our desires, which may or may not be in accordance with our true character.
It is your choice; God just happens to know what choice you will choose.
If God knows that you will watch tv, it is because He knows you would watch tv in that situation! It isn't because He forced or coerced you to make you watch tv just because He knew it. He knew it because He knows our hearts and motives and desires, and therefore knows how we will act actually and knows how we could have otherwise acted.
See above...
We are free to do whatever we please. God is more so. God gives you the choice to watch tv or to not. He can know what you will choose, and He can know if something small was changed, then you would have chosen otherwise. If you have nothing to do, and it is around the time when you sit down to watch sports everyday, then God knows what you will choose certainly without causing it. If you get ready to sit down to watch tv and get a phone call saying your child is in the hospital, then God knows you could sit down to watch tv still; that is a possibility. However, He certainly knows what you will do, and yet you are free to make that decision. You could have done otherwise, but God just knew what you would do when given the choice, and He decreed that that choice would be so and certainly come to pass, which is why you were still free and God still ordains all things.
Jesus was asked what workS must be done. He said that the WORK of God was to BELIEVE in Him. Faith is not a self-righteous work (Eph. 2:8-10). It is a conditional response to the drawing of God to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (not just the elect in scope....we become part of the elect by repentant faith...they alone have eternal life. Repentant faith precedes election. Election was not from eternity past).
Cough... cough....
Hack....
Man... I can't clear my throat.
Hack....
Man... I can't clear my throat.
GreenPartyVoter
New member
I am uncomfortable with the concept of Open Theism that says God does not know everything in advance.
For me, I need God to be all-powerful and all-knowing. I take comfort in believing that there is a plan and that all will work out for the best, even if I don't understand how.
For me, I need God to be all-powerful and all-knowing. I take comfort in believing that there is a plan and that all will work out for the best, even if I don't understand how.
Do you believe the Bible is the word of God?
How can you take comfort in thinking that God planned the rape and brutal murder of a 7 year old girl? Or of men hijacking airliners and flying them into buildings or men chaining a black man to the back of a pickup truck and dragging him as they drove through the town eventually shredding his body into pieces. Is it comforting to think that God planned those things in every detail?
Swordsman.... I don't want this to get lost in the shuffle. This was from my post #119....
If "repent" is an anthropomorphism then could you please explain the anthropomorphism to us?
In other words.... what does "repent" mean if indeed it is an anthropomorphism? What type of behavior or emotion is it describing?
If "repent" is an anthropomorphism then could you please explain the anthropomorphism to us?
In other words.... what does "repent" mean if indeed it is an anthropomorphism? What type of behavior or emotion is it describing?
While I understand the sentiment and I don't want to be overly harsh here, I would like to submit for your consideration that it seems that you are placing too much emphasis on your own emotional needs rather than placing the priority on finding out what the truth is and going with it regardless of how you feel about it.
The fact is that IF God does not know everything that is going to happen then you do not need for Him to. In other words, what you need is God, the real God. If that happens to be a God who knows every detail of the future then that's the God you need, if, on the other hand, it turns out that God does not know every detail of the future then that's the God you need. What you feel, while important, isn't the deciding factor. Have the courage to find out what is true and then accept it and believe it. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Look at the substantive evidence and be brave enough to accept what it is telling you.
Resting in Him,
Clete
Well put! :Clete: