The “closed view” is eliminated when you take God’s word seriously
The “closed view” is eliminated when you take God’s word seriously
Z Man – I do not usually enjoy responding to posts via third party references, especially if they replace you input, also, this website promotes exactly what I am saying to help facilitate one on one person to person dialogue. If I wanted to read what “someone else thinks”, I would not be discussing this with you but with them instead. Not a big deal though as some use of quotations from third parties may be appropriate upon occasion, but
they should not predominate or substitute for your thoughts. In this case, you present no other thoughts, thus my remark is warranted.
I take your submission in a good natured way, please inform us of “your” thoughts on the matter at some point, do you agree fully with this post, is it your tentative view, are you suspect or open to alternative views, and of course, what do you think of my point counter-points. I will quote the entire post dispersed with footnotes to emphasize, demonstrate, and promote a mindset of not violating the wider context. This will make my post longer than usual, but I believe it will promote more direct point counterpoint clarity.
www.xtristian.org said
Originally posted by Z Man
The Dilemma
(1) To the Biblical teaching regarding the immutability of God, it is often countered, "What about the verses in the bible that speak of God's repentance?" Those asking the question often cite verses such as Genesis 6:6-7, Exodus 32:14, Judges 2:18, 1 Samuel 15:11, Isaiah 38:1-6, or Jonah 3:10. What is to be said for or against these claims? How can these verses be reasonably reconciled with the immutability of God taught in the rest of the scriptures?
The Passages Examined
(2) In all of the above passages, except Isa. 38:1-6, the Hebrew word, nacham, is explicitly used. The only major bible translation that translates this word "repent," is the KJV. Each of the other translations choose the alternate meaning conveyed, "was sorry" or "relented," indicating a feeling of regret on God's part rather than a total retreat of purpose or about face (the Hebrew shuwb has the latter strict translation when speaking of repentance). This is a significant point in that the context must govern the translation of a word with alternate meanings.
(3) The chief tension then is the stark contrast of God's immediately expressed emotion with the already and clearly established doctrine of God's immutability. If God is immutable, it is argued, then why would He express sorrow at something He allowed to happen and change His actions. In some cases (Isa. 38:1-6; Jonah 3:10), individuals will even call into question the prophetic qualifications of a prophet who changes a prior prophecy.
(4) It is critical to remember, that the immutability of God does NOT hold that God reacts the same in all situations. It teaches, instead, that God is unchanging in His being, character, purposes, and promises. There can be no doubt that God foreknew all of the situations in the above passages from before all time, purposed them, and even knew their outcome. Yet, the beauty of God is that He is also a personal Being, who interacts with His creation and reveals Himself to man. Therefore, as God relates with man, each moment in time may involve a different IMMEDIATE expression of His Being, whether it be wrath, anger, patience, love, or forgiveness. Rather than construe the above passages to mean that God's eternal purposes had changed, it should be recognized that a personal and compassionate God had entered into history and engaged His people with feeling and emotion.
(5) God's immutability is maintained throughout the Old Testament by use of the same word, nacham, to clearly state (even in the same book and chapter as one of the above passages) that God is not like a man, who should lie, repent, or change (Nu. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29; Ps. 110:4; Jer. 4:28; Ezek 24:14). Rather than assume that these authors had never read one another (which is impossible in the case of Samuel, who wrote both 1 Sam 15:11 and 15:22) and mistakenly contradicted each other, it is more reasonable to build an understanding that harmonizes the passages.
Reading through the contexts of each of the verses, it is clear that the eternal purposes of God are preserved and unaltered in every instance.
(6) The prophet Jeremiah well declared the permanent intent of God with His people:
The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, 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. And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, 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. (Jer 18:7-10, emphasis added)
(7) In other words, God reserves the right to change how He deals with any situation IF the people change how they follow after His ways. That is God's unchanging purpose with man.
(8) It is why Jonah was not a false prophet when He declared the destruction of Nineveh1, but was told later to recant the proclamation.
(9) God's purpose was to bring about repentance.
(10) Had Nineveh NOT repented and God spared the city, then Jonah could be declared to be a false prophet and God mutable. This, however, is not the case in Jonah 3 or any of the passages above. That repentance brings about forgiveness is one of the great solaces of the unchanging gospel of Christ. Without it, there is no gospel and a savior who died in vain.
(11) Finally, a survey of the above passages and the immediate contexts will reveal that not only does the behavior of the people change and bring about an alternate disposition of God, but there is in many of the cases petition made before God by one of His people. In the case of Exodus 32, Moses pleads against God's judgment for His people by the promises of the covenant; in Judges 2, the groaning of the people under oppression is heard by God; in Isaiah 38, the prayer of Hezekiah is heard and answered by God. How beautiful it is, that God personally hears, is moved by, and answers the petitions of His people. It is somewhat paradoxical that God can hear a prayer and remain sovereign. Yes, it is a mystery, indeed. However, it poses no contradiction to God's immutability.
Conclusion
What "changed" in these verses is how God related and interacted with His people in different circumstances. (The doctrine of God's immutability does NOT hold that God reacts the same in every situation, but rather that His being, character, purposes, and promises are immutable.) It is the beauty of the unchanging gospel and purposes of God, that he should offer forgiveness (that second chance) after repentance to those that are His people. It is the beauty of the personal God, that after His people petition so fervently before Him, that God hears them and offers forgiveness to them. These actions of God are wholly consistent with His immutable purposes and promises (Jer. 18:7-10) that were willed from before all time and carried out in history. Indeed, God is not a man, that He should lie or change! Yet, He is personal and engaging and will react differently in specific situations.
Footnotes
(12) 1 Incidentally, the prophecy of Jonah against Nineveh (Jonah 3:4) does not pretend to be a complete transcript of all that Jonah said. It is very possible, in fact likely, that Jonah cried out with more than the words "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown," since most prophets preached judgement with a call to repentance. In fact the exact words of Jonah play a very minor role in the book of Jonah, as the focus is on God's call to repentance and the forgiveness that is conditioned thereon.
www.xtristian.org
(1) Obviously this is written with a biased view of what biblical immutability really is. Biblical immutability concerns God’s character and faithful ways, not that God can not change in any way. This again points to a problem of dealing with a third party communication; we are not having a mutual discussion of the context involved. God is shown to change in the most dramatic ways. Examine around the core of the gospel message itself, what happened as a result of the incarnation is absolutely central to Christianity, and the incarnation is a great example of God changing. God “became” flesh and dwelt among us. “Became” is a change word, it is impossible to undergo becoming something different, and at the same time, and in the same relationship, that not being a change. If God did not change when He became flesh, then perhaps He was always manifested in the flesh, but that makes no sense at all. God the son emptied Himself of the glory which He shared with the father, and then later on Earth He prayed to the Father to share His glory with Jesus as He had done in the past. That is a real change. Jesus humbled Himself to the point of death, that is a real change. God repenting from what He said and thought He would do, represents a change even in His thoughts and mind!
So since
we should never take any single teaching in contradiction to other teachings of the bible,
we know that one of the two must be understood differently. And to my understanding, the open view’s understanding of God’s unchanging ways is a far better fit to the entire word of God, than the closed view’s understanding of voiding all aspects of God’s word where it teaches and demonstrates God changing, even changing His spoken and unspoken mind via divine repentance. Frankly, I came to the open view by simply reading scripture and holding loosely to my presuppositions about Him existing outside of time and predestinating all individuals to heaven and hell prior to all time, etc.
I will only focus on Jer 18 1-10 especially 7-10 and Jonah 3:4&10 for the sake of brevity and clarity.
But before I move on, I’d like to make one thing perfectly clear. I am providing a godly reasonable explanation for both side’s texts of this debate, including the so called “problem” texts for my view. I believe I have no problem or proof texts, but then again, so does the other side. However, when you grant their view, and then you consider all the divine repentance teachings, they do not deal rightly with them at all. They violate them, and worse, they replace the meaning, with nothing. And that is in direct violation of what it means to rightly handle scripture. It’s ok to be ignorant about what some teaching in the bible means, ignorance is not the problem. The problem is when you say that you know that these repentance passages do not mean what they plainly say and teach. They even go so far as to say that they must not be taken literally, thus take figuratively, but, when asked to simple question, ok, if that is so, then what sort of figure is it, and what does the figure mean,
they have no reasonable response! Especially in explaining what the figure means.
This wholesale voiding of scripture at the expense of protecting manmade presuppositions about God and His word is a grievous violence and should not be tolerated. Anyone saying that they know the right understanding of a text or passage, and then when asked what does that part of the text teach, what does this it mean, and they can’t tell you, such a thing represents one of the highest forms of self imposed delusion and fraud possible, it is intellectual suicide and makes a mockery of God and the Christian faith. Anyone knows that if you disagree with a literal meaning of a passage of text, then it is incumbent upon yourself to provide the reasonable explanation for what it instead means. God is wise, He knew what He said, and said what He meant.
(2) A word has no such power as to overturn it’s contextual use. Yes, the word nacham can and does mean to sigh, to be comforted, like the relief upon standing corrected or a wrong righted, and it can mean repent from doing what you said or thought you were going to do, changing your previous intended direction even unto a 180 degree turnaround. Nacham can mean all these things.
As to shuwb, strongs 7725, the authorized version translates it’s occurrences as follows
return 391,
... again 248,
turn 123,
... back 65,
... away 56,
restore 39,
bring 34,
render 19,
answer 18,
recompense 8,
recover 6,
deliver 5,
put 5,
withdraw 5,
requite 4,
misc 40;
total = 1066
So it is hardly true that this word necessarily means repentance as compared to nacham. What if the teaching uses NEITHER of these words yet still describes an act of repentance? Such as,
On second thought, I said that I would do X, but now that things have changed, I will do Y instead.
“Second” does not mean repent, “thought” does not mean repent, “changed” does not mean repent, “instead” does not mean repent! In fact,
no repentance word is remotely necessary in order to demonstrate or communicate repentance! If I am loving, does not mean that I must use the word love in conveying that love? No way.
The contextual meaning is the highest order of meaning, not word definitions. Words are subjugated to their use in phrases and longer more definitive types of communication, like sentences and paragraphs.
(3) Not clearly expressed by God. The clearest expression of the classic idea of God’s immutability which this writer is referring to (that He does not change in any way), is most clearly taught from pagan and Greek philosophy and myth. For a historical rabbit trail from the ancient Greek philosophers on divine immutability and how that was accepted by earlier Christian thinkers, see John Sanders contribution to “The openness of God” in chapter 2, historical Considerations, page 59–100, where he does an amazing job of objectively dealing with the historical facts involved, exposing the indelible link between the pagans and the Christians concerning the closed view. The major thematic headings include:
Greek philosophical conceptions of God,
Plato,
Aristotle,
The Stoics,
Philo: The bridge from the Greeks to the Christians,
The Church Fathers’ appropriation of the philosophical God,
The Arian controversy,
Augustine,
The middle ages,
The reformation era,
Progressive views of God,
Conservative protestant views of God,
Moderate views of God,
Concluding reflections.
It is a great read, very understandable, only a few short pages per issue, and very compelling and for many, very shocking information. I met John Sanders personally, he is a great teacher and very interesting person. So, when closed theists promote divine immutability, they are far more closely quoting Plato and Aristole and repeating their support argumentation, than they are quoting and arguing how God does not change from scripture.
(4) This is not accurately stated, and the second sentence is almost exactly what the Open view holds, especially when you consider that God’s word does not need a promise of fulfillment in order to be trustworthy, yet in Jer 18 the Potter and the clay, God teaches His unalterable right to repent from doing what He said and thought He would do. The irony of this fact, is that the closed theist says no God, you can not repent from doing what you said and thought You would do, so they allow for most of God’s word to be unchangingly true, but they reject God’s word about divine repentance saying that it can not be true, it can not happen. Ask a closed theist to list all the prophecies in God’s word that God said He did not do them, they did not come to pass, and they are completely stumped and dumbfounded. There are others, but I will focus on Jonah 3:10 as it is so concise and simple to understand, whenever he gets around to dealing with it.
Next he says
that there can be no doubt God foreknew all of the situations in the above passages from before all time, purposed them, and even knew their outcome. Yet, the beauty of God is that He is also a personal Being, who interacts with His creation and reveals Himself to man.
This is wrong on so many levels. There most certainly is doubt that God foreknew all those situations from before all time, in a number of ways. First, the passage (Jonah 3:4&10) teaches that God changed His mind and did not do what He said He would do, “God’s word says” that He did not do it (meaning He did not do His spoken prophesied destruction of Nineveh). So by trusting in God’s word (imagine that), I believe that He did not foreknow from before all time what would happen. God’s word demonstrates that He did not. Secondly, and not any less importantly, the writer brazenly asserts a time which was “before all time”, which is wrong on at least 2 counts. First, it is a logical fallacy to speak of the idea of “before” “all time”. Time is experienced through the steady logical succession of events ordered one after the other, so such terms as “before” or “since” or “from” when relating to time sequencing, are time sequencing ideas, they show an order of progression, which is an aspect of time. So the idea of God’s knowledge “proceeding” “before” “all time”, is in itself a time idea, thus violating the all time concept.
Secondly, scripture does not teach the creation of time. In fact, it teaches more like the opposite. God’s names are typically concerning some truth about Him, He does not normally go by names/titles/truisms that would contradict His character and nature and ways, yet, He is called the ancient of days, and the living God, and He who is and was and is to come, from everlasting to everlasting, etc. God teaches us to NOT worship or pay too much honor to His creation, worship Him, not His creation, yet we worship our God who is the “ancient of days”, “the living God”, etc. so these ideas of God being the “ancient of days” and “the living God” identity us with something that reflects His nature accurately.
Also, no where in the scriptures is the idea taught that God created time, or that God exists outside of time. There is time in heaven, numerous examples of this in the book of the Revelation.
Lastly, don’t rely upon a subjective issue of whether or not God is expressing emotion or not in order to argue against God changing and not foreknowing the entire future.
God getting upset or comforted is a tangent issue if God actually reverses what He said and thought He would do, then plainly God changes His mind, God repents.
(5) True but only according to the biblical definition of divine unchangingness, not the classical version of divine immutability. Of special note, I saw no use of the words “not change” in the NKJV for all those examples. It seems the author overstepped his standing on this issue as well. In the Sam passage, God most clearly expresses how it is that He does not repent, and how it is that He does repent, both! God does not repent like a man needs to because of lying or doing wrong, it’s not that He does wrong and then needs to repent. It is because God learned of the new changed situation that God repents.
This may be a reflection upon a classic Hebrew language tool, parallelism. Back then, when they rhymed, they did not repeat for similar sound, they repeated a similar idea. Consider the following and see if you can catch the brilliance of such parallelism.
Pr 26:4
Do not answer a fool according to his folly, Lest you also be like him.
Pr26:5 Answer a fool according to his folly, Lest he be wise in his own eyes.
See how the same wording/idea repeated, while changing it’s contextual use illustrates yet another idea that neither the one or the other could convey without them both being set in contrast to each other. There are two basic ways to answer a fool, one is according to his folly, and the other is according to his folly. :think: You the reader must discern the unspoken implied meaning of each. Absolutely brilliant. Consider, Pharaoh (first) hardened his heart, and God hardened his heart with the many miraculous plagues defying Pharaoh’s power hungry control and defiance against God. If Pharaoh would have repented and obeyed God, then God would have been glorified, so God did not force Pharaoh to be evil, He has no problem stating things in such a way as to make you use righteous understanding about what God is talking about.
Ok, so here’s a case that might be using an extended form of parallelism, but not nearly as pointed and clear as compared to the fool and his folly passage.
1Sa 15:11 It repenteth <05162> me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night.
1Sa 15:29 And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent <05162>: for he is not a man, that he should repent <05162>.
1Sa 15:35 And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death: nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul: and the LORD repented <05162> that he had made Saul king over Israel. (KJV)
Same word used of God repenting three times in this passage, all within the space of just 20 verses. Two showing going doing nacham, and one showing He will not do nacham. Very interesting, so that does not settle anything, lets look at the contextual development over what God is said to be nachaming about.
“8 He also took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. 9 But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed.”
“10 Now the word of the LORD came to Samuel, saying, 11 "I greatly regret <05162> that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments." And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the LORD all night. 12 So when Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, it was told Samuel, saying, "Saul went to Carmel, and indeed, he set up a monument for himself; and he has gone on around, passed by, and gone down to Gilgal." 13 Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, "Blessed are you of the LORD! I have performed the commandment of the LORD." 14 But Samuel said, "What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" 15 And Saul said, "They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the LORD your God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed." 16 Then Samuel said to Saul, "Be quiet! And I will tell you what the LORD said to me last night." And he said to him, "Speak on." 17 So Samuel said, "When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the LORD anoint you king over Israel? 18 "Now the LORD sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ 19 "Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the LORD?" 20 And Saul said to Samuel, "But I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and gone on the mission on which the LORD sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. 21 "But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the LORD your God in Gilgal." 22 Then Samuel said: "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from being king."”
“24 Then Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. 25 "Now therefore, please pardon my sin, and return with me, that I may worship the LORD." 26 But Samuel said to Saul, "I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you from being king over Israel." 27 And as Samuel turned around to go away, Saul seized the edge of his robe, and it tore. 28 So Samuel said to him, "The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. 29 "And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. <05162> For He is not a man, that He should relent." 30 Then he said, "I have sinned; yet honor me now, please, before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may worship the LORD your God." 31 So Samuel turned back after Saul, and Saul worshiped the LORD.”
“32 Then Samuel said, "Bring Agag king of the Amalekites here to me." So Agag came to him cautiously. And Agag said, "Surely the bitterness of death is past." 33 But Samuel said, "As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women." And Samuel hacked Agag in pieces before the LORD in Gilgal. 34 Then Samuel went to Ramah, and Saul went up to his house at Gibeah of Saul. 35 And Samuel went no more to see Saul until the day of his death. Nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul, and the LORD regretted <05162> that He had made Saul king over Israel.” (1Sa 15:8-35 NKJV)
See, God was not just sorry that He made Saul king, God made him king, and then God nacham’ed against His doing so and took the kingship away from Saul. God reversed His decision to have Saul as King.
Sorry, I repented from doing what I said I would do. I went against my word to only focus on Jonah, and this is primarily why, the context is that important to develop, but it takes up so much more space to cover, please forgive this indulgence, but it serves wonderfully to promote righteous bible understanding when you don’t violate the context. That the truth may set you free. But oh what a long post this will be.
The writer said
Rather than assume that these authors had never read one another (which is impossible in the case of Samuel, who wrote both 1 Sam 15:11 and 15:22) and mistakenly contradicted each other, it is more reasonable to build an understanding that harmonizes the passages.
That is a tremendous falsification. But to the point, what is he talking about in verse 22? I think he might mean 23 instead, but I’m not sure. :think:
1Sa 15:11 "I greatly regret that I have set up Saul [as] king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments." And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the LORD all night.
1Sa 15:22 Then Samuel said: "Has the LORD [as great] delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, [And] to heed than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from being king."
1Sa 15:29 "And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. For He [is] not a man, that He should relent."
Such a comparison shows no contradiction, let alone a problem with Open theism and divine repentance. If he meant verse 29, then that is also not a contradiction. These separate verses show God saying how He does and does not repent. He repents like this, but not like that. Total harmonization without voiding scripture of any meaning.
(6) What emphasis added? But bravo for quoting God for His teaching on this issue. Perhaps the most accurate truth presentation he made.
(7) This is misleading and vague, because I would say the exact same thing concerning the open view, we must continue on to see what this writer is trying to convey.
(8) Totally wrong. The reason why Jonah is not considered a false prophet, is because He spoke the word of God faithfully and true. The record that we have in God’s word is faithful and true, God said that He did not bring the destruction that He said He would bring, and He did not do it. God explained that it was within God and because of the change from Nineveh that He changed, and the truthfulness of Jonah was what kept Jonah from being a false prophet, not something else. Yet still the writer’s development so far is not far from what any open theist would say happened. We must read on to understand where this writer is coming from and means to convey.
(9) And here we find the whole issue, the writer is “trying” to pass off a transposition of concepts. He is switching
God’s eternal plans and desire for men to repent, i.e. God is redemptive and merciful to all who love and obey Him, and opposes those who do not.
(God is the same, He learns nothing)
With God not doing what He said He would do.
(God responds to what He learns, He changes His mind.)
Both are divine truths, but the two are not the same issue. We are concerned about the question of God preknowing the entire future or not, not if God’s character is faithful and true. We must focus on the mind of God, whether or not He changes His mind and does not do what He said He would do, and that is exactly the case in point!
(10) Here the writer lets it all hang out as gross and wrong as could be. If a prophet speaks the truth and doesn’t speak presumptuously, and God follows through with the prophesy that He truly said He would do, that is no reason to judge against the prophet no matter their repentance or not. The prophet is not held responsible for whatever changes take place after truthfully speaking for the Lord. So this claim is unfounded and contrary to scripture. As to God being impugned because of punishing a repentant people, that is a good point, yet again, this fully supports the open view, not argues against it. We accept a God who adjusts for “altering circumstances”, it is the closed view says that God makes no adjustments, it is all preknown and unalterable, God’s response is thus perfectly unalterable.
So we see that the writer conveniently switches from examining what God said He would do and then did not do, to God’s eternal purpose and ways. The two are not the exact same issue, as though the only righteous presupposition is that God foreknows all things, thus for God to learn something new is completely unbibilical and does not even enter his contemplation during his explanation of the passage. Yet God be true and every man a liar, God did not do what He said He would do.
Lastly, I restate my challenge to all closed theists. Any time you void the passage of meaning, you MUST replace it with a reasonable meaning instead. Here the writer does no such thing. I’ll quote you verse 10 God’s version, and then I will quote you verse 10 the closed version.
[size=4.5]Jonah’s Nineveh prophesy[/size]
(God’s meaningful version)
Jon 3:10 Then God saw their works,
that they turned from their evil way;
and God relented from the disaster
that He had said He would bring upon them,
and He did not do it.
[size=4.5]Jonah’s Nineveh prophesy[/size]
(Man’s meaningless closed view version)
Jon 3:10 .. ? .. God .. ? .. their works,
..?.. they turned from their evil way;
and God ? ... ... ? ... ... the disaster
... ? ... ? ... ? ... ? ... ? ... ? ... ? ... upon them,
and He ...?...?...?.
More plainly, when you say
that God did not change His mind
implying that God did do what He said He would do,
then verse 10 is a meaningless contradiction to that idea. If the closed theist’s idea is true, that God never changes and always does what He says or thinks He will do, then what does verse 10 mean if it does not mean the exact opposite of that idea? :think:
The silence is deafening.
(11) This writer is using a ploy that is sometimes convincing but at it’s foundation is deceitful. He is taking on our arguments and phraseology and doing his best to make them work for him. Sometimes this is a good thing to do, especially if you do it properly. Here the writer presents direct contradiction to his own view. He says
not only does the behavior of the people change and bring about an alternate disposition of God, but there is in many of the cases petition made before God by one of His people.
He teaches that God has only ONE UNALTERABLE plan, only one unchanging will,
so for God to have an “alternative” response to the one He already gave, is complete disharmony to everything he has been saying. And yet it is consistent that he is transposing God’s divine repentance away from doing what He said or thought He would do, with His unchanging eternal ways. God planned to destroy Nineveh, but then after they repented, God repented from bringing the destruction which he said He WOULD bring, and He did NOT do it. “God” said that He did not do what He said He would do. And He did that to remain faithful to His unchanging ways and righteousness and mercy, etc. The biblical doctrine of divine repentance is the right solution and refutes closed theism completely.
Somewhat paradoxical? God says after the fact, that He did not do what He said He would do, and this writer only see’s no change in God in that, no change in intentions, no change in what He said He would do, even thought God’s commentary on the Jonah prophesy was that He repented from bringing the destruction that He said He would bring, and He did not do it. That is God’s word, it is meaningful and true, and this write did nothing but void that change in God’s intentions and replaced it with nothing.
When God said that He did not bring the destruction that He said He would bring, and He did not do it, the writer is asking you forget all about that stuff, and just remember that God is merciful and gracious towards those who repent and honor God. He has addressed the teaching, but voided it of meaning, and replaced it with nothing. It is a disgrace.
(12) But what Jonah did say was scripturally correct, you can not invalidate the truth God decided to preserve in His word. Same with verse 10 which is God’s commentary on His own prophetic word which He repented from doing and is in my opinion a clear demonstration or fulfillment of Jer 18 the Potter and the clay where God reserves the right to repent of what He said and from what He THOUGHT He would do. God repenting, and not doing what He previously thought He would do, leaves precisely zero room for closed theism. It is anti-biblical, instead, the bible teaches plainly a living changing rationally mutable God who does indeed learn new things.
God’s word is true, don’t violate scripture. :thumb:
