Why?
Is your allegiance to God's word or Aristotle's?
And that's not me being flippant. That really is the choice.
How to respond to classical theists who dodge Open Theism arguments
- Thread starter Unsettler
- Start date
Is your allegiance to God's word or Aristotle's?
And that's not me being flippant. That really is the choice.
What did you believe in before Open Theism?
Lon
Well-known member
You've moved me on a couple of points. It is my objective in debate, not to 'change' but to plant and water because God gives increase. In order to move from my entrenched position, God has to challenge me through scripture. It has to be there where anybody will change so I urge 1) everyone to spend lots of time in scripture where we are made and molded and 2) to bring up pertinent scriptures. They move us, and not we them. Hopefully some encouragement for you Clete. Scripture ftw.
Main stream, more or less Baptist doctrine. Why do you ask?
Lon
Well-known member
My question stemmed from this and other articles. My first encounter with Open Theists was largely from the Charismatic churches. Later, when involved with Southern Baptists, Open Theism came up under council scrutiny. It seems there is a good number who came from Reformed circles (Derf above) who are reactionary against Reformed doctrines, thus leaned entirely the other way: Open Theism.
Derf
Well-known member
My journey was more "through" reformed circles rather than "from" them. But I also believe the reformed ideas make more sense than the Baptistic ones about how God could know our eventual decision(s).
Edit: I should add that I think Open Theism is closer to Reformed thought than Baptist in terms of how God knows what He knows.
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I came to Open Theism through Bon Enyart's ministry. He used to have a television talk show called "Bob Enyart Live" on the Lesea Television Network (I think it was that network!) back in the 90s. The show had nothing at all to do with Open Theism. It was a talk show where Bob talked about social and political issues from a Christian perspective. It is, still to this day, the single most straight forward and logical presentation of practical Christianity that has ever aired on any Christian television network (or any other network for that matter) and I was so impressed with the impact that this little tiny church (Derby Bible Church at the time) was having without any attempt to con people into thinking if they donate money then God owes them health and wealth or even asking anyone for money at all, for that matter.
One day he started promoting his new, not quite finished, manuscript entitled "The Plot", which I ordered immediately. At the time, I was working the overnight shift at a call center where the phone barely rang at all after about 10:00 pm and so I had lots of time to do things like read books. When Bob's manuscript arrived, I took it to work that evening and once I started read, I hardly stopped until I had completed it. I stopped to eat and to go to the bathroom and to sleep for a few of hours that next day but, otherwise, I basically read the entire thing in a single sitting.
The Plot is not about open theism! It's about Mid-Acts Dispensationalism and it makes the single most impressively elegant and compelling argument for a systematic theology that I have yet been exposed to. It is absolutely an amazing book and, after reading it, I wanted more and more. I attended Bob's seminars that taught the same material in greater depth and I subscribed to his monthly Bible studies, which came on audio cassette tapes at the time. It was these bible studies that really exposed me to Open Theism. His verse by verse study through the book of Genesis, particularly the section entitle "Genesis: The Fall" is perhaps the single best Bible study that anyone has ever published. In that study, Bob establishes very definitively that God does NOT exist outside of time and that He isn't the know-it-all stone idol that Augustine and Calvin believed in.
The result was that God became real to me. God is a real person. A person that I can understand and relate to. I can identify, although incompletely of course, with the way God must feel when His creation hates Him. I get why God gets angry and so I am truly impressed and in awe of God's patience and enduring love and I totally get what it means when it says that God's love and the peace that comes with it surpasses understanding because it totally does! In other words, various phrases and statements made in scripture that sound very lofty and don't really connect to anything concrete inside the mind's of most people became so real and substantive. Now, I read things like Philippians 4:7 and think, "Yeah! You can say that again!" because I get it. It's a perfectly obvious thing for someone to say because God is a real person who is bending over backward trying to get people to repent and mostly what He gets is a proverbial jab in the eye and the fact that He doesn't just bring the hammer down on the whole thing just blows my mind because if it were up to me...well...let's just say its a very good thing that it isn't up to me.
I'm rambling and I'm out of time for now, anyway!
Lon
Well-known member
No, not rambling at all. I appreciate your story. Another reason I ask is because it helps see where another is coming from, what motivations there are behind thoughts. Regardless of the stark differences between our theologies on one front, I do appreciate Mid-Acts teaching and perspective. I've been told, even with my hold-outs, "you are a mid-acts theologian.' Appreciate this and you. Thank you. -Lon
Lon
Well-known member
It depends on one's reading level, but reading scripture does cause sound reasoning. 2 Timothy 3:16 Isaiah 55:11. That said: Proverbs 4:7 in agreement.
Lon
Well-known member
Did you READ those verses? 1 Corinthians 2:14 says a man without God's Spirit cannot understand/accept God's wisdom. My point was that God is active in this world. We do our diligence but God is working on me. I'm not alone, neither are you else you'd be completely subject to your grade achievements. I have two degrees, by example. Do I depend on them? Yes. Only on them? Nope.
Anyone can cite or quote a few Bible verses and make them say what they want them to say. Doesn't mean what is being said is rational, or good.
Hence...:
Matthew 27:5; Luke 10:37, as an extreme example of what NOT to do.
Derf
Well-known member
That's the whole point of what I said: Without God's Spirit, one cannot understand and accept God's wisdom. Iow, you end up accepting a different understanding of God's wisdom, a false understanding. So what is that spirit of God? Isn't it a desire to know what He is trying to tell us, rather than coming to scripture with our preconceived ideas? Ideas about God, or about creation, or about salvation, etc.
Reading scripture does NOT cause sound reason!
The doctrines taught by people who don't just read the bible but have much, sometimes all, of it memorized is as varied and inconsistent as with any other random sampling of believers.
Further, Proverbs 4:7 talks about wisdom being "the principle thing". Notice that it does not say that "God's word" or "Scripture reading" or anything like that is the principle thing. The word in Hebrew there is "chochmah". "Wisdom" is the correct translation but it implies more than knowledge but a skill in one's ability to think. It is knowledge and experience combined with sound reason.
That is NOT what I Corinthians 2:14 is teaching and even if it were, it has nearly nothing to do with what I said. It certainly does not contradict what I said. Indeed, it is in perfect agreement with what I said. All truth is rational - ALL TRUTH! There is simply no such thing as an irrational truth - period.
Further, there is no such thing as "God's wisdom". Which is to say that there is wisdom and then there is foolishness. There is an important spiritual aspect to wisdom but that only means that those who are not spiritual cannot be wise. It doesn't mean that God has to perform some sort of miracle in order to get people to understand the truth. People are, in fact, spiritual beings. Attempting to acquire wisdom by ignoring that fact would be like a bird attempting to fly without spreading it's wings. You cannot be wise by ignoring a major aspect of reality, much less the very aspect of it that permits wisdom in the first place.
And so, you have four groups....
- People who use God's word (spirituality) and sound reason.
- People who use God's word (spirituality) but ignore sound reason.
- People who use sound reason but ignore God's word (spirituality).
- People who ignore both.
Since we're on these topics of not only Open Theism but also God's word and sound reason, I want to take the opportunity to express how profound I think it is how closely those two things are related to each other and how critical it is to understand first principles BEFORE undertaking the task of formulating a systematic theology.
For example, think about the following question....
Which is more fundamental, scripture or reason (i.e. sound reason, of course)?
If you think that the answer is anything other than sound reason, I would ask you how to came to that answer! Can you read even one single syllable of scripture without utilizing reason? Can you understand what you've read without reason? Can you apply what you've understood without reason? The scripture is a language based mode of communication. It is rational discourse, it is reason!
Further, God's word itself teaches us that God is Reason (Logos)! (John 1:1).
Thus, scripture not only is a form of reason but it proceeds from Reason (capital R) and thus cannot be more fundamental than reason.
This line of thinking is what produces Open Theism! Not this one line of thinking on its own, of course, but starting with it, along with similar examinations of foundational Christian principles, (e.g. God's existence, His character, the meaning of things like wisdom, love, righteousness, and justice, etc). and then building a logically consistent doctrinal system on that foundation in order to create a theology that is logically consistent with those core principles and that can be practically applied in a way that is consistent with the nature of the reality in which we exist and are forced to live out our lives. When done consistently, the result is inevitably Open Theism.
Martin Luther's appeal to "scripture and plain reason" was right! He used it to great effect in regards to removing the influence of Roman doctrines from his theology. The problem is that he stopped there and it has been left to others to continue down that same path. Open theism is simply another step in the same process where reason is used to strip from Christian doctrine those things that are inconsistent with the first principles that we are taught in God's word.
For example, think about the following question....
Which is more fundamental, scripture or reason (i.e. sound reason, of course)?
If you think that the answer is anything other than sound reason, I would ask you how to came to that answer! Can you read even one single syllable of scripture without utilizing reason? Can you understand what you've read without reason? Can you apply what you've understood without reason? The scripture is a language based mode of communication. It is rational discourse, it is reason!
Further, God's word itself teaches us that God is Reason (Logos)! (John 1:1).
Thus, scripture not only is a form of reason but it proceeds from Reason (capital R) and thus cannot be more fundamental than reason.
This line of thinking is what produces Open Theism! Not this one line of thinking on its own, of course, but starting with it, along with similar examinations of foundational Christian principles, (e.g. God's existence, His character, the meaning of things like wisdom, love, righteousness, and justice, etc). and then building a logically consistent doctrinal system on that foundation in order to create a theology that is logically consistent with those core principles and that can be practically applied in a way that is consistent with the nature of the reality in which we exist and are forced to live out our lives. When done consistently, the result is inevitably Open Theism.
Martin Luther's appeal to "scripture and plain reason" was right! He used it to great effect in regards to removing the influence of Roman doctrines from his theology. The problem is that he stopped there and it has been left to others to continue down that same path. Open theism is simply another step in the same process where reason is used to strip from Christian doctrine those things that are inconsistent with the first principles that we are taught in God's word.
Derf
Well-known member
If it did, then Satan would have sound reasoning.
Lon
Well-known member
I'm at a loss. Even you cannot mean that wisdom isn't God's. Explain please. I agree otherwise, my intent is to say God is working on us. You bet we need to study. If that's all, its onesided (my only point, not in disagreement with the former, but we are in a relationship that is reciprocal. There was no intention of doing any naysaying, but bringing back into the conversation God who works all things to our good.
I'd simply add to the first that it is reciprocal that God is also working on us on His side.