Yes, I'm not disputing that he was made a little lower than the angels but rather what is meant by that. Lower how? or Lower in what way? That is the question we don't really know the answer to.
How to respond to classical theists who dodge Open Theism arguments
- Thread starter Unsettler
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A somewhat common theme at times in the Bible. I don't know what the fullness of the gentiles is either. And I have read other thoughts, but it is conjecture.
Lon
Well-known member
I realize this makes perfect sense to an Open Theist, but the problem is, if you follow the logic down the road, it never adds up. You have to be inconsistent in what you believe God knows and doesn't know with any given text, with the assumption that it is much less than what I get from the texts.
Not true. Open Theists always mean "Double-pred Calvinists" when they say this. Few of us are (there are some on TOL). The good thing about discussion is we all can see the stark differences by talking about them. I pray we all do justice to these scriptural concerns. As is? I don't think this thread can rise to the occasion, at least not for discussion with the rest of us. It might be a good thread for shoring up Open problems for Open Theists. I'm not exactly sure of the thread intent:
He cannot imagine but there is transparent dishonesty. It should occur that there obviously is not. These concerns are solid: It is literally where we differ on what is to be taken literally and figuratively between us, in scriptures. All Open paradigms come from majoring on story that is notoriously hard to build doctrine off of, yet this is exactly the Open position. The rest of us? We look more at instruction passages and instruction in story for our theology. It seems the biggest contention between Open Theism and all others. It is often part of all free will discussions, but free will is concerned more with man, not really theology and shouldn't be mixed as often as it is in Open Theism. Open Theism is way more concerned about a relational God, than Who He is and has always been without us. Systematic Theology is convoluted if existent in Open Theism, which is probably why there is no scholarly work in commentaries, language, or systematic theologies among you.
Only if you are a double-pred Calvinist. I get that you are trying to follow the logic down to a conclusion but steps have been missed in doing so. If I get an almanac from the future, it records what 'did' (not will) necessarily happen. It is knowledge based on all of us. Think as well, that I am a slave. The very thing I'd be 'trying' to salvage is an illusion and self-interested in the first place. It is exactly the wrong place to start theology. I came to Christ because "I" wasn't working out all that will. I don't think a desire to retain self-direction is a noble place to start and imperialize my relationship with God. Mine started with me needing to move to Him. He does reach in our mess and grab us, thank Jesus, but not to leave us in the mess, to lead us to holiness: His theology.
That puts you actually in a conundrum: If He says anything, and it doesn't come to pass, you see Him as 'the opposite' of correct. Either by hazard or purpose, it isn't truth, is it? I do not believe Open Theism means to posit God is a liar, but "A God who makes mistakes" means untruth. Lamerson said clearly God who risks, makes mistakes (lies, even if inadvertently, mistakenly).
Your mind is calling Him a liar, if I am right? Conditions are for us. Why does He give them? There is no need if He doesn't have an outcome in mind. Yes, God could have said "Hezekiah, you are going to die, unless you ask me to intervene" etc. but that isn't necessary. All you are asking is for more information, not setting a limit on what God said. It is actually Open Theism that would say "He was wrong" and inadvertenly "He lied" if we follow the same logic down the road. Neither of us mean or want that, so we have to be careful what we think of the other. I do not believe an Open Theist thinks God lied, mistakenly or purposefully, either, just realize that Open Theism 'tries' to escape these conclusions but the result is the same: A problem if we over extrapolate. Theology proper does not believe God lied. Open Theism does not believe God purposefully lies. Lies, just not on purpose, "it was a mistake." Because Open Theism pushes so hard on this, they actually bring up the lie by their own push. I simply do not see God as mistaken or lying, ever. I don't even entertain it as Open Theism does. No scripture ever has that coming to my mind.
Rather, it means to get to a desired end, He chooses to interact. "Why?" a theologian could ask. Several reasons: 1) interaction is the means to the desired end. He chooses how He wants His will to come about 2) interaction teaches, but the one(s) in the passage and us. God is the Instructor. As such, God isn't apart from His Creation, but involved thoroughly. He uses actions, words, circumstances to bring us to Himself. In Open Theism, God is seen as 'hands off' but for occasions of interaction. The rest of us believe He is never apart from us, always with us (omnipresence). He knows the number of hairs on your head at this very second and in the moment later when you are reading this. He knows when every sparrow falls. Open Theism has no grasp of this, in fact denies it.
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Derf
Well-known member
It does, but you can't see it through your biases.
I haven't seen any text where I have to be inconsistent. I've addressed several before.
Yes, see below.
Agreed
If He was at one time "without us", then He changed, correct? From a God who had no people to a God who has a people.
More because it is new. There weren't too many systematic theologies for Calvinists before Calvin.
All non-Open Theists are double-pred Calvinists in that sense, they just don't know it.
Maybe a newspaper. Almanacs seem to be about predicting things, and are often wrong.
Yes, and if based partly on us, then it cannot have been known before we existed, unless all events of our lives were preprogrammed into us as we came to be.
Nevertheless, that's how God seems to work with people.
Not in your system. Yours started with God determining everything that would happen to you.
Not in your system. In yours, God first created the mess, then He put us in it, then He grabs us, to save us from the mess He made and put us in.
Your theology, as described above.
Not true. God can say something that is going to be the outcome, but that can be changed by the individual. That's the whole point of the Hezekiah death prophecies. Such is not possible in the settled view, because it is settled before the individual exists.
Nope. Only if He knows exactly what will happen and prophesies the opposite.
Conditions are not only for us. He gives them because He wants one outcome over the other, but we are involved in choosing the outcome.
No one here is saying that He has no outcome in mind. But if, from the foundation of the world, God knew Hezekiah would die at the earlier time unless He intervened in the way He did, then God is required to actively participate in bringing about the outcomes, by saying something He knows is not true. Remember that both Hezekiah's prophecies are telling of future events (early death or later death), so the prophecies cannot both be true unless Hezekiah's future changed between the prophecies. And that means the future wasn't settled at the foundation of the earth.
Agreed. But if a theology drives one to believe God lies, then covers it up by saying it is anthropomorphic, it's not proper theology.
By stating something He knows to be untrue? You're saying God would lie to get someone to change their path? The ends justify God's means?
That's not the important part. He must know at the foundation of the world the number of hairs on your head at any point in time, including the number from an event the you or some other agent effectuate, like if you got scalped by a savage, or if you lit your hair on fire. In which case, God would also know all the events leading up to the scalping or lighting, and all the events leading up to the events, etc., which are also caused by agents. (Note that a robot is not an agent, but a human or an angel would be.)
I don't think so, though some here might. I see no problem with God seeing every sparrow that falls. What gives me pause is knowing every sparrow that will fall, and when, from the foundation of the world. This is your problem, and it always needs to be taken back to that point. If there is anything God didn't know at the foundation of the world, of the facts that come to be, then you are an open theist of some persuasion.
Lon
Well-known member
Well, I love you guys, truly. We are at a standstill and that is okay. I see Open Theism consistently deny God knows where Adam is, even though He knows at that exact moment the number of hairs on his head. I see Open Theism deny Jesus knew Peter was going to deny Him three times exactly then a rooster would crow then the manner of Peter's death as any kind of foreknowledge because and only because Open Theism has no ability to acquiesce it could be true. I see Open Theism confuse all the time differences between conditional and unconditional clearly given in scripture if they'd bother to look it up. It is so clear to the rest of us. What then drives your bible reading is a bias: It cannot be true, thus in Open Theism, it is not. Regardless, I love you guys. You are correct, it is a bias: What God can do without any Open premise pushing the text interpretation for me, because at the end of the day, I don't see it the same way. None of the majority of us do.
Understood. So of course God didn't know where Adam was. How many days did God search in that vast Garden before He found Adam? Even and always while knowing his heart, the number of hairs on his head, and not one sparrow falling before God found Him? You call it bias. I believe scriptures are clear enough that it fosters what I believe consistently and just the opposite of what an Open Theist believes.
People changed. I'd intimate you are confusing people as is often the case with Open Theism, with God. We are finite, needing change.
Realize too, that they were God's to begin with. Sin is what took them away: two masters.
200 years from now?
Open Theists 'try' to follow to a logical conclusion, but the conclusion is wrong, all because they are thinking about themselves: "If I lose free will...." It looks like fear-driven theology on point. There is no other reason to make texts say God doesn't know, than because of fear that they are automatons. We are slaves, not free. Free will theism has to reconsider who, what, where, and why they exist with but two masters.
Almanacs list accomplishments and happenings as they occur. They show the weather on any given day, record sports events, any significant happening. Granted newspapers do the same thing, you could change it for analogy, essentially the same thing.
Don't deny your own thoughts, follow them down the road. There is nothing lost in entertaining loss of free will that you thought you had. I rather believe 'free' is given moment by moment in interaction with God. He who the Son has set free, is free indeed. This freedom is slavery to righteousness, in which I gladly enslaved myself from the slavery of sin and death.
Because Open Theism is concerned with people and what any given thing must mean for them, all to save a false idea that you are a freewill independent, something greater than that you are created and owned. Remember the promise of the serpent? "You will be like gods." We must wrestle against over imperializing ourselves higher than our place. We are loved by God. Slaves, no free independence, in need of a Savior. You had to humble yourself to come to Christ and give up your ideas of godhood. I was independent, lost in sin, but that independence of self-guidance was death. I wasn't made for that. You were not made for that.
He did not create the mess. He was very clear: Do not eat of this tree, for on that day you will die. The curse is that we think we belong to ourselves and then thank God for our individual self determination.
As I said, it depends on what we bring to the text on point. You assume in my view God is lying, and I conversely see the same thing in Open Theism, but what you've done is rightly recognized in most theology, that there is a difference between saying something conditionally and unconditionally. God didn't tell Hezekiah he was going to die unconditionally. God always has power to make such things not so. We pray because we know this. It means even in Open Theism, it is understood that there is a difference between promises, information, and prophecy. They all are different statements. Open Theism just forgets, misses, or dismisses that God had already said that if Nineveh repented, she would not be destroyed many years prior to this statement that Nineveh would be destroyed. There is no Open Theism suggestion that "God changed His mind" in the text. It was rather fact, that if a nation repented, then they would not be destroyed: Conditional statement: In 40 days, Nineveh will be destroyed. It was a package deal of information, already in the legal work of the document delivered. Had Nineveh read it? It doesn't matter, when you sign off on a legal agreement, it is binding whether you read the fine print or not. Open Theism doesn't read the fine print and thinks God changed. No, in fact, it was already written.
Nineveh again, is about all that the document (scripture) contains. It is hasty and wrong to assume that God didn't already include repentance in the paper work. The reason? Because they assume God couldn't have known Nineveh would repent, even though it was written in paper work long before.
Sure, in the sense that He cares about what happens to us. What if, if I were an Open Theist, and simply thought that "Master Chess Player" was much much much better than most Open Theists thought? Isn't that the difference? That I just think He is more incredibly, exponentially better than an Open Theist guesses?
You are missing something. Conditional statements are meant to elicit the response: Make it happen. If I tell you, if you get into your car today you are going to die in an accident, because I have an Almanac from the future that says you will, did I change the future? Not, I changed a different future that does exist (you drove and died). Why did I do it? Because 1) I know everything. 2) because I care about you. So, did I lie to you? No I did not. You could even have asked: "Will you drive?" You still got in the car, but didn't die for the intervention. This is the reality of omniscience: It makes the future, actuates it, according to the One able to do everything about it. It prompted you to make a decision based on 'my' plans to have a specific outcome. I knew both. It didn't lock you in, it freed you to live. "The future isn't written in stone." It is if I want to save you! Open Theists look at the death in the car. The rest of us look at God saving us, not the negative, the positive of what omniscience means. As Master Chess Player, I believe He is omniscient of all things chess and able to make things right, hence Romans 8:58 All things work together for good. Omniscience is the guarantee, and even in Open Theism, whether it is recognized or not, is a banking on God who does everything right. Honestly, Open Theism hopes, banks, believes in the same thing: Omniscience. They just believe God has to fail before He gets it right, but it amounts to omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, just that He struggles to get there in Open Theism. I don't have the struggling part.
There is ever only one future (what happened). Again, we have the same outcome between Open Theism and the rest of us.
It isn't a lie. All things being said, if I do not intervene, you would die in a car accident. It is my interaction that saves you. "Derf, if you get into that car today, you are going to die." It isn't a lie because it is talking about the condition without my intervention. Open Theists jump the gun and see discrepancy as if both futures are the outcome, unalterably. It is thinking they are unalterable that is the problem. Interaction is the venue for making a preferable outcome. Would it have been true, without me saying anything that Derf would die? Yes. Is it true that my interacting was the very reason Derf didn't die? Yes. You are focusing on a different outcome, the one that didn't happen and calling me a liar for saying "if you get into the car today, you are going to die" the whole reason for me giving you the information in the first place: so it wouldn't happen. Now, maybe going and being with your Savior today is preferable and you decided to get into the car and died. Then of course it was true either way. It becomes convoluted reasoning if you try to peg one or the other as true, because of what you think omniscience means, and then whether you had a choice or not. Why? Because you are worried if you had a choice or not. I'm concerned with God's choice on point. My mind just doesn't have the same problems Open Theists have: God's will, for me, was the important one in any given text.
In a nutshell, both realities are true, thus no lie. I'm also saying when God interacts, He does so to make an outcome thus your free will is lost, hemmed in by His interaction. Further: We pray because we know God interacts and makes things happen. We don't know the outcome: God does.
Agree. What is the contention? That you'd have no free will? I've already said I don't believe we do: we are created beings. The lie in the Garden was that you'd become like gods, masters of your own destiny. That was the lie, and we believed it, thanked God for our free will and being masters of our own ships, going where we want to and doing what we want because we believe, as the serpent said, that you have to be independent to truly love. We were not created this way. It is my estimation, this is the hardest part for any free will theist: "Not my will, but Yours be done." It is a dying to ourselves, taking up our cross and following Him. The heart of being a Christian, is belonging to Christ and denying our own very being, and following Him. Matthew 16:25
Does 'when' matter? Ultimately?
I don't see it as a problem. Scripted you'd say? Our life is scripted, there is no question about that: we are created beings. We are not our own, bought with a great price, and even before wrought by the hands (figuratively) of our Creator. We are owned beings.
Let's dig deeper: What is it that accosts your being that such is detestable? Who was right? The serpent or God? We have but two masters and your answers are all about who we will follow. In every sense, I've bought that I'm wholly owned. I didn't make myself. I didn't 'choose' to be independent. If I embrace the idea that I'm master of my own destiny, then I've inadvertently become a slave to the serpent, thinking I'm independent free will as a being. If I believe God, then the day I became independent, I became special to God and my choice to love Him carries importance as to 'real' relationship that isn't possible (I tell myself) if I didn't choose it by my free will. All of this comes from our inner being as we read scriptures. I wrestle with God every time I read scriptures because I am either a slave to me, sin, death, or am a slave to Him and daily I wrestle with taking up my cross, dying to my free will.
"What is behind all our rendering of scriptures?" "What assumptions am I making?" Delving into theology (things of God) accosts our sense of self daily. It must, and we must. I'd intimate that EDF omniscience accosts our sense of self on a very deep personal level, because it accosts us exactly there because we are us (free will theism). We see ourselves as individuals and in and of that recognition of our very selves, we are lost of it if we belong to God. I think the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was very tempting, not just because of good fruit alone, but because we are very interested in ourselves, as ourselves. We rarely glimpse that we are His, first and foremost. It is very hard to imagine that free will theism is the wrong theism. In Christ, we wrestle daily with the idea that the one who dies is actually the one who lives. In Christ, we emerge as a very different kind of ourselves, not for free will theism, but His will theism. This alone, is why I do not hold up free will theism highly. His will. If scripted from the beginning of the world? Would it matter if we weren't so preoccupied with self? We are something because and only because we are found in Christ. What if the very thing Open Theism is afraid of, is the exact thing we are supposed to be?
Bladerunner
Active member
In regards to "'could of', 'would if', 'should of' and 'if only'". At being close to 75, I have been there many many times. As for now, I am solid and in need none of the above 'phrases'. For it was the
Lord Jesus Christ by Himself who saved me from certain damnation (all of Him and none of me) and He continues to keep me on the straight and narrow path toward righteousness.
I am going to correct your theology. He cannot deny himself. If you called upon the name of the Lord, you will live forever with him and the rest of us. You cannot sin your way out of salvation. As for keeping you on the straight and narrow, I don't think so. The scripture tells us otherwise.
10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
This body will go to the grave. It is dead from sin. Our spirit is alive with him. Our body cannot do right. Having said that Paul demands people straighten up as you probably know. Now that I copied and pasted scripture I am going back to edit but leaving up what I said. That isn't correcting you. Just be aware. We can't do right. Our body is dead. But listen to your conscience which is the mind of Christ.
7 Now I pray to God that you do no evil, not that we should appear approved, but that you should do what is honorable, though we may seem disqualified.
Lon
Well-known member
True, but I was asking why Open Theism cares 'when' God knows anything. I, of course know the answer: "Because I wanna be as free as I think I am and hate anything that seems to take that away." True? There is no other reason I know of to care, and I don't.
Here is the thing: I find incredible meaning that the God of the universe values me. It is wholly enough, free or not, choosing or being guided. After that would just be ego getting in the way ("Me-"ology not theology). I don't care about what things mean to me, I care what they mean about God and to God. He is perfect, incredibly, I absolutely cannot lose but myself and my ego at that altar. I can leave 'me' in His hands with no reservations. My one choice, perhaps, after that it doesn't matter a whit what is about 'me.' He cares, that is enough.
Derf
Well-known member
No. And of course you can erect a straw man and knock it down. But you should attempt to understand better when told your straw is showing.
If you don't care about truth in theology, why are you arguing about it. Isn't bad Open Theism just as palatable as good Settled View Theism when you emote that way?
I think its literally funny, as in laughably idiotic, that Lon, who has been here for years discussing this topic with any number of open theists in countless different separate discussions from hundreds of different directions and still he refuses to understand that open theism isn't about free will, it's about God's character. Free will is a consequence of the doctrinal system, not a premise for it. JUSTICE is the premise! God's righteous character is the premise!
Personally, I've stopped trying to understand his motives and I no longer care to make any attempt to convince him of anything. He refuses to be consistent never mind honest. He's a waste of time.