In a sense, yes, but if we are wrong, we need to adjust accordingly, being always moldable by God and not hardened if challenged. It means, I believe, always a humble state of dependence on God as well as inherent to our walk with Him.
His does, if you will. If we get so stringent He cannot break up our fallow ground, we've committed to an ideal over and above Him.
INDEED!
Consider:
Eph 3:17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
Eph 3:18 may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height,
Eph 3:19 and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God.
AMEN!
Christ's love for us is beyond our comprehension. His love, infinite yet Paul encourages to even capture a corner of it in endeavor.
Sure.
Infinite means 'all there is' already.
No, Lon, it simply does not.
Infinite ( adj. ):
1. limitless or endless in space, extent, or size; impossible to measure or calculate.
- very great in amount or degree
- [mathematics] greater than any assignable quantity or countable number.
- [mathematics] (of a series) able to be continued indefinitely
2. another term for nonfinite
Infinite ( n ):
a space or quantity that is infinite
None of these definitions even imply "all there is."
Consider the mathematical term '∞'.
∞, as defined above, is greater than any assignable quantity or countable number.
But here's the thing: you can COUNT PAST infinity.
You cannot exceed infinite,
I just showed you how this is false.
hence Peter: "Lord you know all things."
So too, men know all things.
Scripture says so.
Like I said, when your arguments have been refuted, and you keep bringing them up as though we haven't already refuted them, it makes you intellectually dishonest.
It is only Open Theism that wishes to set a limitation here.
The limitation is what scripture actually says.
If the context disallows your interpretation of the text, then your interpretation of the text is wrong.
The Bible often uses hyperbole, especially when the word "all" is used.
This is one such example.
The rest of us are awestruck by the sheer vastness of 'no end.' I cannot help but sense wonder is lost upon Open Theists when limitations upon God are so quickly set and relegated.
Appeal to emotion is also a logical fallacy, Lon.
God is rational, Lon, not irrational.
Your doctrine, the way I see it, makes God out to be irrational!
And you aren't doing a very good job of persuading me otherwise!
The heavens declare the glory of God and the earth His handiwork.
AMEN!
And a malleable man will continue to be humbled/moldable by his Creator, yes?
There is no "malleability" in Calvinism.
Everything already happens the exact way God wanted it to from before the foundation of the earth.
"Made" vs "foreordained."
Distinction without a difference, as far as I'm concerned.
Ordain means to "order or decree (something) officially."
By "ordering" someone to do something, you are making them do it.
Thus, "made" works just as well.
Remember sins, under the Cross, aren't the thing.
Talk about vague...
Yes they do damage to the Body, and his ministry from henceforth.
You seem to have missed the point.
Lawson is a Calvinist. His belief that "God made me do it, I don't know why but I believe He did" is consistent with Calvinism.
The problem is that he believes, consistent with his paradigm, that God made him do it!
We on the OT/Prov side say "NO GOD DID NOT MAKE YOU DO IT! You did it of your own free will, and you need to repent, because God is not secretly pleased that you did so, nor does it bring Him glory!"
God knowing anything future means 'ordination' but only insomuch as 'not one of these should fall.' It means foreordination is simply to save and keep all that are God's.
You're ignoring the other side of that coin, which is that those who are "not God's," are damned to Hell through no fault or action of their own, but rather simply because God did not love them enough to deign to save them from their sins.
His goal and work amongst us is saving all He can [save]
"All He can save"
What?
So God is unable to save the entire world?
Isn't that you putting a limitation on God? :mock:
That's not very consistent, with what you said previously, nor is it consistent with Calvinism qua Calvinism.
According to Calvinism, God has already saved all whom He will ever save, from before the foundation of the earth, and will not save any more or any fewer than He predestined He would save.
It matters not to an Open Theist or the rest of us 'if' God knows, but rather 'what God does."
I'm an Open Theist! If it didn't matter to Open Theists, I wouldn't be having this conversation with you, Lon!
Again, IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES!
The idea that God is omniscient has consequences.
The idea that God is immutable has consequences.
The idea that God predetermines all things has consequences!
The idea that God is free, and that the future is not completely settled... wait for it....
...
...HAS CONSEQUENCES!
The Open View, in my humble estimation, is naught but an excusing theology that never really does assuage the uncomfortable.
Now support that claim.
Otherwise it's just an opinion that I will ignore.
But don't be deceived: That opinion has consequences. (no, I'm not talking about banning you for having an opinion or any sort of retribution. I'm talking about real effects of that belief.
I cannot eschew God's attributes, even in intimation, for the sole reason that it troubles my all-too-human emotion and intellect.
All the more reason to make sure we're not attributing to God attributes that He does not have!
Rather, I know the guiding truth that God is good, loves, and whatever He does, I have no real need to do apology for Him.
How about this reason?:
And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. “And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.” But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.
Suffering for Right and Wrong - And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. “And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.” But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready...
www.biblegateway.com
That's quite literally what apologetics is!
It comes from "apologia," a Greek word that means "defense"!
Defend your faith! Practice apologetics!
I know what He is doing and trust Him implicitly.
Translation: It doesn't matter what the Bible says, I'm still going to maintain my paradigm of beliefs regardless.
I can hear an Open Theist in there saying "You call God Author of sin!"
No, I do not.
"You call God [the] Author of sin" is the logical conclusion of what you believe, Lon.
You can argue all you want that it isn't what you believe, but that's what your belief entails.
The Open Theist looking from without wrestled a different way than I did and do. He causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust in order that all of His own might be saved.
You realize that that's a figure of speech, right?
Not only that, but you're also, yet again, ripping a verse out of its context to support your beliefs.
Stop it!
Even in Calvinism, the ones who are receiving rain not His own, are receiving grace.
Yeah, really graceful.
About as graceful as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Their lives are truly meaningless when they die in sin.
What sin have they commited other than doing EXACTLY WHAT GOD PREDESTINED THEM TO DO!?
There is no reason for rain to fall upon them other than to have experienced the riches of His mercy and grace,
Or, you know, that God isn't actually directly controlling the atmosphere... that things happen by chance...
however spurned and scorned.
All according to God's will, in case you forgot.
I depart with the Calvinist: For God so loved the world (all men), that He gave...
Not much of a departure...
As do I, but you intimate something different. You are intimating God is free 'within' parameters
Parameters exist, Lon. Recognizing those parameters is a good thing. Ignoring them is not.
God Himself sets parameters for what He does.
An excellent and perhaps the best example of this is Jeremiah 18.
You contradict yourself, as I showed above.
He is free specifically because He is the source of all things "without Him, nothing exists that exists."
Your wording is lacking.
God exists. Technically, that phrase is correct, but it doesn't have quite the same meaning.
"Without Him nothing was made that was made."
Whatever that means...
and the Open Theist will next say God 'constrains Himself from any freedom, for relationship.
Supra, re: Jeremiah 18.
See also Genesis 15. Heck, just read the Bible, God OFTEN constrains Himself for the sake of a relationship with His creation!
He quite literally became a Man so that we could have an everlasting relationship with HIm!
I'm having a very hard time seeing how saying "God constrains Himself from any freedom, for relationship" is a problem, when the Bible is literally FILLED with examples of Him doing so!
We will always always always have a hard time trying to qualify anything that can actually constrain God who is infinite.
But God cannot save some. Your words, not mine.
You know Lon, things that contradict indicate a problem with at least ONE of the premises with which one started.
As a segment with a line, infinite is not constrained by the segment. The segment, rather, is a part of it.
Clete addressed this sufficiently previously.
I realize this makes a superficial sense to you and is the foundation of Open Theism, but there is no impetus. You, yourself just told me God is truly 'free.' Free from what? Constraints?
He is free to constrain Himself or loose Himself.
Something that is simply not possible under Calvinism.
He is free do react to things that happen.
Under Calvinism, there is nothing to react to, because He commanded everything to happen how it does.
He is free TO do things... for example, to think a new thought, write a new song, or create a new butterfly.
Under Calvinism, God is not free to do any of those things, and indeed, He cannot.
Calvinism places more of a constraint on God than Open Theism ever could.
The Open View Theology is primarily concerned and founded upon ideas of God's constraint.
Saying it doesn't make it so.
God's freedom, for the Open Theist, is sacrificed upon the idea of binding in relationship.
Supra.
The Bible doesn't say this.
and already as loving as He will ever be.
Is God free to withhold His love?
Is He able to love someone more than He already did?
Can He love one person more than another?
Most Open Theists think of immutability as binding, but it is rather that He is all that there is.
That's not what the doctrine of immutability (let alone the word itself) is about, Lon!
The doctrine of immutability is that God CANNOT CHANGE. PERIOD!
Thus, if God changes in any way at all, then the doctrine of immutability is FALSE!
God BECAME A MAN! That's a change. Therefore, the DoI is false!
Any change is within the constancy of His being.
Immutable means no change.
Any change in something means that something is not immutable.
God changed, in significant ways, I might add, therefore He is not immutable.
That's a change.
but man and everything everything everything that He is, is from God Himself,
This is heresy, because it means that man is a necessary part of His being. Surely you can see the problem with that?
God does not need man to be God.
hence the kenosis passage in Philippians 2, is that God had to 'empty' Himself of infinite, to occupy a finite space and time.
Thanks for proving my argument! God changed, and constrained Himself for the sake of a relationship with His creation!
There can be no time or time concept in infinity that doesn't start with a stopwatch and concept of duration.
Duration exists without a stopwatch. Rather, a stopwatch measures equal lengths of duration.
God is, and was, and always will be.
That's not 'timelessness."
He told Moses that "I Am."
... after being asked what His name is.
It wasn't a statement of Him being outside of time.
Duration is but the confines of some small piece, like a segment to a line.
Wrong.
Duration is the line.
You're confusing clocks with time.
Yet, can you do anything of any value without Christ, the Holy Spirit, prompting that in you?
I'm wasn't talking about myself, Lon. I thought that was obvious.
Christ is not dwelling within those who have not recognizd Him as Lord.
They do things apart from God, not as a result of Him.
It isn't as much 'apart' as you intimate. "Christ in you the hope of Glory."
Supra. I'm talking about unbelievers.
No, Lon, I meant what I said.
IDEAS have consequences.
What you believe has an effect on how you live your life.
Indeed, politics is just theology in practice!
Ideas are the cause of actions that have consequences (results).
You're adding a step.
Ideas are the cause. Action (the result of the idea) is the effect. It is the consequence of the idea.
Merriam-Webster's definition 2: Something produced by a cause or necessarily following from a set of conditions.
Hence we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
Yes.
Agree, and being malleable helps us be molded further, daily, into His image.
Indeed. You should try it.
It is upon a premise that such is said. Calvinists likewise say that Open Theists (and the rest of us believers) live like we are Calvinists.
No, they don't, Lon.
No Calvinist says that, because literally no Open Theist lives like a Calvinist!
It is a statement from perspective.
No, it's not, Lon.
It's an observation from reality.
Remember our choices of ice cream flavors discussion? If I told you I would treat you to some ice cream, and so we walked into an ice cream parlor together, guess what would happen?
I would ask you, "What flavor of Ice cream do you want?"
You know what I wouldn't ask you?
"What flavor of ice cream did God determine before the foundation of the earth that you woud say you want in response to this question which He also predetermined before the foundation of the earth?"
No one ever asks that kind of question, because no one actually has it as a foundational principle for their life!
NO ONE LIVES LIKE THAT!
The story of the 4 blind men and the elephant comes to mind.
Never heard of it. Is that in scripture?
I don't get my theology from outside the Bible.
Maybe that's your problem...
I simply believe the elephant, in this case, is infinite as Ephesians 3 describes Him.
God is not an elephant.
Nor does the Bible describe God as infinite, let alone Ephesians 3.
We are to 'try' but not to have our perception so wrought in iron that we argue among blind men.
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
At the end of the day, I simply believe God much bigger, much more than Open Theism seems to grasp
Doesn't mean He is bigger on your view.
and I find it's concept of God limited to one or two of the descriptions of the four blind men.
Still no idea what you're talking about.
Stomping your foot and demanding that it is, doesn't make it so.
He is behind the concept of a line, that tells us each end stretches on infinitely without measure or ability to quantify and its concept starts with a segment, but is incredibly more vast than 'relationship' with a segment.
Supra.
I say God is both relational to, and apart from creation and time
Your position is irrational, because it says that God is something that He is not: irrational.
God is REASON (John 1:1). He is rational (Isaiah 1:18). Thus, He cannot be irrational, nor can He do that which is irrational.
God cannot exist outside of time because duration (time) is an aspect of His existence. He cannot exist outside of his own existence.
He exists. He has always existed. He will always exist.
Infinite duration. Not no duration.
He has never left the present, just as we never leave the present (no matter what secular physicists say about time travel)
as a segment is to a line.
A line segment is part of a line.
Sure, while intersecting the line, we can talk about finite qualities and God has communicated to us within the finite.
Humans are infinite beings. We have a beginning, but we will never cease to exist (the opposite of a beginning).
We are not line segments, but rays.
Rays that are co-linear with the line.
He is much more than merely His interaction with us and only involved insomuch as where all of our existence touches within His infinite being. -Lon
This sounds like new-age garbage.
Examples of disinviting conversation (might help, might not but I pray over the difference):
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Mocking irrational beliefs is a good thing to do.
I belief you stated the Bible does not say God was Infinite?
