So man is a necessary part of His existence?
On the omniscience of God
- Thread starter JudgeRightly
- Start date
So man is a necessary part of His existence?
I suppose nothing is really a necessary part of His existence. He could have chosen to not ever create anything at all.
Why do you believe that?
Derf
Well-known member
Then he would not have learned that Abraham was faithful even to the point of sacrificing his own son.
Genesis 22:12 KJV — And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
Isaiah 46:21-24 -
Present your case,” says the Lord.
“Bring forth your strong reasons,” says the King of Jacob. “Let them bring forth and show us what will happen; Let them show the former things, what they were, that we may consider them, And know the latter end of them; Or declare to us things to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, That we may know that you are gods.
Isaiah 46:10 -
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure.
1 John 3:20 - For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.
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Derf
Well-known member
Again, your understanding of this verse says that everything that ever happens is what God has always wanted to happen. Every time a child is raped, every time a married couple gets divorced, every time 6 million Jews are killed, this is something God wanted, and has always wanted:
"My counsel" and "My pleasure".
Is that what you believe?
So on the one hand, you say God knows the past present and future simultaneously.
And on the other hand you say that nothing is really a necessary part of His existence.
Is His simultaneous knowledge of the past, present, and future, not a necessary part of His existence?
Derf
Well-known member
Looking forward to discussions with Crede3!
It's a wonder that it still surprises me when people so consistently regurgitate the same hand full of proof-texts in order to support doctrines that the texts themselves simply do not teach!
Don't over react to my saying this so bluntly but those three passages are not the reason you believe in exhaustive divine foreknowledge. These are just passages that trigger things in your own mind that coalesce into that doctrine. These verses themselves do not teach the doctrine by themselves. One is required to bring the doctrine with them to the reading of these verses and then your mind detects something that sounds similar to your doctrine and makes the connection. It's like seeing a face when you look at the moon or when a Catholic sees the mother Mary in a burnt piece of toast or when people who are hunting for ghosts in a "haunted" building hear English words when anything makes even the slightest noise.
The proof of the fact that these passages do not teach the doctrine is that I, the guy who completely rejects the doctrine of exhaustive foreknowledge, reads those passages, takes them to mean just exactly what they say, and have no problem with them saying it.
In short, God using His wisdom and power to both predicting the future and to guide the unfolding of history is not at all the same thing as what Augustine and Calvin taught in regards to exhaustive foreknowledge. It's not even what the Arminians are talking about.
Not only that but there are numerous examples of God not getting what He wants, not getting what He tried to get, not getting what He expected to get! The clearest and perhaps the most explicit example of which is in the same book as two of your own proof-texts....
Isaiah 5:1Now let me sing to my Well-beloved
A song of my Beloved regarding His vineyard:
My Well-beloved has a vineyard
On a very fruitful hill.
2 He dug it up and cleared out its stones,
And planted it with the choicest vine.
He built a tower in its midst,
And also made a winepress in it;
So He expected it to bring forth good grapes,
But it brought forth wild grapes.
3 “And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah,
Judge, please, between Me and My vineyard.
4 What more could have been done to My vineyard
That I have not done in it?
Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes,
Did it bring forth wild grapes?
5 And now, please let Me tell you what I will do to My vineyard:
I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned;
And break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.
6 I will lay it waste;
It shall not be pruned or [c]dug,
But there shall come up briers and thorns.
I will also command the clouds
That they rain no rain on it.”
7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel,
And the men of Judah are His pleasant plant.
He looked for justice, but behold, oppression;
For righteousness, but behold, a cry for help.
And that is by no means the only passage in the bible that is incompatible with the idea that God knows everything that will ever happen. Indeed, there are passages that aren't even compatible with the idea that God knows everything that has already happened!
Genesis 18: 20 And the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, 21 I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.”
Note that the above is God Himself speaking about what He is going to do and why He's going to do it. If you want to convert that overt statement of God's into some sort of figure of speech, where it effectively means the opposite of what it says, which Calvinist ALWAYS do, then you need to ask yourself why is doing so valid. Then, whenever you get an answer to that question, ask yourself why the same reason wouldn't apply to any passage at all. If that passage doesn't mean what it says then why does any passage mean what it says? What passages, if any, are immune from whatever reason you came up with to make Genesis 18:20 mean the opposite of what it says?There's much more that can be said here but I'm trying to keep my posts a bit shorter than they've been lately.
Lon
Well-known member
This is why 'prescriptive' and 'decretive' are proffered. It doesn't have to mean, at all, that God doesn't know as an alternative. That is a conclusion based on 'reasoned' but all kinds of potentially wrong suppositions. While I can appreciate the Open View, it isn't the only kid on the block and has all kinds of problematics. His scriptures given, do indeed intimate that God knows, else it wouldn't be given AND is, in context, the mark of "God" given by Himself. That much is easily seen for those who have ears to hear. Don't let your priori dictate scripture. While it may not be as plain, because of your priori, it doesn't mean it isn't exactly as it says.
Lon
Well-known member
You've just done, by virtue of priori, what you asses in Credo. The first passage Credo gave, does indeed claim that knowing the future is the definition of "God." . It says exactly what it says; Only a priori of denial would second-guess. Entertain that you are forcing. It is a completely legitimate text, not proof-texted at all. It says exactly what it says. Credo is right.
I've ever given genuine problematics with the 'good grapes' text against assertions. The fact is, it is easily discerned as analogy. God knew He was going to get bad grapes, hence the Lord Jesus Christ was always on the books. Follow your reasoning opposed to logical ends: God did not expect good grapes. He made good grapes in the Lord Jesus Christ, always knowing He would find them. Jesus wasn't the after thought of poor grapes, He was the answer. The Open View does damage to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ when followed to the end of these assumptions.
Entertain then the meaning and intent:
We have an impasse, true enough. At least entertaining another's view of what scripture means is our duty to God, to use our good minds, to at least question whether another may have a grasp we've missed. After 25 years, I'm still on TOL, considering the Open View, if only to appreciate what I disagree with, this thread no exception. It is good to disagree and peer into these matters, despite the vast disagreement. It is yet another opportunity to prove one's assumptions and scriptural understanding. I believe this passage does indeed teach that the mark of "God" is Foreknowledge described hereof.
No, it absolutely does not claim any such thing, Lon!
It makes the claim that God is able to predict the future but that is NOT the same thing as saying that God has perfect knowledge of every event that will ever happen. It just does not teach that and if you think it does, it is you who are reading things into the text, not me.
I do so all the time. I am all the time anticipating someone accusing me of doing what I am claiming my debate opponent is doing. Every single time I make the argument the thought occurs to me.
No Lon, he is not. The concepts involved in the doctrine of exhaustive divine foreknowledge go WAY beyond merely being able to predict the future and guide the progress of history. The doctrine presumes that God is sitting outside of time and that He knows what is going to happen either because He has predestined it to happen or because He can see the whole of history as if it were a yard stick laid out in front of him or both.
Further, and more importantly, if Isaiah 46 did teach what you are suggesting then it would contradict Isaiah 5 which explicitly teaches that God doesn't always get what He expects to get, not to mention the several times throughout the Bible when God gives prophecies that do not come to pass. None of which would be possible at all if Isaiah 46 taught what you're saying it teaches. Indeed, if it did, it would falsify the entire bible!
That is not a proper English sentence. I don't follow.
It is obviously an analogy, Lon. The text itself explains the analogy. The "vineyard" is Israel and "good grapes" is "righteousness". This is specifically why I highlighted the two verses that I have in bold. One is the analogy, the other the reality.
So the passage means the opposite of what it says.
Brilliant!
I'll ask you what I asked Credo. Why is it valid for you to flip that passage on its head and make it mean the exact opposite of what it says and which passage of scripture is immune to such a treatment?
That is a REAL QUESTION!
What wild-eyed doctrine cannot survive any reading of scripture if we can make anything we want mean the reverse of what it actually says. What would keep Jeffrey Dahmer from claiming that Ezekiel 5:10 is an endorsement of his diner choices?
That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It doesn't follow from it's own premises! Isaiah 5 is not a messianic passage. It is simply God expressing His disappointment with the total lack of righteousness coming from His chosen nation. A sentiment that Jesus Himself expressed on more than one occasion.
Both are obvious unless you have a theological axe to grind. All that it needed is to read it. Any child could understand Isaiah 5!
There is no impasse!
God is just! Therefore, Calvinism is false!
Even if I were reading something into or out of the text of Isaiah 46, I'd have good reason to do so. By good reason, I mean a non-arbitrary reason that doesn't give me cart blanche to render any passage I desire to mean whatever I need it to mean. That reason is that God is a just Judge that holds us responsible for our actions because they are OUR actions that we chose to do. None of which is possible in a universe where the future is settled in advance.
Put another way, I am fully aware and completely accept that there are a very great many figures of speech throughout the bible. Several on every page, in fact. That is the nature of human language. I also understand that some passages are easier to understand than others and that not every single passage can just totally be taken at face value. The trick, however, is to have a reasonable way of determining when you are dealing with a figure of speech and when a passage simply means what it says. For the most part, it's the later. Most every passage of scripture is pretty straight forward and when it's not, it pretty obvious that it's not. When it's not so obvious then you have to have a plan in place to deal with it. This is what the field of hermaneutics is all about. My hermaneutic starts with the major premise that states that God is living, personal, rational, relational, loving and righteous. Any doctrine or reading of scripture that violates that premise is false - by definition. There is a reason that they call one's doctrines concerning the nature of God, "Theology Proper". They call it that because it is the foundation of every single other doctrine that you'll ever have.
I have no problem with honest disagreement which is why I am willing to spend so much time here attempting to convince people with actual argumentation rather than me just spouting off whatever my personal opinions are. Indeed, honing my ability to biblically and rationally defend my doctrine is the primary reason that I am here.
It doesn't matter what you believe. I believe that the Electric Universe Theory beats the pants off of the Big Bang Theory. Does that convince you of anything? It shouldn't!
I am only interested in what you can demonstrate (i.e. make an argument for). Your showing up here to declare that a passage in question says something more than it actually does or that another passage means the opposite of what it explicitly states, doesn't make it so.
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Derf
Well-known member
My point wasn't a slam dunk for open theism by any means. My point was that if one uses Is 46:10 to say that God knows all things exhaustively, you have to acknowledge that the verse also tells HOW God knows, and that it necessarily leads to God being the author of sin. Once that verse goes away in people's minds as a proof of exhaustive knowledge, there aren't a lot of others that will need to fall. Is 46:10 is an open theism verse, despite its constant use by others for exhaustive knowledge.
Lon
Well-known member
Let's read it again:
Isaiah 46:21-24 -
Present your case,” says the Lord.
“Bring forth your strong reasons,” says the King of Jacob. “Let them bring forth and show us what will happen; Let them show the former things, what they were, that we may consider them, And know the latter end of them; Or declare to us things to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, That we may know that you are gods.
-Seems rather clear, does it not? Only an Open priori would deny it, means you are letting your theology inform scripture instead of being informed by it, so much so that you will not even entertain it! You rather jumped to a different text! That is excusing behavior, Clete!
Isaiah 46:10 -
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure.
-If the prior text is accurate (it is) then this doesn't fall short of omniscience.
1 John 3:20 - For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.
-Had this conversation with Judge Rightly already. While in context 'all things' in John's mind can mean just 'all things knowable (agreed), this one goes to an extent of 'greater than' mentioned on the point of the former such that 'all things' is much greater than simply our hearts, it is beyond that limitation and opens up, necessarily 'how much greater?' It is no sin to question the Open premise that His is even much greater than that as well. This text encourages that questioning. It is good to question it, Clete, else we are living with authoritarian doctrine.
" And know the latter end of them." That means something:
“Let them bring forth and show us what will happen; Let them show the former things, what they were, that we may consider them, And know the latter end of them; Or declare to us things to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, That we may know that you are gods.
It says what it says, for at least a few of us, clearly with no priori stopping us from entertaining it means exactly what it means nor need to go to a different text to prove otherwise. While all scripture does inform us, we aren't supposed to do so until after we've exhausted the text in question specifically because then, we are importing. While importing one idea to balance another is good, it is yet one of our last steps, not the first ones because we want to know exactly what a text in question is saying. It is no easy dismiss, though I'd imagine it is for an Open Theist, but that calls for priori informing the text. Just read his bolded. He has a very good point to consider, in depth.
There are all kinds of reasons to logically, scripturally to assume it, but that too is a priori upon the text. Let's just first see if Credo is correct, that it does indeed say as he bolded, that the mark of being 'god' is: know the latter end of them; Or declare to us things to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, That we may know that you are gods. Does it have to mean EDF? I can predict latter things, but it doesn't make me god against this scripture. I have to know to be 'god' and this scripture obviously says I don't. It then must mean something incredibly more than I or any human is able to do, specifically because it is the mark of God to know these things. If we water it down to 'predictive' we lose the exact defining meaning of 'god' that is being addressed. IOW, "I have it, you do not. I am God." That is clear certainly.
I'd rather suggest Open Theists misread that passage and 'try' to make it reflect on this passage. Such is a priori. I don't have that contradiction, Open Theists do. It is worth thinking on.
It was a proper sentence. I've given the problems, many times with the idea God didn't know He was getting bad grapes. He knew. In fact, in amongst those 'bad grapes' He had good ones. There are all kinds of problems taking Isaiah's song and trying to force it to mean something beyond the intent. Taking it woodenly is problematic proof-texting that doesn't hold up. No nonOpen Theist sees that passage the way Open Theists do, and we believe it wrought with wrong conclusions.
Problems:
Isa 5:1 Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard:
Out the gates, it is a song, an analogy. I can send you a song, not all of it will relate to you 'because it is a song.'
Written by Isaiah? You don't know. I don't know. Thus, it already should carefully inform our theology on point. Running to it to proof-text has obvious problems that every Open Theist should be aware of.
Next: No 'expect' but in translations. It means we should be careful what is imposed by translators as well.
This alone should cause pause for any proof-texting of it, but there is more:
God knew: Isaiah 5:10 Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.
It should give pause to anyone who wants to take woodenly that "God expected good grapes."
Yes, and even that God knew what the output of those vineyards would be in verse 10. Unexpected? When you declares it? Not likely. This is an Open Theism intimation and only comes from Open Theism.
Yep. It is. Agree. I know you were being sarcastic, but Open Theism causes that, not the scripture itself. You won't even entertain it because it rails against Open Theism, not scriptures themselves.
Because I'm not an Open Theist bent on 1) a translated word not even in the text in Hebrew 2) Can understand (as you) context. 2) It was a song. Written by Isaiah? I've no idea, you? Was it meant to be a quote or word for word to teach theology proper? Because v. 10 is in this book, it must read itself to mean something other than English "Expected good grapes and confused I didn't get them." That, is an assumption, not the direct teaching. He waited/looked for good grapes. If they had no sin, good grapes would have assumed from the planting. Are you, in your Open paradigm not going to conclusion: That God is unaware that treating people well would take care of their sin condition? That weeds don't thrive in good soil? Think your own paradigms to their logical conclusions. This text doesn't support these ideas.
Exactly, or an Open Theist.
Yes, but not 'unexpected.' It is the nature of weeds, to grow in good soil. God is not an inept farmer, Clete. We know from the analogy of the wheat and tares that good grapes and poor (weeds) grow side by side. God does not and never has expected no weeds. That, genuinely, is forcing the text to mean something dramatically different than the actual thrust of this text. Verse 10 does say God knew/knows. It is rather that 'we' are responsible for our own sin. We cannot blame God for bad grapes. He cultivated the soil, we are the bad grapes. The blame is on us. God didn't 'expect' good grapes, but rather said the soil was good for producing what is good. There were good grapes.
Yep.
I cannot seem to make a dent in your Open suppositions. I can pray about it, perhaps try a little further. Your rendering of the text is weighted by an English translation not given even in the KJV with 'expect' for instance. If you cannot entertain you've read it wrong, isn't that an impasse?
I'm not sure Credo's concern comes from Calvinism. Perhaps.
Open Theism, correct?
It is yet importing a priori. While these guide us, we yet have to allow texts to interrupt and challenge, always, our assumptions. Let's say I was Open Theist for a moment: I'd yet want to reread this passage and try to leave my assumptions behind, simply because I want to be moldable by God once again.
This Isaiah 46 passage definitely is a posturing one: The difference between God and men as well as explaining the difference. We have to start there, because it is the stakes of the passage, thus "what is different between what God knows and only God knows and men cannot?" It is from His platform as God that He is challenging men who must come to Him, because they do not have what only God does. It is from that, that I read Credo's bold print to understand what that difference is.
Love you for it. Always have. I know. It is rather when I do it, to lift it up as an idea, thus "I believe" obviously(?) open for inspection. It is an invitation and I usually erase them. I can start a sentence 'scripture says' or "it seems to me (I believe) scripture says.." I don't want to prognosticate so look for a way to say something. "I believe" seems innocuous enough, but on TOL I've tried to eschew it. Forgive the lapse.
Yep, but something informs the belief. "Why" do you believe this" would be shorter
Answer: It seems Credo's bolded quote of Isaiah does indeed say that there is a difference between what God knows and man cannot, such that it is a mark of being 'god.' Once more to the text (italics mine for emphasis of points other than what is bolded):
Isaiah 46:21-24 -
Present your case,” says the Lord.
“Bring forth your strong reasons,” says the King of Jacob. “Let them bring forth and show us what will happen; (a counterpoint between man and God would mean He has it, we don't else the argument wouldn't stand) Let them show the former things, what they were, that we may consider them (perhaps all of history, so obviously something God knows they cannot/do not), And know the latter end of them; Or declare to us things to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, That we may know that you are gods (all of these, marks of God, not of men such that only God possess them). It'd mean things that are to come (passive verb, He not making them happen), would mean foreknowledge. It makes the best sense of the difference between God and men.
Isaiah 46:10 -
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure.
-Granted here, these are things that God Himself will do, but said in a way that allows the actions of another coopt with His own plans, because these are written as passive verbs. It means Divine, certainly as the marked difference, foreknowledge, thus not just foreknowledge, but the marked difference between types of foreknowledge between God and men. If God, in His wisdom wanted to make clear He did not know the future actions of men, there is all kinds of room to have done so here. Granted this passage is a mark of difference, and for that we have to see His explanation of what is actually different between us and Him. Can I entertain the Open Theist position? Yes, but this passage not about the things men have that are not much different from what God knows, but the vast difference between the two, thus also very much entertaining that He knows the latter end of all actions, as is given in these verses, at face value.
Lon
Well-known member
Why? Isn't it just a guess, an intimation based on the former idea rather than implicit? If the text says something, and our knee-jerk is to dismiss it because 'well that means sin!' I'm not on page. His analogy of the wheat and tares does say 'let them grow together' but the reason is because His fruit will be harmed if the weeds are uprooted. So God knows weeds will grow, and that the soil encourages sin along with righteousness, but His reason isn't author of sin, but rather that righteousness exist. It seems then, knowing weeds are going to be an issue, isn't authoring them. An 'enemy' did this, He says.
I've endeavored to show otherwise just above.
It is an Open Theism paradigm to try and save God by denying EDF, but even EDF at this moment would, by logically application, apply. IOW, it doesn't do to deny God of future EDF because of implication, because present EDF points to the same conclusions: God is allowing atrocity this second. He 'can' stop it. Simply depriving God of knowledge doesn't let Him off the hook. Rather His righteousness, Holiness, and purpose does and always has. In the long run, when you run logistics, there is no help from Open paradigms, they simply move the goalposts further down the playing field and never remove it, just puts it 'further out of sight.' Let me ask this: If that is all Open Theism does, has it actually dealt with the Righteousness of God, or has it simply hidden the need? Imho, it 'simply hides the need' and sets it further away. It never does entertain that God can be implicated as easily by immediate knowledge of all things. Some Open Theists then deny He has even that, intimating He has to investigate to know what is happening here on earth, and so it goes further down the proverbial rabbit-hole.
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Derf
Well-known member
You're not reading the verse. let's look at it again, and later let's include the following verse for a little confirmation:
[Isa 46:10 KJV] Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times [the things] that are not [yet] done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
[Isa 46:11 KJV] Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken [it], I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed [it], I will also do it.
First, it never says that God KNOWS the end from the beginning, but that He "DECLARES" it from the beginning, and He explains that His declaring is "by My counsel" and "according to My pleasure". So, reiterating, IF the verse is to be used to say "God knows all future events", then the reason He knows them ACCORDING TO THE VERSE BEING QUOTED is that all those future things are God's counsel and God's pleasure.
Yes, you can argue that the verse does not claim that God is the author of sin, but in doing so, you are affirming my argument, because then and only then can we actually say that "all future things are not what is being talked about in that verse.
So what about the next verse? does it clarify? It certainly does:
[Isa 46:11 KJV] Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken [it], I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed [it], I will also do it.
God explains that the man coming from the east is "executing MY counsel", and goes on to explain how it works: first God speaks something (same idea as "declares" i vs 10), then God brings it to pass. First He plans something, then He does it.
Now, let's apply this to sin. You would say that God knows about the weeds growing, and if Is 46 10 and 11 apply, then the weeds are "executing God's counsel" and bringing to pass His plan, that He declared. So if sin is including, God's plan is that ALL sin is something that God purposed to happen (according to that reading of Is 46:10), and it is according to HIS PLEASURE, All sin. Every white lie, and every rape and murder of a child
Yes, but you've missed the argument. the argument was, as stated above, that IF Is 46 is used to show EDF, then it has to include the reason God gives for how He knows those things, which is that it was all His idea in the first place.
Yes, but that's not the argument. The verse is expressing God's knowledge of FUTURE events by HIS OWN COUNSEL and FOR HIS OWN PLEASURE.
Not if He always knew it would happen because it Pleases Him that it happens. Why would He?
Not the argument. You're arguing for something else that wasn't the subject of my post.
I don't think this is true, since "moving the goalposts" from eternity past, or even "from the beginning" to when something is actually happening allows the openist to claim that God is working the best solution for the time, RATHER THAN HIS OWN COUNSEL AND PLEASURE from the beginning.
Obviously it has dealt with both the righteousness and the mercy of God.
It does, and you've been shown before. God seems to work things out for the best for them that love Him and are called for His purposes.
I don't really see why that's relevant to the use of Is 46:10 to prove EDF. Are you losing focus on your own argument?
Derf
Well-known member
Sure, if you read the concept into it in the first place, like here:
But God didn't say Adam would "die immediately" (please show me if I missed it). Nor did He say Adam would die within the next 24 hours, since the phrase "in the day" does not have to mean "on the day". And if Adam indeed died "in the day" he ate of the fruit, then there is no reason to redefine death as "spiritual separation from God" in the first place.
Maybe so, but it doesn't say that such separation is actually to be called "death", does it? I didn't see the word in the whole chapter.
No, he doesn't. You only read the concept into Paul's words.
Paul's words work just fine with real, physical death, knowing that future death ("in the day" kind of future) easily fits the words. And when Jesus rose from the dead, it gave us all hope that we won't stay dead forever when we die, just as God promised Adam and Eve in the Garden (though He was talking to Satan, His words are the promise that death, real death where people turn to dust, will be defeated).
No, it is from permanent death to resurrected life without judgment, as explained in the following verses:
[Jhn 5:25 KJV] Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
This "dead" is the people that we are discussing, and the question is whether they are guaranteed physical death or whether this is talking about "separation from God"--either could work. But a few verses later, Jesus explains He is talking about physical death, since they are "in the graves".
[Jhn 5:28 KJV] Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,
So the current call of the Son of God is assuring life in the future, despite people first going into their graves.
Yes, this is an assurance of the resurrection (made alive together with Him), as shown in the prior verse:
[Col 2:12 KJV] Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with [him] through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
Being buried with Him is sharing in His physical death (by the metaphor of baptism), and in His physical resurrection (the metaphor ends with rising from the water).
Agreed.
Right.
With the assumption that the concept of spiritual death is the right one. In either case, death being inherited from Adam is a way in which we share in his punishment for sin.
I don't think Rom 7:9 works in your system, because it would suggest that all Gentiles are able to have a pass, since they didn't have the law.
But you have multiple exceptions, exceptions for most all of humanity, that they have to die at least twice, once spiritually, and once physically.
Idolater
"Matthew 16:18-19" Dispensationalist (Catholic) χρ
We don't need to understand it. We just need to believe Genesis 50:20 is the Word of God.
Idolater
"Matthew 16:18-19" Dispensationalist (Catholic) χρ
And I would say that you both are kind of thinking like a Clavinist, because you're both kind of assuming that not one in ten thousand are going to Hell rn. It could be that very very many are going to Heaven when they go softly into the night rn. Not universalism. But like, almost universalism. Or maybe just something closer to 50-50, or even 2-to-1. You're both assuming I think, and by all means correct me, that it's like 10-to-1, Hell-to-Heaven kind of thing, no?
What if it's 50-50?