Actually He is able to do both.
Why, all things can even BE IN HIM ... while simultaneously he is able to BE WITHIN HIS OWN CREATION!
Being inside of time and outside of time simultaneously is not a special feat for the ONE God.
Proof from the Bible that God is In Time
- Thread starter Nathon Detroit
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Actually He is able to do both.
Why, all things can even BE IN HIM ... while simultaneously he is able to BE WITHIN HIS OWN CREATION!
Being inside of time and outside of time simultaneously is not a special feat for the ONE God.
Excellent point and why open theism is flawed. How did God save His creation at the cross and not be bound "in time"? open theism casts doubts and goes outside of what the Bible teaches about God's divine abilities.
Calvinism's determinism would lead to EDF, but at the expense of love, free will, relationship.
Molinism falls short by only talking about would/would not obtain (middle knowledge) vs might/might not obtain. If the agent is the source of moving contingency to certainty, EDF becomes impossible, even for an omniscient God.
Arminianism assumes simple FK and relies on 'eternal now'. Both concepts are indefensible, so it is right in retaining LFW, but wrong to assume EDF is possible in light of this.
Open Theism captures biblical, logical (modal) evidence with its two motifs of some vs all of the future is settled/FK.
You cannot demonstrate that God has EDF, but merely beg the question.
This debate is important, but complex. It is simple, intuitive on one level, but very technical on another level.
Those who cannot articulate, understand, refute competing views have Ostrich Syndrome. We cannot always assume tradition is truth or that our views are bullet proof (especially when we are not even aware of the existence/strengths/weaknesses of other views).
genuineoriginal
New member
I am still waiting for the 2-3 referrences from the Bible which declare that God is outside of time. I have already seen more than that which declare that God experiences time.
Lon
Well-known member
No, just Libertarian Freewill. If you are going to defend us sometimes....Let's not overstep the bounds else you are part of the problem instead of the solution.
I'm glad you are reading beyond the bounds but personally, I tend to point toward Spurgeon. He may even state thing that would bug you, but I loved Spurgeon even when I was Arminian.
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We differ on what is knowable, so the definition is fine with your view as well. You say all things are knowable if God is omniscient. I say that God not knowing where Alice in Wonderland is right now is not a deficiency in omniscience.
By definition, omniscience would mean God is not ignorant of anything. He knows what is possible to know (it is not possible to know what Yoda is doing since it is not real and not doing anything) whether He needs to or not. I don't need to know about my birthplace, but I do know about it. You are wrong to assume that God needs EDF to govern. In fact, it would offer no providential advantage even if He did have it because He could not change the fixed future even if He wanted/needed to (would make His FK false; omniscience includes knowing all true realities).
God has revealed things about His reality, but not exhaustively. It can be demonstrated that the future is anticipatory, not fixed, even for God (take Scripture at face value without importing a false Neo-Platonic/Augustinian tradition on it). It can be shown that it is non-sensical to know future free will contingent choices of moral agents before they exist to make contingent choices. This leaves determinism as a possible issue, but Scripture is clear that this is not our/God's reality (without a serious problem with theodicy, impugning God's character).
It is wrong to assume our reality is just like God's, but it is also wrong to assume it must be totally disconnected in light of the image of God and temporal vs divine reality. What is the evidence? There is no reason to think that the historical death on the cross was a different 'time' for God than Jesus/man. It was ?29 A.D. on earth and for God. Likewise, God is seeing me type this in real space-time. There is no logical, biblical reason to think that God was seeing me type this from eternity past. It is 2011 for God and us. This is common sense and how Scripture is revealed. We see the Flood from the hand of God BEFORE He incarnates in Christ centuries later. To think that God experiencing this as one simultaneity without chronology is sheer pagan philosophy, not biblical, logical fact.
Look lion boy, if it ain't for the regular folk then you missed your mark. Just because you have a personal beef with Calvinism doesn't mean you get to re write the Bible...
God cannot choose to not remember. This would compromise His omniscience. It would mean we, devil, newspapers, etc. would know things God does not know. He can choose to not know the future exhaustively by creating a contingent vs deterministic world.
When God does not remember our sins, He chooses to not bring them up again and relaxes claims of justice for mercy. It is not a matter of divine amnesia. We forgive our enemies without literally forgetting.
You have simplistic, traditional views, but they are not well thought out.
Huh? The cross is a space-time event for God incarnate. The cross did not happen before creation or the Second Coming. What do you mean bound in time? Experiencing duration is a sign of being personal, not bound. It would be binding to be absolutely static vs dynamic.
The Bible does not teach that God is timeless. You say this without proof. The few proof texts used can be cleared up, but you are not dealing with ones that show duration in the divine experience (every page of Scripture, Rev. 1:4, Ps. 90:2, etc.).
Compatibilism moves determinism back a step to desire, but it is still deterministic.
I am reading AMR's fave 'Beyond the Bounds'. One author asserts that the biblical view is that God ordains/wills everything before creation (divine determinism), and yet creatures have power and are responsible. He assumes philosophical compatibilism, but then says the correct answer to these seeming (it is an actual one) contradictions cannot be understood in how they can possibly be?! We cannot understand this and that. The reason he cannot understand them is that there is a contradiction and incoherence in the claim. So, he begs the question, admits it does not make sense to us, yet retains he view.
This is unnecessary when there is a much more biblical, logical view. In the effort to retain a wrong view of hyper-sovereignty, a compromised view of free will loop hole is introduced. It is illusory free will. So, if we have a right view of free will and sovereignty, we will not have to say it does not make sense to us and we cannot understand it. We can demonstrate the biblical, logical coherence of the other view, but it will mean we must reject Calvinism. Calvinists, JWs, etc. want to retain their views at all costs, so they will speculate, rationalize, etc. despite being wrong. The arguments are refutable.
Sovereignty is not meticulous control, but providential control.
Decretal, deterministic views impugn the character and ways of God. They have wrong assumptions leading to wrong conclusions.
LFW is right compared to compatibilism. This leads to a cogent theodicy, retaining the image of God, assuring creaturely freedom and responsibility, upholds love vs determinism/robotics, etc.
Eternity is not timelessness, but endless time. This has implications for foreknowledge, etc.
Predestining some things does not mean God predestines all things.
A warfare vs blueprint model is reality, so the myth of the blueprint hinders our understanding, not helps it.
http://www.amazon.com/Four-Views-Divine-Providence-Counterpoints/dp/0310325129
This is a good approach to looking at competing views. William Lane Craig is brilliant, but wrong and weak in his Molinistic view. Honestly, Boyd and Open Theism is clear and strong, while the Calvinist is mass confusion, hard to swallow.
Tradition is not always truth.
Calvinism is a false view and should not be coddled. I do not change the Bible to refute it, but interpret it properly.
I am suggesting you have not thought this subject through enough to be dogmatic. Asserting something does not make it true.
These mentors and myself are reading the same Bible. We can show that the Hebraic view is endless time (you reject), while the unbiblical, Hellenistic view is timelessness (which you embrace despite no biblical, logical evidence).
We can read Rom. 9-11 in a Calvinistic, deterministic paradigm, or we can interpret it in context relating to corporate Israel and mission vs individual salvation.
So, the primary issue is Bible, interpretation, literal vs anthropomorphic, etc. Since the Bible is not a systematic theology book and does not resolve all issues of knowledge, some things (like exact nature of free will as libertarian, deterministic, or compatibilistic) will be aided by godly philosophy. All views share the same problem. Just using the Bible by all of us will not automatically lead to the same views for a variety of reasons.
I suggest your view is biased without evidence and that other views are more cogent, defensible. Instead of engaging the debate, you resort to argumentum ad hominem. This says more about you than us. It also makes me wonder if you want truth or just to cling to your pet views as infallible, even when they are not.
Ignorance is not bliss, but it is arrogant in your case.
Blah blah is not a refutation of a post with content and statements that can stand up to scrutiny. Instead of trying to understand, you stick your head in the sand.
You asked a two part question:
God created an image for his personal use ... entered the world and its time frame as the mortal Savior. Isaiah 43:11 KJV and Colossians 1:14,15,16 KJV
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God did become bound to our earthly time when he became his own servant having a mortal body and God did submit in this way to the laws He established within the realm of the human world. Read the NT and you will see His time line ... born, suffered, grew, worked, died, and arose.
I know all of that but open theism doesn't address it.
They are more interested in selling than teaching.
Open mouth closed head godrules...can go on and on about all of his deterministic crap all day long...I'm not interested. I am far more advanced in my study than him any day!
Blah, blah, blah. I never needed open theism and I'm not interested in these blowhards and their big talk.
Lon
Well-known member
I wasn't trying to debate here, just get you to realize sometimes you rightly defend, as I do others I don't agree with, but then to be more careful when you go at us again not to toss out the frivolous that reinforces misconceptions. For instance, I took the first off the top of the list to remind that we and certainly I, don't dismiss freewill. I know there are some who do, but Calvin wasn't one of them. I'm not either though I still think it a sippery subject for discussion.
I'm glad you are reading beyond the bounds but personally, I tend to point toward Spurgeon. He may even state thing that would bug you, but I loved Spurgeon even when I was Arminian.
(Not sure how this is proceeding with the time discussion, are we off-topic?)
Spurgeon, Prince of Preachers, was Calvinistic on paper in theory, but Arminian in practice. He might be moderate vs hyper-Calvinist. I appreciate my Reformed brethren, even when wrong on details.
Calvinists are inconsistent in that they say contradictory things and don't follow them through to the logical conclusions when it gets awkward (like God being responsible for evil or man not having genuine free will). Some Calvinists take other Calvinists to task for the implications of their view (usually moderate vs hyper).
Calvinists are inconsistent in that they say contradictory things and don't follow them through to the logical conclusions when it gets awkward (like God being responsible for evil or man not having genuine free will). Some Calvinists take other Calvinists to task for the implications of their view (usually moderate vs hyper).
I so agree that He experience time as we know it as I've stated in other posts ... but regarding his existing "out side" of time ... that is "time other than a state of ETERNITY" - I'll try to show you why I believe he is also outside of earthly time and eternal. I really don't believe that anything can be "out side" of God... but for conversation purposes I'll use that phrase to mean that God is more than time.
If scripture leads us to believe that God is LIFE and the source of life for all living... and that He being divine eternal life had come into the world while He is the ONE creator of all things, would you consider that He has existed outside of our measured time and has "dwelt - so to speak" in a state of eternity?
Deut. 33:26,27 KJV The eternal God is thy refuge...
Isaiah 57:15 KJV The lofty ONE (God) that inhabiteth eternity ...
Ps 36:9 KJV with thee is the fountain of life ...
Isaiah 43:11 KJV I (the ONE God), even I, am the LORD (of Israel) and besides ME there is no savior...
John 14:6 KJV I (Lord Jesus - being the divine Lord Savior mentioned in Isaiah 43:11 KJV) am the truth, the way, and the life ...
John 5:26 KJV as the Father (God) hath life in himself...
John 5:28 KJV (granted) to the Son (Isaiah 43:11 KJV) to have life in himself...
John 17:3 KJV And this is life eternal, that they know thee the only true God (the Father), and Jesus Christ (the Son), whom thou (O God) hast sent ...
1 John 5:7 KJV For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the WORD, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are ONE...
1 John 5:20 KJV And we know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are IN HIM that is true, even (we are) IN HIS SON Jesus Christ. This (Jesus Christ) is the true God, and eternal life.
Well, I could go on searching for more verses that say that God is the life and is eternal life... and that the ONE God sent himself from where He exists eternally into our world and into our time frame as the Savior and begotten Sonto work. (Isaiah 43:11 KJV)
If a scripture said that IN HIM (God) ALL THINGS exist and consist, would you say that this would include the establishment of ways to measure time so that TIME FRAMES exists IN HIM as well?
Colossians 1:16, 17 KJV
For BY HIM (the divine God the Savior Isaiah 43:11 KJV) were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, (the) visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created BY HIM and FOR HIM: And He is before ALL THINGS, and BY HIM all things CONSIST!
God did establish time for our world in Gen. 1 when he created the moon and sun for measuring days, seasons, and years... so since the sun and moon exist IN HIM and of HIM consist ... then the measurement for earthly time exists IN HIM.
Since I believe that God is omni-present spirit which means that there is nowhere that He does not exist... He is more than our time and yet He is able to know what is going on in our time as well.
An example of this that I've pondered is:
God knows every hair on my head ... how?
Ans.
Because He is omni-present, He is aware of not only the hairs left upon my head, but is also simultaneously aware of the hairs that have traveled far and wide from my heard and those that have turned to dust by now.
Is it any wonder that he will be able to gather together the dust of our dead bodies from where ever it might be and raise them to eternal glorification?
Since God is omni-present, eternal, and infinite and all things are IN HIM and of Him CONSISTS ... then he is limitless and time limits are first IN HIM.
Yet, I so agree that God is able to enter into created time frames when he chooses ... have a personal relationship with created beings for a time... and certainly He did when he manifested himself as our mortal Lord Jesus.
genuineoriginal, I hope this is the sort of thing you were wanting me to write.
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