COVID Notice: Just fyi, this link to Bob Enyart's cellular animation and virus sermon will be removed from this page on 4/11.
Real Science Radio host Bob Enyart concludes his interview with Ryan Mullins, theologian and author of the Oxford Studies title, The End of the Timeless God. Again, more than 700 pages on the websites of the big creation ministries (CMI, AiG, CRS, ICR) use the phrase "God and time". (You can verify that with this the time-saving customized Google tool atop rsr.org to simultaneously search the big creation groups.) The guys also discuss the nearly ubiquitous and utterly damaging doctine of Divine Simplicity, which, if true, would prohibit even the very triune nature of God. (And as our producer Dominic Enyart asks, If Divine Similicity were true, what's the point of learning more about God?) Research fellow at Scotland's University of St. Andrews, Dr. Mullins has published groundbreaking work on the topic of God's relationship to time. Bob read and highly recommends Mullin's book. And we invite you to browse our own titles and check out "God and time" resources at our own store.kgov.com! And make sure to hear Part 1 and Part 2 beginning at rsr.org/mullins and our series with Dr. Richard Holland on his book, God, Time and the Incarnation!
Open theism seminar with Bob Enyart on three DVDs!
BEL January 2007 Seminar Indianapolis, IN
Another fantastic BEL seminar, this time, on the topic of Open Theism, answering the question, is the future settled or open? The Open View teaches that God can change the future. He interacts with the flow of history and changes the outcome of the future as it unfolds by His decisions and actions.
Simplicity doesn't mean what he thinks it means. It means that God is Spirit, not physical. It means that all of everything is contained 'in' God, not outside of Him with nothing outside of Him. It is not only Biblically given, it is logically necessary. I realize without a PhD behind my name this counts for little, but I do have an MA. Its worth listening.
Second, though I'll never convince an Open Theist on my near invisible status, God is timeless specifically because He is Spirit. Hebrews 11:3 By faith, we believe God made things seen from things unseen.
Necessarily, Time is a measure and God is measureless lest you create a finite God in your concept.
Is sin "contained 'in' God"? A yes or no will suffice.
not outside of Him with nothing outside of Him. It is not only Biblically given, it is logically necessary. I realize without a PhD behind my name this counts for little, but I do have an MA. Its worth listening.
Second, though I'll never convince an Open Theist on my near invisible status,
Which does not therefore mean that God is timeless. It doesn't follow.
Time is a prerequisite of action. Creation was an action done by God. You can't even logically describe how God created time, because it's not possible to do so.
God is not the author of confusion, yet trying to explain how God is timeless has left many confused.
God is rational, and so that which He does is also rational. Which means that God cannot do that which is irrational, such as creating time, which would mean there was a change, a before and an after, which implies sequence, and sequence can only occur in the context of time existing, and therefore God did not create time, because in order to do so, time must first exist.
Rather, time is simply an aspect of God's existence.
A CLOCK is a measure, be it rotations of a planet or hands on an analogue alarm clock. Those are finite, but time, because it is an aspect of God's existence, has existed forever, and was not (and could not be) created.
and God is measureless lest you create a finite God in your concept.
If God indeed were atemporal and could experience no sequence and hence, no change, He could never decide to create time, nor could He ever move from a decision to the actual act of creating time. If such an irrationality were plausible, God would have had to always have created time, and all of creation, from eternity past. Yet this is all gibberish. Further, because time does exist, even if that time had been created, an atemporal deity who experiences no succession and no change in His knowledge could therefore only know Himself as co-existing with time. Thus for theologians to say that God exists apart from time would be positing something of Him that He Himself could not know. Instead, the simple truth is that a timeless deity could not create time and does not exist.
Simplicity doesn't mean what he thinks it means. It means that God is Spirit, not physical. It means that all of everything is contained 'in' God, not outside of Him with nothing outside of Him. It is not only Biblically given, it is logically necessary. I realize without a PhD behind my name this counts for little, but I do have an MA. Its worth listening.
Second, though I'll never convince an Open Theist on my near invisible status, God is timeless specifically because He is Spirit. Hebrews 11:3 By faith, we believe God made things seen from things unseen.
Necessarily, Time is a measure and God is measureless lest you create a finite God in your concept.
This is all Calvinist ever do! They make bald claims and declare how their unsupported claim is logically necessary, while prefacing their comments with a fallacious appeal to authority.
What they NEVER do is provide the proof - the logical proof. They never ever make the actual argument that demonstrates the necessity of their claim.
They also NEVER respond with any counter argument to the dozens of actual arguments that Open Theists make against such oxymoronic ideas as timeless existence as well as all manner of Calvinists distinctives.
All they are capable of, is looking down their noses at ideas withwhich they disagree and, in the case of Lon, make every mention of their college education that they can find opportunity for.
You want to convince me, Lon. All it takes is one single thing and one thing only. A rationally sound ARGUMENT! An argument that you are incapable of making and which you'd be unwilling to make if you were capable.
And no, Bob is not at all wrong about what Divine Simplicity means. Here it is from someone who is not only a "Doctor of Philosophy" because he has a PhD but because he actually has a PhD IN PHILOSOPHY and was a tenured Associate Professor of Philosophy for many years at more than one university. (That only matters because you brought up the issue of one's education while trying to tell us all the Bob had it wrong on the basis of your own education - or lack thereof - I can't really tell which was your point.)
.
"According to the classical theism of Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas and their adherents, God is radically unlike creatures and cannot be adequately understood in ways appropriate to them. God is simple in that God transcends every form of complexity and composition familiar to the discursive intellect. One consequence is that the simple God lacks parts. This lack is not a deficiency but a positive feature. God is ontologically superior to every partite entity, and his partlessness is an index thereof. Broadly construed, ‘part’ covers not only spatial and temporal parts (if any) but also metaphysical ‘parts’ or ontological constituents. To say that God lacks metaphysical parts is to say inter alia that God is free of matter-form composition, potency-act composition, and existence-essence composition. There is also no real distinction between God as subject of his attributes and his attributes. God is thus in some sense identical to each of his attributes, which implies that each attribute is identical to every other one." - by William F. Vallicella - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
In short, your pantheistic nonsense has basically nothing to do with Divine Simplicity.
Clete
P.S. Jesus Christ is God IN THE FLESH! He gained a human body when He BECAME a man and remains a man with a glorified PHYSICAL body to this day and forever more. To deny that God is physical is to deny the gospel, the very core of the Christian faith.
How many different ways are there to dismantel seemingly every word this man says? Why would anyone believe a syllable of it?
He nor you did. I realize the stakes are high. He's on ignore because he is never capable, let alone worth my time. Look at your next attaboys for Clete: He's incapable. Backpatting ignorance isn't a noble quality. We've simply got to do better. He makes outlandish statements that are completely wrong. I could prove it, but the guy cannot carry a conversation before he starts flaming out. If you want him for your guru, that's a choice you have to own all by yourselves. He is limited in his ability. Worse? I don't believe he does daily devotions and it shows. How can someone love the Savior without spending time daily with Him? He's mean spirited, simple and thin in his presentation and resorts to names when he cannot win. You and I have a better history so I'm pleased to carry this and answer your questions.
Lost in details. Sin is a privation, a no-thing, not a thing. It is a warping of Him. You have to be careful or you have God the product of the material universe rather than vice versa. Enyart often argues for a physical God, not spirit. I don't believe he knows this or he'd stop. Process Theology borrows from Mormonism and has a God who 'became' God. Open Theism is dangerously close to Process Theology and Mormonism, but I believe it honestly tries to distance. It is why I engaged the thread: I just want Open Theists to think through their own position and distance both from Mormonism and Process Theology.
Well, he said/she said at that point. Let me take "sour grapes" from Isaiah for instance: It was a song. Of Isaiah. He says it is his song to liken how Israel has turned. It isn't that he was disillusioned with Israel as much as comparing how well God took care of them and then 'this' (sorry state of people) is what He gets in return. Even with the inevitable disagreement, it simply is true. At the very least, this passage is moot because of the strong disagreement. It certainly does not prove the OV premise (we may need an Open Theism IV).
Great question and I'll do my best: Time is a measurement. You have to have something physical to measure anything. What, for instance, is the measurement of Spirit? How 'big' is God? Anwer: Doesn't apply. Same here: Acts 17:28 If God moved, something is 'bigger' than Him and He is no longer God, but the product of another eternal.
Hebrews 11:3 says that God made the physical universe, and it came from Spirit. It means before there was anything physical, at all, God existed in some other way. Further, He has never not existed. The only way to describe this is to say "God's past is 'still going.' Why, necessarily? Because it has no beginning. It is beyond our ability to understand God's nonbeginning in any sense of time. Enyart (Clete also) insists that time moves forward alone. He is correct which is 'why' time doesn't and cannot apply to God. Both have asserted time is eternal, but in the next insistence, time is relegated away from God and our ability to discuss God's eternal non-beginning. "Beginning" is part of our definition of time: a place to start. God is already beyond that with 'non-beginning.'
Time is a prerequisite of action. Creation was an action done by God. You can't even logically describe how God created time, because it's not possible to do so.
No. Time is a requisite for 'physical' action. Hebrews 11:3 Acts 17:28 Colossians 1:17 John 15:5 These talk of our movement 'within' God. When God is Omnipresent, it is spiritual, not just physical. Spirit is somehow apart from His creation. God as holy, means He is apart from His creation Psalm 95:3-7 It means God is in everything, but everthing we see is only a little portion of God. Pantheism is wrong because all that exists is all that God is, in this physical world. Panentheism is rather that God is in everything, but everything isn't God, similarly to God is Love 1 John 4:8 but it doesn't stand that Love is God, because all we know about love is finite, thus Love is God isn't reciprocal.
Try not to take the OT mantra too far: Isaiah 55:8“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. 9“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. God explains Himself, but we are not yet at 1 John 3:2 We may certainly be in-the-dark and such can confuse even thought God is not the Author of that confusion. Someone might say to me: "Don't do Algebra or quantum physics, it is too confusing and God is not the author of confusion."
Whose rationality? Your's? Clete's? When I disagree am I being 'irrational?' How about when you or I don't get Quantum Physics? Often, when an Open Theist says this, they are revealing the limits of their own cognitive ability. It isn't bad, because I'm not all that brilliant either. God's ways are unsearchable. Rather, I gauge where I am on the intelligence scale and where others are (part of both of my degrees), then explain what I can and also acquiesce where God's ways are indeed higher than you, he/she, or I.
Which means that God cannot do that which is irrational, such as creating time, which would mean there was a change, a before and an after, which implies sequence, and sequence can only occur in the context of time existing, and therefore God did not create time, because in order to do so, time must first exist.
I realize, simplistically, this makes sense, but it isn't correct. I've shown above God already escapes our logical understanding of duration, so much so, that 'by faith, we believe God created that which is seen (physical universe) from what is unseen (out of nothing, ex nihilo).
A CLOCK is a measure, be it rotations of a planet or hands on an analogue alarm clock. Those are finite, but time, because it is an aspect of God's existence, has existed forever, and was not (and could not be) created.
All artificial man-made implements to try and make (man-made) meaning of duration, space, temperature, etc. We all agree on them, except the U.S. We've resisted the metric system.
BOX]If God indeed were atemporal and could experience no sequence and hence, no change, He could never decide to create time, nor could He ever move from a decision to the actual act of creating time. If such an irrationality were plausible, God would have had to always have created time, and all of creation, from eternity past. Yet this is all gibberish. Further, because time does exist, even if that time had been created, an atemporal deity who experiences no succession and no change in His knowledge could therefore only know Himself as co-existing with time. Thus for theologians to say that God exists apart from time would be positing something of Him that He Himself could not know. Instead, the simple truth is that a timeless deity could not create time and does not exist.[/BOX]
Excerpt from https://kgov.com/time
I've heard this, but it is incorrect. It is merely a simplistic assertion from one's own limitation in thinking critically. I've empathy but this is simply an assertion from lack.
Too bad for you that the thread is all still here for anyone to read! :chuckle:
I realize the stakes are high. He's on ignore because he is never capable, let alone worth my time. Look at your next attaboys for Clete: He's incapable. Backpatting ignorance isn't a noble quality.
You're nothing but a hypocritical liar. There was no back biting in my post whatsoever. I did, what you NEVER EVER do! I made an actual argument. An argument that you are neither capable nor willing to make any attempt whatsoever to refute.
I spend multiple hours (at least three full hours) a week listening to sermons in my truck and I read the bible every single solitary day. I get a kick out of seeing how long I can keep a streak going on the You Version bible app which I really started using consistently only about a year, maybe a year and half ago. I used to read at least one chapter, usually more like three for four chapters, in the evenings before bed but I've switched it to doing it in the mornings because I stayed up too late one night and because I read the bible about ten minutes after midnight, the app killed my streak! So, officially, my current streak is 103 consecutive days of bible reading but I'm actually about ten minutes shy of 204 consecutive days and I'm shooting for a full 365. Not that steaks mean anything in particular but having the goal helps build and maintain good habits.
I've read through the entire bible, I don't know how many times and have made a hand written copy of Romans through Philemon. I've never preached a sermon but I have taught Sunday School classes, which I can't say that I enjoy too much. And then there's the tens of thousands of hours I've spend on this website writing out the actual arguments for probably every point of doctrine I believe. I spend more time defending what I believe on this website than you spend at church absorbing whatever mindless drivel is flowing from the pulpit that turns God into the immutable stone idol that Aristotle worshiped.
How can someone love the Savior without spending time daily with Him?
He cannot!
A thirst for God's word is a key sign in any new Christian as to whether his conversion is real and a desire to know the truth that overrides one's desire to be a member of any particular group of believers (i.e. the truth over doctrinal belief) is the hallmark of any true man of God, as is a revulsion against stupidity, blasphemy and all forms of blatant ungodliness.
He's mean spirited, simple and thin in his presentation and resorts to names when he cannot win.
No. Time is a requisite for 'physical' action. Hebrews 11:3 Acts 17:28 Colossians 1:17 John 15:5 These talk of our movement 'within' God. When God is Omnipresent, it is spiritual, not just physical. Spirit is somehow apart from His creation. God as holy, means He is apart from His creation Psalm 95:3-7 It means God is in everything, but everthing we see is only a little portion of God.
I've yet to see ANYONE give an answer for the fact that God chose in His infinite wisdom to state, in the very first verse of Scripture: "In the beginning...". Obviously: there could NOT have been a beginning if time were eternal. He started the clock the moment He began creation. He invented time. He started time when He created light.
Time is not physical. Time is an idea. It's a convention of language used to convey information related to the duration and sequence of events. You cannot exist without duration and thus God experience time - by definition. Further, God exists now, as does everything else that exists. Neither the past nor the future exist except as memories or ideas.
I've yet to see ANYONE give an answer for the fact that God chose in His infinite wisdom to state, in the very first verse of Scripture: "In the beginning...". Obviously: there could NOT have been a beginning if time were eternal. He started the clock the moment He began creation. He invented time. He started time when He created light.
This is called an argument from silence. It's a fallacy for a reason.
You can ask "In the beginning of what?", and you can use your doctrine to answer it if you like but don't kid yourself into thinking that it's anything more than a pretext rather than any sort of proof. In other words, your doctrine informs your reading of the text rather than the text informing your doctrine. A practice which is rampant throughout the church and in Calvinists circles in particular, by the way.
The context makes it perfectly clear that its talking about the beginning of creation not of God Himself because while creation had a beginning God did not.
An argument from definition is only as valid as the definition.
Your definition is the flaw!
Time is not physical. It is an idea!
God has a mind and can understand concepts like duration and sequence. That's all time is.
There is another idea that physicists call spacetime but that is not at all the same thing. That has to do with clocks, and I mean that exactly. If you don't understand the difference or think that there is no difference, ask yourself if anything ever leaves the present, regardless of how fast or slow their clock is ticking. (See the thread linked to below for further information on this specific subject.)
Clete is definitely capable, and indeed has done so, of making arguments against your position.
I think you'll find that if you actually put some effort into discussing things with him, making actual arguments rather than just blatantly asserting your beliefs.
Look at your next attaboys for Clete: He's incapable.
I think you'll find, if you'd be honest with yourself, that you are at the root of that... because you don't actually make any arguments, just bald-faced assertions.
If you want him for your guru, that's a choice you have to own all by yourselves.
I think you'll find that his presentation is rather robust. But you won't, because you won't allow him the chance, because you'd rather make simple claims and leave it at that, than actually engage him in discussion.
I point to my Constitutional Monarchy thread where he and I have been having a pleasant discussion on some of the details of Bob's proposed constitution.
You can have that sort of discussion with him as well, but YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE ARGUMENTS AND NOT JUST BALD CLAIMS, something you have yet to do even in this very thread.
Well, no, he doesn't. The name-calling comes when he's won and people like you refuse to acknowledge the arguments he's made that have shown his position correct.
You and I have a better history so I'm pleased to carry this and answer your questions.
but I believe it honestly tries to distance. It is why I engaged the thread: I just want Open Theists to think through their own position and distance both from Mormonism and Process Theology.
As has been stated several times elsewhere, Bob is busy enough as it is, and hardly ever has time to even post, let alone read through an entire thread.
- is timeless
- in an eternal now
- without sequence or succession
- without moment or duration
- atemporal and outside of time
- not was, nor will be, but only is
- has no past
- has no future.
Of course NOT ONE of these phrases is in the Bible. They're from Plato. And the Platonists.
That's what the pagan Greeks say, not the Bible, and what you yourself claimed above.
When Reading the Bible, We See that God:
is - and was - and is to come - whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting - forever and ever - the Ancient of Days - from before the ages of the ages - from ancient times - the everlasting God - He continues forever - from of old - remains forever - eternal - immortal - the Lord shall endure forever - Who lives forever - yesterday, today, and forever - God's years are without number - manifest in His own time - everlasting Father - alive forevermore - always lives - forever - continually - the eternal God - God’s years never end - from everlasting to everlasting - from that time forward, even forever - and of His kingdom there will be no end. (references here)
That's what the Bible says.
So who's right? You and the pagans? or the Bible?
Let me take "sour grapes" from Isaiah for instance: It
was a song. Of Isaiah. He says it is his song to liken how Israel has turned. It isn't that he was disillusioned with Israel as much as comparing how well God took care of them and then 'this' (sorry state of people) is what He gets in return. Even with the inevitable disagreement, it simply is true. At the very least, this passage is moot because of the strong disagreement. It certainly does not prove the OV premise (we may need an Open Theism IV).
No one here has made the argument that God can be physically measured.
But then you turn that into a non-sequitur based on a false premise, by asserting that because God is not physical, therefore we can know that God is timeless, because time (and this is your false premise) is physical.
Here is the correction:
Time is an aspect of God's existence. God is eternal, and therefore because God is eternal, therefore time is eternal. It also follows logically, because in order for there to be sequence, a before and after, there must be time. "Before time" is therefore a contradiction, because without time, there cannot be a 'before", thus time is a prerequisite of creation.
What, are you actually trying to use a figure of speech to say that everything is 'in' God?
For those too lazy to go look up the verse, here is it, and in context, since Lon didn't actually bother to quote it:
Spoiler
Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious;for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising.Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” - Acts 17:22-31 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...p;version=NKJV
If God moved, something is 'bigger' than Him and He is no longer God, but the product of another eternal.
Your argument isn't very strong if it can be refuted by only the second verse in the Bible.
In other words:
No, if God moved, it doesn't mean that something is "bigger" than He is. It simply means that He has moved in the context of His creation.
Movement is a physical description, and is utterly meaningless without the context of a physical area, at least from our human perspective.
In other words, God is not "immovable," because He Himself describes Himself moving in only the second verse of the Bible, let alone the rest of it.
In other words, your argument doesn't follow, because the verse immediately prior to it states that He Himself created the universe that He is moving in.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. - Hebrews 11:1-3 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...p;version=NKJV
says that God made the physical universe, and it came from Spirit.
It IS beyond our ability to comprehend a beginningless past, but that doesn't mean that it cannot be described abstractly using time, using words that we CAN somewhat grasp.
The Bible does it quite well. See the list above for a few examples.
Enyart (Clete also) insists that time moves forward alone.
Here is what Bob wrote about the movement of time:
Spoiler
Misconception 3: Time flows toward the future. Time's arrow is almost universally described as pointing from the past to the future such that the current of time flows forward. Of course this is a metaphor, yet the direction of this arrow is wrong. The truth is the reverse. For to whatever extent we may speak of time flowing, say, as a river, then to that extent time flows from the future into the past, from its source into the depths. The current of time brings the future into the present and the present into the past. For, which is more likely to be flowing suspended perfectly in time, a fjord or the future? A pebble or the past? Regarding rivers, men build anchors and docks to resist their flow. Other objects though, like bubbles and twigs, readily float along with the current. Regarding time, what is it that resists its flow, and what rides in its current? Dates, for example, ride the current of time keeping pace perfectly with its flow. Tomorrow's date, yielding no resistance, suspended perfectly in time, readily moves with the current and will eventually arrive not at a point further into the future but being carried by time will eventually arrive at the present and then recede into the past. An entire book written on the topic, Coveney and Highfield's atheistic Arrow of Time, inaccurately speaks of "time's forward movement." Christian philosopher Ryan Mullins in his fascinating book, The End of the Timeless God, published in 2016 by Oxford University Press, describes the "A-Theory" writing that time "is constantly moving forward." Merriam-Webster defines time as a continuum "from past through present to future". Incorrectly men assume that the current of time sweeps us from birth to death, which would be moving us toward the future. But more accurately, the current of time eventually sweeps our entire earthly lives into the past. Time does not carry our birth forward into the future, nor (as it might if time flowed forward) does it forever postpone our physical death pushing it later and later. Rather, "I" am like a floating buoy anchored to the river bed bobbing and resisting the flow of time. Mullins writes of "endurantism" and uses the common phrase, "persist through time". An astronaut does not persist through his spaceship but he persists through space, which, as he travels is gradually receding behind him. Thus time is not carrying us, but we are persisting through it. The carrying capacity of a river's current, how much sediment it can transport in suspension, depends upon the current's speed. Considering everything that exists, both physical and spiritual, the incorrect view of time flowing forward suggests an absurdity. For if time were actually flowing forward, it would need to have its own carrying capacity. Time would then have to possess whatever features were necessary to transport every physical particle and every spiritual entity, temporally forward. Or, every physical particle and spiritual entity would have to possess whatever features were necessary to hold onto time as it carried them. Either way, that's quite an onus to put on something as ethereal as time. Rather, the passage of time pleases Ockham. No carrying or latching required, time simply flows backward, bypassing all. Contrast then "events" to people and objects anchored to resist the flow. Events are not similarly anchored. Defenseless to the flow of time, as so much sediment suspended in a current, events are whisked into the past. An event belongs first to the future, then to the present, and finally to the past. In this sense, things can resist the flow of time but events cannot. Consider also markers to moments in time. Temporal markers lack physical mass and spiritual existence. So they flow perfectly with the current of time. Thus on the day of this writing, the date of January 1, 2020 is in the future, floating toward the present, caught up as it is perfectly in the current of time. That date will eventually reach the present and then, as age piles on top of age, greatly recede with the flow of time carrying it forever further and further into the distant past. Though nearly ubiquitous, the misperception that "times flows forward" bringing us into the future is not harmless. Here tautologies abound. The murkier the water the less transparent it is. And the less accurately we think about time the more erroneous our understanding. Those who unwittingly view time as having a carrying capacity (bringing us into the future) may be hindered from perceiving the impossibility of time travel, may resist presentism (that the present is all that exists), and may harbor other confusions about the nature of time itself. In reality, we resist the flow of time and live forever and only, as does God, in the present.
Which brings us to the best definition: Time is the beginningless, endless, present, continuous, invariable, irreversible future to past dimension of change. "Invariable" indicates in part that successive intervals of a defined unit between moments are themselves equivalent. Theologically, time is the heartbeat of God, so to speak, without which He would not be alive. Time eternally flows from Him.
He is correct which is 'why' time doesn't and cannot apply to God.
You seem to be making the assertion that God could not have crossed a beginningless past.
Spoiler
Misconception 4: God cannot cross an actual infinity: Because it would take infinitely long to cross an infinity, many philosophers claim that not even God could cross an infinity. Thus, they claim if He lived "in time", then regardless of how long He has existed, the Lord Himself could never reach any particular point in time, let alone reach "the present", because He would have to cross an infinity to arrive at this (or that) moment.
On How to Cross an Infinity: However, consider the relationship between two valid arguments: everything that has a beginning has a cause and likewise, nothing that has a beginning can cross an infinity. We theists can learn to avoid the kind of error that atheist Bertrand Russel made regarding that first valid argument, when He asks well then, Who made God? He's ignoring the ubiquitous observation that anything that "has a beginning" must have a cause. Consider now the second valid argument above, that theists must take care to handle properly. Nothing that "has a beginning" can cross an infinity. God, though, has existed through the "beginningless past". Though we reject much of Wes Morriston's reasoning in his paper Beginningless Past, Endless Future, and the Actual Infinite published in 2010 by the journal Faith and Philosophy (Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 439-450), we agree with his biblical conclusion, that God has existed through the beginningless past. The vast majority of Christian theologians though, who reject that God has existed through the beginningless past, typically do so by being inconsistent. Therefore their objection is easily neutralized and then answered. For example, William Lane Craig rejects the possibility of an actual infinity. (See his reformulated medieval Islamic Kalam cosmological argument.) So along with many theologians he disagrees with the biblical argument presented above of: "from everlasting to everlasting", and thus he denies that God has existed throughout time immemorial, infinitely into the past. For if an actual infinity cannot exist, Craig argues, then even God cannot cross one. (Aristotle, for example, claimed that the infinite is never actual; he, however, did not know God.)
Inconsistency: Yet while Craig doesn't admit it, he himself believes that God has crossed an actual infinity. For God's thoughts are actual. They are not merely theoretical. They are actual. They are His thoughts. And Craig believes that God has had exhaustive foreknowledge of a kingdom that never ends. That of course would require divine knowledge of an infinite future, with this knowledge comprised of actual thoughts in God's mind. (This would be like God starting at zero and having counted to infinity.) Further, because Craig happens to hold the untenable, absurd, and grotesque belief that God knows every possible future, that philosophical claim requires God to cross an infinite number of actual infinities. (This is because there are an infinite number of possible futures. Forget about Chuck Norris doing so twice, this amounts to a claim that God counted to infinity an infinite number of times.) Instead, in actuality, God has once crossed the single infinity of the beginningless past.
Assuming the Conclusion: Using a typically unstated assumption, an argument against God's "beginningless past" insists that He could not have crossed an infinite past because regardless of how much time has actually passed, "infinity" would require passage of even more time to arrive at any given moment. The unstated assumption in this objection however is that it assumes its conclusion, namely, that this past period must have had a beginning. For this objection essentially asserts that this past period that God has existed through is of finite duration. Again, theologians mishandle this issue the same way that atheists mishandle the argument that everything that has a beginning has a cause, as when Russell asked, "Well then who made God?", assuming he falsified Christianity or at least disproved the argument. Of course, on its face, Russell has done neither because his application falsifies only the pagan cosmogonies that originate their gods, but he leaves untouched the eternal God of Scripture. Likewise, theologians draw an unsound conclusion when they (inherently) take the valid argument that nothing that has a beginning can cross an infinity and misuse it to claim that, "God can't cross an infinity." If there is a valid theological system that denies God's ability to cross an actual infinity, then it would not support a philosophical claim that contradicts its own system (see Inconsistency, just above), and neither will it merely assume its conclusion.
Mathematics 101: Let's consider an analogy, from geometry, and then an excuse, from mathematics. As an illustration, a geometrical line is infinite in both directions whereas a ray has a terminal point yet is infinite in one direction. For our analogy, consider the ray as extending through eternity past and being terminated in God's present. For the present is where God lives, in the fullness of time so to speak, with God's past illustrated by that ray. Consider also that Georg Cantor died only in 1918. Perhaps there is a (weak) excuse then for theologians who failed to understand God existing in time, partly because they lived prior to this mathematician who taught the world so much aboutinfinity. (Remember that mathematicians had problems even with the concept of negative numbers until the 17th and 18th centuries, let alone with infinity.) So Craig's Islamic theologians and countless Christian theologians (including Augustine, even though he was right to apply the concept of infinity to God), could hardly have comprehended the concept that God could have existed for an infinite time and that daily He also could add more time to that same infinity. God has done this however. For He must increase! So the terminal point on that divine ray has moved, for example, more than two thousand years since the moment of the Incarnation, something that few could have conceived of throughout much of human history.
Forward Looking: Finally, as Solomon wrote, God put eternity into our hearts. Yet unlike God, our life is not endless in two directions but only in one, namely, into the future. So to use our analogy again, in reverse, you are like a "ray" that begins at a point (of conception) and then proceeds forever (Eccl. 3:11). Thus, a man does not "enter eternity" at his death, but at the moment of conception. (Likewise, King David wrote that, "in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them." This passage did not refer to the days till his death but to the days till his brith, that is, to fetology. Regarding the developmental biology that God designed for the human fetus, Psalm 139 refers not to the days of an entire life but to the days in the womb.) Therefore, our eternal soul provides for us a context in which we can develop a gut feel for what it means to live forever (throughout eternity future). Yet we lack the divine intestinal fortitude, so to speak, that we would need in order to relate to His beginningless past. So because the above arguments falsify atemporality, one realizes that if God could not cross infinity, then He could not have existed for eternity. But He has. In summary, by the Scriptural teachings regarding time (see above) and because time could not have been created (see above), we therefore teach that God's goings forth are from of old, from everlasting, from ancient times, the everlasting God who continues forever, from before the ages of the ages, He who is and who was and who is to come, who remains forever, the everlasting Father, whose years never end, from everlasting to everlasting, and of His kingdom there will be no end.
.... because God is eternal, as time is an aspect of God's existence, thus eternal.
but in the next insistence, time is relegated away from God and our ability to discuss God's eternal non-beginning. "Beginning" is part of our definition of time:
A "beginning" is a point in time when something begins. (And I know, using the word to define the word is bad form. Perhaps "start" would work better?)
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. - Colossians 1:15-18 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...p;version=NKJV
You cannot have a "before all things," which indicates a sequence, which indicates time as a requisite for that phrase.
In other words: You cannot have a "before all things" if there is no time before the creation.
Again, this is another verse that at the very least doesn't support your position, and at most, supports mine.
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. - John 15:5-7 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...p;version=NKJV
Again, trying to take a figure of speech as literal?
Well, no, holy means exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness. It has nothing to do with creation. (Definition from Mer-Web)
Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.For the Lord is the great God, And the great King above all gods.In His hand are the deep places of the earth; The heights of the hills are His also.The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land.Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear His voice:“Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, As in the day of trial in the wilderness,When your fathers tested Me; They tried Me, though they saw My work.For forty years I was grieved with that generation, And said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, And they do not know My ways.’So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ” - Psalm 95:1-11 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...p;version=NKJV
Once again, using figures of speech as if they were literally describing reality doesn't work.
One more passage that doesn't support your position.
You should reexamine that statement based on what I said above, because it is borderline blasphemous.
Pantheism is wrong because all that exists is all that God is, in this physical world. Panentheism is rather that God is in everything, but everything isn't God, similarly to God is Love 1 John 4:8 but it doesn't stand that Love is God, because all we know about love is finite, thus Love is God isn't reciprocal.
Try not to take the OT mantra too far: Isaiah 55:8“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. 9“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.
So what's your point? God is not the author of confusion. Yet you seem to be confused, thinking that the Open Theist position would disagree with the above verse...
God explains Himself, but we are not yet at 1 John 3:2
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. - 1 John 3:1-3 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...3&version=NKJV
Which again, has nothing to do with what you want it to have.
I think we'll eventually be able to understand (to some degree) how quantum physics works, because God is logical (and to be certain, the source of logic), meaning that what He creates is NOT irrational (the former above)
Whose rationality? Your's? Clete's? When I disagree am I being 'irrational?'
Often, when an Open Theist says this, they are revealing the limits of their own cognitive ability. It isn't bad, because I'm not all that brilliant either. God's ways are unsearchable.
One doesn't need a degree (or any number of degrees) in anything to learn God's ways, which is done by studying His Word, which is available to everyone.
Let me put it this way:
If degrees mattered, then why am I whooping your tail on this subject?
then explain what I can and also acquiesce where God's ways are indeed higher than you, he/she, or I.
All artificial man-made implements to try and make (man-made) meaning of duration, space, temperature, etc. We all agree on them, except the U.S. We've resisted the metric system.
I've heard this, but it is incorrect. It is merely a simplistic assertion from one's own limitation in thinking critically. I've empathy but this is simply an assertion from lack.
A very large response. Thank you for it. We don't agree, certainly. Rather, let's see where the evidence goes rather than a series
of posturing, then counter posturing. While I realize you like Clete, there is no sense that I can enjoin meaningless posturing over
this issue. He just brings the calibur of conversation down to basal lowbrow levels. I really cannot do theology, the things I lvo
I think you'll find that if you actually put some effort into discussing things with him, making actual
arguments rather than just blatantly asserting your beliefs.
Do you have a mouse in your pocket?[/QUOTE]
AND THIS, is why I don't do Clete. He completely lacks grace or integrity in conversation. You certainly can entertain and love every
word from his mouth. Many do. Problem: It shows either a lack of discernment, or a complete disregard for poor behavior. He's TOL
oldschool and cannot change. "SMACK" is the moniker in his name. This is NOT listening to or espousing Knight's call to higher
communication. "We" meant you and I and anybody who'se concern it is, to please God in his/her conversation. Not you? Frankly,
I'm shocked. You are hanging out with this man way too much if this is the fruit. Don't do it. Be better. Do better. All of us.
A lot
of us have him on ignore. I've no desire to discuss things with a man that degenerates very important conversations about God to basal
flaming out. They aren't bold claims, its just history at this point.
I think you'll find, if you'd be honest with yourself, that you are at the root of that... because you
don't actually make any arguments, just bald-faced assertions.
:think: Do you READ links? I suppose if you stop your ears,
there is no evidence contrary? I normally love conversations with you, you sort of morphed hanging around him too long
With links? Proofs? To date, its never happened. I've posted substantially in the summit clock and summit
clock two. What are you looking for, for proof? What level of math did you complete in school? Let's talk about it. Time
necessarily is a physical property (see the link). God is Spirit.
He's on ignore. I hope he does do his
devotions and prays for those he disagrees, and blesses, not curses them. Most especially toward fellow believers whether they agree
with him or not. When I said "it shows" it certainly does. Sorry. Grace comes by spending time with the Savior, daily. How are
yours doing? Me, I'm praying more afterwards, including for those on TOL who disagree.
It doesn't matter. We don't need to talk about him. I'm glad you love him and stick up for him. I've found I cannot do any
meaningful discussion with him and mostly because he flames out and is ultimately immature. There is a pattern that I've seen over
the years that just isn't worth time. Flaming out is usually the one who has lost the argument. I don't really want this to become
the 'me and Clete' thread.
I think you'll find that his presentation is rather robust. But you won't, because you won't allow him the
chance, because you'd rather make simple claims and leave it at that, than actually engage him in discussion.
Long history, he ends up incapable and flaming out...every time. He cannot do it without namecalling, getting angry, doing nothing
but assertion and re-assertion (I've actually posted links and verses). His recent discussion on a thread with WonderfulLordJesus,
hasn't given me any inkling his character or level of debate abilty has changed an iota. Again, I'm glad you like him, and in this,
he indeed has become a bit of 'guru-ish' in your esteem. I simply don't find him capable.
I point to my Constitutional Monarchy thread where he and I have been having a pleasant discussion on some
of the details of Bob's proposed constitution.
You can have that sort of discussion with him as well, but YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE ARGUMENTS AND NOT JUST
BALD CLAIMS, something you have yet to do even in this very thread.
Looks like you engage below, I can certainly rise to that
occassion. I rather, was commenting on your attaboy post and his assertion about 'this man.' He talks behind my back. That's
enough. At present, my ignore list is quirky anyway. I once tried to remove Clete to see what fires he'd started, but it doesn't
work so for now, this part of the conversation doesn't have to be carried.
Well, no, he doesn't. The name-calling comes when he's won and people like you refuse to acknowledge the
arguments he's made that have shown his position correct.
Says more about you than me? AMR has scads of posts on privation. Do you know what the term means?
You too, cannot assert your way through this. Some ideas/concepts are hard but to call it a non-answer? Judge, you have a good head
on your shoulders, but this isn't what I'd expect. "Privation" means a 'lack.' Sin is a warping of all God is and does, a
'privation.'
Yes, but 'nothing' is also a concept. One doesn't lead to
the other becoming a 'thing' if it is a 'nothing.' Rather the concept of the 'no thing' is a thing. Sin is the absence of all that
is God, all that is good.
So, you either have God as the product, co-existing with something so it can contain sin,
but not God, or you have to grasp that Colossians 1:17 is correct. It isn't to say God 'created' sin, but that it was created in the
Universe which exists in Him. Acts 17:28 Please discuss the scripture with me. I'm not asserting, I'm presenting ideas and proofs
found in scripture. Read them and discuss them with me. This isn't an assertion, the two scriptures are proofs.
Read the verse. What does it mean? Is it more comfortable for a person to believe God is at
the mercy of sin and the universe? I will follow scripture wherever it leads, regardless of the damage it does to 'my' sensibilities,
theology.
Your above assertion points that direction.
As I've said, I don't think any of you intentionally mean this, but read your 'blasphemy' statement. You don't seem to grasp the
difference between panentheism and pantheism. You say something below that suggests the same. I cannot be accused of 'assertion'
simply because of ignorance. I've been very careful with a couple of terms and the do indeed mean something. There is a learning
curve and in my purview, you need to know them.
Similar to your statement here. When he argued with Lamerson, he argued on the side of pantheism. For this, it'd be better to
understand where we differ: Pantheism says God is everywhere (except where He doesn't want to be). Panentheism is an idea from
Scriptures, like the one given above, that says 'nothing exists, that exists, without Him.' Remember too, that I've said sin isn't a
thing, so your statement of 'blasphemy' isn't correct. You simply didn't listen to the one and the other for definitions. When one
is understood, the other is too. Sin isn't a 'thing' to be contained in God.
This isn't the part where you
should say "See? He doesn't respond!" Rather, I can do so, BUT it wasn't an accusation. It was an observation. If I need to
travel down this road, I can, BUT I've lost my links from old TOL to new TOL and this would be a lot of work. Needful? Let me know.
Read outside of your own theology circles. These are not novel statements and
I'm not the one making the assertion. I'm the one reporting the assertion. See here, he's fair and very clear and sourced in his
presentation. It isn't biased or assertion. https://bible.org/article/examination-open-theism
Like I'm pulling it out of my hat? See here. I'm not making stuff up. https://reknew.org/2019/03/process-t...he-difference/ This one is a little short. If you read the wiki
article above on Process Theology, there are a number of shared statements, meaning the proximatey is there, substantiated. Sanders
has been in discussion with both Mormons and Process theologians, as an Open Theology representative, etc.
As has been stated several times elsewhere, Bob is busy enough as it is, and hardly ever has time to even
post, let alone read through an entire thread.
Absolutely. I wasn't lamenting such. I was simply saying that a disagreement
on this thread is hardly noticeable. Shoot ▲ I didn't realize I was even this invisible ▲ to you!
You asserted. That means 'hesaid/she said' as far as I'm familiar with
the term. I'm simply trying to get past preliminaries of posturing. While they may be necessary, I find them of little use. Most
of this thread doesn't deal with anything but posturing. The only thing really worth talking about, is whether time is an absolute or
a product of creation. The rest will not stand the 'test of time.' It's just aside notes toward that discussion. A lot of this
is lost in detail. For example, there is a reason I'd not do this conversation with Clete, and for the obviously given reasons.
- is timeless
- in an eternal now
- without sequence or succession
- without moment or duration
- atemporal and outside of time
- not was, nor will be, but only is
- has no past
- has no future.
Of course NOT ONE of these phrases is in the Bible. They're from Plato. And the Platonists.
That's what the pagan Greeks say, not the Bible, and what you yourself claimed above.
When Reading the Bible, We See that God:
is - and was - and is to come - whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting - forever and ever - the Ancient of Days - from
before the ages of the ages - from ancient times - the everlasting God - He continues forever - from of old - remains forever - eternal
- immortal - the Lord shall endure forever - Who lives forever - yesterday, today, and forever - God's years are without number -
manifest in His own time - everlasting Father - alive forevermore - always lives - forever - continually - the eternal God - God’s
years never end - from everlasting to everlasting - from that time forward, even forever - and of His kingdom there will be no end.
(references here)
Behind the eightball on what's going on outside of one's own fellowship, these are given in physics classes and I assume a good
many open theists just don't take these higher math classes with these kinds of assertions? I linked this: Time is a measurement of
physical properties.
But then you turn that into a non-sequitur based on a false premise, by asserting that because God is not
physical, therefore we can know that God is timeless, because time (and this is your false premise) is physical.
Here is the correction:
Time is an aspect of God's existence. God is eternal, and therefore because God is eternal, therefore time is eternal. It also follows
logically, because in order for there to be sequence, a before and after, there must be time. "Before time" is therefore a
contradiction, because without time, there cannot be a 'before", thus time is a prerequisite of creation.
What, are you actually trying to use a figure of speech to say that everything is 'in' God?
For those too lazy to go look up the verse, here is it, and in context, since Lon didn't actually bother to quote it:
Spoiler
Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very
religious;for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE
UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:God, who made the world and everything in it,
since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He
needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all
the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,so that they should seek the
Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;for in Him we live and move and
have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’Therefore, since we are the offspring of God,
we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising.Truly, these
times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,because He has appointed a day on which He will judge
the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” - Acts
17:22-31 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...p;version=NKJV
Your argument isn't very strong if it can be refuted by only the second verse in the Bible.
In other words:
No, if God moved, it doesn't mean that something is "bigger" than He is. It simply means that He has moved in the context of His
creation.
Movement is a physical description, and is utterly meaningless without the context of a physical area, at least from our human
perspective.
In other words, God is not "immovable," because He Himself describes Himself moving in only the second verse of the Bible, let alone
the rest of it.
In other words, your argument doesn't follow, because the verse immediately prior to it states that He Himself created the universe
that He is moving in.
Your thinking is thin here. It is not Greek that influences my understanding, it is God Himself Colossians 1:17. The
'movement' you are seeing is within Himself AND not physical. Did He 'hover' in some form over the waters? How thin or profound is
your thinking here? Whatever the scriptures mean, the do NOT mean that God was somehow eternally part of the universe, it means that
the universe and all that is therein, are found in the being of God. Your 'philosophy' here may be inspired by the bible, but it is
also a part of Eastern Mysticism called 'pantheism.' When you asked above whether Bob Enyart has ever said anything, asking for
examples, this is one of them.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.By faith
we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are
visible. - Hebrews 11:1-3 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...p;version=NKJV
No, we really have to get this: As far back as you can think or imagine, "God's past is still going." There is no end to it.
Eternal, by definition, is already beyond the grasp of time. In other words, it can be some property of God, as is beauty, but time
certainly, by inference, logic, mathematics and physics, as well as by scriptural givens; is not a sufficient or adequate descriptor
when applied to God.
It IS beyond our ability to comprehend a beginningless past, but that doesn't mean that it cannot be described abstractly using time,
using words that we CAN somewhat grasp.
The Bible does it quite well. See the list above for a few examples.
Here is what Bob wrote about the movement of time:
Spoiler
Misconception 3: Time flows toward the future. Time's arrow is almost universally described as pointing from the past
to the future such that the current of time flows forward. Of course this is a metaphor, yet the direction of this arrow is wrong. The
truth is the reverse. For to whatever extent we may speak of time flowing, say, as a river, then to that extent time flows from the
future into the past, from its source into the depths. The current of time brings the future into the present and the present into the
past. For, which is more likely to be flowing suspended perfectly in time, a fjord or the future? A pebble or the past? Regarding
rivers, men build anchors and docks to resist their flow. Other objects though, like bubbles and twigs, readily float along with the
current. Regarding time, what is it that resists its flow, and what rides in its current? Dates, for example, ride the current of time
keeping pace perfectly with its flow. Tomorrow's date, yielding no resistance, suspended perfectly in time, readily moves with the
current and will eventually arrive not at a point further into the future but being carried by time will eventually arrive at the
present and then recede into the past. An entire book written on the topic, Coveney and Highfield's atheistic Arrow of Time, inaccurately speaks of "time's forward movement." Christian philosopher Ryan Mullins in his
fascinating book, The End of the Timeless God, published in 2016 by Oxford
University Press, describes the "A-Theory" writing that time "is constantly moving forward." Merriam-Webster defines time as a continuum "from past through present to future".
Incorrectly men assume that the current of time sweeps us from birth to death, which would be moving us toward the future. But more
accurately, the current of time eventually sweeps our entire earthly lives into the past. Time does not carry our birth forward into
the future, nor (as it might if time flowed forward) does it forever postpone our physical death pushing it later and later. Rather,
"I" am like a floating buoy anchored to the river bed bobbing and resisting the flow of time. Mullins writes of "endurantism" and uses
the common phrase, "persist through time". An astronaut does not persist through his spaceship but he persists through space, which, as
he travels is gradually receding behind him. Thus time is not carrying us, but we are persisting through it. The carrying capacity of a
river's current, how much sediment it can transport in suspension, depends upon the current's speed. Considering everything that
exists, both physical and spiritual, the incorrect view of time flowing forward suggests an absurdity. For if time were actually
flowing forward, it would need to have its own carrying capacity. Time would then have to possess whatever features were necessary to
transport every physical particle and every spiritual entity, temporally forward. Or, every physical particle and spiritual entity
would have to possess whatever features were necessary to hold onto time as it carried them. Either way, that's quite an onus to put on
something as ethereal as time. Rather, the passage of time pleases Ockham. No carrying or latching required, time simply flows
backward, bypassing all. Contrast then "events" to people and objects anchored to resist the flow. Events are not similarly anchored.
Defenseless to the flow of time, as so much sediment suspended in a current, events are whisked into the past. An event belongs first
to the future, then to the present, and finally to the past. In this sense, things can resist the flow of time but events cannot.
Consider also markers to moments in time. Temporal markers lack physical mass and spiritual existence. So they flow perfectly with the
current of time. Thus on the day of this writing, the date of January 1, 2020 is in the future, floating toward the present, caught up
as it is perfectly in the current of time. That date will eventually reach the present and then, as age piles on top of age, greatly
recede with the flow of time carrying it forever further and further into the distant past. Though nearly ubiquitous, the misperception
that "times flows forward" bringing us into the future is not harmless. Here tautologies abound. The murkier the water the less
transparent it is. And the less accurately we think about time the more erroneous our understanding. Those who unwittingly view time as
having a carrying capacity (bringing us into the future) may be hindered from perceiving the impossibility of time travel, may resist
presentism (that the present is all that exists), and may harbor other confusions about the nature of time itself. In reality, we
resist the flow of time and live forever and only, as does God, in the present. [IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-
size":"full","src":"https:\/\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/
\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/
\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]
{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/
\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/
\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2]Which brings us
to the best definition: Time is the beginningless, endless, present, continuous,
invariable, irreversible future to past dimension of change. "Invariable" indicates in part that successive intervals of a defined unit
between moments are themselves equivalent. Theologically,
time is the heartbeat of God, so to speak, without which He would not be alive. Time eternally flows from Him.
I truly appreciate this. I disagree that time applies to spirit, but if the rest of what he says is true, in what sense could
a clock be accurate? I'm not understanding the Clock Summit experiment, if time is solvent as the above suggests.
Emphasis. It is an acceptable usage, but I realize
few use it. Also, I'm still learning the new TOL format. It isn't that it is hard, just that old habits I've grown used to over
years on TOL die hard. Thanks for a bit of grace.
You seem to be making the assertion that God could not have crossed a beginningless past.
Spoiler
Misconception 4: God cannot cross an actual infinity: Because it would take infinitely long to cross an infinity, many
philosophers claim that not even God could cross an infinity. Thus, they claim if He lived "in time", then regardless of how long He
has existed, the Lord Himself could never reach any particular point in time, let alone reach "the present", because He would have to
cross an infinity to arrive at this (or that) moment.
[IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/
\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/
\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]
{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/
\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/
\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2]On How to Cross
an Infinity: However, consider the relationship between two valid arguments: everything that has a beginning has a cause and
likewise, nothing that has a beginning can cross an infinity. We theists can learn to avoid the kind of error that atheist
Bertrand Russel made regarding that first valid argument, when He asks well then, Who made God? He's ignoring the ubiquitous
observation that anything that "has a beginning" must have a cause. Consider now the second valid argument above, that theists must
take care to handle properly. Nothing that "has a beginning" can cross an infinity. God, though, has existed through the "beginningless
past". Though we reject much of Wes Morriston's reasoning in his paper Beginningless Past, Endless Future, and the Actual Infinite
published in 2010 by the journal Faith and Philosophy (Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 439-450), we agree with his biblical conclusion, that God has
existed through the beginningless past. The vast majority of Christian theologians though, who reject that God has existed through the
beginningless past, typically do so by being inconsistent. Therefore their objection is easily neutralized and then answered. For
example, William Lane Craig rejects the possibility of an actual infinity. (See his reformulated medieval Islamic Kalam cosmological argument.) So along with many
theologians he disagrees with the biblical argument presented above
of: "from everlasting to everlasting", and thus he denies that God has existed throughout time immemorial, infinitely into the past.
For if an actual infinity cannot exist, Craig argues, then even God cannot cross one.
(Aristotle, for example, claimed that the infinite is never actual; he, however, did not know God.)
[IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/
\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/
\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]
{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/
\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/
\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2]Inconsistency:
Yet while Craig doesn't admit it, he himself believes that God has crossed an actual infinity. For God's thoughts are actual. They are
not merely theoretical. They are actual. They are His thoughts. And Craig believes that God has had exhaustive foreknowledge of a
kingdom that never ends. That of course would require divine knowledge of an infinite future, with this knowledge comprised of actual
thoughts in God's mind. (This would be like God starting at zero and having counted to infinity.) Further, because Craig happens to
hold the untenable, absurd, and grotesque belief that God knows every possible future,
that philosophical claim requires God to cross an infinite number of actual infinities. (This is because there are an infinite number
of possible futures. Forget about Chuck Norris doing so twice, this amounts to a claim
that God counted to infinity an infinite number of times.) Instead, in actuality, God has once crossed the single infinity of the
beginningless past.
Assuming the Conclusion: Using a typically unstated assumption, an argument against God's "beginningless past" insists that He could
not have crossed an infinite past because regardless of how much time has actually passed, "infinity" would require passage of even
more time to arrive at any given moment. The unstated assumption in this objection however is that it assumes its conclusion,
namely, that this past period must have had a beginning. For this objection essentially asserts that this past period that God has
existed through is of finite duration. Again, theologians mishandle this issue the same way that atheists mishandle the argument that everything that has a beginning has a cause, as when Russell asked, "Well then who made God?", assuming he falsified
Christianity or at least disproved the argument. Of course, on its face, Russell has done neither because his application falsifies
only the pagan cosmogonies that originate their gods, but he leaves untouched the eternal God of Scripture. Likewise, theologians draw
an unsound conclusion when they (inherently) take the valid argument that nothing that has a beginning can cross an infinity and
misuse it to claim that, "God can't cross an infinity." If there is a valid theological system that denies God's ability to cross an
actual infinity, then it would not support a philosophical claim that contradicts its own system (see Inconsistency, just above), and neither will it merely assume its conclusion.
[IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/
\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/
\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]
{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/
\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/
\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]
{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/
\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/
\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]
{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/
\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/
\/theologyonline.com\/core\/image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP\/\/\/wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="}[/IMG2]Mathematics 101:
Let's consider an analogy, from geometry, and then an excuse, from mathematics. As an illustration, a geometrical line is infinite in
both directions whereas a ray has a terminal point yet is infinite in one direction. For our analogy, consider the ray as extending
through eternity past and being terminated in God's present. For the present is where God lives, in the fullness of time so to speak,
with God's past illustrated by that ray. Consider also that Georg Cantor died only in 1918. Perhaps there is a (weak) excuse then for
theologians who failed to understand God existing in time, partly because they lived prior to this mathematician who taught the world
so much about infinity. (Remember that mathematicians had problems even with the concept of negative numbers until the 17th and 18th centuries, let alone with
infinity.) So Craig's Islamic theologians and countless Christian theologians (including Augustine, even though he was right to apply
the concept of infinity to God), could hardly have comprehended the concept that God could have existed for an infinite time and that
daily He also could add more time to that same infinity. God has done this however. For He must increase! So the terminal point on that
divine ray has moved, for example, more than two thousand years since the moment of the Incarnation, something that few could have
conceived of throughout much of human history.
Forward Looking: Finally, as Solomon wrote, God put eternity into our hearts. Yet unlike God, our life is not endless in two directions
but only in one, namely, into the future. So to use our analogy again, in reverse, you are like a "ray" that begins at a point
(of conception) and then proceeds forever (Eccl. 3:11). Thus, a man does not
"enter eternity" at his death, but at the moment of conception. (Likewise, King David wrote that, "in Your book they all were written,
the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them." This passage did not refer to the days till his death but to the
days till his brith, that is, to fetology.
Regarding the developmental biology that God designed for the human fetus, Psalm 139
refers not to the days of an entire life but to the days in the womb.) Therefore, our eternal soul provides for us a context in
which we can develop a gut feel for what it means to live forever (throughout eternity future). Yet we lack the divine intestinal
fortitude, so to speak, that we would need in order to relate to His beginningless past. So because the above arguments falsify
atemporality, one realizes that if God could not cross infinity, then He could not have existed for eternity. But He has. In summary,
by the Scriptural teachings regarding time (see above) and because
time could not have been created (see above), we therefore teach that
God's goings forth are from of old, from everlasting, from ancient times, the everlasting God who continues forever, from before the
ages of the ages, He who is and who was and who is to come, who remains forever, the everlasting Father, whose years never end, from
everlasting to everlasting, and of His kingdom there will be no end.
.... because God is eternal, as time is an aspect of God's existence, thus eternal.
One is an assumption of the other so this isn't a proof. Rather, if 'time' is created, logically there is no need to understand it
other than as it pertains to created things. It is rather an Open paradigm, that in order to hold an "Open" God, God must be
'temporal.' Think about that. It is counter intuitive to the proof.
Beginning only means something in the context of extant time.
A "beginning" is a point in time when something begins. (And I know, using the word to define the word is bad form. Perhaps "start"
would work better?)
It shows that time is difficult to pin down, but generally, time means 'duration' thus change is necessary
for it to be observed. "A watched pot never boils," It does, but what the author was saying is that time begins to have no meaning
when compared to something where progression is needed. Time 'seems' to slow down and not be much help during the process. Time is
simply the observation of movement/change, especially when reading Enyart's quote above. It is not absolute, it is tied to our
physical understanding of things.
As far as I understand time, it cannot apply to God. Time means
temporal, and temporal means specifically 'pertaining to the physical world." If the term means something different, given above, then the disagreement becomes more of definitions.
No it means 'exist' in the text. Existed (γενέσθαι) vs. (εἰμί) 'am.' The Lord Jesus made a timeless statement but we likely don't agree on the definition of time, so meaning is going to be rough between us.
Because you say so? Hebrews 11:3 specifically says that the world came from a nonphysical origin. Time, as I've provided in definition, says that temporal things (where time applies) are physical things.
It used to be that such wasn't necessary, less than a year ago. I can post scriptures but there was also a desire to be careful of bandwidth on TOL. I've no idea if such still exists, but I'll try to post verses in full from now on. Habits...
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that
are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and
for Him.And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. - Colossians 1:15-18
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.If anyone
does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are
burned.If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. - John 15:5-7
There is no way to talk about a 'before' with a God who has none. As you rightly said, 'before' is also a temporal term about time. So, how does God explain a time 'before' time? I believe with 'before.' It doesn't mean He was caught in time, but in time very different than we grasp the concept. For the most part, the term is attached to this physical universe and always was, in dictionaries, encyclopedias, physics, and however expressed in the Bible.
Again, trying to take a figure of speech as literal?
Not going to work out for you.[/QUOTE] This is completely from your own context somewhere from left field. "Again?" "Figure of speech?" I see neither true from me OR the text. Where did either come from? What is driving you to even remotely think this was a 'figure of speech?' :idunno:
15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
Psalm 139:7Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Figurative? At LEAST you can see it isn't Greek pagan. It's an strawman, always has been. God knows the number of hairs on your head. It doesn't logically stand to reason, against an Open Theology assertion, that He has to count them. Or is that another scripture I'm not supposed to take literally? How many of these are there going to be in Open Theism? When do you realize it isn't a Greek that influenced me, but the very scriptures you are talking about? How well do Open Theists actually know these? :think:
I've explained myself. I stated further, we are ALL in the dark to some degree. You say 'no' later. You are wrong. I really do think you've been hanging out with the wrong crowd. Don't let 'Open Theism' become your god. What level of math and physics have you completed?
Well, no, holy means exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness. It has nothing to do with
creation. (Definition from Mer-Web)
Incorrect. Sanctity means 'set apart.' Further? Why would you want to argue this point? Are you arguing just to argue at this point?
Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.For the Lord is the great God, And the great King above all gods.In His hand are the deep
places of the earth; The heights of the hills are His also.The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land.Oh come,
let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the
sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear His voice:“Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, As in the day of trial in the
wilderness,When your fathers tested Me; They tried Me, though they saw My work.For forty years I was grieved with that generation, And
said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, And they do not know My ways.’So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My
rest.’ ” - Psalm 95:1-11 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...p;version=NKJV
Once again, using figures of speech as if they were literally describing reality doesn't work.[/QUOTE]
Yowch again. What else are we going ot relegate to 'not literal' so we don't have to observe them? Further, how can we possibly discuss things when about all of them, you can CLEARLY see, are NOT in fact Greek, but scriptures. We are just disagreeing on which are figurative. While His 'hands' are figurative, it is yet true, not in fact figurative. He is the Author of all physical life. To not think so? A God who isn't what scripture says He is. No amount of attempted relegation to Greek philosophy will stand. It cannot. Clearly, without controversy, what I believe is what I take literally in scripture. Literally, you cannot do any one thing without the sustaining power of Christ. COlossians 1:17. It is as clear as day and we radically disagree. It says what it says.
It 'seems' because of an arbitrary relegation of the scriptures to 'figurative.' Rather, taken at face value, these scriptures are clear, I believe and so support what I'm trying to get across. Literal sheep? No. Literally made everything and creation held with 'in?' Yes. You can't wave any Open Theism wand. That is what doesn't work.
It is, for me, a mindless mantra. How could God not be with a child? Some of the worst times of my life I suffered as a child. Where was God? Right there. Yes. He was right there with me. Your 'sensibilities' (and other's) are getting in the way of proper theology.
Rather borderline 'troublesome to my theology.' It doesn't matter if our concepts of God trouble us. I was greatly troubled by 'hate your mother and father or you are not worthy of me.' It was a hard truth. Many people rejected the Lord because what He said was hard. He wasn't trying to repel people, but give truth.
So what's your point? God is not the author of confusion. Yet you seem to be confused, thinking that the Open Theist position would
disagree with the above verse...
The point was that God is not always going to measure 'up' to what you think is sensible. Theology isn't about sensibilities (Of course God was with me through attrocity), it is about truth and often that truth challenges our own rendition of it.
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know
us, because it did not know Him.Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know
that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself,
just as He is pure. - 1 John 3:1-3 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...3&version=NKJV
Which again, has nothing to do with what you want it to have.
It has everything to do with it. We have a strong disagreement over our view of God. The point here is that you and I are at HIS mercies for getting this right. At this point, I strongly believe you and a few other Open Theists are getting it wrong.
Incorrect. 1 Corinthians 13:12 "We see through a glass darkly." And this is from a better thinker either of us, or the wise men of our respective camps (means you are wrong and just arguing now, sorry).
I've read it my whole life and we disagree. Interesting, though 1 Corinthians 13:12 I took note of, and you seem to have either overlooked it or relegated it to a 'figure of speech' Why this posturing?
There's a difference between being literally unable to comprehend something and simply not seeing how something works.
God not being the author of confusion does not refer to the former, but the latter.
I think we'll eventually be able to understand (to some degree) how quantum physics works, because God is logical (and to be certain,
the source of logic), meaning that what He creates is NOT irrational (the former above)
Neither I nor Clete make a claim to "own" (for lack of a better term) rationality.
God is the source of reason, but He can be reasoned with, because He is a rational Being.
When you disagree with scripture, as you have several times so far, you are being irrational.
Which, to me, illustrates that you 'do' believe you own it. You should have been very careful after 'but' because it was about to undo what you were going to assert, and it did. Lets read the scriptures: 1 Corinthians 13:12 "glass darkly."
You do quantum physics then? :think: Disagreement with Einstein's theories?
I've not seen any Open Theist to date carry on quantum physics discussions.
It means, despite your comment, that some things I'm definitely going to be better at than you. I 'tout' them merely as it pertains to the discussion. Paul counted his 'rubbish' but certainly 'touted' his credentials where it was fitting. Rather, its what they are raised to do. A general disdain of all degrees anywhere? :nono:
One doesn't need a degree (or any number of degrees) in anything to learn God's ways, which is done by studying His Word, which is
available to everyone.
Yet, Paul, when touting them, said they were rubbish, not in argument, but in comparing them to Christ. I'm in complete agreement. Can anyone read the world of God? Yes. Does not having a degree in language, for instance hurt theology? Yes. Definitely. Some doctrines in error are built off of poor understanding of English translation.
Only arrogance in ignorance would allow you to think so. This too is what Clete does. He only cares about 'whooping' my tail when Its plain, even in this post, that you are ignorant of some of the scriptures, argue for no good reason (You really aren't better than the Apostle Paul, and he said 'glass darkly). Worse? It's your 'reward.' There are and ever will be very few Open Theists on the planet. I see it as counter-intuitive, lacking in an understanding of biblical languages where translation becomes the point of debate, and prideful where there is lack.
No, it isn't. I realize it isn't your quote, but it is wrong. God spoke, and the universe came into being. He made that which is seen, from that which isn't. He isn't the product of His universe, it is His. You relegate the scripture to not being literal so you don't have to address them and then say 1) I say so? 2) I didn't already give scriptures that show it wrong? 3) that yours is the truth? :nono: Sorry, assertions, all of this and very few scriptures given on your part. Quotes aren't scriptures, lest either of us be accused of following a man.
I didn't say God was illogical. People are. What is it about Open Theists that they cannot see their own shortcomings in thread? You aren't whooping anybody's tail.
Why is that more important than the person or being of the Lord Jesus Christ? I could give a care less about whipping your tail. I care if your walk with Christ is true. That's it. You don't even know a lot of the discussion that has taken place in theological circles regarding Open Theism. The arrogance should be a lot more humble at this point.
Rather, let's see where the evidence goes rather than a series
of posturing, then counter posturing. While I realize you like Clete, there is no sense that I can enjoin meaningless posturing over
this issue. He just brings the calibur of conversation down to basal lowbrow levels. I really cannot do theology, the things I lvo
And yet, whille I continue to respond your totally unsupported docrinal claims with actual on topic arguments, you are the one who are obsessed with insulting me on almost every post you make whether you're responding to me or not!
