I recognize that a knowledge of God who is all in all will result in some circular references, but can you use those as facts to prove those to be facts? No. And mostly it's circular based on our presuppositions, and we end up "proving" our premises.
In my mind, the freewill argument is the only one that makes sense to make--anything else is merely the result of the fatalism/determinism, whichever side we take. Maybe freewill is, too, but at least there's a purpose to argue for it.
And we are also to seek knowledge and understanding--so even if we don't start with much more than a smallest part, we are to seek out the greater part.
All of your quotes seem to require someone to be around to receive the promise, and none of us were, except the Son. We are not preexistent, or we could call ourselves "I am that I am". So all of the promises were made to us "in Christ", or the promises were made to the Son (we are the benefit promised rather than the beneficiaries).
Same with our "space", I suppose. Is there another "space" outside ours that ours fits in? Just like there is a time (sequence) before and after our "time"? If our heaven and earth will be destroyed, there must be some "where" we will go, "after" it happens (or "before" it happens, so that we can be there "while" it happens, and enjoy the new heavens and earth "after" it happens.
Hard to finish the fish analogy, since I don't know what that space is outside our fishbowl. Where are YOU when you put your finger into that fishbowl? Are you not in a house that you have built (or someone like you built)? But to tell the fish there is a space there when there really isn't, even if that space is something the fish cannot endure, is a lie. Does God need a space to live in? I don't think so, else, as you say, He would not be self-sufficient. But CAN He build Himself a house? Can He have a mansion with many rooms, of some type, so that where He is, there we may be also?
And if He can, isn't it a lie to say that when He says He has such a place for us, where we will be with Him, that He really means there is no such place?
This is where anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms get to be a problem--when we use them to say that the meaning behind the anthropomorphism is the opposite of the truth that He is trying to reveal. Hopefully we won't do that.
When we say that God is impassible, yet He tells us He gets angry or is jealous--who's the liar? We can only say that God is impassible to a point--He's not infinitely impassible--since He tells us different.
Is God's use of "before" and "after" language to describe Himself and His interaction with His son anthropomorphic? Maybe. but why do we say that? Isn't it because of presuppositions about what we think about God? Isn't it because we have applied the label of impassibility and defined the term such that the only conclusion we can reach is one that is beyond our ability to understand? There is plenty about God that is impossible to understand, but replacing one incomprehensible characteristic (where we don't understand
how God can experience a before and after, perhaps) with another (where we say God doesn't experience time at all) is not really progress, is it? Especially when He tells us that He does?
And Merry Christmas to you, too, Lon. I did start this yesterday, but had other things to attend to...
