Great post, Clete! :first:Originally posted by Clete PfeifferPsalms was written after the fact wasn't it? How does this impact my admittedly simple argument?Originally posted by add yasaf
Clete Pfeiffer quote - He didn't need to know specifics about exactly how or when, just that they would in fact sin
Yeah that is quite simple. And also Psalms 78:9 actually gets specific about Ephraim - ...though armed with bows, turned back on the day of battle ( this happened in Judges 12 ).
I think that Jeremiah 18 applies to [almost] all the prophecies and promises of God. Take as an example, the book of Jonah.Clete Pfeiffer quote - then perhaps there would one more prophecy in Bible that didn't come true.
The "prophecies" that didn't come true were inherently from the beginning conditional promises or prophecies. But this case has nothing do to with that. It is one prophecy or promise for two people. The first-born rights given to Ephraim, but were conditional.
But in order for them to be truly conditional God could not have promised the same thing to someone else until Ephraim messed up.
Jonah 3:4 " And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown."
No conditions were stated, but the statement obviously was.
I mentioned this episode in scripture, hoping you would ask this question. I believe that this is a good example of the kind of knowledge that God has of the future.I was thinking of another problem also earlier today - How did Jesus know that Peter would deny him 3 times without looking in the future??
Let's assume for a moment that God does not have a foreknowledge of the future.
With that assumption in mind, how difficult would it have been for God to have worked out both that Peter would deny Him, and that he would do it three times?
Well, Jesus knew Peter better than he knew himself. Peter had said that he was ready to die for Christ. Jesus, however, knew that Peter was not ready to die and in fact he was proud and needed humbling.
So that evening when Peter was waiting outside, Jesus knew that all it would take was to cause it to come to someone’s remembrance that Peter had been with Christ, just place the thought in someone’s mind to notice Peter's peculiar accent and put two and two together.
Jesus knew that all it would take was for someone to ask him for Peter to deny Him. And it would not be difficult for God to get someone to ask. And He wouldn't even have to overcome anyone freewill to get it done. Then, as doogieduff, mentions, as soon as Peter had denied for the third time, God tickled the throat of the nearest rooster.
Now, as I asked about the Ephraim situation, what would have happened if Peter had taken a bold stand for Christ and had not denied Him?
Well, in that case, we would all be Muslim! Because in one fell swoop the Bible would have been ruined, and Christianity would never have come into being! God would have said, :doh:
NO! Jesus would have been elated at the surprising faith of Peter! And once again we would have either had a prediction of the future that didn't happen as predicted, or perhaps God would have chosen to leave this episode out of the Bible. Either way, it all fits into the Open view rather neatly without having to deal with logical absurdities like God going to places that don't exist (the future), or knowing the unknowable (the future actions of freewill agents).
I don't wish to speak for all Open Theists but the way I understand it, Open Theism teaches that God has the ability to predict the future but not to "see" it.
It is analogous to predicting the weather. We can predict the weather with far more accuracy today than we were able to twenty years ago because of two things. First, we understand the processes of weather more than we did, and second, we have more information as to what is going on now. The more these two increase, the better we get at predicting the weather.
Now, obviously predicting what man will do is far more complicated (ask any police detective), but God is far smarter than we are and God has access to every bit of information that could possibly be available that might be used to predict what men might do. And so, with increased information, prediction becomes more accurate.
This idea repels some, but it is completely consistent with scripture, history, and logic. And I know of no other system of theology that as consistently conforms itself to scripture without resorting to some sort of magic (like time travel for example).
Resting in Him,
Clete
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