What's the problem?

[Nathon Detroit]

Originally posted by Hilston
I don't doubt that you will probably succeed in turning SOTK away from your understanding of Calvinism, but he will never know, unless he reads it for himself, what Calvinism actually teaches. Chances are he will just become a clone of you, caring even less to properly define and understand the arguments, ever learning but never able to come to the epignosis of the truth.

Jim.. your above comment plainly illustrates a point that you just cannot seem to get, which is I discuss, debate, battle the ideas that are presented here on TOL. Folks have been coming here for years defending what they call "Calvinism" and I (we) debate those ideas. Apparently all of these folks don't understand Calvinism the way you do and I invite you (as I have several times before) to refute these false teachings that folks like Z Man, JoBeth, Swordsman, natewood3 and all the rest are presenting.

 

[Sozo]

Originally posted by Hilston

But the bottom line is: You don't care. I don't doubt that you will probably succeed in turning SOTK away from your understanding of Calvinism, but he will never know, unless he reads it for himself, what Calvinism actually teaches. Chances are he will just become a clone of you, caring even less to properly define and understand the arguments, ever learning but never able to come to the epignosis of the truth.

What a bunch of self-deluded crap!

How does anyone you know, actually stomach 5 minutes of your hubristic meanderings?

 

[Lucky]

SOTK, as you can see by this thread, Calvinist vs. Open Theist debates often end up ugly and fruitless. Don't give up! I keep reading these debates, because it is possible to pick up on some good points that posters make. It's a shame you have to sift through all the crap, but just keep at it. :thumb:

 

[Hilston]

Knight writes:
Jim.. your above comment plainly illustrates a point that you just cannot seem to get, which is I discuss, debate, battle the ideas that are presented here on TOL.

I get that. What you seem to dismiss is this: Debating people who erroneously call themselves Calvinists doesn't excuse your ignorance. I debate all kinds of views, but I don't let my opponents define well developed and long-established theologies and doctrines. Open Theism is a sad exception, because the writings on the subject are all over the place. If Calvinism were that way, you would get a pass. But it's not. You don't even have to buy a book to understand it. Just Google it for crying out loud.

Knight writes:
Folks have been coming here for years defending what they call "Calvinism" and I (we) debate those ideas.

I get that. But it doesn't excuse your ignorance.

Knight writes:
Apparently all of these folks don't understand Calvinism the way you do

What I understand about Calvinism doesn't matter. You just don't care. It's like a liberal claiming that conservatives are "anti-labor" just because they give tax breaks to the upper class. Liberals don't know what they're talking about. But it's not that they're incapable of understanding. They just refuse; they don't want to understand. It's similar with Open Theists and Calvinism. In fact, it's remarkably similar.

Knight writes:
... and I invite you (as I have several times before) to refute these false teachings that folks like Z Man, JoBeth, Swordsman, natewood3 and all the rest are presenting.

That's not why I'm here. I pick and choose my battles, and prefer to pick on Open Theists. When I want to pick on Calvinists, I go to Calvinist-dominated, preterist, covenantalist forums. Whether or not I ever set about to correct the self-labled Calvinists on this site doesn't excuse your lack of care or effort to understand what Calvinism actually teaches.

Sozo writes:
What a bunch of self-deluded crap!

Oh no! My jerkitis is starting to flare up again.

Sozo writes:1
How does anyone you know, actually stomach 5 minutes of your hubristic meanderings?

Hey! You better watch it. Using those big words will get you labeled as pedantic. Besides, if I want to meander hubristically on my stomach for 5 minutes, that's my business.

The Most Holy Father Vicar of Christ Monsignor Right Reverend Jerkitis-afflicted Pope Hilston, Th.D., Ph.D., LMNOP

 

[godrulz]

Originally posted by godrulz

This thread has more light than heat. Keep up the good work.

I retract this statement

 

[godrulz]

Originally posted by Crow

You had to go and jinx it! :doh:

:doh: :help:

 

[Jefferson]

Originally posted by Hilston


That's not why I'm here. I pick and choose my battles, and prefer to pick on Open Theists.

Because of this, Knight problably has not seen any of your posts defending Acts 9 dispensationalism. I think your great at that Jim (although I don't understand why you think it's logically incoherent to be open-view and Acts 9 simultaneously).

 

[SOTK]

Originally posted by Lucky

SOTK, as you can see by this thread, Calvinist vs. Open Theist debates often end up ugly and fruitless. Don't give up! I keep reading these debates, because it is possible to pick up on some good points that posters make. It's a shame you have to sift through all the crap, but just keep at it. :thumb:

Yes, I can see this debate of theologies is pretty intense! :help: I am having a hard time understanding why there is so much hostility or hard feelings regarding this debate especially amongst fellow Christians.

Personally, I find this topic, amongst others as well, really interesting. I haven't made up my mind on this particular issue(s) and probably won't for a while. I have many questions and a lot of reading to do.....praying also!

Maybe we can get this thread back on track.....it was going good there for a while. I have appreciated the feedback I have gotten so far, but could do without the anger if possible.

In Christ,

SOTK

 

[Lovejoy]

Originally posted by SOTK

Yes, I can see this debate of theologies is pretty intense! :help: I am having a hard time understanding why there is so much hostility or hard feelings regarding this debate especially amongst fellow Christians.

Personally, I find this topic, amongst others as well, really interesting. I haven't made up my mind on this particular issue(s) and probably won't for a while. I have many questions and a lot of reading to do.....praying also!

Maybe we can get this thread back on track.....it was going good there for a while. I have appreciated the feedback I have gotten so far, but could do without the anger if possible.

In Christ,

SOTK

What!? NO ANGER! Why you :sozo: :bang: :madmad:





Sorry, just practicing for my posting at the atheist site. That pretty much sums up their response to anything I say. TOL is a peace (spelling intentional) of cake compared to there.

 

[SOTK]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's the problem?

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's the problem?

Originally posted by Knight

The Calvinist argument is that God decreed in advance every aspect of all of time (including the future of course).

From the smallest events to the largest events, all events are decreed by God to happen in just the way they happen. And therefore the future is closed in that nothing happens that wasn't decreed exhaustively by God.

Okay, so does an Open Viewer believe that God can not or does not choose to know the future?

I guess it might be helpful, Knight, if you explained some more on Open View, the scripture supporting it, and maybe why this makes sense to you (given that Calvinism doesn't). If I am considering the theology of Calvinism, I should know the opposite of that as well I suppose.

Thanks.

In Christ,

SOTK

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's the problem?

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's the problem?

Originally posted by SOTK

Okay, so does an Open Viewer believe that God can not or does not choose to know the future?

The Open View would state that God chose not to map out the entire future. He certainly could have mapped it out had He wanted to, but He sovereignly chose not to.

God is sovereign! Even to the extent that He is sovereign over His own sovereignness! In other words He has complete control over His own power. He chose to give up some of that power in form of our freewill.

I guess it might be helpful, Knight, if you explained some more on Open View, the scripture supporting it, and maybe why this makes sense to you (given that Calvinism doesn't). If I am considering the theology of Calvinism, I should know the opposite of that as well I suppose.

Indeed.

And if you know me..... by now you know that I like to take things very slowly and look at them in very small "bite size" chunks.

So... let's start at the beginning shall we?

After God was done creating He looked at His creation and said it was good.

Genesis 1:31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Yet then man rejected God (through sin) and not long after that man became exceedingly wicked. So much so that God was sorry that He made man!

Genesis 6:5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

There are two important points here:

1. God was sorry, in fact the Hebrew word here for sorry is "nacham" which means "repent". In other words God changed His mind about the goodness of man.

How can Calvinistic theology explain this? Did God decree sin and then also decree He would change His mind about creations "goodness"? That wouldn't make sense because then that wouldn't be changing His mind at all would it?

2. Man (through his wickedness) moved God to grieve! Calvinists will tell you that man cannot move God - nothing can!!! But that isn't what the Bible says. The Bible says we can move God. We can move Him through our prayers and we can move Him to grieve when we are wicked.

The Calvinist will tell you that "nacham" in Gen 6:6 is a anthropomorphism and therefore it doesn't mean what it says. Yet an anthropomorphism is used to make something more understandable NOT more complicated so when you ask the Calvinist to explain the anthropomorphism since they claim it doesn't mean what it says they are silent.

SOTK do you think we can move God when we pray or move Him to grief when we are wicked?

 

[godrulz]

What's the problem?

Originally posted by SOTK

Okay, so does an Open Viewer believe that God can not or does not choose to know the future?

I guess it might be helpful, Knight, if you explained some more on Open View, the scripture supporting it, and maybe why this makes sense to you (given that Calvinism doesn't). If I am considering the theology of Calvinism, I should know the opposite of that as well I suppose.

Thanks.

In Christ,

SOTK

Enyart's "The Plot" is more about Mid-Acts dispensationalism than the Open View. Classic Open View theologians like Pinnock, Boyd, Sandars, Hasker, Basinger, Pratney, Rice, McCabe, etc. are more comprehensive.

Does God chose not to know the future, or is it that He cannot know the future? I get the impression from Enyart people that God choses to not know some of the present (what is happening in hell) or future. I do not understand how He cannot know something that is knowable?

I think some of the future is logically unknowable even to an omniscient being. Future free will contingencies are correctly known as possibilities until they become certainties/actualities. The reason He cannot know some of the future is that He created a world with other free will moral agents. In this sense, He 'chose' to not know some of the future.

Anything that is an object of knowledge (past and present) is known exhaustively. Anything that is not there to be known (the future), is logically unknowable (not that He 'choses' to not know it).

When it says that God does not 'remember' our sins, it is not that He cannot remember or choses to not remember (we could recall our sins to memory and the omniscient God would be aware of them again). This is an idiom for chosing to not bring them up again ('forget' it).

God no doubt can shift His focus and attention in a greater way than we can. He does not have to have evil in His mind continuously. Yet, why say He does not have awareness of it (He would no longer be a perfect judge)?

These ideas are speculative on fine points, but self-evident on the major idea that exhaustive foreknowledge of the open future is a contradiction in terms. This logically leads to determinism, the only way the future can be known as a certainty (the other motif in Scripture is that some of the future that God intends to bring to pass by His omnicompetence is settled).

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Re: What's the problem?

Originally posted by godrulz
Anything that is an object of knowledge (past and present) is known exhaustively. Anything that is not there to be known (the future), is logically unknowable (not that He 'choses' to not know it).

Great post... very interesting.

However, I must ask....

Do you believe that God COULD HAVE created beings without a will of their own? In other words, if God had wanted to couldn't He have closed the future entirely?

If you agree with that premise yet still hold to an open future (as you do).... then... logically you must admit God chose NOT to know the future.

 

[Lovejoy]

Hi, guys! If you need me, I will be in the corner assuming the worst about my intellectual capacity to apprehend even the simplest truth about God. Man, there are some big brains around here!


It is threads like these that make me realize that one lifetime is not enough to understand (for my dense cranium, anyways), and I can only thank God that I will have eternity to get it right.

 

[godrulz]

God is the Most Moved Mover (Pinnock), not the Unmoved Mover (Greek philosophy=Aristotle). He is supremely personal, not absolutely immutable and impersonal/impassible (no change in feelings).

John Sanders (open model):

1) God loves us and desires for us to enter into reciprocal relations with Him and with our fellow creatures.

2) God has sovereignly decided to make some of His actions contingent on our requests and actions (responsive vs controlling).

3) God chooses to exercise a general rather than a meticulous providence, allowing space for us to operate and for God to be resourceful in working with it.

4) God granted us libertarian freedom necessary for personal relationships of love to develop.

rulz: This does not take away from a theocentric view of the universe. God's glory is enhanced as one who is personal and responsive, rather than a control freak/Dictator. Love relationships are genuine and not fatalistic (elect vs non-elect). It represents God's self-revelation rather that distorts it with a caricature of the greatness of God and His ways.

 

[God_Is_Truth]

Re: Re: What's the problem?

Re: Re: What's the problem?

Originally posted by Knight

Great post... very interesting.

However, I must ask....

Do you believe that God COULD HAVE created beings without a will of their own? In other words, if God had wanted to couldn't He have closed the future entirely?

If you agree with that premise yet still hold to an open future (as you do).... then... logically you must admit God chose NOT to know the future.

could God have ever make a reality where he would foreknow all of his own actions from eternity past?

 

[Lovejoy]

Originally posted by godrulz

God is the Most Moved Mover (Pinnock), not the Unmoved Mover (Greek philosophy). He is supremely personal, not absolutely immutable and impersonal/impassible (no change in feelings)

So you must not be too hot on Thomas Aquinas. I really don't have much of an opinion, having read the work without taking the time to critique it thoroughly. But I believe he pressed the unmoved mover concept.

 

[godrulz]

Re: Re: What's the problem?

Re: Re: What's the problem?

Originally posted by Knight

Great post... very interesting.

However, I must ask....

Do you believe that God COULD HAVE created beings without a will of their own? In other words, if God had wanted to couldn't He have closed the future entirely?

If you agree with that premise yet still hold to an open future (as you do).... then... logically you must admit God chose NOT to know the future.

There is a possible universe that God could have created automatons. They would then not be in His personal and moral image. It is a moot point because He chose to not create that world. He created our world with free moral agency.

He could have settled the future if He wanted to, but He did not. There are two motifs (Boyd): some of the future is settled and known; some of the future is open and unknown except as a possibility.

In that sense, God chose to not know some of the future, but not all of it (Is.= declared things in the future that He purposed to bring to pass regardless of what man did or did not do; other prophecies were conditional on man's response= Hezekiah; Jonah).

I thought I picked up from Clete or Enyart a different nuance where God actively chose to be blind to something that He could know. I think it related to God seeing evil in the earth or the suffering of the wicked. Perhaps someone could refresh my memory on Enyart's (I think it was him) twist that is not usually mentioned by Open Theists in their literature.

 

[godrulz]

Re: Re: Re: What's the problem?

Re: Re: Re: What's the problem?

Originally posted by God_Is_Truth

could God have ever make a reality where he would foreknow all of his own actions from eternity past?

This would negate other moral agency, contingencies, and freedom. This deterministic, fatalistic universe would be closer to Islam or Calvinism than reality.

 

[godrulz]

Originally posted by Lovejoy

So you must not be too hot on Thomas Aquinas. I really don't have much of an opinion, having read the work without taking the time to critique it thoroughly. But I believe he pressed the unmoved mover concept.

It seems Augustine was influenced by Plato and Aristotle. He then influenced Aquinas and Calvin, etc. Each person in church history added nuances, but their ideas were subject to philosophical influences.

The Greeks thought any change would imply a deviation from perfection. They posited an stongly (vs weak) immutable/impassible being that was more impersonal than personal. Change actually demonstrates perfection (cf. clock that changes keeps accurate time vs a changeless clock). God does not change in His essential being and character. He does change in His relations and experiences (will, intellect, emotions= personal).

Humans are not unmoved movers. The creature is not greater than the Creator. God is living, loving, dynamic, responsive. He is not static, experiencing everything in an 'eternal now' (another inherited flawed concept).