ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 3
- Thread starter Nathon Detroit
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Psalms 90:1-4 "Before the mountains were born, or Thou didst give birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God. For a thousand years in Thy sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night."
Peter is quoting the Psalms, this verse says that a thousand years "passes" for God as a "day" passes for us. Because God has no beginning and no end, a thousand years is a very short amount of time for him. This verse does not say that God is timeless, only that God experiences time differently than we do.
John 8:58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” 59 So they took up stones to throw at him;
Jesus is simply stating here that he is God by quoting Exodus 3:1, "God said to Moses, 'I am who I am.' And he said, 'Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”, that's why they took up stones to stone him. As God, the Son, he of course existed before Abraham, which involves time. Jesus goes on to say, "I am the good Shepherd", "I am the bread of life", "I am the light of the world", "I am the way, the truth, and the life", no where in scripture does he say "I am timeless". To be "timeless" means to be without time, or incapable of experiencing time, or to be unable to be involved in a sequence of events, with no history of past or future activity to speak of. Jesus life on earth involves time, so "I Am" cannot possibly mean "I Am without time".
Jesus very presence in time and occupying space on earth would make the statement "I Am" to mean "I am timeless" absurd, unless his bodily appearance was just an illusion.
--Dave
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
Then explain how the Lord Jesus knew that the following event would happen in the future?:
"Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the **** crow, thou shalt deny me thrice" (Mt.26:34).
How can God choose those for salvation from the beginning based on His foreknowledge of who will believe?:
"But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth" (2 Thess. 2:13).
In His grace.
Jerry
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
He may have been quoting from that verse but it is also a fact that he added something:
"But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Pet.3:8).
This verse is showing a speeding up of time with the Lord at the same time as a slowing down of time. That can only mean that He is not bound by time as are His creatures. And not being bound by time means that He is not subject to the constraints imposed by time and therefore He is timeless.
He was making a statement about is essential nature. His essential nature was not that as one in an earthly body that is why we read:
"Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands" (Heb.2:7).
In His grace,
Jerry
Peter's character and his weakness is well understood by Jesus and Satan. Luke 22:31 “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, 32 but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” 33 Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” 34 Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.”
Satan has said to God that he will get Peter to deny Christ three times before the night is over. Satan is allowed to test Peter just as he tested job, and others. Jesus already knows Peter, in his heart, does not want to die, despite his boast. Even Satan, as well as God, can cause some events to take place while not being the cause of all events. Satan causes people to accuse Peter of being one of Christ's followers but Peter is his own cause of his unwillingness to risk losing his life by admitting he is a disciple.
--Dave
The goal of Open Theism is to rightly understand the biblical revelation of God and His ways free from philosophically tainted traditions uncritically accepted from Augustine, etc.
Theological world views must decide between determinism or free will theism. I reject Calvinism because Scripture does not teach its model of sovereignty, free will, determinism. I affirm free will theism because it resonates with reality and Scripture. I think Open Theism is a more biblical, coherent, consistent type of Arminianism. Calvinism and free will theisms have some things in common and some differences. We arrive at Open Theism because it is consistent with God's revelation and because free will is more biblical/logical than determinism. You are a free will theist, but you fail to see that it is incompatible with exhaustive definite foreknowledge (whereas determinism would make EDF defensible).
It is wrong for Calvinists to accuse Arminians of only believing their view and rejecting Calvinism in a desire to cling to false free will. If free will is true and biblical (and it is; image of God), then it should lead to a free will theism view, not a deterministic one. If Calvinists are wrong about sovereignty as meticulous control and free will being compatibilistic vs libertarian, then we can reject it. If they are right, then we should accept it.
I could say Calvinists keep their view just because they want to embrace determinism and not free will, but this would not be anymore fair than their false accusation against free will theism. The issue is truth vs error, right vs wrong, not motives to retain a pet view at all costs.
II Peter 3:8 But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
Peter in these verses tells us that God is willing to suffer for a long period of "time" that as many as possible might be saved. The phrase "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" could not possibly mean God is timeless because that would mean that God has "no time" in which to suffer. We cannot say that God is "timeless--has no time" in which to suffer, and is also willing to suffer for a long "duration of time". The Psalms clearly state that a day and a thousand years "pass by" for both God and us, Peter does not contradict this. For those who wait for the resurrection and the promise of eternal life the wait for Christ's promised return seems long overdue but for God it will be a short period of time until it comes. The Day of the Lord and Christ's return has not yet occurred for us nor for God. This event is in "God's future" just as it is in ours. If we say that God is timeless then we are saying that the Day of Creation is on the same day as the Day of Judgement which is absurd.
--Dave
I finally bit and gave you answers, but you don't like them. Oh well.
Your issue is brought up in books on Bible discrepancies. Some resolve it within a traditionanl view, while Open Theism also provides a possible resolution. There are 100s of disputed verses on any given topic. Some problems are resolved by having an accurate translation, but I think some problems exist because of flawed theology (such as Calvinism). I think Open Theism solves more problems than it creates and that other views are more problematic than you realize.
So, I have given you an OVT perspective, so take it or leave it, but you cannot say I am evading or not answering.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
i asked you to answer my questions and yuou have refused to do so. Why do you still refuse to answer them?
This does not answer my comment that "I Am" means that Christ is referring to his "timelessness". That he has a "timeless nature" does not deal with the fact that Jesus is saying he is God and that he is saying it in "time", not outside of it. If you will see it, you would have to see that there was a time in Christ, "before and after" he was made a little lower than the angels, that is an aspect of time.
--Dave
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
You do not answer exacgtly why the Lord would use the phrase "I am" in the following way:
Arthur C. Custance wrote that "The Lord took Abraham's time as the pivot and spoke of two periods balanced on either side, namely, the ages which preceded Abraham, and all that followed (including the present). He then deliberately picked up the present and put it back before Abraham, but still referred to that distant period in the present tense."
Nothing that you said touched on this. If He were not timeless in His essential nature then why would He structure what He said in such a way.
And of course since He came to the earth and was made like us in every way He would be existing in "time," just like us. But that does not mean that His essential nature exists in time.
In His grace,
Jerry
Christ's nature is in him, not in some imagined timeless eternity while merely his body is located on earth. Christ is all here, not half here and the other half not. This is a fabricated argument. The structure of this verse simply states that Christ existed before Abraham.
How could the nature of Christ not be him? Was Christ both in heaven and on earth at the same time? Was he in heaven with his "devine nature" while on earth with a "human nature"? Was he not "devine" while on earth? John said "we beheld his glory".
--Dave
Sure, Alberta. See Banff and the Rocky Mountains while you are here.
Explained Peter already.
Corporate vs individual (Calvinism) election is the key. Those who believe in real/space time through faith become part of the foreknown generic people of God. Individual salvation is not fixed nor foreknown in eternity past!
I did...if you missed it, go back over the last day or two.:luigi:
Dave is right about 2 Peter....simile...comparison using like/as...you are guilty of prooftexting/eisegesis....God has endless years (Ps. 102), so a 1000 years in His experience/duration is like a drop in the bucket, a day, compared to a day for us who only live decades. It is a matter of perception/perspective, not a formula of 1000:1 or timelessness vs a tensed day.
Don't be so stubborn and not smart.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
If He only wanted to say that He could have said, Before Abraham I was." But that it not what he said and you have been unable to explain what Arthur C. Custance wrote:
"The Lord took Abraham's time as the pivot and spoke of two periods balanced on either side, namely, the ages which preceded Abraham, and all that followed (including the present). He then deliberately picked up the present and put it back before Abraham, but still referred to that distant period in the present tense."
Nothing that you have said even comes close to explaining wht the Lord would say, "Before Abraham I am."
Do you think that His real nature is that of being a little lower than angels?:
"Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands" (Heb.2:7).
I quoted that verse earlier and you had no comment. Do you think that the Lord Jesus as He is now is in a state that is "a little lower than angels"?
When on earth He had an "earthly" body and now that He is heaven He has a "heavenly" body:
"And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption" (1 Cor.15:49-50).
in His grace,
Jerry
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
It is you who is not being smart. Peter is showing "time" in relationship to God and in that relationship there is a speeding up of time at the same time that there is a slowing down of time.
That can only mean one thing--that God is not bound by time. He lives outside of time. Martin Loyd-Jones explains God's relationship to time in the following manner:
"God is like a man making a watch or clock — He Himself is outside it, He exists without it, He is not a part of it. The watchmaker makes the watch, he winds it up, he sets it going, he is outside the process but he initiates the process, he sets the hands in motion. That may help us a little to understand the relationship of God to time. But, according to this biblical teaching, God set the process going and He keeps it going" (God and Time).
I also find this interesting:
"The General Theory of Relativity demonstrates that time is linked, or related, to matter and space, and thus the dimensions of time, space, and matter constitute what we would call a continuum. They must come into being at precisely the same instant. Time itself cannot exist in the absence of matter and space."
So if the General Theory of Relativity is correct then there was no such thing as "time" before the Lord Jesus created the universe.
http://www.allaboutscience.org/theory-of-relativity.htm
In His grace,
Jerry
Allow me to clarify something here:
Nick-
The "DFT" in Dave's user name stands for "Dynamic Free Theist," which is just another way of saying, "Open Theist." So reread his post with that in mind, understanding that it comes from the OV POV.