Ryan Mullins, Timelessness and God: Pt. 3

Clete · Apr 24, 2020

Lon said:
??? You think assessment is the same as assertion? :think: Okay...

No, Lon!

For all your pretensions about how smart and educated you are, you sure seem unable to follow the simplest of points.

First of all, any unsupported assessment is an assertion, by definition but that wasn't the point anyway. The point was that you spend half your time on TOL whining like a school girl about my supposed posturing, which does not exist except in your mind, by the way, and then write well over a thousands words of almost continuous posturing!

And, by the way, I do not call anyone a liar unless it is obvious that they've said something that they had to have known was not true when they said it. Here's your latest example...

"His disdain for anybody not Open Theist, is evident. It is how he does debate. "Smack" is in his moniker. Reading the bible is not the same as devotions. Teaching Sunday School is not doing devotions."

Very nearly every Christian I know is not an Open Theist, Lon. I not only get along with them but love many of them dearly. What I disdain is anyone who blasphemes God, who is so stuck on himself that he can't stop talking about his lofty education and intelligence, who tells intentional lies or is otherwise just generally dishonest. I dislike it very much when people waste my time and I get angry when it becomes clear that it is being done on purpose. I do not suffer stupidity and liars (i.e. fools) well. Get over it or prove me wrong. You will do neither.

Further, this INTENTIONAL lie is tied to a previous INTENTIONAL lie that you spread about me having to do with your UNSUPPORTED assumption and INTENTIONALLY insulting accusation that I don't do daily devotionals, the point of which was to suggest that I do not study God's word. When I dispassionately responded to that baseless and insulting accusation with substantive evidence to the contrary you respond with additional insults and double down on the lie while at the same time implying that some published bible commentary is somehow superior to reading the bible itself.

You can't defend your doctrine and you can't put a scratch on mine and because I'm not afraid to call out your deceitful tactics for what they are, your only option is to get angry and accuse me of doing what you're actually guilty of. It's really too bad for you that all of our posts are all still here for the whole world to read.

Face it Lon, you're a hypocrite! Your hatred of me is a transference neurosis - at best.

Aimiel · Apr 25, 2020

JudgeRightly said:
God defined Himself in His word, and made it easy to understand Him. Why do you then assert that He is impossible to understand at all?

I've never said such, but we cannot know His Thoughts or His Ways, in this life; He is above and we are beneath.

God didn't clearly spell out who He is and what He is like?

He is Love. No one understands the depths, heights, breadth or width of His Love. We know it's above ours, though most people seem to think their love for God is greater than His Love for them.

I don't understand why you're saying that God is some unknown, when He has described Himself in an easy for us to understand way.

Paul said that He came to declare The Unknown God. I do the same. He is un-known. We can walk with Him and talk with Him every day, but seeing Him Face-to-face will reveal Him in full.

Dark beer bottles aren't completely opaque, you know. They do let light through.

Yes, we can see (darkly) through them, but not a full picture of Who God is. Did you think that he was saying that we could use a beer bottle to see ALL of God?

In the same way, God did reveal some of Himself to us. Why do you deny that?

I never did. We CAN see SOME of God's Self. Some.

Sorry, but God isn't omniscient. He cannot know that which is impossible to know, such as what a triangle with two sides looks like, or the number of hairs on a non-existent person's head.

I never thought that He could. Neither can He make a rock heavy enough that He can't lift it. So? Doesn't mean that He isn't Omnipotent. Just because you 'reason' that He cannot know what you're going to eat for breakfast tomorrow doesn't stop Him from knowing; just like the fact that He already knows doesn't stop you from making a decision, all on your own.

You know, it's ironic that you say "we can't know anything at all about God," yet you call Him (and rightly so) the King of the Universe.

That might be true, had I ever said such a thing.

Y

es, God's ways are higher than ours. But they're not lower, and they're certainly not unrevealed.

I would ask you some questions: those which were posed to Job; but I know that you couldn't answer them, since God merely posed them to him to demonstrate that Job (men, in general) aren't God and cannot know God's Mystery. He is beyond our thinking, not just invisible but above us, completely.

Well, yeah, so that we can understand that He isn't outside of time. Why else would He describe Himself that way?

I don't see where God described Himself as such, but merely spoke such of Himself to men who wouldn't understand otherwise. He wasn't blind to Adam's position in the Garden when He asked, "Adam! Where art thou?" was He?

Clete · Apr 26, 2020

Aimiel said:
I've never said such, but we cannot know His Thoughts or His Ways, in this life; He is above and we are beneath. He is Love. No one understands the depths, heights, breadth or width of His Love. We know it's above ours, though most people seem to think their love for God is greater than His Love for them.Paul said that He came to declare The Unknown God. I do the same. He is un-known. We can walk with Him and talk with Him every day, but seeing Him Face-to-face will reveal Him in full. Yes, we can see (darkly) through them, but not a full picture of Who God is. Did you think that he was saying that we could use a beer bottle to see ALL of God?I never did. We CAN see SOME of God's Self. Some.I never thought that He could. Neither can He make a rock heavy enough that He can't lift it. So? Doesn't mean that He isn't Omnipotent. Just because you 'reason' that He cannot know what you're going to eat for breakfast tomorrow doesn't stop Him from knowing; just like the fact that He already knows doesn't stop you from making a decision, all on your own.That might be true, had I ever said such a thing.I would ask you some questions: those which were posed to Job; but I know that you couldn't answer them, since God merely posed them to him to demonstrate that Job (men, in general) aren't God and cannot know God's Mystery. He is beyond our thinking, not just invisible but above us, completely.I don't see where God described Himself as such, but merely spoke such of Himself to men who wouldn't understand otherwise. He wasn't blind to Adam's position in the Garden when He asked, "Adam! Where art thou?" was He?

I'll let JudgeRighly give a full response to your post but I chime in here to say that we agree with nearly everything you've said here and the portion that we disagree with is the portion where you contradict your own point.

(Incidentally, someone should do something about the way the new TOL interface bunches people's posts all up into a big blob like what you see quoted above where one is forced to go through and separate the individual comments manually. It's a bug that creates a great deal of wasted time.)

Now, on to the point I wanted to make....

I never thought that He could. Neither can He make a rock heavy enough that He can't lift it. So? Doesn't mean that He isn't Omnipotent. Just because you 'reason' that He cannot know what you're going to eat for breakfast tomorrow doesn't stop Him from knowing; just like the fact that He already knows doesn't stop you from making a decision, all on your own.

This is, by far, the most substantive thing you've posted on this thread. Not that the rest hasn't been substantive but merely that this is way more so. It started out so great and then it went haywire. Let's take it one bit at a time and hopfully you'll see what I mean...

I never thought that He could. Neither can He make a rock heavy enough that He can't lift it.

Here you not only communicate agreement with us but add to it a statement with which JR and I will both wholeheartedly agree as well. What you've said here is basically that God cannot do the rationally absurd. He cannot do things that are self-contradictory or that are in some other way irrational because to do them would be to not do them. This single idea, this notion that things which are real cannot contradict themselves is what logic and reason is all about. Sound reason is the art of non-contradictory identification. (That last sentence not my own - I read it somewhere. I forget were. Rand maybe.)

So let's look at the next thing you say...

So? Doesn't mean that He isn't Omnipotent.

Well, whether it does or not depends on your definition of the term "omnipotent".

You should understand that the only one's who deny that Open Theists believe that God is omnipotent are non-open theists. We fully accept that God is all powerful in the very same sense in which you seem to acknowledge it yourself. That sense being that God can do anything doable. (Of course, omnipotence includes more than just what God can do but lets just stick with this so as not to muddy the water.) God can do the doable. That means that God cannot do the undoable. Meaning that God cannot do the logically absurd as you acknowledged in the previous sentence.
What you need to understand is that Calvinism teaches that rationality/absurdity does not apply to God. They don't teach that explicitly (usually) but implicitly just as you have done in this paragraph we are going through which hopefully you will be made to see in a moment. No Calvinist ever permits a rational argument to deter them away from their doctrine. Any time they acknowledge the existence of such an argument and its logical validity, they pull out the theological trump card of antinomy / mystery.

Let's continue...

Just because you 'reason' that He cannot know what you're going to eat for breakfast tomorrow doesn't stop Him from knowing; just like the fact that He already knows doesn't stop you from making a decision, all on your own.

You cannot have it both ways, Amie!

Knowing what I'm going to freely choose to eat for breakfast on some future morning is the logical equivalent of God creating a rock so big that He can't lift it and then Him lifting it. It's the very same thing and God cannot do either thing for the very same reason. It is a contradiction!
And it has nothing to do with whether I've reasoned it out, by the way. It isn't that God is incapable of doing it BECAUSE I thought it through. It's quite the opposite, actually! I am capable of thinking it through because God is real and isn't able to do irrational things. If He were able to do the logically absurd then no such thought process would be at all valuable.

In other words, you stated that you accept that God cannot make a rock so big that He can't lift it. So what's to keep another Calvinist from coming along and making the following statement....

"Just because you 'reason' that He cannot make a rock so big that He cannot lift doesn't stop Him from doing so!"

See the point? You are trying to have your cake and eat it too. It just won't work.

Now, in case you're thinking that it isn't irrational to think that a free choice can be foreknown I offer the following proof that an action can be free or it can be foreknown, it cannot be both.

Note, first of all, that the term "foreknown" is meant in the absolute / infallible sense. I do not mean "expected" or "predicted" or any other such soft meaning. Calvinism (and most all of Christianity for that matter) teaches that God absolutely and infallibly knows the future and it is in this hard sense of knowing that I use the term "foreknown".

Note also, that by "free" I do not mean "without consequence or influence or cause". I simply mean that the action could have been taken or not, that the actor could have done or done otherwise and that the decision to act was both real and made in his own mind.

Also, it should be pointed out, for the sake of clarity, that we've sort of morphed the discussion from omnipotence over to omniscience. The two concepts are very intertwined so it's not a problem, it just bares being pointed out, that's all.

So here's the proof. It's in quite formal logical terms so you have to read it through sort of slow and make sure you follow each point as you go.

If you can refute a syllable of it, I will read it gladly! (really!)

T = You cook scrabbled eggs for breakfast tomorrow at 9 am

Yesterday God infallibly believed T. [Supposition of infallible foreknowledge]
If E occurred in the past, it is now-necessary that E occurred then. [Principle of the Necessity of the Past]
It is now-necessary that yesterday God believed T. [1, 2]
Necessarily, if yesterday God believed T, then T. [Definition of “infallibility”]
If p is now-necessary, and necessarily (p → q), then q is now-necessary. [Transfer of Necessity Principle]
So it is now-necessary that T. [3,4,5]
If it is now-necessary that T, then you cannot do otherwise than cook scrabbled eggs tomorrow at 9 am. [Definition of “necessary”]
Therefore, you cannot do otherwise than cook scrabbled eggs tomorrow at 9 am. [6, 7]
If you cannot do otherwise when you do an act, you do not act freely. [Principle of Alternate Possibilities]
Therefore, when you cook scrabbled eggs tomorrow at 9 am, you will not do it freely. [8, 9]

So, to sum up, we are, based on the content of your last post, mostly in agreement. JR and I are not suggesting that God can be fully understood or even comprehended. There are aspects of God's nature that are so far outside the human experience that there is no context in which it can even be discussed or even thought of. In this way God's ways are indeed very much above our ways. Where we disagree is when this is taken to such an extreme that we are asked to turn off our minds and accept the rationally absurd as truth. And make no mistake, that is precisely what your doctrine asks of us. If the truth can be irrational then what is the point of God asking us to come and reason together with Him? If the truth of doctrine is so far above our ability to think then what is the point of doing theology? If we allow the contradictory to live within our doctrine then how are we to determine if any doctrine is false? If foreknowledge and free will is simply a mystery that we can't ever unravel then why isn't the same true of soul sleep or ancestral baptism or any other heretical doctrine that you can think of? Indeed, those who believe in those things very often use the very same arguments you've made in your post! Why are they wrong, Amiel?

The reason they're wrong is reason.

Clete

Aimiel · Apr 26, 2020

Clete said:
Knowing what I'm going to freely choose to eat for breakfast on some future morning is the logical equivalent of God creating a rock so big that He can't lift it and then Him lifting it. It's the very same thing and God cannot do either thing for the very same reason. It is a contradiction!

Wrong. As I stated: God knowing what you'll choose has absolutely nothing to do with you choosing whichever one floats your boat. Nothing.

Now, in case you're thinking that it isn't irrational to think that a free choice can be foreknown I offer the following proof that an action can be free or it can be foreknown, it cannot be both.

How does God knowing your decision before you make it prevent the possibility of you deciding on your own what you actually want? It doesn't.

So here's the proof. It's in quite formal logical terms so you have to read it through sort of slow and make sure you follow each point as you go.

If you can refute a syllable of it, I will read it gladly! (really!)[/FONT][/COLOR]

T = You cook scrabbled eggs for breakfast tomorrow at 9 am

Yesterday God infallibly believed T. [Supposition of infallible foreknowledge]

If E occurred in the past, it is now-necessary that E occurred then. [Principle of the Necessity of the Past]

It is now-necessary that yesterday God believed T. [1, 2]

Necessarily, if yesterday God believed T, then T. [Definition of “infallibility”]

If p is now-necessary, and necessarily (p → q), then q is now-necessary. [Transfer of Necessity Principle]

So it is now-necessary that T. [3,4,5]

If it is now-necessary that T, then you cannot do otherwise than cook scrabbled eggs tomorrow at 9 am. [Definition of “necessary”]

Therefore, you cannot do otherwise than cook scrabbled eggs tomorrow at 9 am. [6, 7]

If you cannot do otherwise when you do an act, you do not act freely. [Principle of Alternate Possibilities]

Therefore, when you cook scrabbled eggs tomorrow at 9 am, you will not do it freely. [8, 9]

You're making logical inferences that don't fit. You're free to have or not have eggs but God knowing ahead of time what chickens, with X number of feathers and with X number of eggs laid and which pig the bacon comes from and whether or not you will scramble, poach, flip over easy or hard: has no effect on your freedom to choose. God knows your choices, ad infinitum. Not pre-ordained, He just knows all. He is above, ahead of and way beyond time.

So, to sum up, we are, based on the content of your last post, mostly in agreement. JR and I are not suggesting that God can be fully understood or even comprehended. There are aspects of God's nature that are so far outside the human experience that there is no context in which it can even be discussed or even thought of. In this way God's ways are indeed very much above our ways. Where we disagree is when this is taken to such an extreme that we are asked to turn off our minds and accept the rationally absurd as truth. And make no mistake, that is precisely what your doctrine asks of us. If the truth can be irrational then what is the point of God asking us to come and reason together with Him? If the truth of doctrine is so far above our ability to think then what is the point of doing theology? If we allow the contradictory to live within our doctrine then how are we to determine if any doctrine is false? If foreknowledge and free will is simply a mystery that we can't ever unravel then why isn't the same true of soul sleep or ancestral baptism or any other heretical doctrine that you can think of? Indeed, those who believe in those things very often use the very same arguments you've made in your post! Why are they wrong, Amiel?

The reason they're wrong is reason.

I find a god who has to wait for the outcome to know what has happened to be far more irrational than The One True God Who Knows the Future. If He has to read a newspaper, he is a false god.

Clete · Apr 27, 2020

Aimiel said:
Wrong. As I stated: God knowing what you'll choose has absolutely nothing to do with you choosing whichever one floats your boat. Nothing.

This is disappointing and boring.

What am I supposed to be, convinced by your having simply said I was wrong and restated your position?

I made a very clear argument. Why can't you even address the argument? What in the world are you even wasting your time here for?

How does God knowing your decision before you make it prevent the possibility of you deciding on your own what you actually want?

If you had bothered to read my post before starting your response, you'd have known before you wrote this that I anticipated that question and gave a very detailed and direct answer which you have effectively ignored.

It doesn't.

Because you say so? Is that it? Is that how you do theology? Is this what you meant when you claimed, "I take Scripture as a whole and try to use all the knowledge and wisdom that God has granted me every time I read or hear His Word."?

You're making logical inferences that don't fit.

First of all it's not my syllogism. It was written by a lady named Linda Zagzebski and it was first published in June 2004 in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Second, and far more importantly, saying it doesn't make it so! Just because you say they don't fit, doesn't mean they don't. Each premise follows from the previous premises as it clearly denoted in the argument itself.

You're free to have or not have eggs but God knowing ahead of time what chickens, with X number of feathers and with X number of eggs laid and which pig the bacon comes from and whether or not you will scramble, poach, flip over easy or hard: has no effect on your freedom to choose.

The argument, the totally unambiguous formal argument that I posted PROVES otherwise. You can claim the contrary all day long. It does exactly nothing to refute a syllable of that argument. Not one single solitary syllable. And what makes you so pathetic is that if you'd apply yourself and spend some time and effort trying to think these things through, there are ways in which you could have approached that argument that would yield some real challenges. That I, in turn, would have had to spend some time and effort rebutting. But no! We couldn't have a real intellectually challenging discussion! Instead we are stuck in this Hell were I am forced to repeat myself and reword what should be a rather easily understood argument so that a third grader could understand it. BORING!!! :yawn:

Do you even know what it means for something to be logically necessary? If not look it up!
No! I know you won't do that! Here, let me do it for you.
Here's the definition of all the relevant terms...
`

infallible:
incapable of making mistakes or being wrong.

logical necessity:
that state of things which obliges something to be as it is because no alternative is logically possible. A logically necessary statement is true with an absolute degree of certainty.

choice:
an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possible alternatives.

Do you believe God's foreknowledge to be infallible? If so then the following argument is inescapably true no matter how emphatically you deny it...

God infallibly knows that I will have eggs. (Your own major doctrinal premise.)
If God infallibly knows that I will have eggs then the fact that I'll have eggs is a logical necessity. That's what is meant by "infallible". (see definition of "infallible" above)
If it is logically necessary that I will have eggs then there is no logically possible alternative. That's what it means to be a "logical necessity". (see definition of "logical necessity" above)
Choice requires possible alternatives, by definition. Thus, if there is no alternative then I cannot choose. (see definition of "choice" above)
Therefore, if God infallibly knows that I'll have eggs I will not have eggs by choice.

Now which premise is false?

I'll be shocked if you even try to answer.

God knows your choices, ad infinitum. Not pre-ordained, He just knows all.

This unsupported claim has not only been disprove by the formal argument I've presented but is in direct contradiction to the bible.

Where do you get your doctrine from, Amiel?

Oh yeah! The Classics!

He is above, ahead of and way beyond time.

Saying it doesn't make it so!

I find a god who has to wait for the outcome to know what has happened to be far more irrational than The One True God Who Knows the Future.

No you don't! You wouldn't know a rational argument if it came up behind you and bit your backside. You're just making your doctrine up as you go along. Picking and choosing the doctrines you like as you accidentally discover them in practically any publication that exists other than the bible!

If He has to read a newspaper, he is a false god.

This is just an utterly stupid thing to say. First of all, no one has ever made any such claim or any other claim that could reasonably be inferred to mean such a ridiculous thing and besides that, nearly everything in the newspapers is false anyway!

Thanks a million for being a worthlessly boring waste of time.

TOL is truly dead.

Clete

Aimiel · Apr 27, 2020

Clete said:
This is disappointing and boring.

I'll endeavor to be more entertaining by using more smileys, maybe that will capture you're attention. I made a very clear argument. Why can't you even address the argument? What in the world are you even wasting your time here for?

What am I supposed to be, convinced by your having simply said I was wrong and restated your position?

You 'argument' was that God cannot make a rock so big that He cannot lift it (which neither of us know for a fact whether He can or can't. Am I supposed to acquiesce to your opinion on this matter because you call my argument a contradiction? I don't see where God knowing your decision, perfectly (as in He is The Only One Who can speak in Future Perfect Tense) prohibits your free will in choosing what to eat or whether or not you eat at all? It doesn't.

If you had bothered to read my post before starting your response, you'd have known before you wrote this that I anticipated that question and gave a very detailed and direct answer which you have effectively ignored.

I read it. I don't agree with your conclusions. God knowing what we'll do, ahead of time, has absolutely no effect on free will. Thinking that it does won't make it come true. Thinking that one MUST do or not do something is second-guessing and (it seems to me) a little bit crazy.

Do you believe God's foreknowledge to be infallible?

Absolutely. Again: reasoning what God can and cannot do just doesn't work, since His Ways are higher than ours.

W

here do you get your doctrine from, (Aimiel)?

I'm a believer in Jesus of Nazareth, Who is Christ: God, in The Flesh. He lives in me. Beyond that: I'm not sure what you're asking. I'm not one to think that I can outsmart God, second-guess Him or limit Him by use of reason, knowledge or wit. That would make one of us.

Clete · Apr 28, 2020

No time for editing! I did a quick spell check but forgive any other typos! Sorry!

Aimiel said:
I'll endeavor to be more entertaining by using more smileys, maybe that will capture you're attention. I made a very clear argument. Why can't you even address the argument? What in the world are you even wasting your time here for?

You didn't make any argument! If you'd make an actual argument, you'd be in my top 10 favorite TOL participants! As it is, you make claims and repeat your doctrine. The closest you came to making an argument was one single paragraph which I spent almost two hours writing a response to.

Your 'argument' was that God cannot make a rock so big that He cannot lift it (which neither of us know for a fact whether He can or can't. Am I supposed to acquiesce to your opinion on this matter because you call my argument a contradiction?

Whether or not it is a contradiction is not a matter of opinion. It is either a contradiction or isn't.

First of all, to state that God cannot make a rock so big that He cannot lift it is just a short hand way of stating the problem. I made a point of stating it more fully at least once during my previous post. It isn't merely about God creating a rock that He cannot lift, it's about Him creating such a rock and then lifting it, which would be an obvious contradiction that even a child could understand.
Having said that, a good argument could be made that an all powerful God could not make such a rock to begin with because making such a rock would require using MORE power than an all powerful God has, which is inherently contradictory. So, really even the short handed version works.

Regardless, we aren't talking about rocks, per se. We are talking about the nature of reality. The point isn't about whether God can make big rocks, it's about whether God can do the rationally absurd. If you don't like the big rock version then drop it and use two sided squares or flat sided spheres or whatever other logical absurdity your prefer. The point is that God cannot do things that are contradictory. Not because I say so but because to do them would be to not do them.

I don't see where God knowing your decision, perfectly (as in He is The Only One Who can speak in Future Perfect Tense) prohibits your free will in choosing what to eat or whether or not you eat at all? It doesn't.

It totally does!

I've proven that it does! Whether you choose to see it or not is irrelevant. I am not interested in your personal opinions. What I'm very much interested in is an actual argument that either supports your doctrine or refutes those arguments that support mine.

I read it. I don't agree with your conclusions. God knowing what we'll do, ahead of time, has absolutely no effect on free will. Thinking that it does won't make it come true. Thinking that one MUST do or not do something is second-guessing and (it seems to me) a little bit crazy.

Why? Because it disagrees with your doctrine? Because you don't like the way it makes you feel? Because you just don't want to believe it? Because your personal opinion is contrary to it?

Is this really how you make decisions about what you're going to believe? Is this really the foundation upon which you are resting the eternal state of your soul?

I flatly do not care what your opinion is! Either refute the argument or admit that you cannot.

Did you think that it would escape my notice that my foreknowledge about your refusal to even trying to answer the question, "Which premise is false?" was true?
That's right, I said foreknowledge. I knew that you would ignore that question in exactly the same manner that Jesus knew Peter would deny Him three times. Jesus and I both were disappointingly right in our ability to see what was coming and neither of us had to predestine it in advance nor sneak a peak into the future to see it. All we had to do was think and use the information we had before us. (Jesus clearly having far more inflormation than I.)

Absolutely. Again: reasoning what God can and cannot do just doesn't work, since His Ways are higher than ours.

How is it possible that you could have written this without noticing the contradiction? I mean, seriously! :bang:

You're perfectly willing to reason all day long about what God can and cannot do so long as the discussion doesn't go afoul of your doctrine.
You're here telling me that God CAN foreknow freely chosen actions.
You believe that God CAN create the universe by speaking into existence (Genesis 1).
You believe that God CAN become a human being (John 1).
You believe that God had the power to lay down His own life and the power to take it up again (John 10:18).
You believe that God CANNOT lie (Titus 1:2)
And until this post you've been happy to concede that God CANNOT make a rock so big that He can't lift it (and then lift it).
You believe that God CAN (does) know everything without exception.
You believe that God CAN be everywhere at once.
You believe that God CAN do anything doable!

Is there an end to the list of things that you believe God can and cannot do?

How can you simply not care whether what you believe about God makes any sense? If your doctrine doesn't have to make sense, (which is precisely what it means if "reasoning about what God can and cannot do just doesn't work"), then what in the world difference does it make whether I choose to believe that God cannot infallibly know the future action of free will agents? Who are you to tell me that I'm wrong if you're the one telling me that reasoning about what God can and cannot do is a worthless exercise? If it is impossible for us to know what God can and cannot do then how are you telling me that He can and that I'm wrong for saying He can't? How is it possible for a man to be so self-conflicted, so self-contradictory, about the very issues that he holds to be the maximally important?

I'm a believer in Jesus of Nazareth, Who is Christ: God, in The Flesh. He lives in me. Beyond that: I'm not sure what you're asking. I'm not one to think that I can outsmart God, second-guess Him or limit Him by use of reason, knowledge or wit. That would make one of us.

No one is trying to second guess God! And the only limits reason can put on anything are the limits of reality itself! Do you believe that God is real? If so, then you must concede that God cannot be self-contradictory or do self-contradictory things! That's what it means to be real! That's what the word "truth" means. To say something is true is to say that it is consistent. Consistent with what? With itself and with the rest of reality! The logically absurd is not real precisely because it is not consistent with reality. That's all reason is - constraining one's mind to the that which is real. There are three axiomatic truths that pertain to all real things...

1. What is, is. A is A. This is called the law of identity. It is the foundation of all knowledge. You cannot state that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ without using the law of identity. It is merely a specific application of the general law.
2. Any truth claim is either true or is false, given a specific context. This is called the law of excluded middle. Jesus of Nazareth is either the Christ or He is not.
3. Any two truth claims that contradict each other cannot both be true, given a specific context. This is a law of contradiction. Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ. Jesus of Nazareth is just a regular guy. At least one of those statements is false!

The truths that you believe aren't true because you believe them but because of these laws (if indeed they are actually true). Truth isn't a matter of opinion or conjecture. There is no such thing as someone's "version of the truth". Truth is singular. It's 'versions' are mistruths. It isn't about trying to put Jesus in a box or getting God "all figured out". It's just about constraining what we believe to that which actually is (law of identity), to that which is consistent with itself (law of excluded middle) and with the rest of reality (law of contradiction). If you fail to do that then you cut the mooring lines of your mind and are free to believe whatever silly nonsense that it occurs to you to believe. You have no means to refute anything that anyone claims as truth. Jesus the Nazarene, Ann Lee, Krishna Venta, David Koresh and Yahweh Ben Yahweh all have equal claim to the title "Christ" if reason doesn't work.

Let me repeat that....

Jesus the Nazarene, Ann Lee, Krishna Venta, David Koresh and Yahweh Ben Yahweh all have equal claim to the title "Christ" if reason doesn't work.

Clete

Aimiel · Apr 29, 2020

Clete said:
We are talking about the nature of reality.

One reality is temporal, another is spiritual. Thinking that what one can observe of recorded Scriptural history or even what one observes through study or experience in this temporal (time) realm doesn't necessarily apply in the spirit realm. Spirit can travel at the speed of thought. God isn't limited by space or time. Thinking that He does definitely puts Him in a time/space continuum, similar or even exactly the same as ours.

Did you think that it would escape my notice that my foreknowledge about your refusal to even trying to answer the question, "Which premise is false?" was true? That's right, I said foreknowledge. I knew that you would ignore that question in exactly the same manner that Jesus knew Peter would deny Him three times. Jesus and I both were disappointingly right in our ability to see what was coming and neither of us had to predestine it in advance nor sneak a peak into the future to see it. All we had to do was think and use the information we had before us. (Jesus clearly having far more inflormation than I.)

He dictated many future events in the book of Revelation. Not only does He have more information than we do: He has exhaustive and perfect knowledge of future events. I take that by faith, having read the final chapter. If you believe that things could change between now and the end, that's up to you. I choose to believe in The One Who holds my future and knows every single second of it.

You're perfectly willing to reason all day long about what God can and cannot do so long as the discussion doesn't go afoul of your doctrine.

I simply don't apply God's Words out-of-context. I don't believe that He is subject to time and that's partly because I don't see any reason to in The Holy Scriptures.

You're here telling me that God CAN foreknow freely chosen actions.

I have yet to see any proof that He cannot.

How can you simply not care whether what you believe about God makes any sense?

It doesn't make any sense to me to attempt to qualify what God can or cannot do by trying to use words that He spoke at one time or another which are clearly designed for lowly men to be able to understand or relate to Him from their (temporal) perspective. Attempting to quantify or reason out what the spirit realm is, has, isn't, doesn't have or otherwise projecting isn't reasonable to me. Were it something that we needed to know: God would have told us. We know that this earth was created before man and that it was damaged by the fall of angels, but we aren't told much about that fall, beyond the fact that God created man to re-plenish this earth. We are to limit our thinking to whatever is true, just, lovely, of a good report and if there's anything that deserves praise to God. Making things up or projecting our beliefs onto God's Nature just don't fit those filters. God's Character is well-described in Scripture: He is Holy. Perfect. To me: that describes a God Who doesn't fall short in any feature. He sees, knows, cares about and loves every single thing that He created. He called it 'Good' when it was brought forth.

If your doctrine doesn't have to make sense, (which is precisely what it means if "reasoning about what God can and cannot do just doesn't work"), then what in the world difference does it make whether I choose to believe that God cannot infallibly know the future action of free will agents?

I believe that making sense with Scripture is one of the best things a man can do. I also believe that trying to limit God or say, "He cannot do X," is beyond our capability.

Who are you to tell me that I'm wrong if you're the one telling me that reasoning about what God can and cannot do is a worthless exercise?

It's perfectly worthwhile if you're trying to understand and come to know Him. What isn't: is trying to paint a picture of His Ways or His Thoughts. Those are beyond us. I've stood in His Presence. There is NOTHING of my conception of Him before I went there that fit what I experienced. The ONLY thing I could say I had right was: He is Holy. The rest is so easy, clear, full and surprising that I simply cannot describe. I knew, the moment I arrived there that I couldn't fit 1/1,000th of a percent of what I experienced there into my tiny little temporal brain. God is so far beyond our ability to comprehend it is just impossible to describe.

If it is impossible for us to know what God can and cannot do then how are you telling me that He can and that I'm wrong for saying He can't?

Let me put it this way, from my experience: God is above time. I don't have to look up any Scriptures to find that out. From what I've read, come to understand and what I've experienced: it is so. That's what I believe. :thumb:

Clete · Apr 29, 2020

Aimiel said:
One reality is temporal, another is spiritual. Thinking that what one can observe of recorded Scriptural history or even what one observes through study or experience in this temporal (time) realm doesn't necessarily apply in the spirit realm. Spirit can travel at the speed of thought. God isn't limited by space or time. Thinking that He does definitely puts Him in a time/space continuum, similar or even exactly the same as ours.He dictated many future events in the book of Revelation. Not only does He have more information than we do: He has exhaustive and perfect knowledge of future events. I take that by faith, having read the final chapter. If you believe that things could change between now and the end, that's up to you. I choose to believe in The One Who holds my future and knows every single second of it.[/FONT][/COLOR][/LEFT]I simply don't apply God's Words out-of-context. I don't believe that He is subject to time and that's partly because I don't see any reason to in The Holy Scriptures.
I have yet to see any proof that He cannot.It doesn't make any sense to me to attempt to qualify what God can or cannot do by trying to use words that He spoke at one time or another which are clearly designed for lowly men to be able to understand or relate to Him from their (temporal) perspective. Attempting to quantify or reason out what the spirit realm is, has, isn't, doesn't have or otherwise projecting isn't reasonable to me. Were it something that we needed to know: God would have told us. We know that this earth was created before man and that it was damaged by the fall of angels, but we aren't told much about that fall, beyond the fact that God created man to re-plenish this earth. We are to limit our thinking to whatever is true, just, lovely, of a good report and if there's anything that deserves praise to God. Making things up or projecting our beliefs onto God's Nature just don't fit those filters. God's Character is well-described in Scripture: He is Holy. Perfect. To me: that describes a God Who doesn't fall short in any feature. He sees, knows, cares about and loves every single thing that He created. He called it 'Good' when it was brought forth.I believe that making sense with Scripture is one of the best things a man can do. I also believe that trying to limit God or say, "He cannot do X," is beyond our capability.It's perfectly worthwhile if you're trying to understand and come to know Him. What isn't: is trying to paint a picture of His Ways or His Thoughts. Those are beyond us. I've stood in His Presence. There is NOTHING of my conception of Him before I went there that fit what I experienced. The ONLY thing I could say I had right was: He is Holy. The rest is so easy, clear, full and surprising that I simply cannot describe. I knew, the moment I arrived there that I couldn't fit 1/1,000th of a percent of what I experienced there into my tiny little temporal brain. God is so far beyond our ability to comprehend it is just impossible to describe.Let me put it this way, from my experience: God is above time. I don't have to look up any Scriptures to find that out. From what I've read, come to understand and what I've experienced: it is so. That's what I believe. :thumb:

Everytime I go to respond to your posts, it starts off looking like the above blob of writing. Does this happen to everyone or are you doing something different when you write your posts?
I'm just curious.

One way or the other, someone needs to fix it because it's ridiculous that the software would remove all the pilcrows (new paragraph - carriage return or whatever you want to call it).

If it isn't happening to everyone then be sure to hit return before starting a response to a particular quote. Your post should look like this (minus the extra spaces, of course)...

[ quote]blah blah blah[ /quote]
No, it's actually blah blah blah blah.

Not like this...

[ quote]blah blah blah[ /quote]No, it's actually blah blah blah blah.

Leaving off that "carriage return" is what I suspect is the cause but it's just a theory.

Anyway, I will respond to your posts as usual but I can't do it this morning because of work. Probably tomorrow.

JudgeRightly · Apr 29, 2020

Aimiel said:
I've never said such, but we cannot know His Thoughts or His Ways,

We can't? Even when He states them explicitly in scripture for us to read?

in this life; He is above and we are beneath.

What does that mean?

He is Love.

And? Wouldn't that be something that we can know 100% about God?

No one understands the depths, heights, breadth or width of His Love.

No one has argued that anyone could, so why say this?

We know it's above ours, though most people seem to think their love for God is greater than His Love for them.

You mean "greater"?

Love is love, whether it's God loving someone or someone loving God or God loving Himself or someone loving someone else.

Love is the commitment to the good of someone.

Paul said that He came to declare The Unknown God. I do the same. He is un-known. We can walk with Him and talk with Him every day, but seeing Him Face-to-face will reveal Him in full.

Well, no. You've completely ripped out of context what Paul said.

Read the passage again:

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.”And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter. ”So Paul departed from among them.However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them. - Acts 17:22-34 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts17:22-34&version=NKJV

Paul is in Athens, Greece, at the Areopoagus. He had noticed that someone had made an altar, in the pantheon of the greek gods, to what a greek person had called "THE UNKNOWN GOD." You recognize that it's referring to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but because you've ripped it out of context, you (perhaps unintentionally) twist the meaning to fit your own doctrine that God cannot be known.

However, when we read it in context, it clearly doesn't say that God cannot be known, but only that God is unknown to the GREEKS, AND ONLY AT THAT TIME! That's why Paul went to preach to them, to make known the God who was unknown to them!

It says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about God being "unknowable," and in fact YOU YOURSELF know something about God, and stated it near the beginning of the very post I am replying to, that HE IS LOVE! That's something we can know and DO know quite clearly!

Yes, we can see (darkly) through them, but not a full picture of Who God is.

No one has said otherwise.

[QUTOE]Did you think that he was saying that we could use a beer bottle to see ALL of God?[/QUOTE]

The phrase used is a "mirror dimly," not a beer bottle. As far as I'm aware, they didn't have beer bottles back then...

Regardless, you keep trying to make the argument that, because we can't see God in His entirety, therefore we can't know much about Him.

I never did. We CAN see SOME of God's Self. Some.

We can know that everywhere that He describes Himself, it's not always a figure of speech.

Aimiel, what CAN we know about Him?

I never thought that He could.

Then your position is self-contradictory.

Neither can He make a rock heavy enough that He can't lift it. So? Doesn't mean that He isn't Omnipotent.

"Omni" means ALL.
"Potent" means POWER.

All power, literally.

God does not have the power to do that which is impossible, such as do evil and remain righteous.

And again, God has delegated some of his power to certain institutions, such as government, the church, and the family, and even businesses.

Meaning He is not omnipotent, because He does not have all power.

Regardless, what we were discussing was omniscience, not omnipotence.

Just because you 'reason' that He cannot know what you're going to eat for breakfast tomorrow doesn't stop Him from knowing; just like the fact that He already knows doesn't stop you from making a decision, all on your own.

And how did you reach that conclusion? Because it wasn't through logic or reason.

That might be true, had I ever said such a thing.

You said it in the very post I am replying to.

Aimiel, you said:

He is un-known.

Which is false.

Saying that God is known has nothing to do with how much is known about Him.

I would ask you some questions: those which were posed to Job; but I know that you couldn't answer them, since God merely posed them to him to demonstrate that Job (men, in general) aren't God and cannot know God's Mystery. He is beyond our thinking, not just invisible but above us, completely.

All anyone has to do is do a word search for "God is" in the Bible and you can learn a lot about God and who He is.

What He has revealed to us about Himself in His Word IS NOT BEYOND OUR THINKING, nor is it completely above us.

It's not a mystery that He is Love.
It's not a mystery that He is living, personal, relational, good, and loving.
It's not a mystery that He is life itself.
It's not a mystery that He is [insert quality here].

I don't see where God described Himself as such,

As timeless? That's because He never did.

but merely spoke such of Himself to men who wouldn't understand otherwise.

Why does God NEVER NOT ONCE EVER describe Himself in a way that could, with proper understanding, show Him as being outside of time?

He wasn't blind to Adam's position in the Garden when He asked, "Adam! Where art thou?" was He?

This is omnipresence that you're referring to. Let's leave that can of worms alone until we deal with the other issues.

JudgeRightly · Apr 29, 2020

Clete said:
Everytime I go to respond to your posts, it starts off looking like the above blob of writing. Does this happen to everyone or are you doing something different when you write your posts?
I'm just curious.

One way or the other, someone needs to fix it because it's ridiculous that the software would remove all the pilcrows (new paragraph - carriage return or whatever you want to call it).

If it isn't happening to everyone then be sure to hit return before starting a response to a particular quote. Your post should look like this (minus the extra spaces, of course)...

[ quote]blah blah blah[ /quote]
No, it's actually blah blah blah blah.

Not like this...

[ quote]blah blah blah[ /quote]No, it's actually blah blah blah blah.

Leaving off that "carriage return" is what I suspect is the cause but it's just a theory.

Anyway, I will respond to your posts as usual but I can't do it this morning because of work. Probably tomorrow.

That's exactly what it is.

Aimiel I've told you before. This is your second notice. Please make sure your formatting is easy to respond to.

You need hit enter at least twice after the [/QUOTE] tag, and then twice between the end of your comments and the next [QUOTE] tag.

Otherwise all whoever replies to you sees is a giant wall of text with no indication of where each portion of your comments begins or ends in relation to what you're replying to.

I will fix your most recent post to give you (another) example, which will allow myself and Clete to respond to you, but you need to start using more line-breaks.

Also, if you or Clete reply to this comment, make sure you add the noparse tags around the above quote tags in my post, otherwise the formatting will be really screwed up, or just remove the quote tags entirely.

It should look like this:

[QUOTE]blablabla blablabla[/QUOTE]

No, it's actually blah blah blah.

[QUOTE]blablabla blablablabla[/QUOTE]

Blah blah blah.

JudgeRightly · Apr 29, 2020

Aimiel said:
One reality is temporal, another is spiritual.

Introducing more complexity to solve complexity only complicates the issue.

There is only one reality, Aimiel. That's the one that we're (God included) in.

Thinking that what one can observe of recorded Scriptural history or even what one observes through study or experience in this temporal (time) realm doesn't necessarily apply in the spirit realm.

There are NO verses in the Bible that indicate the following:

- That God is outside of Time (timeless, in an eternal now, not was nor will be but only is, has no past, has no future)
- That God knows everything that will ever happen
- That God can intervene in the past
- That God has decreed everything that will ever happen
- That God created time
- That God exists in the past and or the future
- That God knew us before the foundations of the Earth.

https://opentheism.org/verses (bottom of the page)

Spirit can travel at the speed of thought.

And you know this... how?

And what does that even mean?

God isn't limited by space

No argument there.

or time.

Again, there are NO verses in the Bible that indicate that God can do any of the items in the above list.

To reiterate:

Time is the convention of language used to convey information related to the duration and sequence of events. relative to other events.

Thinking that He [is] definitely puts Him in a time/space continuum, similar or even exactly the same as ours.

I don't promote spacetime.

God created matter, energy, and space, but nowhere in scripture does it say God created time, and in fact, time is logically not able to be created, because it is a prerequisite of creation.

And again, I reiterate that time is a convention of language, not an ontological thing.

He dictated many future events in the book of Revelation.

No one disagrees with that.

What we disagree with is your extrapolation that He dictated EVERYTHING THAT WOULD EVER HAPPEN EVER. Nowhere does the Bible describe Him doing so.

Not only does He have more information than we do:

Of course He does.

He has exhaustive and perfect knowledge of future events.

There are NO verses in the Bible that say that.

I take that by faith,

No, you take that by blind faith, not based on what scripture says, but what you prefer to be true.

Having faith that something is true doesn't make it true.

Faith is the proper response to evidence.

What you have is not faith, but blind belief in something you hope is true, but which you cannot support biblically.

having read the final chapter.

Revelation only describes what happens at the end of this age.

It doesn't magically apply to all of what may or may not happen, or what is happening, or what has happened.

If you believe that things could change between now and the end, that's up to you.

No, Aimiel, it's not "up to us."

That's what the Bible says, and that's what GOD HIMSELF SAYS.

REPEATEDLY, throughout scripture, God said that certain things would happen, and then they didn't, He said that He would do certain things, or not do certain things, and then what ended up happening was the EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT HE SAID!

I choose to believe in The One Who holds my future and knows every single second of it.

That entity does not exist.

I simply don't apply God's Words out-of-context.

You did it earlier, when you attempted to reference Acts 17 out of context, and to be honest, you haven't really applied God's word AT ALL in ANY of your posts.

And I can tell you exactly why you did it:

It's because you don't have any scriptures to support your beliefs, so in order to attempt to make your position seem Biblical, you write what you think the Bible says that you think supports your position, but what it actually says does nothing of the sort.

I don't believe that He is subject to time

Time is the convention of language used to convey information related to the duration and sequence of events. relative to other events.

God does things in sequence. That means "in time."

and that's partly because I don't see any reason to in The Holy Scriptures.

This is an appeal to incredulity.

"I cannot see that X, therefore not X."

Here are the verses that show that God is in time, and does things in sequence (among other categories of verses), or otherwise describes Him as "in time":
https://opentheism.org/verses#time
Categories 2, 3, 4, 21, 22

And technically all of them do, but indirectly.

I have yet to see any proof that He cannot.

And again, appeal to incredulity.

There's a reason it's a logical fallacy.

It doesn't make any sense to me

Appeal to incredulity

to attempt to qualify what God can or cannot do

If God says He can or cannot do something, who are you to say that He's lying?

by trying to use words that He spoke at one time or another which are clearly designed for lowly men to be able to understand or relate to Him from their (temporal) perspective.

Aside from this being question begging, if God says something about Himself, and you say "well, it's just a figure of speech so that we can understand him," then please, by all means, tell us what it actually means.

Because I assert that when God describes Himself, He means exactly what He says, nothing more, and nothing less, within the context that He said it.

Saying "oh, He only said it that way so that we could understand or relate to Him" is ENTIRELY THE POINT OF HIM DESCRIBING HIMSELF!

If He DIDN'T describe Himself, let alone in the way He did, then we could not know anything about Him, whatsoever.

If He describes Himself a certain way, who are you to say He doesn't mean exactly what He says?

Attempting to quantify or reason out what the spirit realm is, has, isn't, doesn't have or otherwise projecting isn't reasonable to me.

Again, an appeal to incredulity.

There is nothing unreasonable about reason.

If one can reason something out about something based on limited information, then there is nothing inherently wrong or invalid in doing so.

Which brings us again to the question:

Why are you even on TOL, Aimiel, if you don't feel like reasoning things out is reasonable?

Were it something that we needed to know: God would have told us.

No necessarily. That's your doctrine speaking.

Here is what the Bible says:

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter. - Proverbs 25:2 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs25:2&version=NKJV

We know that this earth was created before man

Only a few days before...

and that it was damaged by the fall of angels,

No, it was damaged when Adam sinned.

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned— - Romans 5:12 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans5:12&version=NKJV

but we aren't told much about that fall, beyond the fact that God created man to re-plenish this earth.

There is only one Fall recorded in and described by Scripture, And that's when Adam sinned.

We are to limit our thinking to whatever is true, just, lovely, of a good report and if there's anything that deserves praise to God. Making things up or projecting our beliefs onto God's Nature just don't fit those filters.

Hypocrite.

Not two sentences earlier you were making things up that are not in scripture, or at the very least, projecting your beliefs onto scripture.

Try sticking to what the Bible actually says.

God's Character is well-described in Scripture: He is Holy. Perfect. To me:

You should have stopped here and considered for a moment those two words, "to me."

Why?

Because it means what can only be described as your opinion is about to follow, and not actual truth.

I (nor Clete, I imagine) don't care about your opinions. I care about what is truth.

that describes a God Who doesn't fall short in any feature.

Question:

Did God create in sequence?

He sees, knows, cares about and loves every single thing that He created. He called it 'Good' when it was brought forth.

I believe that making sense with Scripture is one of the best things a man can do.

Yet you have yet to quote a single scripture in this entire thread.

I also believe that trying to limit God or say, "He cannot do X," is beyond our capability.

Can God do evil and remain righteous?

It's perfectly worthwhile if you're trying to understand and come to know Him. What isn't: is trying to paint a picture of His Ways or His Thoughts.

So why not just use the painting God already made of Himself with Scripture? Is that worthwhile?

Those are beyond us. I've stood in His Presence.

Meaning, what, exactly?

There is NOTHING of my conception of Him before I went there that fit what I experienced.

Went where?

The ONLY thing I could say I had right was: He is Holy. The rest is so easy, clear, full and surprising that I simply cannot describe. I knew, the moment I arrived there that I couldn't fit 1/1,000th of a percent of what I experienced there into my tiny little temporal brain. God is so far beyond our ability to comprehend it is just impossible to describe.

Sounds like complete hogwash to me.

Let me put it this way, from my experience: God is above time.

And what scripture do you have to support that claim?

I don't have to look up any scriptures to find that out.

So you're saying you don't have any scriptures to support your claim?

From what I've read, come to understand and what I've experienced: it is so. That's what I believe. :thumb:

Which means nothing at all in the face of reason.

Aimiel · Apr 30, 2020

JudgeRightly said:
We can't? Even when He states them explicitly in scripture for us to read?

NOWHERE does God describe in His Word ANY of His Ways or Thoughts. We hear Him speak to us, but we don't hear His Thoughts. We see Him move, but we don't know His Ways. His Spirit is likened to the wind. It blows where it wants to and God moves as He wants. We don't know the paths He walks. We don't see His Feet. We don't know what He thinks of anyone. We can know His Forgiveness. His Presence. His Love. Not His Ways or His Thoughts. Those are still wrapped up in His Mystery.

What does that mean?

You're referring to where I said, "In this life: He is above, we are beneath." What I meant was that we cannot know His Thoughts in this life. We cannot see His Ways. In Heaven, when we see Him like He is: we will be like Him. We will know His Thoughts. In Heaven: everyone's thoughts are known by all, even God's. In Heaven, we will see His Ways and for thousands of years we will be studying what He did and how He set up the paths that everyone walked who came to Him. We will never come to an end of finding out how deep, wide, high and perfect His Love is. Our simple minds could not contain even one tenth of a percent of that in this life. When we have glorified bodies, it will be quite different.

And? Wouldn't that be something that we can know 100% about God?

It is. Been there. It's GRAND. Standing in His Presence I knew that I could not bring 1/10'th of a percent of what I saw, felt, knew or heard back into this mortal coil.

No one has argued that anyone could, so why say this?

You're asking why I said that no one understands the depths, heights, breadth or width of His Love... it's because in Heaven we will be doing just that: studying God's Ways.

You mean "greater"?

Yup. I always say what I mean. His Love is greater than we can ever know, even studying, exploring and finding out exactly what He's done over the millennia: we will never come to an end of finding out just how Great His Love really is.

Love is love, whether it's God loving someone or someone loving God or God loving Himself or someone loving someone else. Love is the commitment to the good of someone.

Nope. God is Love. Everything you've ever felt, seen, heard or thought was love was actually you just experiencing a tiny little aspect of God. There's no end to finding Him out. That's the reason those three angels who constantly fly circles around Him proclaim: "Holy, Holy, Holy is The Lord, God Almighty." It's because every single time they pass around Him they see another aspect of Him that they never noticed before.

Aimiel, what CAN we know about Him?

Here's ONE thing: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!"

All power, literally. God does not have the power to do that which is impossible, such as do evil and remain righteous.

He created evil, so: yeah, it kinda' does.

And again, God has delegated some of his power to certain institutions, such as government, the church, and the family, and even businesses.

He actually delegated power over the entire earth to man. Then man committed high treason and gave that power to the serpent.

And how did you reach that conclusion? Because it wasn't through logic or reason.

Because I know The One Who holds my future in His Hand. He knows the end from the beginning of time. He knows when time will end.

Why does God NEVER NOT ONCE EVER describe Himself in a way that could, with proper understanding, show Him as being outside of time?

I believe that's one of those things that's wrapped up in His Mystery. I believe that He spoke of Himself in a way that simple-minded folks could understand. He has to. He's God. If He described Himself to us we wouldn't understand, being temporal. He's spiritual. He's above. We're beneath. We have a finite number of brain cells. He's Infinite. Past finding out (in flesh). Face-to-face: He's transparent. We'll see Him like He is: Holy. Perfect. Omniscient. Omnipresent. Omnipotent. Great. Terrible. Past finding out (in this life).

Aimiel · Apr 30, 2020

JudgeRightly said:
Introducing more complexity to solve complexity only complicates the issue.

There is only one reality, Aimiel. That's the one that we're (God included) in.

I don't buy that. There's more to life than meets the eye (to quote Transformers). If we weren't temporal, if indeed we were in the spirit realm, we could see God and would have no excuse for our sin. That's why demons cannot be saved. They sinned in God's Presence. We're in a fallen world. This isn't the Paradise that He built and intended for men to live in. It fell. It's beneath.

Time is the convention of language used to convey information related to the duration and sequence of events. relative to other events.

"In the beginning..." obviously God feels differently than you on this matter. He began time. Otherwise He would have said, "On day 4 X 10 to the 9876th..." Time began when God started it. It will end when He ends it.

God created matter, energy, and space, but nowhere in scripture does it say God created time, and in fact, time is logically not able to be created, because it is a prerequisite of creation.

That's your opinion. I'm not mad at you. I believe differently.

What we disagree with is your extrapolation that He dictated EVERYTHING THAT WOULD EVER HAPPEN EVER. Nowhere does the Bible describe Him doing so.

I've never said that. You postulated that by misunderstanding what I believe. I believe that free will isn't inhibited one bit by the fact that God has seen the end of time even before He started it. It seems obvious to me (as well as to Steven Hawking and many Biblical scholars.

No, you take that by blind faith, not based on what scripture says, but what you prefer to be true.

I beg your pardon! I'm not blind, neither is my faith in God. I know in Whom I have believed. Personally. Closely. In-depth (shallow, actually, compared to Who and What He is: Eternal).

Faith is the proper response to evidence.

Exactly the opposite is true: faith is the evidence of things NOT seen. We have faith in God's Character, though we've never seen Him. We have faith in His Son, Whom we've never seen. We have faith in The Holy Spirit, Whom we've never seen. Without faith, it's impossible to see Him. We have faith: THEN we see Him; though the eyes of our faith.

What you have is not faith, but blind belief in something you hope is true, but which you cannot support biblically.

No, what I have is faith in what God has steered me toward. I believe in His Presence. I've never touched Him or seen Him, but I KNOW that He lives in me. I know it by faith. I know that I have eternal life. I know that He can do whatever He wants. I know that I can do whatever He directs. I know these things because He has proven Himself to me, time and time again. I came to know Him by studying and seeking. I follow Him because I want what He wants for my life, not what I want. I've seen more than I can say and said more than I can prove but I've never fallen or been mis-directed by Him.

Revelation only describes what happens at the end of this age.

It is the last days, right now. Now is when God is beginning to reveal to the Body of Chris what this verse means:

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

We are going to come together in the unity of The Faith in the knowledge of The Son of God under His Banner of Love and become Sons of God, wielding the power that He's given us; power over all the power of the enemy. The very gates of hell shall not prevail against us. This is the time of the end. It's upon us. Revelation is merely a drop in the bucket, compared to God's foreknowledge. He's not waiting for a newspaper to find out what happened. He already knows the end from the beginning of time.

It (the last chapter of Revelation) doesn't magically apply to all of what may or may not happen, or what is happening, or what has happened.

No, but it does tell us that God knows how to wrap things up in a neat little package to lead men back to Him.

If God says He can or cannot do something, who are you to say that He's lying?

When He said, "And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?" do you believe that God didn't know where Adam was? I don't. I believe that He was speaking in a way that we could understand. God could no longer be seen by Adam and Eve, because they had fallen from His Grace. He was speaking to Adam in a way that he could understand. He does so many, many times in Scripture. Perhaps you're familiar with studying and meditating and listening to The Spirit of The Lord? No? :think:

Clete · May 2, 2020

This response is delayed because I had almost decided not to post it at all. I had broken my own rule and failed to read the post all the way to the end before spending the time to write a response. Had I done so, none of this post would exist at all. I didn't edit it appreciably because I don't care if anyone even reads it.

Aimiel said:
One reality is temporal, another is spiritual.

No, Amiel! Reality is reality. Of course there are lots of things that are different about the spiritual realm vs. the physical realm but that doesn't mean that the spiritual realm isn't what it is nor that it can both be and not be nor that it can be in anyway contradictory. If that were not so then there would be nothing at all that could be known about the spiritual realm - by anyone - ever. God Himself could not know anything about Himself if reason does not apply to the spiritual realm. Reason is requisite to all knowledge. Indeed, we are taught in the first chapter of John that God Himself is Reason (The word "reason" is the closest you can get in English to the meaning of the Greek word "logos".), and thus your grasping at this particular straw would mean that God exists in a state contrary to His own nature.

Thinking that what one can observe of recorded Scriptural history or even what one observes through study or experience in this temporal (time) realm doesn't necessarily apply in the spirit realm.

All reality is temporal. There is no such thing as a non-temporal reality. Time is nothing more than the sequence and duration of events relative to other events. So long as more than one event happens, then they can be spoken of in terms of 'before', 'after', 'since', 'until', 'cause', 'effect', etc. It makes no difference where the events occurred.

Spirit can travel at the speed of thought.

Meaningless.

God isn't limited by space or time.

Both space and time are ideas not ontological things and to the extent they do exists (i.e. as ideas) God has an infinite amount of both and so isn't limited by either.
God can be everywhere He wishes to be at once and His existence had no beginning and will never end.

What God is limited by, however, is reality. Which is only to say that God is real.

Thinking that He does definitely puts Him in a time/space continuum, similar or even exactly the same as ours.

So what?

Please tell me that you aren't talking about theoretical physics. It isn't the same thing that we're talking about. Einstein's theories are about the behavior of clocks, not time. So much so that in science time is defined by it's measurement. Time is what a clock reads. So if you effect your clock, you have, according to modern physicists, effected time.

To keep the two different concepts of time separated in your mind, all you have to do is remember that nothing - nothing at all - ever leaves the present moment - period. The past does not exist except as memories and recorded history. Likewise, the future does not exist. All that exists, exists now.

He dictated many future events in the book of Revelation. Not only does He have more information than we do: He has exhaustive and perfect knowledge of future events. I take that by faith, having read the final chapter. If you believe that things could change between now and the end, that's up to you. I choose to believe in The One Who holds my future and knows every single second of it.

Well, that sounds nice and all except that it's complete fantasy and a total lie that you've been fed from the time you became a Christian. It has next to nothing at all to do with anything in the bible whatsoever.

If you think that prophecy is prewritten history, you should try reading your bible for yourself and stop believing everything your told to believe. You could start by reading Jonah. It's a terrific little book in the Old Testament that all about a very clear and specific prophecy that did not come to pass and the prophet that didn't want to even give the prophecy for fear that God wouldn't actually do it and how God was displeased with the prophet's attitude about the whole episode.

There are several such example of prophecies that didn't come to pass throughout the bible, in both the Old and the New Testament but you'll never hear a peep about them from your pastor. You'll have to read the bible for yourself and then, of course, you'll have to believe what you read and conform your doctrine accordingly. That last bit is the hard part.

I simply don't apply God's Words out-of-context.

Or at all, it seems.

I don't believe that He is subject to time and that's partly because I don't see any reason to in The Holy Scriptures.

This is backward! You don't hold to an a-priori doctrine until such time as you see scriptural reason to reject it! That's completely backwards!

There isn't one single syllable in the bible that would lead anyone to believe that God exists outside of time. That is a purely Greek idea. It is NOT in the bible - period.

Further, your memory is more than just a little bit selective because I've seen people show you direct biblical evidence that God does experience time. There are dozens and dozens of passages that unavoidably demonstrate that God is "in" time.

When Reading Your Bible about God and Time, We See that God is:

- Everlasting - From of old - Before ever He had formed the earth - The Ancient of Days - Before the world was - From before the ages of the ages - From ancient times - He continues forever - Immortal - Remains forever - Forever and ever - God’s years - God who is - Alive forevermore - Who was - Who is to come - Always lives - Forever - In the age to come - Continually - God’s years never end - From everlasting to everlasting - From that time forward, even forever - And of His kingdom there will be no end.

Is God Outside of Time? Not according to the Bible.

I have yet to see any proof that He cannot.

So you concede then that we can know what God can and cannot do?

That was the point being discussed!

It doesn't make any sense to me to attempt to qualify what God can or cannot do by trying to use words that He spoke at one time or another which are clearly designed for lowly men to be able to understand or relate to Him from their (temporal) perspective.

So here we have you intentionally applying scripture OUTSIDE OF IT'S CONTEXT!!! A thing you just got through claiming that you do not do!

This is you conforming the scripture to your doctrine. What scripture could ever be used to refute your doctrine if anything it says that is contrary to your doctrine is instantly converted into a figure of speech? There are lots of figures of speech of every single page of the bible but you cannot turn a plainly stated passage into a figure of speech purely on the basis of your doctrine. That's the very essence of what it means to rip a passage from it's context.

Actually, to be fair, there are some exceptions to what I just said. There are doctrines which form the foundation of all right theology. Doctrines having to do with the nature of God, for example. This, in fact, is why what one believes about God is referred to as "theology proper". It serves as a foundation for everything else theological. You have to decide, for example, whether you will place emphasis on God's qualitative attributes or His quantitative attributes. In other words, you have to decide in advance whether God's goodness (quality) takes precedence over how much power or knowledge (quantity) God has. And I do mean that you HAVE TO. It isn't a choice you have. You will do it or else you won't do doctrine at all. You are forced to choose one over the other. Calvinists, despite their protestations to the contrary, consistently choose the later over the former. They will allow any - ANY - injustice in God's character so long as He is maintained as immutably and impassibly omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and omnisovereign.

Attempting to quantify or reason out what the spirit realm is, has, isn't, doesn't have or otherwise projecting isn't reasonable to me.

Except that you just got through doing it! :bang:

Why is it okay for you to reason out that the spirit realm is atemporal if it isn't okay for me to reason out that is isn't?

What is the difference between what you are doing and what I'm doing?

The difference is that I take the bible to mean what it says when it talks about things like one of twelve different fruits coming ripe each month on the Tree of Life in the New Heaven. I restrict the things I believe about a real God to those things are are possible in the real world (i.e. to that which makes rational sense). While you believe Greek doctrines and bring them apriori to your interpretation of scripture and are willing to render any passage as a figure of speech if it touches your cherished concept of Zeus - I mean God.

Were it something that we needed to know: God would have told us. We know that this earth was created before man and that it was damaged by the fall of angels, but we aren't told much about that fall, beyond the fact that God created man to re-plenish this earth. We are to limit our thinking to whatever is true, just, lovely, of a good report and if there's anything that deserves praise to God. Making things up or projecting our beliefs onto God's Nature just don't fit those filters. God's Character is well-described in Scripture: He is Holy. Perfect. To me: that describes a God Who doesn't fall short in any feature. He sees, knows, cares about and loves every single thing that He created. He called it 'Good' when it was brought forth.

To many errors there to go into, not the least of which is that it was the fall of Adam that caused the Earth to be "damaged" not the fall of angels, which the bible tells us were created during the same week that everything else was created. (Exodus 20:11)

But I'm not getting into that with you here. Suffice it to say that you do adhere to even your own standard and that what you've said here adds nothing to the discussion. It is, at best, a resitation of your personal opinions and a bald (i.e. unsupported) declaration of doctrines that have nothing to do with what is being discussed.

I believe that making sense with Scripture is one of the best things a man can do. I also believe that trying to limit God or say, "He cannot do X," is beyond our capability.

Click to expand...

Complete mindless, self-contradictory nonsense!

Can God destroy Himself?

Can God steal?

Can God declare it good to rape children or to murder babies?

Can God change the past?

Can God undo the crucifixion of Christ?

Is there an end to the list of things that God cannot do?

It's perfectly worthwhile if you're trying to understand and come to know Him. What isn't: is trying to paint a picture of His Ways or His Thoughts. Those are beyond us. I've stood in His Presence. There is NOTHING of my conception of Him before I went there that fit what I experienced. The ONLY thing I could say I had right was: He is Holy. The rest is so easy, clear, full and surprising that I simply cannot describe. I knew, the moment I arrived there that I couldn't fit 1/1,000th of a percent of what I experienced there into my tiny little temporal brain. God is so far beyond our ability to comprehend it is just impossible to describe.

Click to expand...

This is a blasphemous lie!

It ought to be grounds for permanent banning in my opinion.

It has ended our exchange. You're a lunatic and totally not worth any more of my time.

Good grief! Is this sort of freakish stupidity all that's left on TOL?!

:wave2:

Aimiel · May 2, 2020

Clete said:
No, Amiel! Reality is reality. Of course there are lots of things that are different about the spiritual realm vs. the physical realm but that doesn't mean that the spiritual realm isn't what it is nor that it can both be and not be nor that it can be in anyway contradictory. If that were not so then there would be nothing at all that could be known about the spiritual realm - by anyone - ever. God Himself could not know anything about Himself if reason does not apply to the spiritual realm. Reason is requisite to all knowledge. Indeed, we are taught in the first chapter of John that God Himself is Reason (The word "reason" is the closest you can get in English to the meaning of the Greek word "logos".), and thus your grasping at this particular straw would mean that God exists in a state contrary to His own nature.

If by, "nature," you mean: character; I tend to agree, since God's Character doesn't change. However, the rest of your statement above doesn't allow for the fact that God's ways are above ours. What that means and what His 'reality' or ways are: we just don't know. Thinking that God CANNOT be outside of time is putting limits upon God that just don't fit.

All reality is temporal. There is no such thing as a non-temporal reality. Time is nothing more than the sequence and duration of events relative to other events. So long as more than one event happens, then they can be spoken of in terms of 'before', 'after', 'since', 'until', 'cause', 'effect', etc. It makes no difference where the events occurred. Both space and time are ideas not ontological things and to the extent they do exists (i.e. as ideas) God has an infinite amount of both and so isn't limited by either.
God can be everywhere He wishes to be at once and His existence had no beginning and will never end.

While I agree that God had no beginning, obviously this temporal realm did. He said, "In the beginning..." which alludes to there not being any time/space continuum before He began it.

To many errors there to go into, not the least of which is that it was the fall of Adam that caused the Earth to be "damaged" not the fall of angels, which the bible tells us were created during the same week that everything else was created. (Exodus 20:11)

The angels who fell defiled Heaven and earth, else God would not have made man to re-plenish the earth. The corrections needed in Heaven were done by His Son; although I suspect that's also the reason for the New Heaven and New Earth which He has planned.

Having a closed mind to learning new Truth isn't a very bright idea. You can think what you want and believe in your own doctrine but I'll stick with what I've discovered with study, meditation and experience. :thumb:

Clete · May 2, 2020

Aimiel said:
Having a closed mind to learning new Truth isn't a very bright idea.[/FONT][/COLOR][/LEFT]

Says the lunatic that doesn't trust sound reason and claims to have stood in the presence of God.

Go away and stop telling people that you're a Christian. It's embarrassing.

Aimiel · May 2, 2020

'Sound' reason doesn't buy into making God out to be something He's obviously not. Just because He said, "Adam, where art thou," doesn't mean He didn't know Adam's precise location. When He said many things in Scripture regarding Himself, He would 'dumb' it down; but I guess some people have made presumption a habit in their thinking. :chuckle:

I don't believe that you're less than Christian because of your lack of reasoning abilities, just too wooden. :hammer:

Clete · May 3, 2020

Aimiel said:
'Sound' reason doesn't buy into making God out to be something He's obviously not.

How do you know - without reason?

Just because He said, "Adam, where art thou," doesn't mean He didn't know Adam's precise location.

I agree but just because you have a doctrine doesn't mean He did.

When He said many things in Scripture regarding Himself, He would 'dumb' it down; but I guess some people have made presumption a habit in their thinking. :chuckle:

Your entire doctrine is presumption! It's barely even that! It isn't even possible to formulate coherent presumptions without the use of reason and the rejection of reason is the very definition of "dumbing it down", you foolish, stupid lunatic!

I don't believe that you're less than Christian because of your lack of reasoning abilities, just too wooden. :hammer:

I definitely think you're less of a Christian, not because you can't reason but because you actively choose not to and then tell hideous lies about having been to heaven where you stood in the presence of God. You're a lunatic and a liar. You're so much less of a Christian that you may not even be saved. I can't imagine what sort of emotional / psychological dysfunction is needed to tell such a hideous lie. I know one thing, you'd better hope you've believed in the right Jesus because you will give an account. Judgement day is coming. I recommend you repent now. While there is life there is hope and your next breath is not guarantee you.

Clete

Aimiel · May 3, 2020

Clete said:
I agree (that God saying: "Adam, where art thou?" doesn't mean that God didn't actually know where Adam was) but just because you have a doctrine doesn't mean He did.

Actually, for once, you're right. I have faith that God is Omniscient. Those who don't, simply don't know Him.

Ryan Mullins, Timelessness and God: Pt. 3

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